Truth. After all that has been said and done, the only adequate definition of truth is the agreement of our ideas with existence. To explain what this existence is, is another thing. In abstract ideas, it is nothing but the ideas themselves; so their truth is their consistency
-- 345 --with themselves. In things that are supposed to be without us, 'tis the determination, and fixed mode, of God's exciting ideas in us. So that truth in these things is an agreement of our ideas with that series in God. 'Tis existence, and that is all that we can say. 'Tis impossible that we should explain and resolve9 a perfectly abstract and mere idea of existence; only we always find this, by running of it up, that God and real existence are the same.
Corol. Hence we learn how properly it may be said that God is, and that there is none else, and how proper are these names of the Deity: "Jehovah" and "I Am That I Am."
[16]. Consciousness. is the mind's perceiving what is in itself—its ideas, actions, passions, and everything that is there perceivable.1 It is a sort of feeling within itself. The mind feels when it thinks, so it feels when it desires,2 feels when it loves, feels itself hate, etc.3
[17]. Logic. One reason why at first, before I knew other logic, I used to be mightily pleased with the study of the old logic,4 was because it was very pleasant to see my thoughts, that before lay in my mind jumbled without any distinction, ranged into order and distributed into classes and subdivisions, that I could tell where they all belonged, and run them up to their general heads. For this logic consisted much in distributions and definitions; and their maxims gave occasion to observe new and strange dependencies of ideas, and a seeming agreement of multitudes of them in the same thing, that I never observed before.
[18]. Words. We are used to apply the same words a hundred different ways; and ideas being so much tied and associated with the words, they lead us into a thousand real mistakes. For where we find
-- 346 --that the words may be connected, the ideas being by custom tied with them, we think that the ideas may be connected likewise, and applied everywhere and in every way as the words.
[19]. Sensation. Self-evidence.5 Things that we know by immediate sensation, we know intuitively, and they are properly self-evident truths: as, grass is green, the sun shines, honey is sweet. When we say that grass is green, all that we can be supposed to mean by it is, that in a constant course, when we see grass, the idea of green is excited with6 it; and this we know self-evidently.
[20].Inspiration.7 The evidence of immediate inspiration that the prophets had when they were immediately inspired by the Spirit of God with any truth is an absolute sort of certainty; and the knowledge is in a sense intuitive, much in the same manner as faith and spiritual knowledge of the truth of religion. Such bright ideas are raised, and such a clear view of a perfect agreement with the excellencies of the divine nature, that it's known to be a communication from him. All the Deity appears in the thing, and in everything pertaining to it. The prophet has so divine a sense, such a divine disposition, such a divine pleasure, and sees so divine an excellency and so divine a power in what is revealed, that he sees as immediately that God is there as we perceive one another's presence when we are talking together face to face. And our features, our voice and our shapes are not so clear manifestations of us, as those spiritual resemblances of God that are in the inspiration are manifestations of him. But yet there are doubtless various degrees in inspiration.
[21(a)]. Matter. Thought.8 It has been a question with some,9 whether or no it was not possible with God, to the other properties or powers of matter to add that of thought; whether he could not, if he had pleased, have added thinking and the power of perception to those
-- 347 --other properties of solidity, mobility and gravitation. The question is not here, whether the matter that now is, without the addition of any new primary property, could not be so contrived and modeled, so attenuated, wrought and moved, as to produce thought; but whether any lump of matter, a solid atom for instance, is not capable of receiving by the almighty power of God, in addition to the rest of its powers, a new power of thought.
Here, if the question be, whether or no God cannot cause the faculty of thinking to be so added to any parcel of matter so as to be in the same place (if thought can be in place), and that inseparably, where that matter is, so that by a fixed law that thought should be where that matter is and only there, being always bound to solid extension, mobility and gravity; I do not deny it. But that seems to me quite a different thing from the question whether matter can think, or whether God can make matter think, and is not worth the disputing. For if thought be in the same place where matter is, yet, if there be no manner of communication or dependence between that and anything that is material, that is, any of that collection of properties that we call matter; if none of those properties of solidity, extension, etc., wherein materiality consists, which are matter, or at least whereby matter is matter, have any manner of influence towards the exerting of thought; and if that thought be no way dependent on solidity or mobility, and they no way help the matter, but thought could be as well without those properties: then thought is not properly in matter, though it be in the same place.
