I fuppofe to be this: that finding by a due contemplation of caufes, and effects, that it is neceffary to admit fome eternal being, and fo to confider the real existence of that being, as taking up and commenfurate to their idea of eternity; but on the other fide not finding it neceffary, but on the contrary, apparently abfurd that. body should be infinite; they forwardly conclude, they can have no idea of infinite fpace, because they can have no idea of infinite matter. Which confequence,› I conceive, is very ill collected; because the existence of matter is nowife neceffary to the existence of space,. no more than the existence of motion, or the fun, is neceffary to duration, though duration ufes to be meafured by it and I doubt not but a man may have theidea of 10,000 miles fquare, without any body fo big, as well as the idea of 10,000 years, without any body fo old. It feems as eafy to me to have the idea of fpace empty of body, as to think of the capacity of a bufhel without corn, or the hollow of a nutshel with-out a kernel in it: it being more neceffary that there fhould be exifting a folid body infinitely extended, becaufe we have an idea of the infinity of space, than it is neceffery that the world fhould be eternal, because we have an idea of infinite duration. And why should we think our idea of infinite space requires the real ex-iftence of matter to fupport it, when we find that we have as clear as idea of infinite duration to come, as we have of infinite duration paft?. Though, I fuppofe, nobody thinks it conceivable, that any thing does, or has exifted in that future duration. Nor is it impoffible: to join our idea of future duration with prefent or paft: existence, any more than it is poffible to make the ideas of yesterday, to-day, and to-morrow, to be the fame ;; or bring ages paft and future together, and make them contemporary. But if thefe men are of the mind, that. they have clearer ideas of infinite duration than of infin-ite space; because it is paft doubt, that GOD has ex-ifted from all eternity, but there is no real matter co-extended with infinite fpace: yet thofe philofopherss who are of opinion that infinite fpace is poffeffed by

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GOD's infinite omniprefence, as well as infinite duration by his eternal exiftence, must be allowed to haye as clear an idea of infinite space as of infinite duration; though neither of them, I think, has any pofitive idea of infinity in either cafe. For whatfoever pofitive idea a man has in his mind of any quantity, he can repeat Fit, and add it to the former as eafy as he can add together the ideas of two days, or two paces; which are pofitive ideas of lengths he has in his mind, and fo on as long as he pleafes whereby if a man had a pofitive idea of infinite, either duration or fpace, he could add two infinites together; nay, make one infinite infinitely bigger than another: abfurdities too grofs to be confuted.

§ 21. Suppofed pofitive Ideas of Infinity, Caufe of

Miftakes.

BUT yet, after all this, there being men who perfuade themfelves that they have clear pofitive comprehensive ideas of infinity, it is fit they enjoy their privilege: and I fhould be very glad (with fome others that I know, who acknowledge they have none fuch) to be better informed by their communication. For I have been hitherto apt to think, that the great and inextricable difficulties which perpetually involve all difcourfes. concerning infinity, whether of fpace, duration, or divifibility, have been the certain marks of a defect in our ideas of infinity, and the difproportion the nature thereof has to the comprehenfion of our narrow capacities. For whilft men talk and difpute of infinite fpace or duration, as if they had as complete and pofitive ideas of them, as they have of the names they ufe for them, or as they have of a yard or an hour, or any other determinate quantity; it is no wonder if the incomprehenfible nature of the thing they difcourfe of, or rea fon about, leads them into perplexities and corta lictions, and their minds be overlaid by an object too. large and mighty to be furveyed and managed by them.

$22. All thefe Ideas from Senfation and Reflection. IF I have dwelt pretty long on the confiderations of duration, space, and number, and what arifes from the

contemplation of them, infinity: it is poffibly no more than the matter requires, there being few fimple ideas whofe modes give more exercife to the thoughts of men than thefe do. I pretend not to treat of them in their full latitude; it fuffices to my defign, to show how the mind receives them, fuch as they are, from fenfation and reflection; and how even the idea we have of infinity, how remote foever it may feem to be from any object of sense, or operation of our mind, has nevertheless, as all our other ideas, its original there. Some mathematicians, perhaps of advanced fpeculations, may have other ways to introduce into their minds ideas of infinity, but this hinders not, but that they themselves, as well as all other men, got the firft ideas which they had of infinity, from fenfation and reflection, in the method we have here fet down.

ever it

CHAP. XVIII..

