fitted to produce different operations on different parts of our bodies.

Three forts of ideas make our complex ones

§. 9. The ideas that make our complex ones of corporeal fubftances, are of thefe three forts. First, the ideas of the primary qualities of things which are difcovered by our fenfes, and are in them even when we perceive them not; fuch are the bulk, figure, number, fituation, and motion of the parts of bodies, which are really in them, whether we take notice of them or no. Secondly, the fenfible fecondary qualities, which depending on thefe, are nothing but the powers those subftances have to produce feveral ideas in us by our fenses; which ideas are not in the things themselves, otherwise than as any thing is in its caufe. Thirdly, the aptnefs we confider in any fubftance to give or re ceive fuch alterations of primary qualities, as that the substance so altered fhould produce in us different ideas from what it did before; thefe are called active and paffive powers: all which powers, as far as we have any notice or notion of them, terminate only in. fenfible fimple ideas. For whatever alteration a loadstone has the power to make, in the minute particles of iron, we should have no notion of any power it had at all to operate on iron, did not its fenfible motion difcover it: and I doubt not, but there are a thousand changes, that bodies we daily handle have a power to caufe in one another, which we never suspect, because they never appear in fenfible effects.

Powers make

a great part of our complex ideas of fubftances.

§. 10. Powers therefore juftly make a great part of our complex ideas of fubtances. He that will examine his complex idea of gold, will find feveral of its ideas that make it up to be only powers: as the power of being melted, but of not fpending itself in the fire; of being diffolved in aqua regia; are ideas as neceffary to make up our complex idea of gold, as its colour and weight: which, if duly confidered, are also nothing but different powers. For to speak truly, yellowness is not actually in gold; but is a power in gold to produce that idea in us by our eyes, when placed in

U 4

a due

The now fecondary qualities of bodies would disappear, if we could dif cover the primary ones of theit minute parts.

Book 2. a due light and the heat, which we cannot leave out of our ideas of the fun, is no more really in the fun, than the white colour it introduces into wax. Thefe are both equally powers in the fun, operating, by the motion and figure of its fenfible parts, fo on a man, as to make him have the idea of heat; and fo on wax, as to make it capable to produce in a man the idea of white. §. 11. Had we fenfes acute enough to difcern the minute particles of bodies, and the real conftitution on which their fenfible qualities depend, I doubt not but they would produce quite different ideas in us; and that which is now the yellow colour of gold, would then difappear, and instead of it we fhould fee an admirable texture of parts of a certain fize and figure. This microscopes plainly difcover to us; for what to our naked eyes producès a certain colour, is, by thus augmenting the acuteness of our fenfes, difcovered to be quite a different thing; and the thus altering, as it were, the proportion of the bulk of the minute parts of a coloured object to our ufual fight, produces different ideas from what it did before. Thus fand or pounded glafs, which is opake, and white to the naked eye, is pelluicd in a microfcope; and a hair feen this way, lofes its former colour, and is in a great measure pellucid, with a mixture of fome bright fparkling colours, fuch as appear from the refraction of diamonds, and other pellucid bodies. Blood to the naked eye ap pears all red; but by a good microfcope, wherein its leffer parts appear, shows only fome few globules of red, fwimming in a pellucid liquor: and how these red globules would appear, if glafies could be found that could yet magnify them a thoufand or ten thoufand times more, is uncertain.

Our faculties

S. 12. The infinitely wife contriver of us, of difcovery and all things about us, hath fitted our fuited to our fenfes, faculties, and organs, to the conveniencies of life, and the business we have to do here. We are able, by our fenfes, to know and distinguish things; and to examine them fo far, as to

Rate:

