per only to continue and increase their Doubts, and to confirm them at laft in perfect Scepticifm.) Whereas were the Capacities of our Understandings well confidered, the Extent of our Knowledge once difcovered, and the Horizon found, which fets the Bounds between the enlightened and dark Parts of Things; between what is, and what is not comprehenfible by us; Men would perhaps with lefs Scruple acquiefce in the avowed Ignorance of the one, and employ their Thoughts and Difcourfe with more Advantage and Satisfaction in the other. §. 8. Thus much I thought neceffary to fay What Idea concerning the Occafion of this Enquiry into Hu- ftands for. man Understanding. But, before I proceed on to what I have thought on this Subject, I muft here in the Entrance beg Pardon of my Reader for the frequent Ufe of the Word Idea, which he will find in the following Treatife. It being that Term, which, I think, ferves beft to ftand for whatsoever is the Object of the Understanding, when a Man thinks; I have used it to express whatever is meant by Phantafm, Notion, Species, or whatever it is which the Mind can be employed about in thinking; and I could not avoid frequently ufing it. (1)

I prefume it will be eafily granted me, that there are fuch Ideas in Men's Minds; every one is confcious of them in himself, and Men's Words and Actions will fatisfy him that they are in others. Our firft Enquiry then fhall be, how they come into the Mind. CHAP.

*

(1) This modest Apology of our Author could not procure him the free Ufe of the Word Idea. But great Offence has been taken at it, and it has been cenfured as of dangerous Confequence: To which you may here fee what he answers. • The World, faith the Bishop of Worcester, hath been ftrangely 'amufed with Ideas of late; and we have been told, that strange Things might be done by the Help of Ideas; and yet these Ideas, at laft, come to be only p. 93. common Notions of Things, which we must make

Anfwer to Mr. Locke's Firft Letter,

'ufe of in our Reasoning. You (i. e. the Author of the Essay concerning Human Understanding) fay in that Chapter, about the Exiftence of God, you thought it moft proper to exprefs yourself, in the most usual and familiar Way, by common Words and Expref'fions. I would you had done fo quite through your Book; for then you had never given that Occafion to the Enemies of our Faith, to take up your new Way of Ideas, as an effectual Battery (as they imagined) against the Mysteries of the Chriftian Faith. But you might have enjoyed the Satisfaction of your Ideas long enough before I had taken notice of them, unless I had found them employed about doing Mischief.'

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(+) In his Second Letter to

the Bishop Worcester, p. 63, &c.

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To which our Author (†) replies, "Tis plain, that That which your Lordship apprehends, in my Book, may be of dangerous Confequence to the Article which your Lordship has endeavoured to defend, is my introducing new Terms; and that which your Lordship infances in, is that of Ideas. And the Reafon your Lordship gives, in every of thefe Places, why your Lordship has fuch an Apprehenfion of Ideas, as that they may of dangerous Confequence to that Article of Faith, which your Lordfhip has endeavoured to defend, is, because they have been applied to fuch Purposes. And I might (your Lordship fays) have enjoyed the Satisfaction of my Ideas long enough before you had taken notice of them, unless your Lordship had found them employed in doing Mischief. Which, at laft, as I humbly conceive, amounts to thus much, and no more, viz. That your Lordship fears Ideas, i. e. the Term Ideas, may, fome Time or other, prove of very dangerous Confequence to what your Lordfhip has endeavoured to defend, because they have been made ufe of in arguing against it. For I am fure your Lordship does not mean, that you apprehend the Things, fignified by Ideas, may be of dangerous Confequence to the Article of Faith your Lordship endeavours to defend, because they have been made ufe of against it: For (befides that your Lordship mentions Terms) that would be to expect that thofe who oppofe that Article, fhould oppofe it without any Thoughts; for the Things fignified by Ideas, are nothing but the immediate Objects of our Minds in thinking: So that unless any one can oppose the Article your Lordship.defends, without thinking on fomething, he muft ufe the Things figni fied by Ideas; for he that thinks, must have some immediate Object of his Mind in thinking, i. e. must have Ideas.

