with another, which is extrinsical to it, it is evident, that all words that necessarily lead the mind to any other ideas than are supposed really to exist in that thing, to which the words are applied, are relative words: v. g. a man black, merry, thoughtful, thirsty, angry, extended; these, and the like, are all absolute, because they neither signify nor intimate any thing but what does or is supposed really to exist in the man thus denomi nated but father, brother, king, husband, blacker, merrier, &c. are words which, together with the thing they denominate, imply also something else separate and exterior to the existence of that thing.

SECT. 11. Conclusion.-Having laid down these premises concerning relation in general, I shall now proceed to show, in some instances, how all the ideas we have of relation are made up, as the others are, only of simple ideas; and that they all, how refined or remote from sense soever they seem, terminate at last in simple ideas. I shall begin with the most comprehensive relation, wherein all things that do or can exist are concerned; and that is the relation of cause and effect. The idea whereof, how derived from the two fountains of all our knowledge, sensation and reflection, I shall in the next place consider.

CHAPTER XXIV.

OF CAUSE AND EFFECT, AND OTHER RELATIONS.

SECT. 1. Whence their ideas got.-In the notice that our senses take of the constant vicissitudes of things, we cannot but observe, that severa. particular, both qualities and substances, begin to exist; and that they receive this their existence from the due application and operation of some other being. From this observation we get our ideas of cause and effect. That which produces any simple or complex idea we denote by the general name cause; and that which is produced, effect. Thus, finding, that in that substance which we call wax, fluidity, which is a simple idea that was not in it before, is constantly produced by the application of a certain degree of heat; we call the simple idea of heat, in relation to fluidity in wax, the cause of it, and fluidity the effect. So also finding that the substance of wood, which is a certain collection of simple ideas so called, by the application of fire is turned into another substance called ashes, i. e. another complex idea, consisting of a collection of simple ideas, quite different from that complex idea which we call wood; we consider fire, in relation to ashes, as cause, and the ashes as effect. So that whatever is considered by us to conduce or operate to the producing any particular simple idea, or collection of simple ideas, whether substance or mode, which did not before exist, hath thereby in our minds the relation of a cause, and so is denominated by us.

SECT. 2. Creation, generation, making alteration.-Having thus, from what our senses are able to discover, in the operations of bodies on one another, got the notion of cause and effect, viz. that a cause is that which makes any other thing, either simple idea, substance or mode, begin to be; and an effect is that which had its beginning from some other thing, the mind finds no great difficulty to distinguish the several originals of things into two sorts.

First, when the thing is wholly new, so that no part thereof did ever exist before; as when a new particle of matter doth begin to exist, in rerum natura, which had before no being, and this we call creation.

Secondly, when a thing is made up of particles, which did all of them before exist, but that very thing so constituted of pre-existing particles, which considered all together make up such a collection of simple ideas as had

not any existence before; as this man, this egg, rose, or cherry, &c. And this, when referred to a substance, produced in the ordinary course of nature, by an internal principle, but set on work by, and received from some external agent or cause, and working by insensible ways, which we perceive not, we call generation : when the cause is extrinsical, and the effect produced by a sensible separation, or juxta position of discernible parts, we call it making; and such are all artificial things. When any simple idea is produced which was not in that subject before, we call it alteration. Thus a man is generated, a picture made, and either of them altered, when any new sensible quality or simple idea is produced in either of them, which was not there before; and the things thus made to exist, which were not there before, are effects; and those things which operated to the existence, causes. In which, and all other cases, we may observe, that the notion of cause and effect has its rise from ideas, received by sensation or reflection; and that this relation, how comprehensible soever, terminates at last in them. For to have the idea of cause and effect, it suffices to consider any simple idea, or substance, as beginning to exist by the operation of some other, without knowing the manner of that operation.

SECT. 3. Relations of time.-Time and place are also the foundations of very large relations, and all finite beings at least are concerned in them. But having already shown, in another place, how we get these ideas, it may suffice here to intimate, that most of the denominations of things received from time, are only relations. Thus, when any one says that queen Elizabeth lived sixty-nine, and reigned forty-five years, these words import only the relation of that duration to some other, and mean no more than this, that the duration of her existence was equal to sixty-nine, and the duration of her government to forty-five annual revolutions of the sun; and so are all words, answering, how long. Again, William the Conqueror invaded England about the year 1066, which means this, that taking the duration from our Saviour's time till now, for one entire great length of time, it shows at what distance this invasion was from the two extremes; and so do all words of time, answering to the question, when, which show only the dis tance of any point of time from the period of a longer duration, from which we measure, and to which we thereby consider it as related.