All the properties that are properly said to be in matter depend on the other properties of matter, so that they cannot be without them. Thus figure is in matter—it depends on solidity and extension; and so doth motion; so doth gravity. And extension itself depends on solidity, in that it is the extension of the solidity; and solidity on extension, for nothing can be solid except it be extended. These ideas have a dependence on one another. But there is no manner of connection between the ideas of perception and solidity, or motion, or gravity. They are simple ideas, of which we can have a perfect view; and we know there is no dependence, nor can there be any dependence, for the ideas in their own nature are independent and alien, one to another. All the others either include the rest or are included in them; and, except the property of thought be included in the properties of matter, I think it cannot properly be said that matter has thought: or, if it can, I see not a possibility of matter in any other sense having thought.
-- 348 --If thought's being so fixed to matter as to be in the same place where matter is, be for thought to be in matter, thought not only can be in matter, but actually is, as much as thought can be in place. It is so connected with the bodies of men, or at least with some parts of their bodies, and will be forever after the resurrection.
[21(b)]. The Will. It is not that which appears the greatest good, or the greatest apparent good, that determines the will. It is not the greatest good apprehended, or that which is apprehended to be the greatest good, but the greatest apprehension of good. It is not merely by judging that anything is a great good that good is apprehended or appears; there are other ways of apprehending good. The having a clear and sensible idea of any good is one way of good's appearing, as well as judging that there is good. Therefore all these things are to be considered: the degree of the judgment by which a thing is judged to be good, and the contrary evil; the degree of goodness under which it appears, and the evil of the contrary; and the clearness of the idea and strength of the conception of the goodness, and of the evil. And that good of which there is the greatest apprehension or sense, all these things being taken together, is chosen by the will. And if there be a greater apprehension of good to be obtained or evil to be escaped by doing a thing than in letting it alone, the will determines to the doing it. The mind will be, for the present, most uneasy in neglecting it; and the mind always avoids that in which it would be, for the present, most uneasy. The degree of apprehension of good, which I suppose to determine the will, is composed of the degree of good apprehended, and the degree of apprehension. The degree of apprehension, again, is composed of the strength of the conception, and the judgment.
[22]. Prejudice. Those ideas which do not pertain to the prime essence of things, such as all colors that are everywhere objected to our eyes, and sounds that are continually in our ears, those that affect the touch as cold and heats, and all our sensations, exceedingly clog the mind in searching into the innermost nature of things, and cast such a mist over things that there is need of a sharp sight to see clearly through. For these will be continually in the mind and associated with other ideas, let us be thinking of what we will, and it is a continual care and pains to keep clear of their entanglements in our scrutinies into things. This is one way whereby the body and the senses [obscure]1
-- 349 --the views of the mind. The world seems so differently to our eyes, to our ears and other senses, from the idea we have of it by reason, that we can hardly realize the latter.
[23]. The reason why the names of spiritual things are all, or most of them, derived from the names of sensible or corporeal ones, as "imagination," "conception," "apprehend," etc., is because there was no other way of making others readily understand men's meaning when they first signified these things by sounds, than by giving of them the names of things sensible to which they had an analogy. They could thus point it out with the finger, and so explain themselves as in sensible things.
[24]. There is really a difference that the mind makes in the consideration of an universal, absolutely considered, and a species. There is a difference in the two ideas when we say "man," including simply the abstract idea, and when we say "the human sort of living creature." There is reference had to an idea more abstract, and [here]2 is this act of the mind in distributing an universal into species. It ties this abstract idea to two or more less abstract ideas, and supposes it limited by them.
It is not every property that belongs to all the particulars included in and proper to a genus, and that men generally see to be so, that is a part of that complex abstract idea that represents all the particulars, or that is a part of that nominal essence. But so much is essential which, if men should see anything less, they would not call it by the name by which they call the genus. This indeed is uncertain, because men never agreed upon fixing exact bounds.
[25(a)].3 A part is one of those many ideas which we are wont to think of together; a whole is an idea containing many of these.4
[25(b)]. The distribution of the objects of our thoughts into substances
-- 350 --and modes may be proper, if by substance we understand a complexion of such ideas which we conceive of as subsisting together and by themselves; and by modes, those simple ideas which cannot be by themselves, or subsist in our mind alone.5