But whether it be the Name, or the Thing; Ideas in Sound, or Ideas in Signification, that your Lordship apprehends may be of dangerous Confequence to that Article of Faith, which your Lordship endeavours to defend: It feems to me, I will not fay a New Way of Reasoning (for that belongs to me) but were it not your Lordfhip's, I fhould think it a very extraordinary Way of Reasoning, to write against a Book, wherein your Lordship acknowledges, they are not used to bad Purpofes, nor employed to do Mifchief; only because you find that Ideas are, by thofe who oppofe your Lordship, employed to do Mischief; and fo apprehend, they may be of dangerous Confequence to the Article your Lordship has engaged in the Defence of. For whether Ideas as Terms, or Ideas as the immediate Objects of the Mind fignified by thofe Terms, may be, in your Lordship's Apprehenfion, of dangerous Confequence to that Article; I do not fee how your Lordship's writing against the Notion of Ideas, as stated in my Book, will at all hinder your Oppofers from employing them in doing Mifchief, as before.

However, be that as it will, fo it is, that your Lordship apprehends thefe New Terms, thefe Ideas, with which the World bath, of

Late

late, been fo ftrangely amused (though at last they come to be only common Notions of Things, as your Lordship owns) may be of dangerous Confequence to that Article.

My Lord, if any, in their Anfwer to your Lordship's Sermons, and in their other Pamphlets, wherein your Lordship complains they have talked fo much of Ideas, have been troublesome to your Lordship with that Term; it is not strange that your Lordship fhould be tired with that Sound: But how natural foever it be to our weak Constitutions, to be offended with any Sound, wherewith an importunate Din hath been made about our Ears; yet, my Lord, I know your Lordship has a better Opinion of the Articles of our Faith, than to think any of them can be overturned, or fo much as fhaken, with a Breath, formed into any Sound, or Term whatfoever.

Names are but the arbitrary Marks of Conceptions; and fo they be fufficiently appropriated to them in their Ufe, I know no other Difference any of them have in particular, but as they are of easy or difficult Pronunciation, and of a more or lefs pleasant Sound; and what particular Antipathies there may be in Men, to fome of them upon that Account, is not easy to be forefeen. This I am fure, no Term whatsoever in itself bears, one more than another, any Oppofition to Truth of any Kind; they are only Propofitions that do or can oppose the Truth of any Article or Doctrine: And thus no Term is privileged from being fet in Oppofition to Truth.

There is no Word to be found, which may not be brought into a Propofition, wherein the moft facred and moft evident Truths may be oppofed but that is not a Fault in the Term, but him that-ufes it. And therefore I cannot eafily perfuade myself (whatever your Lordfhip hath faid in the Heat of your Concern) that you have beftowed fo much Pains upon my Book, becaufe the Word Idea is fo much ufed there. For though upon my faying, in my Chapter about the Existence of God, That I fcarce ufed the Word Idea in that whole Chapter,' your Lordfhip wishes, that I had done so quite through my Book: Yet I muft rather look upon that as a Compliment to me, wherein your Lordship wifhed, that my Book had been all through suited to vulgar Readers, not used to that and the like Terms, than that your Lordfhip has fuch an Apprehenfion of the Word Idea; or that there is any fuch Harm in the Ufe of it, instead of the Word Notion, (with which your Lordship feems to take it to agree in Signification) that your Lordship would think it worth your while to spend any Part of your valuable Time and Thoughts about my Book, for having the Word Idea fo often in it; for this would be to make your Lordship to write only against an Impropriety of Speech. I own to your Lordship, it is a great Condefcenfion in your Lordship to have done it, if that Word have fuch a Share in what your Lordship has writ against my Book, as fome Expreffions would perfuade one; and I would, for the Satisfaction of your Lordship, change the Term of Idea for a better, if your Lordship, or any one, could help me to it; for, that

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Notion

Notion will not fo well stand for every immediate Object of the Mind in Thinking, as Idea does, I have (as I guess) fomewhere given a Reafon in my Book, by fhewing that the Term Notion is more peculiarly appropriated to a certain Sort of those Objects, which Î call mixed Modes: And, I think, it would not found altogether fo well, to fay, the Notion of Red, and the Notion of a Horfe; as the Idea of Red, and the Idea of a Horfe. But if any one thinks it will, I contend not; for I have no Fondness for, nor any Antipathy to any particular articulate Sounds: Nor do I think there is any Spell or Fascination in any of them.