SECT. 4. There are yet, besides those, other words of time, that ordinarily are thought to stand for positive ideas, which yet will, when considered, be found to be relative, such as are young, old, &c. which include and intimate the relation any thing has to a certain length of duration whereof we have the idea in our minds. Thus having settled in our thoughts the idea of the ordinary duration of a man to be seventy years, when we say a man is young, we mean that his age is yet but a small part of that which usually men attain to: and when we denominate him oid, we mean that his duration is run out almost to the end of that which men do not usually exceed. And so it is but comparing the particular age, or duration of this or that man, to the idea of that duration which we have in our minds, as ordinarily belonging to that sort of animals; which is plain, in the application of these names to other things; for a man is called young at twenty, and very young at seven years old: but yet a horse we call old at twenty, and a dog at seven years; because in each of these we compare their age to different ideas of duration, which are settled in our minds, as belonging to these several sorts of animals, in the ordinary course of nature. But the sun and stars, though they have outlasted several generations of men, we call not old, because we do not know what period God hath set to that sort of beings. This term belonging properly to those things which we can observe in the ordinary course of things, by a natural decay, to come to an end in a certain period of time; and so have in our minds, as it were, a standard to which we can compare the several parts of their duration; and, by the relation they bear thereunto, call them

young or old; which we cannot therefore do to a ruby or aiamond, things whose usual periods we know not.

SECT. 5. Relations of place and extension. The relation also that things have to one another in their places and distances, is very obvious to observe; as above, below, a mile distant from Charing-cross, in England, and in London. But as in duration, so in extension and bulk, there are some ideas that are relative, which we signify by names that are thought positive; as great and little are truly relations. For here also having, by observation, settled in our minds the ideas of the bigness of several species of things from those we have been most accustomed to, we make them as it were the standards whereby to denominate the bulk of others. Thus we call a great apple, such a one as is bigger than the ordinary sort of those we have been used to: and a little horse, such a one as comes not up to the size of that idea which we have in our minds to belong ordinarily to horses; and that will be a great horse to a Welchman which is but a little one to a Fleming; they two having, from the different breed of their countries, taken several sized ideas to which they compare, and in relation to which they denominate, their great and their little.

SECT. 6. Absolute terms often stand for relations.-So likewise weak and strong are but relative denominations of power, compared to some ideas we have at that time of greater or less power. Thus when we say a weak man, we mean one that has not so much strength or power to move, as usually men have, or usually those of his size have: which is a comparing his strength to the idea we have of the usual strength of men, or men of such a size. The like, when we say the creatures are all weak things; weak, there, is but a relative term, signifying the disproportion there is in the power of God and the creatures. And so abundance of words, in ordinary speech, stand only for relations (and perhaps the greatest part) which at first sight seem to have no such signification: v. g. the ship has necessary stores. Necessary and stores are both relative words; one having a relation to the accomplishing the voyage intended, and the other to future use. All which relations, how they are confined to and terminate in ideas derived from sensation or reflection, is too obvious to need any explication.

CHAPTER XXVII.

OF IDENTITY AND DIVERSITY.

SECT. 1. Wherein identity consists.-Another occasion the mind often takes of comparing, is the very being of things: when considering any thing as existing at any determined time and place, we compare it with itself existing at another time, and thereon form the ideas of identity and diversity. When we see any thing to be in any place in any instant of time, we are sure (be it what it will) that it is that very thing, and not another which at that same time exists in another place, how like and undistinguishable soever it may be in all other respects: and in this consists identity, when the ideas it is attributed to vary not at all from what they were that moment wherein we consider their former existence, and to which we compare the present. For we never finding nor conceiving it possible that two things of the same kind should exist in the same place at the same time, we rightly conclude, that whatever exists any where at any time, excludes all of the same kind, and is there itself alone. When, therefore, we demand, whether any thing be the same or no, it refers always to some. thing that existed such a time in such a place, which it is certain at that instant was the same with itself, and no other. From whence it follows, that one thing cannot have two beginnings of existence, nor two things

one beginning; it being impossible for two things of the same kind to be or exist in the same instant, in the very same place, or one and the same thing in different places. That therefore that had one beginning, is the same thing; and that which had a different beginning in time and place from that, is not the same, but diverse. That which has made the difficulty about this relation, has been the little care and attention used in having precise notions of the things to which it is attributed.

SECT. 2. Identity of substances.-We have the ideas but of three sorts of substances: 1. God. 2. Finite intelligences. 3. Bodies. First, God is without beginning, eternal, unalterable, and every where; and therefore concerning his identity there can be no doubt. Secondly, finite spirits, having had each its determinate time and place of beginning to exist, the reation to that time and place will always determine to each of them its identity, as long as it exists. Thirdly, the same will hold of every particle of matter, to which no addition or subtraction of matter being made, it is the same. For though these three sorts of substances, as we term them, do not exclude one another out of the same place; yet we cannot conceive but that they must necessarily each of them exclude any of the same kind out of the same place: or else the notions and names of identity and diversity would be in vain, and there could be no such distinction of substances, or any thing else one from another. For example: could two bodies be in the same place at the same time, then those two parcels of matter must be one and the same, take them great or little; nay, all bodies must be one and the same. For by the same reason that two particles of matter may be in one place, all bodies may be in one place: which, when it can be supposed, takes away the distinction of identity and diversity of one and more, and renders it ridiculous. But it being a contradiction, that two or more should be one, identity and diversity are relations and ways of comparing well-founded, and of use to the understanding.

