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a view to its MATTER, So here we have Ch. III, considered it with a view to its FORM. Its MATTER is recognized, when it is considered as a Voice; its FORM, as it is significant of our several Ideas; so that upon the whole it may be defined-A SYSTEM OF ARTICULATE VOICES, THE SYMBOLS OF OUR IDEAS, BUT OF THOSE PRINCIPALLY, WHICH ARE GENERAL · OR UNIVERSAL.

СНАР.

CHAP. IV.

Concerning general or universal Ideas.

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Ch. IV. MUCH having been said in the ceding Chapter about GENERAL OR UNIVERSAL IDEAS, it may not perhaps be amiss to inquire, by what process we come to perceive them, and what kind of Beings they are; since the generality of men think so meanly of their existence, that they are commonly considered, as little better than Shadows. These Sentiments are not unusual even with the Philosopher now a days, and that from causes much the same with those, which influence the Vulgar.

THE VULGAR merged in Sense from their earliest Infancy, and never once dreaming any thing to be worthy of pursuit, but what either pampers their Appetite, or fills their Purse, imagine

nothing

nothing to be real, but what may be Ch. IV. tasted, or touched. THE PHILOSOPHER, as to these matters being of much the same Opinion, in Philosophy looks no higher, than to experimental Amusements, deeming nothing Demonstration, if it be not made ocular. Thus instead of ascending from Sense to Intellect (the natural progress of all true Learning). he hurries on the contrary into the midst of Sense, where he wanders at random without any end, and is lost in a Labyrinth of infinite Particulars.Hence then the reason why the sublimer parts of Science, the Studies of MIND, INTELLECTION, and INTELLIGENT PRINCIPLES, are in a manner neglected; and, as if the Criterion of all Truth were an Alembic or an Airpump, what cannot be proved by Experiment, is deemed no better than mere Hypothesis.

AND yet it is somewhat remarkable, amid the prevalence of such Notions,

Ch. IV. that there should still remain two Sciences in fashion, and these having their Certainty of all the least controverted, which are not in the minutest article depending upon Experiment. these I mean ARITHMETIC, and GEOMETRY.) But to come to our Subject concerning GENERAL IDEAS.

By

MAN'S

(a) The many noble Theorems (so useful in life, and so admirable, in themselves) with which these two SCIENCES SO eminently abound, arise originally from PRIN CIPLES, THE MOST OBVIOUS IMAGINABLE; Principles, so little wanting the pomp and apparatus of EXPERIMENT, that they are self-evident to every one, possessed of common sense. I would not be understood, in what I have here said, or may have said elsewhere, to under value EXPERIMENT; whose importance and utility I freely acknowledge, in the many curious Nostrums and choice. Receipts, with which it has enriched the necessary Arts of Life. Nay, I go farther-I hold all justifiable Practice in every kind of Subject to be founded in EXPERIENCE, which is no more than the result of many repeated EXPERIMENTS. But I must add withal, that the man who acts from Experience alone, tho' he act ever so well, is but an Empiric or Quack, and that not only in Medicine, but in every other Subject. It is then only that we recognize ART, and that the EMPIRIC quits this name for

the

MAN'S FIRST PERCEPTIONS are Ch. IV.

those of the SENSES, in as much as they commence from his earliest Infancy. These Perceptions, if not infinite, are at least indefinite, and more fleeting and transient, than the very Objects, which they exhibit, because they not

only

SCIENCE, and is thence enabled to tell us, not only, WHAT is to be done, but wHY it is to be done; for ART is a composite of Experience and Science, Experience providing it Materials, and Science giving them A FORM.

In the mean time, while EXPERIMENT is thus necessary to all PRACTICAL WISDOM, with respect to PURE and SPECULATIVE SCIENCE, as we have hinted already, it has not the least to do. For who ever heard of Logic, or Geometry, or Arithmetic being proved experimentally? It is indeed by the application of these that Experiments are rendered useful; that they are assumed into Philosophy, and in some degree made a part of it, being otherwise nothing better than puerile amusements. But that these Sciences themselves should depend upon the Subjects, on which they work, is, as if the Marble were to fashion the Chizzle, and not the Chizzle the Marble. A a

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