tum fans of the schools, I fuppofe they will thereby very little mend the matter, or help us to a more clear. and pofitive idea of infinite duration, there being nothing more inconceivable to me than duration without fucceffion; befides, the punctum ftans, if it fignify any thing, being not quantum, finite or infinite cannot belong to it. But if our weak apprehenfions cannot feparate fucceflion from any duration whatfoever, our idea of eternity can be nothing but of infinite fucceffion of moments of duration, wherein any thing does exift; and whether any one has, or can have a pofitive idea of an actual infinite number, I leave him to confider, till his infinite number be fo great that he himself can add no more to it; and as long as he can increase it, I doubt he himself will think the idea he hath of it a little too fcanty for pofitive infinity. $ 17. I THINK it unavoidable for every confidering rational creature, that will but examine his own or any other existence, to have the notion of an eternal wife Being, who had no beginning; and fuch an idea of infinite duration I am fure I have: But this negation of a begin ning being but the negation of a pofitive thing, farce gives me a pofitive idea of infinity, which, whenever I endeavour to extend my thoughts to, I confefs myself at a lofs, and find I cannot attain any clear comprehenfion of it. §18. No pofitive Idea of infinite Space. HE that thinks he has a pofitive idea of infinite. fpace, will, when he confiders it, find that he can no more have a pofitive idea of the greateft than he has of the leaft fpace; for in this latter, which feems the eatier of the two, and more within our comprehenfion, we are capable only of a comparative idea of fmallnefs, which will always be lefs than any one whereof we have the pofitive idea. All our pofitive ideas of any quantity, whether great or little, have always bounds, though our comparative idea, whereby we can always add to the one and take from the other, hath no bounds; for that which remains, either great or little, not being * comprehended in that pofitive idea which we have, lies in obfcurity, and we have no other idea of it but of the power of enlarging the one and diminishing the other without ceafing. A peftle and mortar will as foon bring any particle of matter to indivifibility as the acuteft thought of a mathematician; and a furveyor may as foon with his chain meafure out infinite space as a philofopher by the quickest flight of mind reach it, or by thinking comprehend it; which is to have a pofitive idea of it. He that thinks on a cube of an inch diameter, has a clear and pofitive idea of it in his mind, and fo can frame one of,,, and fo on, till he has the idea in his thoughts of fomething very little, but yet reaches not the idea of that incomprehenfible littlenefs which divifion can produce: What remains of fmailnefs is as far from his thoughts as when he first began, and therefore he never comes at all to have a clear and pofitive idea of that smallnefs which is confequent to infinite divifibility. 19. What is pofitive, what negative in our Idea of Infinite. EVERY one that looks towards infinity, does, as I have faid, at firit glance, make fome very large idea of that which he applies it to, let it be space or duration, and poffibly he wearies his thoughts by multiplying in his mind that firft large idea; but yet by that he comes no nearer to the having a pofitive clear idea of what remains to make up a pofitive infinite, than the country fellow had of the water, which was yet to come and pafs the channel of the river where he stood. Ruficus expectat dum tranfeat amnis, at ille 20. Some think they have a pofitive Idea of Eternity, THERE are fome I have met with that put fo much dif ference between infinite duration and infinite space, that they perfuade themselves that they have a pofitive. idea of eternity, but that they have not, nor can have any idea of infinite space; the reafon of which miftake. 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 fhould be infinite, they forwardly conclude they can have no idea of infinite space, because they can have no idea of infinite matter; which confequence, I conceive, is very ill collected, becaufe the existence of matter is no ways 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 the idea 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 nut-fhell without a kernel in it; it being more neceffary that there fhould be exifting a folid body infinitely extended, because we have an idea of the infinity of fpace, than it is neceffary 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 exiftence of matter to fupport it, when we find that we have as clear an 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 existed in that future duration. Nor is it poffible to join our idea of future duration with prefent or past existence, any more than it is poffible to make the ideas of yesterday, to-day, and to-morrow, to be the fame, of bring ages paft and future together, and make them contemporary. But if these men are of the mind that they have clearer ideas of infinite duration than of infinite space, because it is paft doubt that GOD has exifted from all eternity, but there is no real matter coextended with infinite fpace, yet those philofophers who are of opinion that infinite fpace is poffeffed by GOD's infinite omniprefence, as well as infinite dura tion by his eternal exiftence, must be allowed to have as clear an idea of infinite space as of infinite duration, though neither of them, I think, has any pafitive idea of infinity in either cafe; for whatfoever pofitive ideas a-man has in his mind of any quantity, he can repeat it, 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 pleases; 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. 5 21. Suppofed pofitive Ideas of Infinity, Caufe of Mif takes. Bur yet, after all this, there being men who perfuade themfelves that they have clear pofitive comprehenfive 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 concern ing 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 space 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 discourse of or reason about leads them: into perplexities and contradictions, and their minds. be overlaid by an object too large and mighty to be farveyed and managed by them. §22. All these 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 fhow 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 fenfe or operation of our mind, has nevertheless, as all our other ideas, its original there. Some mathematicians, perhaps, of advanced, fpecula-. tions, 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 first ideas which they had of infinity from fenfation and reflection, in the method we have here fet down. CHAP. XVIII. TH OF OTHER SIMPLE MODES. §1. Modes of Motion. HOUGH I have in the foregoing chapters fhown how, from fimple ideas taken in by fenfation, the mind comes to extend itfelf even to infinity, which however it may, of all others, feem moft remote from any fenfible perception, yet at laft 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 fhall, for method's fake, though briefly, give an account of fome few more, and then proceed to more complex ideas. $2. To fide, 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 |