cifick ideas of fubftances are nothing else but a collection of a certain number of fimple ideas, considered as united in one thing. Thefe ideas of fubftances, though they are commonly fimple apprehenfions, and the names of them fimple terms; yet, in effect are complex and compounded. Thus the idea which an Englishman fignifies by the name Swan, is white colour, long neck, red beak, black legs, and whole feet, and all these of a certain fize, with a power of fwimming in the water, and making a certain kind of noise and perhaps, to a man who has long obferved this kind of birds, some other properties which all terminate in fenfible simple ideas, all united in one common fubject.:. Idea of fpiritual fubftances as clear as of bodily fubftances. §. 15. Befides the complex ideas we have of material fenfible fubftances, of which I have last spoken, by the fimple ideas we have taken from thofe operations of our own minds, which we experiment daily in ourfelves, as thinking, understanding, willing, knowing, and power of beginning motion, &c. co-exifting in fome fubftance: we are able to frame the complex idea of an immaterial fpirit. And thus, by putting together the ideas of thinking, perceiving, liberty, and power of moving themselves and other things, we have as clear a perception and notion of immaterial fubftances, as we have of material. For putting together the ideas of thinking and willing, or the power of moving or quieting corporeal motion, joined to fubftance, of which] we have no diftinct idea, we have the idea of an immaterial fpirit; and by putting together the ideas of coherent folid parts, and a power of being moved, joined with fubftance, of which likewife we have no pofitive idea, we have the idea of matter. The one is as clear and diftinct an idea as the other the idea of thinking, and moving a body, being as clear and diftinct ideas, as the ideas of extenfion, folidity, and being moved. For our idea of fubftance is equally obfcure, or none at all in both: it is but a fuppofed I know not what, to fupport those ideas we call accidents. It is for want of reflection that we are apt to think, that our fenfes fhow us nothing but material 301 material things. Every act of fenfation, when duly confidered, gives us an equal view of both parts of nature, the corporeal and spiritual. For whilft I know, by seeing or hearing, &c. that there is fome corporeal being without me, the object of that fenfation; I do more certainly know, that there is fome fpiritual being within me that fees and hears. This, I must be convinced, cannot be the action of bare infenfible matter; nor ever could be, without an immaterial thinking being. ftancé. §. 16. By the complex idea of extended, No idea of figured, coloured, and all other fenfible abftract fub-, qualities, which is all that we know of ir,.. we are as far from the idea of the fubftance of body, as. if we knew nothing at all: nor after all the acquaintance and familiarity, which we imagine we have with marter, and the many qualities men affure themselves they; perceive and know in bodies, will it perhaps upon exa-; mination be found, that they have any more, or clearer, primary ideas belonging to body, than they have belonging to immaterial fpirit. The cohesion of folid parts and impulfe the primary ideas of body. §. 17. The primary ideas we have peculiar to body, as contradiftinguished to fpirit, are the cohesion of folid, and confequently feparable, parts, and a power of communicating motion by impulfe. Thefe, I think, are the original ideas proper and peculiar to body; for figure is but the confequence of finite extenfion. Thinking and motivity the primary ideas of fpi rit. §. 18. The ideas we have belonging, and, peculiar to fpirit, are thinking and will, or a power of putting body into motion by thought, and which is confequent to it, liberty. For as body cannot but commu-.. nicate its motion by impulfe to another body, which it meets with at reft; fo the mind can put bodies into, motion, or forbear to do fo, as it pleafes. The ideas of existence, dùration, and mobility, are common to them both. §. 19. There is no reafon why it fhould be thought ftrange, that I make mobility belong to fpirit: for having no other Spirits capa ble of mo tion, idea of motion, but change of distance with other beings that are confidered as at reft; and finding, that fpirits, as well as bodies, cannot operate but where they are, and that fpirits do operate at feveral timesin feveral places; I cannot but attribute change of place to all finite fpirits; (for of the infinite fpirit I Ipeak not here.) For my foul being a real being, as well as my body, is certainly as capable of changing distance with any other body, or being, as body itself; and fo is capable of motion. And if a mathematician can confider a certain diftance, or a change of that dif tance between two points, one may certainly conceive a distance, and a change of distance between two fpirits and fo conceive their motion, their approach or removal, one from another. §. 