true account of this matter, in a country very jealous of any usurpation upon the public authority.

"Multa renascentur, quæ jam cecidere, cadentque ;
Quæ nunc sunt in honore vocabula, si volet usus,
Quem penes arbitrium est et jus, et norma loquendi."

But yet whatever change is made in the signification or credit of any word by public use, this change has always its beginning in some private mint: so Horace tells us it was in the Roman language quite down to

his time:

Ego cur acquirere pauca,

Si possum, invideor; quum lingua Catonis et Ennî
Sermonem patrium ditaverit, et nova rerum
Nomina protulerit? Licuit, semperque licebit
Signatum præsente notâ procudere nomen."

Here we see Horace expressly says, that private mints of words were always licensed; and, with Horace, I humbly conceive so they will always continue, how utterly soever your lordship may be against them. And therefore he that offers to the public new milled words from his own private mint, is not always in that so bold an invader of the public authority as you would make him.

This I say not to excuse myself in the present case; for I deny, that I have at all changed the signification of the word certainty. And therefore, if you had pleased, you might, my lord, have spared your saying on this occasion, "that it seems our old words must not now pass in the current sense; and those persons assume too much authority to themselves, who will not suffer common words to pass in their general acceptation:" and other things to the same purpose in this paragraph, till you had proved that in strict propriety of speech it could be said, that a man was certain of that which he did not know, but only believed.

If you had had time, in the heat of dispute, to have made a little reflection on the use of the English word certainty in strict speaking, perhaps your lordship would not have been so forward to have made my using it, only for precise knowledge, so enormous an impropriety; at

least you would not have accused it of weakening the credibility of any article of faith.

It is true indeed, people commonly say, they are certain of what they barely believe, without doubting. But it is as true, that they as commonly say that they know it too. But nobody from thence concludes that believing is knowing. As little can they conclude from the like vulgar way of speaking, that believing is certainty. All that is meant thereby is no more but this, that the full assurance of their faith as steadily determines their assent to the embracing of that truth, as if they actually knew it.

But however such phrases as these are used to show the steadiness and assurance of their faith, who thus speak; yet they alter not the propriety of our language, which I think appropriates certainty only to knowledge, when in strict and philosophical discourse it is, upon that account, contradistinguished to faith; as in this case here your lordship knows it is: whereof there is an express evidence in my first letter, where I say, "that I speak of belief, and your lordship of certainty; and that I meant belief, and not certainty. And that I made not an improper, nor unjustifiable use of the word certainty, in contradistinguishing it thus to faith, I think I have an unquestionable authority, in the learned and cautious Dr. Cudworth, who so uses it: What essence, says he, is to generation, the same is certainty of truth, or knowledge, to faith." P. 14.

899

Your lordship says, "certainty is common to both knowledge and faith, unless I think it impossible to be certain upon any testimony whatsoever." I think it is possible to be certain upon the testimony of God (for that, I suppose, you mean) where I know that it is the testimony of God; because in such a case, that testimony is capable not only to make me believe, but, if I consider it right, to make me know the thing to be so; and so I may be certain. For the veracity of God is as capable of making me know a proposition to be true, as any other way of proof can be; and therefore I do not in such a case barely believe, but know such a proposition to be true, and attain certainty.

The sum of your accusation is drawn up thus: " that I have appropriated certainty to the perception of the agreement or disagreement of ideas in any proposition; and now I find this will not hold as to articles of faith; and therefore I will allow no certainty of faith; which you think is not for the advantage of my cause." The truth of the matter of fact is in short this, that I have placed knowledge in the perception of the agreement or disagreement of ideas. This definition of knowledge, your lordship said, "might be of dangerous consequence to that article of faith, which you have endeavoured to defend." This I denied, and gave this reason for it, viz. that a definition of knowledge, whether a good or bad, true or false definition, could not be of ill or any consequence to an article of faith: because a definition of knowledge, which was one act of the mind, did not at all concern faith, which was another act of the mind quite distinct from it. To this then, which was the proposition in question between us, your lordship, I humbly conceive, should have answered. But instead of that, your lordship, by the use of the word certainty in a sense that I used it not, (for you knew I used it only for knowledge) would represent me as having strange notions of faith. Whether this be for the advantage of your cause, your lordship will do well to consider.

