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Book IV. man and beaft, as the idea of the shape of an afs with reason, would be different from either that of man or beaft, and be a fpecies of an animal between or diftinct from both.

§14. Objection against a Changeling being fomething between a Man and Beaft, answered. HERE every body will be ready to afk, If changelings may be fuppofed fomething between man and beaft, pray what are they? I answer, Changelings; which is as good a word to fignify fomething different from the fignification of man or beast, as the names man and beast are to have fignifications different one from the other. This, well confidered, would refolve this matter, and fhow my meaning without any more ado: But I am not fo unacquainted with the zeal of fome men, which enables them to fpin confequences, and to fee religion threatened whenever any one ventures to quit their forms of speaking, as not to foresee what names fuch a propofition as this is like to be charged with; and without doubt it will be afked, If changelings are fomething between man and beaft, what will become of them in the other world? To which I anfwer, 1. It concerns me not to know or inquire. To their own mafter they stand or fall. It will make their state neither better nor worse, whether we determine any thing of it or no. They are in the hands of a faithful Creator and a bountiful Father, who difpofes not of his creatures according to our narrow thoughts or opinions, nor distinguishes them according to names and fpecies of our contrivance. And we that know fo little of this prefent world we are in, may, I think, content ourselves without being peremptory in defining the different ftates which creatures fhall come into when they go off this ftage. It may fuffice us, that he hath made known to all those who are capable of inftruction, difcourfe and reafoning, that they fhall come to an account, and receive according to what they have done in this body.

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BUT, Secondly, I anfwer, The force of thefe mens quef

tion, (viz. will you deprive changelings of a future ftate?) is founded on one of thefe two fuppofitions, which are both falfe: The firft is, that all things that have the outward shape and appearance of a man must neceffarily be defigned to an immortal future being after this life: Or, fecondly, that whatever is of human birth must be fo. Take away these imaginations, and fuch questions will be groundlefs and ridiculous. I defire then those who think there is no more but an accidental difference between themselves and changelings, the effence in both being exactly the fame, to confider whether they can imagine immortality annexed to any outward shape of the body; the very propofing it, is, I fuppofe, enough to make them dif own it. No one yet, that ever I heard of, how much foever immersed in matter, allowed that excellency to any figure of the grofs fenfible outward parts, as to affirm eternal life due to it, or a neceffary confequence of it; or that any mass of matter fhould, after its diffolution here, be again reftored hereafter to an everlafting state of fenfe, perception, and knowledge, only because it was moulded into this or that figure, and had fuch a particular frame of its vifible parts. Such an opinion as this, placing immortality in a certain fuperficial figure, turns out of doors all confideration of foul or fpirit, upon whofe account alone fome corporeal beings have hitherto been concluded immortal, and others not. This is to attribute more to the out fide than infide of things; to place the excellency of a man more in the external shape of his body, than internal perfections of his foul; which is but little better than to annex the great and ineftimable advantage of immortality and life everlafting, which he has above other material beings; to annex it, I fay, to the cut of his beard, or the fashion of his coat. For this or that outward make of our bodies no more carries with it the hopes of an eternal duration, than the fashion of a man's fuit gives him reasonable grounds to imagine it will never wear out, or that it will make him immortal. It will perhaps be faid, that nobody thinks

that the shape makes any thing immortal, but it is the fhape is the fign of a rational foul within, which is immortal. I wonder who made it the fign of any fuch thing; for barely faying it will not make it fo; it would require fome proofs to perfuade one of it. No figure that I know fpeaks any fuch language; for it may as rationally be concluded, that the dead body of a man, wherein there is to be found no more appearance or action of life than there is in a statue, has yet nevertheless a living foul in it, because of its fhape, as that there is a rational foul in a changeling, because he has the outside of a rational creature, when his actions carry far lefs marks of reafon with them, in the whole courfe of his life, than what are to be found in many a beast.

