provement of our knowledge, and therein are brought as a reason to show how necessary it is, "for the enlarging of our knowledge, to get and settle in our minds, as far as we can, clear, distinct, and constant ideas of those things we would consider and know." The reason whereof there given, is this: that as far as they are either imperfect, confused, or obscure, we cannot expect to have certain, perfect, or clear knowledge; i. e. that our knowlege will not be clear and certain so far as the idea is imperfect and obscure. Which will not at all reach your lordship's purpose, who would argue, that because I say our idea of substance is obscure and confused, therefore, upon my grounds, we cannot know that such a thing as substance exists; because I placed certainty only in clear and distinct ideas. Now to this I answered, that I did not place all certainty only on clear and distinct ideas, in such a sense as that; and therefore, to avoid being mistaken, I said, " that my notion of certainty by ideas is, that certainty consists in the perception of the agreement or disagreement of ideas; such as we have, whether they be in all their parts perfectly clear and distinct or no :" viz. if they are clear and distinct enough to be capable of having their agreement or disagreement with any other idea perceived, so far they are capable of affording us knowledge, though at the same time they are so obscure and confused, as thatthere are other ideas, with which we can by no means so compare them, as to perceive their agreement or disagreement with them. This was the clearness and distinctness which I denied to be necessary to certainty.

If your lordship would have done me the honour to have considered what I understood by obscure and confused ideas, and what every one must understand by them, who thinks clearly and distinctly concerning them, I am apt to imagine you would have spared yourself the trouble of raising this question, and omitted these quotations out of my book, as not serving to your lordship's purpose.

The fourth passage, which you seem to lay most stress on, proves as little to your purpose as either of the

former three: the words are these; " but obscure and confused ideas can never produce any clear and certain knowledge, because as far as any ideas are confused or obscure, the mind can never perceive clearly whether they agree or no." The latter part of these words are a plain interpretation of the former, and show their meaning to be this, viz. our obscure and confused ideas, as they stand in contradistinction to clear and distinct, have all of them something in them, whereby they are kept from being wholly imperceptible and perfectly confounded with all other ideas, and so their agreement or disagreement, with at least some other ideas, may be perceived, and thereby produce certainty, though they are obscure and confused ideas. But so far as they are obscure and confused, so that their agreement or disagreement cannot be perceived, so far they cannot produce certainty; v. g. the idea of substance is clear and distinct enough to have its agreement with that of actual existence perceived: but yet it is so far obscure and confused, that there be a great many other ideas, with which, by reason of its obscurity and confusedness, we cannot compare it so as to produce such a perception; and in all those cases we necessarily come short of certainty. And that this was so, and that I meant so, I humbly conceive you could not but have seen, if you had given yourself the trouble to reflect on that passage which you quoted, viz. "that certainty consists in the perception of the agreement or disagreement of ideas, such as we have, whether they be in all their parts perfectly clear and distinct or no." To which, what your lordship has here brought out of the second book of my Essay, is no manner of contradiction; unless it be a contradiction to say, that an idea, which cannot be well compared with some ideas, from which it is not clearly and sufficiently distinguishable, is yet capable of having its agreement or disagreement perceived with some other idea, with which it is not so confounded, but that it may be compared: and therefore I had, and have still reason to complain of your lordship, for charging that upon me, which I never said nor meant.

VOL. IV.

R

To make this yet more visible, give me leave to make use of an instance in the object of the eyes in seeing, from whence the metaphor of obscure and confused is transferred to ideas, the objects of the mind in thinking. There is no object which the eye sees, that can be said to be perfectly obscure, for then it would not be seen at all; nor perfectly confused, for then it could not be distinguished from any other, no not from a clearer. For example, one sees in the dusk something of that shape and size, that a man in that degree of light and distance would appear. This is not so obscure, that he sees nothing; nor so confused, that he cannot distinguish it from a steeple or a star; but is so obscure, that he cannot, though it be a statue, distinguish it from a man; and therefore, in regard of a man, it can produce no clear and distinct knowledge: but yet as obscure and confused an idea as it is, this hinders not but that there may many propositions be made concerning it, as particularly that it exists, of the truth of which we may be certain. And that without any contradiction to what I say in my Essay, viz. " that obscure and confused ideas can never produce any clear and certain knowledge; because as far as they are confused or obscure, the mind cannot perceive clearly whether they agree or no." This reason that I there give plainly limiting it only to knowledge, where the obscurity and confusion is such, that it hinders the perception of agreement or disagreement, which is not so great in any obscure and confused idea, but that there are some other ideas, with which it may be perceived to agree or disagree, and there it is capable to produce certainty in us.

