of the question; your words are," these things then being out of the question."

Out of what question, I beseech you, my lord? The question here, and that of your own proposing to be defended in the affirmative is this, "whether those who offer at clear and distinct ideas bid much fairer for certainty than I do?" And how certainty by sense, by reason, and by remembrance comes to have any particular exception in reference to this question, it is my misfortune not to be able to find.

But your lordship, leaving the examination of the question under debate, by a new state of the question, would pin upon me what I never said. Your words are, "these things then being put out of the question, which belong not to it; the question truly stated is, whether we can attain to any certainty of knowledge as to the truth of a proposition in the way of ideas, where the ideas themselves, by which we came to that certainty, be not clear and distinct." With submission, my lord, that which I say in the point is, that we may be certain of the truth of a proposition concerning an idea which is not in all its parts clear and distinct; and therefore if your lordship will have any question with me concerning this matter, "the question truly stated is, whether we can frame any proposition concerning a thing whereof we have but an obscure and confused idea, of whose truth we can be certain ?"

That this is the question, you will easily agree, when you will give yourself the trouble to look back to the rise of it.

Your lordship having found out a strange sort of men, who had broached " a doctrine which supposed that we must have clear and distinct ideas of whatever we pretend to a certainty of in our minds," was pleased for this to call them "the gentlemen of a new way of reasoning," and to make me one of them. I answered, that I placed not certainty only in clear and distinct ideas, and so ought not have been made one of them, being not guilty of what made "a gentleman of this new way of reasoning." It is pretended still, that I am guilty; and endeavoured to be proved. To

know now whether I am or no, it must be considered what you lay to their charge, as the consequence of that opinion; and that is, that upon this ground "we cannot come to any certainty that there is such a thing as substance." This appears by more places than one. Your lordship asks, "how is it possible that we may be certain that there are both bodily and spiritual substances, if our reason depend upon clear and distinct ideas?" And again, "how come we to be certain that there are spiritual substances in the world, since we can have no clear and distinct ideas concerning them?" And your lordship having set down some words out of my book, as if they were inconsistent with my principle of certainty founded only in clear and distinct ideas, you say, "from whence it follows that we may be certain of the being of a spiritual substance, though we have no clear and distinct ideas of it."

Other places might be produced, but these are enough to show, that those who held clear and distinct ideas necessary to certainty, were accused to extend it thus far, that where any idea was obscure and confused, there no proposition could be made concerning it, of whose truth we could be certain; v. g. we could not be certain that there was in the world such a thing as substance, because we had but an obscure and confused idea of it.

In this sense therefore I denied that clear and distinct ideas were necessary to certainty, v. g. I denied it to be my doctrine, that where an idea was obscure and confused, there no proposition could be made concerning it, of whose truth we could be certain. For I held we might be certain of the truth of this proposition, that there was substance in the world, though we have but an obscure and confused idea of substance: and your lordship endeavoured to prove we could not, as may be seen at large in that 10th chapter of your Vindication, &c.

From all which, it is evident, that the question between us truly stated is this, whether we can attain certainty of the truth of a proposition concerning any thing whereof we have but an obscure and confused idea?

This being the question, the first thing you say is, that Des Cartes was of your opinion against me. Ans. If the question were to be decided by authority, I had rather it should be by your lordship's than Des Cartes's: and therefore I should excuse myself to you, as not having needed, that you should have added his authority to yours, to shame me into a submission; or that you should have been at the pains to have transcribed so much out of him, for my sake, were it fit for me to hinder the display of the riches of your lordship's universal reading; wherein I doubt not but I should take pleasure myself, if I had it to show.

I come therefore to what I think your lordship principally aimed at; which, as I humbly conceive, was to show out of my book, that I founded certainty only on clear and distinct ideas. "And yet," as you say, “I have complained of your lordship in near twenty places of my second letter, charging this upon me. By this the world will judge of the justice of my complaints, and the consistency of my notion of ideas."