16. Monflers.

BUT it is the iffue of rational parents, and muft therefore be concluded to have a rational foul. I know not by what logic you must fo conclude. I am fure this is a conclufion that men no where allow of; for if they did, they would not make bold, as every where they do, to deftroy ill-formed and mishaped productions. Ay, but these are monfters. Let them be so; what will your driveling, unintelligent, untractable, changeling be? Shall a defect in the body make a monfter, a defect in the mind (the far more noble, and in the common phrase, the far more effential part) not? Shall the want of a nose or a neck make a monster, and put fuch issue out of the rank of men; the want of reason and understanding not? This is to bring all back again to what was exploded juft now; this is to place all in the fhape, and to take the measure of a man only by his outfide. To fhow that, according to the ordinary way of reafoning in this matter, people do lay the whole ftrefs on the figure, and refolve the whole effence of the fpecies of man (as they make it) into the outward fhape, how unreafonable foever it be, and how much foever they difown it, we need but trace their thoughts and practice a little farther, and then it will plainly appear. The well-fhaped

changeling is a man, has a rational foul, though it appear not; this is past doubt, say you. Make the ears

a little longer, and more pointed, and the nofe a little flatter than ordinary, and then you begin to boggle: make the face yet narrower, flatter and longer, and then you are at a stand: add ftill more and more of the likeness of a brute to it, and let the head be perfectly that of fome other animal, then presently it is a monster; and it is demonftration with you that it hath no rational foul, and must be deftroyed. Where now (I afk) fhall be the just measure of the utmost bounds of that shape, that carries with it a rational foul? For fince there have been human fatus's produced, half beaft and half man; and others three parts one, and one part the other; and fo it is poffible they may be in all the variety of approaches to the one or the other shape, and may have feveral degrees of mixture of the likeness of a man or a brute; I would gladly know what are those precife lineaments, which according to this hypothefis, are or are not capable of a rational foul to be joined to them? What fort of outfide is the certain fign that there is or is not such an inhabitant within? for till that be done, we talk at random of man, and fhall always, I fear, do fo, as long as we give ourselves up to certain founds, and the imaginations of fettled and fixed fpecies in nature, we know not what. But after all, I defire it may be confidered, that those who think they have answered the difficulty by telling us, that a mithaped fætus is a monfter, run into the fame fault they are arguing againft, by conftituting a fpecies between man and beaft; for what elfe, I pray, is their monfter in the cafe (if the word monster fignifies any thing at all), but fomething neithe man nor beaft, but partaking fomewhat of either? And juft fo is the changeling before-mentioned. So neceffary is it to quit the common notion of species and effences, if we will truly look into the nature of things, and examine them, by what our faculties can difcover in them as they exift, and not by

groundless fancies, that have been taken up about them.

§ 17. Words and Species.

I HAVE mentioned this here, because I think we cannot be too cautious that words and fpecies, in the ordinary notions which we have been used to of them, impofe not upon us. For I am apt to think, therein lies one great obftacle to our clear and diftinct knowledge, especially in reference to fubftances; and from thence has rofe a great part of the difficulties about truth and certainty. Would we accuftom ourselves to feparate our contemplations and reafonings from words, we might, in a great measure, remedy this inconvenience within our own thoughts; but yet it would still difturb us in our difcourfe with others, as long as we retained the opinion, that species and their effences were any thing else but our abstract ideas (fuch as they are) with names annexed to them, to be the figns of them.

§ 18. Recapitulation.

WHEREVER we perceive the agreement or difagreement of any of our ideas, there is certain knowledge; and wherever we are fure those ideas agree with the reality of things, there is certain real knowledge. Of which agreement of our ideas with the reality of things, having here given the marks, I think I have fhown wherein it is, that certainty, real certainty confifts; which, whatever it was to others, was, confefs, to me heretofore, one of thofe defiderata which I found great want of.

W

CHAP. V.

OF TRUTH IN GENERAL.

§ 1. What Truth is.

HAT is truth, was an inquiry many ages fince; and it being that which all mankind either do or pretend to fearch after, it cannot but be worth our while carefully to examine wherein it con

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