apply

apply them to our uses, and several ways to accommodate the exigencies of this life. We have infight enough into their admirable contrivances and wonderful effects, to admire and magnify the wifdom, power, and goodness of their author. Such a knowledge as this, which is fuited to our prefent condition, we want not faculties to attain. But it appears not, that God intended we should have a perfect, clear, and adequate knowledge of them: that perhaps is not in the comprehenfion of any finite being. We are furnished with faculties (dull and weak as they are) to discover enough in the creatures, to lead us to the knowledge of the Creator, and the knowledge of our duty; and we are fitted well enough with abilities to provide for the conveniencies of living: thefe are our business in this world. But were our fenfes altered, and made much quicker and acuter, the appearance and outward fcheme of things would have quite another face to us; and, I am apt to think, would be inconfiftent with our being, or at least well-being, in this part of the universe which we inhabit. He that confiders how little our conftitution is able to bear a remove into parts of this air, not much higher than that we commonly breathe in, will have reafon to be fatisfied, that in this globe of earth allotted for our manfion, the all-wife Architect has fuited our organs, and the bodies that are to affect them, one to another. If our fenfe of hearing were but one thousand times quicker than it is, how would a perpetual noife diftract us? And we fhould in the quieteft retirement be lefs able to fleep or meditate, than in the middle of a fea-fight. Nay, if that most inftructive of our fenfes, feeing, were in any man a thousand or a hundred thousand times more acute than it is by the beft microscope, things feveral millions of times less than the smallest object of his fight now, would then be vifible to his naked eyes, and fo he would come nearer to the discovery of the texture and motion of the minute parts of corporeal things; and in many of them, probably get ideas of their internal conftitutions. But then he would be in a quite different world from other people: nothing would appear

the

the fame to him, and others; the vifible ideas of every thing would be different. So that I doubt, whether he and the rest of men could difcourfe concerning the objects of fight, or have any communication about colours, their appearances being fo wholly different. And perhaps fuch a quickness and tendernefs of fight could not endure bright fun-fhine, or fo much as open day-light; nor take in but a very finall part of any object at once, and that too only at a very near diftance. And if by the help of fuch microfcopical eyes (if I may fo call them) a man could penetrate farther than ordinary into the fecret compofition and radical texture of bodies, he would not make any great advantage by the change, if fuch an acute fight would not ferve to conduct him to the market and exchange; if he could not fee things he was to avoid, at a convenient distance; nor diftinguish things he had to do with, by those fenfible qualities others do. He that was fharp-fighted enough to fee the configuration of the minute particles of the spring of a clock, and observe upon what peculiar ftructure and impulfe its elaftic motion depends, would no doubt difcover fomething very admirable: but if eyes fo framed could not view at once the hand, and the characters of the hourplate, and thereby at a distance fee what o'clock it was, their owner could not be much benefitted by that acutenefs; which, whilft it discovered the secret contrivance of the parts of the machine, made him lofe its use.

§. 13. And here give me leave to proConjecture about fpirits. pofe an extravagant conjecture of mine, viz. that fince we have fome reason (if there be any credit to be given to the report of things, that our philofophy cannot account for) to imagine, that fpirits can affume to themselves bodies of different bulk, figure, and conformation of parts; whether one great advantage fome of them have over us, may not lie in this, that they can fo frame and fhape to themselves organs of fenfation or perception, as to fuit them to their prefent defign, and the circumftances of the object they would confider. For how much would that man exceed all others in knowledge, who had but the faculty

faculty fo to alier the ftructure of his eyes, that one fenfe, as to make it capable of all the feveral degrees of vifion, which the affiftance of glaffes (cafually at firft lighted on) has taught us to conceive? What wonders would he difcover, who could fo fit his eyes to all forts of objects, as to fee, when he pleased, the figure and motion of the minute particles in the blood, and other juices of animals, as diftinctly as he does, at other times, the shape and motion of the animals themfelves? But to us, in our prefent ftate, unalterable organs fo contrived, as to difcover the figure and motion. of the minute parts of bodies, whereon depend those fenfible qualities we now observe in them, would perhaps be of no advantage. God has, no doubt, made them fo, as is beft for us in our prefent condition. He hath fitted us for the neighbourhood of the bodies that furround us, and we have to do with: and though we cannot, by the faculties we have, attain to a perfect knowledge of things, yet they will ferve us well enough for thofe ends above-mentioned, which are our great concernment. I beg my reader's pardon for laying before him fo wild a fancy, concerning the ways of perception in beings above us; but how extravagant foever it be, I doubt whether we can imagine any thing about the knowledge of angels, but after this manner, fome way or other in proportion to what we find and obferve in ourselves. And though we cannot but allow that the infinite power and wifdom of God may frame creatures with a thousand other faculties and ways of perceiving things without them, than what we have: yet our thoughts can go no farther than our own: fo impoffible it is for us to enlarge our very gucffes beyond the ideas received from our own fenfation and refection. The fuppofition at least, that angels do fometimes affume bodies, needs not ftartle us; fince fome of the most antient and moft learned fathers of the church feemed to believe, that they had bodies and this is certain, that their state and way of existence is unknown to us.

§. 14. But to return to the matter in hand, the ideas we have of fubftances, and the ways we come by them; I fay, our fpe

6

Complex ideas of fub

ftances.

cifick