Appendix - CHAPTER 1 SECTION II OF THE IDEA OF SPIRITS

CHAPTER 1 SECTION II OF THE IDEA OF SPIRITS When we observe such effects among material things, as we know cannot proceed from any inherent power in them, we necessarily infer, There are some other beings not material which have the power of producing those effects: though as these beings are imperceptible to our senses, we have no idea of them.

It has been said indeed, that we have as clear an idea of SPIRIT, as we have of BODY; and to prove this, it is said farther, that we conceive THINKING, as clearly as we do EXTENSION. But what if we did A pure spirit, if we speak strictly, does not THINK at all. Thinking is the property of an EMBODIED SPIRIT, as requiring the concurrence of material organs, and being accordingly ever performed more or less to advantage, as these are better or worse disposed. They are soon relaxed by the labour of thought and attention, and must be constantly wound up anew by rest and sleep. A distemper puts the whole machine out of frame, and turns our sober thinking into madness, And if the vessels of the brain are entirely obstructed, as in an appplexy, we think not at all. How then can we imagine that a pure spirit THINKS It KNOWS indeed ; but we cannot tell how: to be sure, not by playing upon a set of material springs, exquisitely wrought up into a curious contexture for that purpose.

It is because we have no idea of a spirit, that we are naturally led to express it by a negative; to call it an immaterial substance, or something that is not matter; something that is not any thing that we know; which forces us to conceive and express it in this imperfect manner.

Yet it has been affirmed farther, that we have as clear an idea of God himself, as we have of man; and that we are as ignorant of the essence of a man, as we are of the essence of God. Do we not then know, that it is essential to man to be finite And have we not a distinct idea of Finiteness But who has any idea of Infinity, the essential attribute of God ‘Tis plain, we have not; and therefore we express it by a negative, “Without bound.”

Properly speaking, we have no idea of God. We come to our knowledge of his very existence, not from any idea of him, but from our reasoning, upon the works of the visible creation. And hence, for want of a simple and direct idea, we form an indirect and very complex notion of him. This we do in the best manner we can, by removing from him all the imperfections of the creatures, and attributing to him all their perfections, especially those of our own minds. Yet in truth, even these cannot be supposed to be in God, as they are in us. And therefore we are said to ascribe them to him only in the ABSTRACT’: saying, in other words, that they are of a different species Creator, from what they are in the creature. .

Accordingly, that there are incomprehensible perfection in answerable to knowledge and power in man, whereof these are only the faint, though true resemblances, is natural and easy to But the conceiving his power as an ability to change things infinitely his knowledge as only infinite thinking: the multiplying and enlarging our own perfections in number or degree only, to the utmost stretch of our capacity, and attributing them so enlarged to God, is than raising up an unwieldy idol of our own imagination, without any foundation’ in nature. The sum is this. We have no idea of God, as he is in himself. for want of one, we frame the best conception we can, by putting together the perfections of the creatures, particularly those we observe in our selves, to stand for his perfections: not grossly inferring, That God is in effect, such an one as ourselves; but, concluding, that our greatest excellencies are the aptest representations of his incomprehensible perfections, I bough these infinitely transcend the most exalted of what are in any created beings, and are far above, out of the reach of alt human imagination. So true it is, that, though it may be justly affirmed, we can have no knowledge WITHOUT ideas, yet it is most unjust: and absurd to infer thence, that we can have no knowledge BEYOND them.