OF OTHER SIMPLE MODES.

§ 1. Modes of Motion.

THOUGH I have in the foregoing chapters fhown, how from fimple ideas taken in by fenfation, the mind comes to extend itself even to infinity; which howmay, of all others, feem most remote from any fenfible perception: yet at last hath nothing in it but what is made out of fimple ideas, received into the mind by the fenfes, and afterwards there put together by the faculty the mind has to repeat its own ideas: though, I fay, thefe might be inftances enough of fimple modes of the fimple ideas of fenfation, and fuffice to show how the mind comes by them; yet I shall, for method's fake, though briefly, give an account of fome few more, and then proceed to more complex ideas.

§ 2.

To flide, roll, tumble, walk, creep, run, dance, leap, skip, and abundance of others that might be named, are words which are no fooner heard, but every one who

understands English, has presently in his mind distinct ideas, which are all but the different modifications of motion. Modes of motion anfwer thofe of extenfion :: fwift and flow are two different ideas of motion, the meafures whereof are made of the diftances of time. and space put together; fo they are complex ideas com-prehending time and space with motion.

§3. Modes of Sounds.. THE like variety have we in founds. Every articulate word is a different modification of found: by which we fee, that from the fenfe of hearing by fuch modifications, the mind may be furnished with distinct ideas to almost an infinite number. Sounds alfo, be fides the diftinct cries of birds and beasts, are modified by diverfity of notes of different length put together, which make that complex idea called a tunes which a musician may have in his mind when he hears or makes no found at all, by reflecting on the ideas of thofe founds fo put together filently in his own fancy.

4. Modes of Colours.

THOSE of colours are alfo very various; fome wer take notice of as the different degrees, or, as they are termed, bades of the fame colour. But fince we very: feldom make affemblages of colours either for ufe or delight, but figure is taken in also, and has its part in it as in painting, weaving, needle-work, &c. thofe which are taken notice of, do moft commonly be long to mixed modes, as being made up of ideas of dis: vers kinds, viz. figure and colour; fuch as beauty, rainbow, &c.

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§ 5. Modes of Tafte

ALL compounded taftes and fmells are alfo modes made up of the fimple ideas of thofe fenfes. But they be ing fuch as generally we have no names for, are lefs. taken notice of, and cannot be fet down in writing; and therefore must be left without enumeration to the thoughts and experience of my reader.

$ 6.

In general it may be obferved, that thofe fimple modes which are confidered but as different degrees of the fame Simple idea, though they are in themselves many of them very diftinct ideas, yet have ordinarily no diftinct names, nor are much taken notice of as diftinct ideas, where the difference is but very fmall between them. Whether men have neglected these modes, and given no names to them, as wanting measures nicely to diftinguish them; or becaufe when they were fo diftinguished, that knowledge would not be of general or neceffary ufe, I leave it to the thoughts of others: it is fufficient to my purpose to fhow, that all our fimple ideas come to our minds only by fenfation and reflection: and that when the mind has them, it can various- ■ ly repeat and compound them, and fo make new conplex ideas. But though white, red, or, fweet, &c. have not been modified or made into complex ideas, by feveral combinations, fo as to be named, and thereby ranked into fpecies; yet fome others of the fimple ideas, viz. those of unity, duration, motion, &c. above inftanced in, as alfo power and thinking, have been thus modified to a great variety of complex ideas, with names belonging to them.

§ 7. Why fome Modes have, and others have not Names. THE reafon whereof, I fuppofe, has been this: that the great concernment of men being with men one amongst another, the knowledge of men and their actions, and the fignifying of them to one another, was most neceffary; and therefore they made ideas of actions very nicely modified, and gave thofe complex ideas names, that they might the more easily record, and discourse of those things they were daily converfant in, without long ambages and circumlocutions; and that the things they were continually to give and receive information about, might be the easier and quicker understood. That this is fo, and that men in framing different complex ideas, and giving them names, have been much governed by the end of fpeech in general (which is a very fhort and expedite way of conveying their thoughts