multitude of things so different and distinct; but may by their likeness or agreement, situation or other circumstances, come to be considered as one thing, and come under one name. Air, water, earth, and all the infinite variety of creatures make one universe; all individuals are united in one species, and all species under one genus; all substances, whether minds or bodies, come under one general name of being; and all the ideas and collection of thoughts as well as words in this book make one treatise of ontology. Note, in all these instances there is a real foundation for this mental union.

In many unions we have occasion to consider not only the terms which are the things united, but also the means or bond of union between these terms. In a nosegay the bond of union is a thread; in metals it is solder; in a heap of stones it is juxtaposition and gravitation; between friends the bond of union is love; between kindred it is birth; between master and servant it is contract, &c. But there are many things united where the bond of union is unknown, or must be resolved into the appointment of God. What is it unites the parts of matter in a hard body? What is it unites the flesh and spirit in man?

Union and composition may give occasion also to speak of abstraction, division, dissolution, separation, &c. which stand in opposition to union.

CHAP. VI. Of Act and Power, Action and Passion, Necessity and Liberty.

THE next absolute affections of being, are act and power; though it may be a little doubtful whether there is not enough of relation between these two ideas to throw them into the rank of relative affections. Each of these viz. act and power may be distinguished three ways:

1. As actual being or existence is distinguished from potential, or a power to be; So a book already written differs from a book which may be written, or that is merely possible.

2. As actual doing or action is distinguished from a power to do: So the actual putting bodies in motion differs from motivity or a power to move them: So the acts of thinking in spirits have some sort of difference from the thinking power.

3. As actual suffering or passion is distinguished from a power to suffer: So actual division in matter differs from mere divisibility; or the actual motion of a body is different from mobility or a power to be moved.

Here we treat of action which is the exercise of a power to do, and passion which is the exercise of a power to suffer. Note, passion and suffering in this philosophical sense signifies only receiving the act of the agent or doer by the patient or sufferer. When hailstones smite upon a rock, the hailstones are the agents, the rock is the patient; it is no matter whether any VOL. VIII.

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impression be made or no; or when a child honours his father, the father is the patient in a philosopical sense, and the child the agent.

Here it is proper to introduce all the needful distinctions of action. (1.) It is immanent or transient. (2.) It is natural, supernatural, voluntary, or accidental. (3.) It is necessary

or free.

1. Immanent action has no different patient but continues in the agent; so a man forms ideas, or he loves himself. Transient action passes over to some other object as a patient: So a man draws a picture on a canvas: So a father loves his son, and

feeds or clothes him.

2. Natural action; so the fire hardens clay. Supernatural action; so Elisha made iron swim by casting a stick into the water. Voluntary action; so the potter moulds his clay into a vessel. Accidental action; so a servant heedlessly throws down a glass and breaks it.

3. Necessary action; so the sun warms the earth; free action; so man chuses what food he likes and eats it when he pleases.

Note, Necessary agents act always, and that to the utmost of their power, i. e. when things requisite to their agency are present: But free agents act what, and when, and as far as they will.

Perhaps the doctrine of liberty and necessity might be here properly inserted. We have already spoken of necessity of existence as it is opposed to contingency: Here necessity of action stands rather distinguished from freedom or liberty, yet is not universally and utterly inconsistent with it, as will appear in what follows.

Necessity has been before distinguished into natural, moral, and logical. See chap. iii. Natural necessity is either interna! or external. Internal necessity is that which arises from the very nature of the thing itself, so a sensible being seeks its own preservation, a fish avoids dry land, and a fox the water, and lead sinks in the sea: That necessity is external which arises from some outward force of restraint or constraint; so lead is upheld on the surface of the water; so a fox is driven into the sea, or a fish drawn in a net to land, and so a man is constrained to wound himself. This is sometimes called a forcible necessity.

Liberty is applied to the will, or to the inferior and executive powers. The will is always free in its choice of what it likes: The lower powers are not always free to act or do what the will chuses. A man close fettered cannot walk, nor can he fight when his hands are tied, though he may will or chuse to do it. On this account freedom is better described by chusing than by acting.

Again, Liberty of the will is always a liberty of spontaneity or voluntariness, without considering whether it can do otherwise or not: So when an intelligent being wills and pursues its own supposed satisfaction or happiness, this being is called free herein, though this action be necessary, and it cannot do otherwise.The liberty of the will is sometimes a liberty of choice and indifference, a freedom or power to chuse or not to chuse among two or more things proposed: So a man chuses to speak or to be silent. This freedom is inconsistent with necessity; and this is called by many writers liberty in the most proper sense; and perhaps it had not been amiss if the term liberty had been always confined to this sense only, but mankind have not always done so.

There may be also an absolute or perfect freedom, as when a hungry man wills to go to dinner; or a comparative freedom, when a sick man wills or consents to take some nauseous physic rather than continue in pain. Let this suffice for the distinction of free and necessary actions. See something more relating to this subject in the chap. of cause and effect.

Some philosophers suppose nothing worthy of the name of agent or action but the will and its exercises; and they call all other beings and their powers and operations merely passive; but this perhaps is too great a violence offered to the common sense of words, though there may be some appearance of reason for it in the nature of things.