Upon such an use of the word certainty in a different sense from what I used it in, the force of all your lordship says under your first head, contained in the two or three next paragraphs, depends, as I think; for I must own (pardon my dulness) that I do not clearly comprehend the force of what your lordship there says: and it will take up too many pages to examine it period by period. In short, therefore, I take your lordship's meaning to be this:

"That there are some articles of faith, viz. the fundamental principles of natural religion, which mankind may attain to a certainty in by reason, without revelation; which, because a man that proceeds upon my grounds cannot attain to a certainty in by reason, their credibility to him, when they are considered as

purely matters of faith, will be weakened." Those which your lordship instances in, are the being of a God, providence, and the rewards and punishments of a future state.

This is the way, as I humbly conceive, your lordship takes here to prove my grounds of certainty (for so you call my definition of knowledge) to be of dangerous consequence to the articles of faith.

To avoid ambiguity and confusion in the examining this argument of your lordship's, the best way, I humbly conceive, will be to lay by the term certainty; which your lordship and I using in different senses, is the less fit to make what we say to one another clearly understood; and instead thereof, to use the term knowledge, which with me, your lordship knows, is equivalent.

Your lordship's proposition then, as far as it has any opposition to me, is this, that if knowledge be supposed to consist in the perception of the agreement or disagreement of ideas, a man cannot attain to the knowledge that these propositions, viz. " that there is a God, a providence, and rewards and punishments in a future state, are true; and therefore the credibility of these articles, considered purely as matters of faith, will be weakened to him." Wherein there are these things to be proved by your lordship.

1. That upon my grounds of knowledge, i. e. upon a supposition that knowledge consists in the perception of the agreement or disagreement of ideas, we cannot attain to the knowledge of the truth of either of those propositions, viz. "that there is a God, providence, and rewards and punishments in a future state."

2. Your lordship is to prove, that the not knowing the truth of any proposition lessens the credibility of it; which, in short, amounts to this, that want of knowledge lessens faith in any proposition proposed. This is the proposition to be proved, if your lordship uses certainty in the sense I use it, i. e. for knowledge; in which only use of it will it here bear upon me.

But since I find your lordship, in these two or three paragraphs, to use the word certainty in so uncertain a sense, as sometimes to signify knowledge by it, and

sometimes believing in general, i. e. any degree of believing; give me leave to add, that if your lordship means by these words, "let us suppose a person by natural reason to attain to a certainty as to the being of a God, i. e. attain to a belief that there is a God, &c. or the soul's immortality:" I say, if you take certainty in such a sense, then it will be incumbent upon your lordship to prove, that if a man finds the natural reason whereupon he entertained the belief of a God, or of the immortality of the soul, uncertain, that will weaken the credibility of those fundamental articles, as matters of faith: or, which is in effect the same, that the weakness of the credibility of any article of faith from reason, weakens the credibility of it from revelation. For it is this which these following words of yours import: "for before, there was a natural credibility in them on the account of reason; but by going on wrong grounds of certainty, all that is lost."

To prove the first of these propositions, viz. that upon the supposition that knowledge consists in the perception of the agreement or disagreement of ideas, we cannot attain to the knowledge of the truth of this proposition that there is a Cod; your lordship argues, that Í have said, “that no idea proves the existence of the thing without itself:" which argument reduced to form, will stand thus; if it be true, as I say, that no idea proves the existence of the thing without itself, then upon the supposition that knowledge consists in the perception of the agreement or disagreement of ideas, we cannot attain to the knowledge of the truth of this proposition," that there is a God:" which argument so manifestly proves not, that there needs no more to be said to it, than to desire that consequence to be proved.

Again, as to the immortality of the soul, your lordship urges, that I have said, that I cannot know but that matter may think; therefore upon my ground of knowledge, i. e. upon a supposition that knowledge consists in the perception of the agreement or disagreement of ideas, there is an end of the soul's immortality. This consequence I must also desire your lordship to prove. Only I crave leave by the by to point out some things