But be the Word Idea proper or improper, I do not fee how it is the better or the worse, because Ill Men have made use of it, or because it has been made ufe of to bad Purposes; for if that be a Reason to condemn, or lay it by, we muft lay by the Terms, Scripture, Reason, Perception, Distinct, Clear, &c. Nay, the Name of God himself will not efcape; for I do not think any one of thefe, or any other Term, can be produced, which hath not been made Ufe of by fuch Men, and to fuch Purposes. And therefore, if the Unitarians in their late Pamphlets have talked very much of, and ftrangely amufed the World with Ideas; I cannot believe your Lordship will think that Word one Jot the worse, or the more dangerous, because they use it; any more than, for their Ufe of them, you will think Reafon or Scripture Terms ill or dangerous. And therefore what your Lordship fays in the Bottom of this 93d Page, that I might have enjoyed the Satisfaction of my Ideas long enough before your Lordship had taken Notice of them, unless you had found them employed in doing Mifchief; will, I prefume, when your Lordship has confidered again of this Matter, prevail with your Lordship, to let me enjoy ftill the Satisfaction I take in my Ideas, i. e. as much Satisfaction as I can take in fo fmall a Matter, as is the ufing of a proper Term, notwithstanding it should be employed by others in doing Mischief.

For, my Lord, if I fhould leave it wholly out of my Book, and fubftitute the Word Notion every where in the Room of it; and every body elfe do fo too, (though your Lordship does not, I fuppofe, fufpect, that I have the Vanity to think they would follow my Example) my Book would, it seems, be the more to your Lordship's liking; but I do not fee how this would one Jot abate the Mischief your Lordship complains of. For the Unitarians might as much employ Notions, as they do now Ideas, to do Mifchief; unless they are fuch Fools as to think they can conjure with this notable Word Idea; and that the Force of what they fay, lies in the Sound, and not in the Signification, of their Terms.

This I am fure of, that the Truths of the Chriftian Religion can be no more battered by one Word than another; nor can they be beaten down or endangered by any Sound whatsoever. And I am apt to flatter myself, that your Lordship is fatisfied that there is no Harm in the Word Ideas, because you say, you should not have taken any Notice of my Ideas, if the Enemies of our Faith had not

taken

taken up my new Way of Ideas, as an effectual Battery against the Myfteries of the Chriftian Faith. In which Place, by new Way of Ideas, nothing, I think, can be construed to be meant, but my expreffing myself by that of Ideas; and not by other more common Words, and of ancienter ftanding in the English Language.

As to the Objection, of the Author's Way by Ideas being a new Way, He thus anfwers: My new Way by Ideas, or my Way by Ideas, which often occurs in your Lordship's Letter, is, I confefs, a very large and doubtful Expreffion; and may, in the full Latitude, comprehend my whole Effay; becaufe treating in it of the Understanding, which is nothing but the Faculty of Thinking, I could not well treat of that Faculty of the Mind, which confifts in Thinking, without confidering the immediate Objects of the Mind in Thinking, which I call Ideas: And therefore in treating of the Underftanding, I guess it will not be thought ftrange, that the greatest Part of my Book has been taken up, in confidering what these Objects of the Mind, in Thinking, are; whence they come; what Ufe the Mind makes of them, in its feveral Ways of Thinking; and what are the outward Marks whereby it fignifies them to others, or records them for its own Ufe. And this, in fhort, is my Way by Ideas, that which your Lordship calls my new Way by Ideas: Which, my Lord, if it be new, it is but a new Hiftory of an old Thing. For I think it will not be doubted, that Men always performed the Actions of Thinking, Reasoning, Believing, and Knowing, juft after the fame Manner they do now: Though whether the fame Account has heretofore been given of the Way how they performed thefe Actions, or wherein they confifted, I do not know. Were I as well read as your Lordship, I fhould have been fafe from that gentle Reprimand of your Lordship's, for thinking my Way of Ideas, NEW, for want of looking into other Men's Thoughts, which appear in their Books.

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Your Lordship's Words, as an Acknowledgment of your Inftructions in the Cafe, and as a Warning to others, who will be fo bold Adventurers as to spin any Thing barely out of their own Thoughts, I hall fet down at large: And they run thus: Whether took this Way of Ideas from the modern Philofopher, mentioned by you, is not at all material; but I intended no Reflection upon you in it (for that you mean, by my commending you as a Scholar of fo great a Master) I never meant to take from you the Honour of your own Inventions: And I do believe you when you Say, That you wrote from your own Thoughts, and the Ideas you had there. But many Things may feem New to one, who converfes only with his own Thoughts, which really are not fo; as be may find, when he looks into the Thoughts of other Men, which appear in their Books. And therefore although I have a just Efteem for the Invention of fuch who can fpin Volumes barely out of their own Thoughts, yet I am apt to think, they would oblige the World more, if, after they have thought fo much themselves, they would examine what Thoughts others have had before them, concerning the fame Things: that fo thofe may not be thought their own Inventions which are common to them

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