Having spoken particularly of act and action; let us now say something more of power. We may distinguish several powers with the degrees and kinds of them. First, disposition, which is an imperfect power of performing any thing, and but the lowest degree: Next to this is mere ability to perform, i. e. with difficulty and care; and then a strong habit, i. e. to perform with ease and certainty.

Among powers, some are merely corporeal and inanimate, as the power of the sun to melt snow, and to draw up vapour : Some are vegetative, as nourishment, growth: Some are animal powers, as eating, swallowing, digesting, moving, walking, sleeping, &c. Some are spiritual, as meditating, reasoning, reflecting, chusing, refusing, &c. Some are human, arising from the union of mind and body, as sensation, imagination, language. Of the passions of man and what sort of powers they are, see the Doctrine of the Passions explained and improved. Edit. 2d, 1732:

Again, Of powers some are natural, as a man's power to form a voice: some acquired, as music, ploughing, language, learned by degrees; and some are infused, as the power of the apostles to speak many languages. Powers acquired by exercise are most properly called habits. All powers of natural action in animals or artificial in men, are called faculties, as a power

of walking, dancing, singing; in inanimate beings they are principles. Powers of moral action are called also principles or habits, as temperance, justice.

Note 1. Though we can draw no inferences from the power to the act, or that any thing is because it can be; yet inferences may be justly drawn from the act to the power, or that such a thing can be because it is.

2. Whatsoever power the agent has to act, yet the action can be received by the patient no further than the power of the patient reaches. This is exprest in scholastic language, quicquid recipitur, recipitur ad modam recipientis. A gallon may pour out its liquor into a pint bottle, but the bottle can receive but a pint: And if the neck be narrow it can receive liquor but slowly how fast soever the larger vessel may pour it. A tutor may teach a child all the rules of reading in a day, but a child cannot learn them in a month.

3. Neither the power of creatures nor of God himself extends to things which are inconsistent in nature and self-contradictory: What his infinite wisdom cannot join, his power cannot produce. Nor does this impossibility in things argue any impotence in the blessed God. Yet let it be observed, that it is a much more modest way of speaking generally, to say such things cannot be done, than that God cannot do them.

CHAP. VII-Of relative Affections or Relations.

A RELATIVE affection is the same with a relation: This arises from the respect that one thing bears to some other thing or things in the universe, or to some part or parts, property or properties of itself. The same relation is not confined to two things, but it may belong to many. Paternity, and sonship, greatness, and smallness, are relative ideas; and so are a part and a whole; a king and his subjects; beginning, middle, and end.

In relations we consider first the subject of them, that is the thing of which we are speaking; this is called the relate; and then the term to which this thing is related, which is called the correlate. So if we speak of a father, that is the subject of the relation; and the term or correlate is the son; but if we are first speaking of the son, then the son is the relate or subject of the relation, and the father is the term or correlate.

Some relations arise from the mere existence of the two beings, so the likeness of two eggs. Others require a foundation of the relation distinct from the mere existence of the relate and correlate; as in master and scholar, instruction is the foundation; in buyer and seller, the foundation is compact.

Relations are of several kinds.

1. They are natural or moral, accidental or voluntary. Natural relations are between root and branches, father and chil dren, kindred by birth, &c. Moral are those relations which

the actions of men bear to a law, and thus they are good or evil, rewardable or punishable; this law is either human or divine, &c. Accidental relations are between several persons happening to become neighbours, or between a company of soldiers drawn out by lot, or between flowers springing up from the same bed of earth. Relations are instituted and voluntary, i. e. freely chosen, as between husband and wife, or two or three friends, &c. Sometimes they are chosen or voluntary only on one side, as a carter chuses what horses shall make up his team, or a man what house he will inhabit.

2. Relations may be termed reciprocal or not reciprocal. Reciprocal relations are partners, cousins, neighbours, balances, &c. Relations not-reciprocal are cause and effect, father and son, uncle and nephew, king and subjects. The first indeed are more usually called synonymous relatives, or of the same name; the others we call heteronymous or of a different name,

3. Relations are divided into real or mental; the real relations arise evidently from the nature of things. These are the whole and part, cause and effect, truth and goodness, &c. as before recited. Mental relations are made only by the mind; these will follow in their due order.

CHAP. VIII.-Of Truth, Goodness and Perfection.

LEST the metaphysicians should take it ill to have these two affections of being (viz.) truth and goodness so much postponed, let us name them in the first rank of relative affections or relations: For real truth and goodness are plainly ranked among relative, ideas, as they consist in a conformity to some things as their rule and standard. And first let us discourse of truth.

There are various senses wherein the term truth is used. 1. A being is said to be true in a metaphysical sense, when it is agreeable to the divine idea, which is the grand pattern of all created beings. 2. Things may be said to have a physical or natural truth, as, that is true gold which has all the necessary properties which are usually united in the idea signified by that word. 3. Some things are called true in representation, as when a picture well represents the original, or when an idea in our minds is really conformable to the object of it. 4. Things are said to be true in signification when the thing signified answers the sign; as when the proper words are used which commonly signify such an idea. 5. There is also logical truth when the proposition or assertion is conformable to things. And indeed this I think is the most common sense wherein this word is used. The propositions themselves are frequently called truths. Some of these are called probable, some improbable, some certain, i. e. according to our knowledge of them. Again, some truths are necessary, such as there is a God, the whole is