20. Every one finds in himself, that his foul can think, will, and operate on his body in the place where that is; but cannot operate on a body, or in a place an hundred miles diftant from it. No-body can imagine, that his foul can think, or move a body at Oxford, whilft he is at London; and cannot but know, that, being united to his body, it conftantly changes place all the whole journey between Oxford and London, as the coach or horfe does that carries him, and I think may be faid to be truly all that while in motion; or if that will not be allowed to afford us a clear idea enough of its motion, its being feparated from the body in death, I think, will; for to confider it as going out of the body, or leaving it, and yet to have no idea of its motion, feems to me impoffible. §. 21. If it be faid by any one, that it cannot change place, because it hath none, for the fpirits are not in loco, but ubi; I fuppofe that way of talking will not now be of much weight to many, in an age that is not much difpofed to admire, or fuffer themselves to be deceived by fuch unintelligible ways of fpeaking. But if any one thinks there is any fenfe in that diftinction, and that it is applicable to our prefent purpose, I defire him to put it into intelligible English; and then from thence draw a reason to show, that immaterial fpirits are not capable of motion. Indeed motion cannot be attributed attributed to God; not because he is an immaterial, but because he is an infinite spirit. Idea of foul and body compared. §. 22. Let us compare then our complex idea of an immaterial fpirit with our complex idea of body, and fee whether there be any more obfcurity in one than in the other, and in which most. Our idea of body, as I think, is an extended folid fubftance, capable of communicating motion by impulfe: And our idea of foul, as an immaterial fpirit, is of a fubftance that thinks, and has a power of exciting motion in body, by willing or thought. These, I think, are our complex ideas of foul and body, as contra diftinguifhed; and now let us examine which has moft obfcurity in it, and difficulty to be apprehended. I know, that people, whofe thoughts are immerfed in matter, and have fo fubjected their minds to their fenfes, that they feldom reflect on any thing beyond them, are apt to fay, they cannot comprehend a thinking thing, which perhaps is true: but I affirm, when they confider it well, they can no more comprehend an extended thing. Cohefion of folid parts in body as hard to be conceived as thinking in a soul. §. 23. If any one fay, he knows not what it is thinks in him; he means, he knows not what the fubftance is of that thinking thing: no more, fay I, knows he what the fubftance is of that folid thing. Farther, if he fays he knows not how he thinks I answer, neither knows he how he is extended; how the folid parts of body are united, or cohere together to make extenfion. For though the preffure of the particles of air may account for the cohesion of feveral parts of matter, that are groffer than the particles of air, and have pores lefs than the corpufcles of air; yet the weight, or preffure of the air, will not explain, nor can be a cause of the coherence of the particles of air themselves. And if the preffure of the æther, or any fubtiler matter than the air, may unite, and hold faft together the parts of a particle of air, as well as other bodies; yet it cannot make bonds for itself, and hold together the parts that make up every the leaft corpufcle of that materia fubtilis. fubtilis. So that that hypothefis, how ingeniously foever explained, by fhowing, that the parts of fenfible bodies are held together by the preffure of other external infenfible bodies, reaches not the parts of the æther itfelf: and by how much the more evident it proves, that the parts of other bodies are held together by the external preffure of the æther, and can have no other conceivable caufe of their cohefion and union, by fo much the more it leaves us in the dark concerning the cohefion of the parts of the corpufcles of the æther itfelf; which we can neither conceive without parts, they being bodies, and divifible; nor yet how their parts cohere, they wanting that caufe of cohesion, which is given of the cohefion of the parts of all other bodies. §. 24. But, in truth, the preffure of any ambient fluid, how great foever, can be no intelligible cause of the cohesion of the folid parts of matter. For though fuch a preffure may hinder the avulfion of two polished fuperficies, one from another, in a line perpendicular to them, as in the experiment of two polished marbles; yet, it can never, in the leaft, hinder the separation by a motion, in a line parallel to thofe furfaces. Becaufe the ambient fluid, having a full liberty to fucceed in each point of space, deferted by a lateral motion, refifts fuch a motion of bodies fo joined, no more than it would refift the motion of that body, were it on all fides environed by that fluid, and touched no other body and therefore, if there were no other caufe of cohefion, all parts of bodies must be eafily feparable by fuch a lateral fliding motion. For if the preffure of the æther be the adequate caufe of cohefion, wherever that cause operates not, there can be no cohesion. And fince it cannot operate against such a lateral feparation, (as has been shown) therefore in every imaginary plane, interfecting any mafs of matter, there could be no more cohefion, than of two polifhed furfaces, which will always, notwithstanding any imaginable preffure of a fluid, eafily flide one from another. So that, perhaps, how clear an idea foever we think we have of the extenfion of body, which is nothing but the cohesion of |