Identity of modes. All other things being but modes or relations ultimately terminated in substances, the identity and diversity of each particular existence of them too will be by the same way determined: only as to things whose existence is in succession, such as are the actions of finite beings, v. g. motion and thought, both which consist in a continued train of succession; concerning their diversity, there can be no question : because each perishing the moment it begins, they cannot exist in different times, or in different places, as permanent beings can at different times exist in distant places; and therefore no motion or thought, considered as at different times, can be the same, each part thereof having a different beginning of existence.

SECT. 3. Principium individuationis.-From what has been said, it is easy to discover what is so much inquired after, the principium individuationis; and that, it is plain, is existence itself, which determines a being of any sort to a particular time and place, incommunicable to two beings of the same kind. This, though it seems easier to conceive in simple substances or modes, yet when reflected on is not more difficult in compound ones, if care be taken to what it is applied: v. g. let us suppose an atom, 1. e. a continued body under one immutable superficies, existing in a determined time and place it is evident that, considered in any instant of its existence, it is in that instant the same with itself. For being at that instant what it is, and nothing else, it is the same, and so must continue as long as its existence is continued; for so long it will be the same, and no other. In like manner, if two or more atoms be joined together into the same mass, every one of those atoms will be the same, by the foregoing rule: and whilst they exist united together, the mass, consisting of the same atoms, must be the same mass, or the same body, let the parts be ever so differently jumbled. But if one of these atoms be taken away, or one new one added, it is no longer the same mass, or the same body. In the state

of living creatures, their identity depends not on a mass of the same particles, but on something else. For in them the variation of great parcels of matter alters not the identity: an oak growing from a plant to a great tree, and then lopped, is still the same oak; and a colt grown up to a horse, sometimes fat, sometimes lean, is all the while the same horse; though, in both these cases, there may be a manifest change of the parts; so that truly they are not either of them the same masses of matter, though they be truly one of them the same oak, and the other the same horse. The reason whereof is, that in these two cases, a mass of matter, and a living body, identity is not applied to the same thing.

SECT. 4. Identity of vegetables. We must therefore consider wherein an oak differs from a mass of matter, and that seems to me to be in this, that the one is only the cohesion of particles of matter any how united, the other such a disposition of them as constitutes the parts of an oak; and such an organization of those parts as is fit to receive and distribute nourishment, so as to continue and frame the wood, bark, and leaves, &c. of an oak, in which consists the vegetable life. That being then one plant which has such an organization of parts in one coherent body partaking of one common life, it continues to be the same plant as long as it partakes of the same life, though that life be communicated to new particles of matter vitany united to the living plant, in a like continued organization conformable to that sort of plants. For this organization being at any one instant in any one collection of matter, is in that particular concrete, distinguished from all other, and is that individual life which existing constantly from that moment both forwards and backwards, in the same continuity of insensibly succeeding parts united to the living body of the plant, it has that identity, which makes the same plant, and all the parts of it, parts of the same plant, during all the time that they exist united in that continued organization, which is fit to convey that common life to all the parts sc united.

SECT. 5. Identity of animals.-The case is not so much different in brutes, but that any one may hence see what makes an animal, and continues it the same. Something we have like this in machines, and may serve to illustrate it. For example, what is a watch? It is plain it is nothing but a fit organization, or construction of parts, to a certain end, which, when a sufficient force is added to it, it is capable to attain. If we would suppose this machine one continued body, all whose organized parts were repaired, increased, or diminished, by a constant addition or separation of insensible parts, with one common life, we should have something very much like the body of an animal, with this difference, that in an animal the fitness of the organization, and the motion wherein life consists, begin together, the motion coming from within; but in machines, the force coming sensibly from without, is often away when the organ is in order, and well fitted to receive it.

SECT. 6. Identity of man.-This also shows wherein the identity of the same man consists; viz. in nothing but a participation of the same continued life, by constantly fleeting particles of matter, in succession, vitally united to the same organized body. He that shall place the identity of man in any thing else, but, like that of other animals, in one fitly organized body, taken in any one instant, and from thence continued under one organization of life in several successively fleeting particles of matter united to it, will find it hard to make an embryo, one of years, mad and sober, the same man, by any supposition, that will not make it possible for Seth, Ishmael, Socrates, Pilate, St Austin, and Cæsar Borgia, to be the same man. But if the identity of soul alone makes the same man, and there be nothing in the nature of matter why the same individual spirit may not be united to different bodies, it will be possible that those men living in distant ages, and of different tempers, may have been the same man: which way of speaking must be, from a