"

Answ. What consistency of my notion of ideas" has to do here, I know not; for I do not remember that I made any complaint concerning that. But supposing my complaints were ill-grounded in this one case concerning certainty, yet they might be reasonable in other points; and therefore, with submission, I humbly conceive the inference was a little too large, to conclude from this particular against my complaint in general.

In the next place I answer, that supposing the places which your lordship brings out of my book did' book did prove what they do not, viz. that I founded certainty only in clear and distinct ideas, yet my complaints in the case are very just. For your lordship at first brought me into the controversy, and made me one of " the gentlemen of the new way of reasoning," for founding all certainty on clear and distinct ideas, only upon a bare supposition that I did so; which I think your lordship confesses in these words, where you say, "that you do not deny but the first occasion of your charge, was the supposition that clear and distinct ideas were

necessary in order to any certainty in our minds; and that the only way to attain this certainty, was the comparing these, i. e. clear and distinct ideas, together but to prove this, my words," your lordship says, "were produced, and my principles of certainty laid down, and none else." Answ. It is strange, that when my principles of certainty were laid down, this (if I held it) was not found among them. Having looked therefore, I do not find in that place, that any words or principles of mine were produced to prove that I held, that the only way to attain certainty was by comparing only clear and distinct ideas; so that all that then made me one of the gentlemen of the new way of reasoning, was only your supposing that I supposed that clear and distinct ideas are necessary to certainty. And therefore I had then, and have still, reason to complain, that your lordship brought me into this controversy upon so slight grounds, which I humbly conceive will always show it to have proceeded not so much from any thing you had then found in my book, as from a great willingness in your lordship at any rate to do it; and of this the passages which you have here now produced out of my Essay, are an evident proof.

For if your lordship had then known any thing that seemed so much to your purpose," when you produced, as you say, my words and my principles to prove," that I held clear and distinct ideas necessary to certainty; it cannot be believed that you would have omitted these passages, either then or in your answer to my first letter, and deferred them to this your answer to my second. These passages therefore now quoted here by your lordship, give me leave, my lord, to suppose have been by a new and diligent search found out, and are now at last brought "post factum" to give some colour to your way of proceeding with me; though these passages being, as I suppose, then unknown to you, they could not be the ground of making me one of those who place certainty only in clear and distinct ideas.

Let us come to the passages themselves, and see what help they afford you.

The first words you set down out of my Essay are these: "the mind not being certain of the truth of that it doth not evidently know." From these words, that which I infer in that place is, " that therefore the mind is bound in such cases to give up its assent to an unerring testimony." But your lordship from them infers here," therefore I make clear ideas necessary to certainty;" or therefore, by considering the immediate objects of the mind in thinking, we cannot be certain that substance (whereof we have an obscure and confused idea) doth exist. I shall leave your lordship to make good this consequence when you think fit, and proceed to the next passage you allege, which you say proves it more plainly. I believe it will be thought it should be proved more plainly, or else it will not be proved at all.

This plainer proof is out of B. iv. c. 4. § 8, in these words: "that which is requisite to make our knowledge certain, is the clearness of our ideas." Answ. The certainty here spoken of, is the certainty of general propositions in morality, and not of the particular existence of any thing; and therefore tends not at all to any such position as this, that we cannot be certain of the existence of any particular sort of being, though we have but an obscure and confused idea of it: though it doth affirm, that we cannot have any certain perception of the relations of general moral ideas (wherein consists the certainty of general moral propositions) any farther than those ideas are clear in our minds. And that this is so, I refer my reader to that chapter for satisfaction.

The third place produced by your lordship out of B. iv. c. 12. § 14, is, " for it being evident that our knowledge cannot exceed our ideas; where they are either imperfect, confused, or obscure, we cannot expect to have certain, perfect, or clear knowledge." To understand these words aright, we must see in what place they stand, and that is in a chapter of the im

* B. iv. c. 18. § S.