146 Confiderations concerning our Knowledge. Book IV. and hoary, if he will look abroad. Juft thus is it with our understanding; all that is voluntary in our know. ledge, is the emplaying or with-holding any of our facul ties from this or that fort of objects, and a more or les accurate furvey of them: but they being employed, our will hath no power to determine the knowledge of the mind one way or other; that is done only by the objects them. felves, as far as they are clearly discovered. And therefore, as far as mens fenfes are converfant about extermi objects, the mind cannot but receive those ideas which are prefented by them, and be informed of the existence of things without: and fo far as mens thoughts con verfe with their own determined ideas, they cannot but in fome measure obferve the agreement and difagree ment that is to be found amongst fome of them, which is fo far knowledge and if they have nantes for those ideas which they have thus confidered, they muft needs be affured of the truth of thofe propofitions which press that agreement or difagreement they perceive in them, and be undoubtedly convinced of thofe truths. For what a man, fees, he cannot but fee; and what he perceives, he cannot but know that he perceives.

§3. InftanceIn Numbers.

THUS he that has got the ideas of numbers, and hath taken the pains to compare one, two and three, to fix, cannot choose but know that they are equal: he that hath got the idea of a triangle, and found the ways to measure its angles, and their magnitudes, is certain that its three angles are equal to two right ones, and can as little doubt of that, as of this truth, that it is impossible for the fame thing to be, and not to be.

In Natural Religion

He also that hath the idea of an intelligent, but frail and weak being, made by and depending on another, who is eternal, omnipotent, perfectly wife and good, will as certainly know that man is to honour, fear and obey GOD, as that the fun fhines when he fees it. For if he hath but the ideas of two fuch beings in his mind, and will turn his thoughts that way, and confider them, he will as certainly find that the inferior, finite and de

pendent, is under an obligation to obey the Supreme and Infinite, as he is certain to find, that three, four and feven, are lefs than fifteen, if he will confider and compute thofe numbers; nor can he be furer in a clear morning that the fun is rifen, if he will but open his eyes, and turn them that way. But yet these truths, being never fo certain, never fo clear, he may be ignorant of either, or all of them, who will never take the pains to employ his faculties, as he should, to inform himself about them.

CHAP. XIV.

OF JUDGMENT.

§ 1. Our Knowledge being fhort, we want fomething

THE

elfe.

HE understanding faculties being given to man, not barely for fpeculation, but alfo for the conduct of his life, man would be at a great lofs, if he had nothing to direct him but what has the certainty of true knowledge; for that being very short and fcanty, as we have feen, he would be often utterly in the dark, and in most of the actions of his life perfectly at a stand, had he nothing to guide him in the abfence of clear and "certain knowledge. He that will not eat till he has demonftration that it will nourish him, he that will not fir till he infallibly knows the bufinefs he goes about will fucceed, will have little elfe to do but fit ftill and perish.

§ 2. What ufe to be made of this twilight State. THEREFORE, as God has fet fome things in broad daylight, as he has given us fome certain knowledge, though limited to a few things in comparison, probably as a taste of what intellectual creatures are capable of, to excite in us a defire and endeavour after a better state, so in the greateft part of our concernment, he has afforded us I only the twilight, as I may fo fay, of probability, fuitable, I prefume, to that state of mediocrity and proba-. tionerfhip he has been pleafed to place us in here; wherein, to check our over-confidence and prefumptio

we might by every day's experience be made fenfible d our fhort-fightedness and liablenefs to error; the fat whereof might be a conftant admonition to us to spe the days of this our pilgrimage with industry and an in the fearch and fellowing of that way which g lead us to a state of greater perfection; it being high rational to think, even were revelation filem in the c that as men employ thofe talents God has given the here, they fhall accordingly receive their rewards at clofe of the day, when their fun fliall fet, and night b put an end to their labours. ;