And thus I am come to the end of your defence of your first answer, as you call it, and desire the reader to consider how much, in the eight pages employed in it, is said to defend this proposition, "that those who offer at clear and distinct ideas, bid much fairer for certainty than I do?"

But your lordship having, under this head, taken occasion to examine my making clear and distinct ideas necessary to certainty, I crave leave to consider here what you say of it in another place. I find one argu

ment more to prove, that I place certainty only in clear and distinct ideas. Your lordship tells me, and bids me observe my own words, that I positively say, "that the mind not being certain of the truth of that it doth not evidently know: so that," says your lordship, "it is plain here, that I place certainty in evident knowledge, or in clear and distinct ideas, and yet my great complaint of your lordship was, that you charged this upon me, and now you find it in my own words." Answer. I do observe my own words, but do not find in them "or in clear and distinct ideas," though your lordship has set these down as my words. I there indeed say, " the mind is not certain of what it does not evidently know." Whereby I place certainty, as your lordship says, only in evident knowledge; but evident knowledge may be had in the clear and evident perception of the agreement or disagreement of ideas, though some of them should not be in all their parts perfectly clear and distinct, as is evident in this proposition, " that substance does exist.”

But you give not off this matter so: for these words of mine above quoted by your lordship, viz. " it being evident that our knowledge cannot exceed our ideas, where they are imperfect, confused, or obscure, we cannot expect to have certain, perfect, or clear knowledge;" your lordship has here up again: and thereupon charge it on me as a contradiction, that confessing our ideas to be imperfect, confused, and obscure, I say I do not yet place certainty in clear and distinct ideas. Answer. The reason is plain, for I do not say that all our ideas are imperfect, confused, and obscure; nor that obscure and confused ideas are in all their parts so obscure and confused, that no agreement or disagreement between them and any other idea can be perceived; and therefore my confession of imperfect, obscure, and confused ideas takes not away all knowledge, even concerning those very ideas.

But, says your lordship, " can certainty be had with imperfect and obscure ideas, and yet no certainty be had by them?" Add if you please, my lord [by those

parts of them which are obscure and confused]: and then the question will be right put, and have this easy answer: Yes, my lord; and that without any contradiction, because an idea that is not in all its parts perfectly clear and distinct, and is therefore an obscure and confused idea, may yet with those ideas, with which, by any obscurity it has, it is not confounded, be capable to produce knowledge by the perception of its agreement or disagreement with them. And yet it will hold true, that in that part wherein it is imperfect, obscure, and confused, we cannot expect to have certain, perfect, or clear knowledge.

For example: he that has the idea of a leopard, as only of a spotted animal, must be confessed to have but a very imperfect, obscure, and confused idea of that species of animals; and yet this obscure and confused idea is capable by a perception of the agreement or disagreement of the clear part of it, viz. that of animal, with several other ideas, to produce certainty: though as far as the obscure part of it confounds it with the idea of a lynx, or other spotted animal, it can, joined with them, in many propositions, produce no knowledge.

This might easily be understood to be my meaning by these words, which your lordship quotes out of my Essay, viz. "that our knowledge consisting in the perception of the agreement or disagreement of any two ideas, its clearness or obscurity consists in the clearness or obscurity of that perception, and not in the clearness or obscurity of the ideas themselves." Upon which your lordship asks, "how is it possible for the mind to have a clear perception of the agreement of ideas, if the ideas themselves be not clear and distinct?" Answer. Just as the eyes can have a clear perception of the agreement or disagreement of the clear and distinct parts of a writing, with the clear parts of another, though one, or both of them, be so obscure and blurred in other parts, that the eye cannot perceive any agreement or disagreement they have one with another. And I am sorry that these words of