§3. Judgment fupplies the avant of Knowledge, | THE faculty which God has given man to fupply & want of clear and certain knowledge, in cafes whe that cannot be had, is judgment, whereby the mind take its ideas to agree or difagree, or, which is the fame, 25 propofition to be true or falfe, without perceiving a de monstrative evidence in the proofs. The mind fom times exercises this judgment out of neceflity, where demonftrative proofs, and certain knowledge are not to b had; and fometimes out of laziness, unfkilfulness, hafte, even where demonftrative and certain proofs an to be had. Men often ftay not warily to examine th agreement or difagreement of two ideas, which they a defirous or concerned to know, but, either incapable fuch attention as is requifite in a long train of gradation or impatient of delay, lightly caft their eyes on, or wholly pafs by the proofs; and fo, without making out the de monftration, determine of the agreement or difagree ment of two ideas, as it were by a view of them as they are at a distance, and take it to be the one or the other as feems most likely to them upon fuch a loofe furvey This faculty of the mind, when it is exercifed immedi ately about things, is called judgment; when about truth delivered in words, is moft commonly called affent or diffent; which being the moft ufual way wherein the mind has occafion to employ this faculty, I fall under thefe terms treat of it, as leaft liable in our language to equivocation.

* § 4. Judgment is the presuming things to be fo, without perceiving it.

THUS the mind has two faculties, converfant about truth and falfehood.

Firft, Knowledge, whereby it certainly perceives, and is undoubtedly fatisfied of the agreement or disagreement of any ideas.

Secondly, Judgment, which is the putting ideas together, or leparating them from one another in the mind, when their certain agreement or difagreement is not perceived, but prefumed to be fo; which is as the word imports, taken to be fo, before it certainly appears. And if it fo unites, or feparates them, as in reality things are, it is right judgment.

CHAP. XV.

1

1. Probability is the appearance of Agreement upon fallible Proofs.

2

S demonftration is the fhowing the agreement or

A difagreement of two ideas, by the intervention of

one or more proofs, which have a conftant, immutable, and vifible connection one with another; fo probability is nothing but the appearance of fuch an agreement or difagreement by the intervention of proofs whofe con- nection is not conftant and immutable, or at least is not perceived to be fo, but is, or appears for the most part to be fo, and is enough to induce the mind to judge the propofition to be true or falfe, rather than the contrary. For example: In the demonstration of it, a man perceives the certain immutable connection there is of equality between the three angles of a triangle, and those intermediate ones which are made ufe of to how their equality to two right ones; and so by an intuitive knowledge of the agreement or disagreement of the intermediate ideas in each step of the progrefs, the whole feries is continued with an evidence, which clearly fhows the agreement or difagreement of thofe three angles in equality to two right ones; and thus he has certain know

ledge that it is fo. But another man, who never took the pains to obferve the demonftration, hearing a mathematician, a man of credit, affirm the three angles of a triangle to be cqual to two right ones, affents to it, i. e receives it for true; in which cafe the foundation of his affent is the probability of the thing, the proof being fuch as for the most part carries truth with it, the mai on whofe teftimony he receives it, not being wont to affirm any thing contrary to, or befides his knowledge, efpecially in matters of this kind. So that that which caufes his affent to this propofition, that the three angles of a triangle are equal to two right ones, that which makes him take thefe ideas to agree, without knowing them to do fo, is the wonted veracity of the fpeaker in other cafes, or his fuppofed veracity in this.

$2. It is to fupply the want of Knowledge. OUR knowledge, as has been shown, being very nar row, and we not happy enough to find certain truth in every thing which we have occafion to confider, most of the propofitions we think, reafon, difcourfe, nay, act upon, are fuch as we cannot have undoubted knowledge of their truth; yet fome of them border fo near upon certainty, that we make no doubt at all about them, but affent to them as firmly, and act, according to that affent, as refolutely as if they were infallibly demonftrated, and that our knowledge of them was perfect and certain. But there being degrees herein from the very neighbourhood of certainty, and demonftration, quite down to improbability and unlikeness, even to the confines of impoffibility; and alfo degrees of affent from full affurance and confidence, quite down to conjecture, doubt, and diftruft; I fhall come now (having, as I think, found out the bounds of human knowledge and certainty), in the next place, to confider the feveral degrees and grounds of probability, and affent or faith. §3. Being that which makes us prefume things to be true before we know them to be fo. PROBABILITY is likelinefs to be true, the very notation of the word fignifying fuch a propofition, for which there be arguments or proofs, to make it pafs or be re