ever from sense they seem. I shall begin with the most comprehensive, wherein all things are concerned, and that is the relation of cause and effect.

CHAPTER XXVI,

Of Cause and Effect, and other Relations.

In our notice of things, we cannot but observe that several, both qualities and substances, begin to exist; and that they receive this existence from the operation of some other being. That which produces we call cause, and that which is produced effect. Thus, finding in wax fluidity produced by the application of heat, we call heat the cause, and fluidity the effect. So also finding wood, by the application of fire, turned into a substance called ashes, i. e. a collection of simple ideas, quite different from the complex idea we call wood; we consider fire the cause, and ashes the effect.

Having thus got the notion of cause and effect, viz. that cause is that which makes any other thing begin to be, and effect is that which had its beginning from some other thing; we easily distinguish the originals of things into two sorts.

1. When the thing is wholly new, so that no part of it existed before, this we call creation.

2. When a thing is made up of particles which existed before, but that thing so constituted had not any existence before, as this man, this egg, rose, cherry, &c. this, when referred to a substance produced in the ordinary course of nature, by an internal principle working by insensible ways, we call generation : when the cause is extrinsical, and the effect produced by a sensible separation or juxtaposition of discernible parts, we call it making: when a simple idea is produced which was not in the subject before, we call it alteration. Thus a man is generated, a picture is

made, and either of them altered, when any new idea is produced in either of them which was not there before. In which cases we may observe that the notion of cause and effect has its rise from ideas received by sensation and reflection.

Time and place are foundations of large relations; but having already shown how we get these ideas, it may suffice to intimate that most of the denominations of things received from time are only relations. When it is said that Queen Elizabeth reigned 45 years, it is meant that the duration of her government was equal to 45 annual revolutions of the sun.

There are other words of time thought to stand for positive ideas, which, when considered, will be found to be relative, such as young, old, &c. which intimate the relation any thing has to a certain length of duration. Thus, considering the ordinary duration of man to be 70 years, we say a man is young when his age is but a small part of that: it is but comparing the particular duration of this or that man with the idea of the duration ordinarily belonging to man; which is evident from the application of these names to other animals; for a man is young at 20, and a horse is old at 20: but the sun and stars we call not old, because we know not the period God hath set to that sort of beings.

For ha

The relation that things have to one another in place is very obvious, as above, below, &c. But as in duration, so in extension, some ideas are relative, which we signify by names that are thought positive, as 'great' and 'little' are truly relations. ving settled in our minds the ideas of the bigness of several species of things, we make that the standard; so that will be a great horse to a Welshman which is but a little one to a Fleming; they having been accustomed to different breeds, in relation to which they denominate their great and little.

So likewise weak and strong are relative denomina

tions of power. By By a weak man we mean one who has not so much power as men usually have. When we say the creatures are weak things, we signify the disproportion there is in the power of God and the creatures. So abundance of words in ordinary speech stand only for relations, which at first sight seem to have no such signification: v. g. The ship has necessary stores. These are relative words; one having relation to the voyage intended, and the other to future use. All which relations are derived from sen

sation and reflection.

CHAPTER XXVII.

Of Identity and Diversity.

Another occasion the mind takes of comparing is, when, considering any thing as existing at any time and place, we compare it with itself existing at another time, and thence form the ideas of identity and diversity. When we see any thing in any place at any instant of time, we are sure that it is that very thing, and not another: and in this consists identity, when the ideas it is attributed to vary not from what they were that moment, wherein we consider their former existence, and to which we compare the present: for, not conceiving it possible that two things should exist in the same place at the same time, we conclude that whatever exists is there itself alone. When we demand whether any thing be the same or no, it refers to something that existed such a time in such a place; which it was certain was the same with itself, and no other whence it follows that one thing cannot have two beginnings, nor two things one beginning; that, therefore, which had one beginning is the same, and that which had a different beginning is not the same.

We have ideas but of three sorts of substances :1. God; 2. finite intelligences; 3. bodies. 1. God is

without beginning, eternal and unalterable, and concerning his identity there can be no doubt: 2. finite spirits having had each its determinate time and place of beginning to exist, the relation to that time and place will determine to each its identity : 3. the same will hold of every particle of matter, to which no addition or subtraction being made, it is the same: for though these substances do not exclude one another out of the same place, yet they must exclude any of the same kind out of the same place; or else the notions of identity and diversity would be in vain, and there could be no distinction of substances one from another for could two bodies be in one and the same place at the same time, they must be one and the same but it being a contradiction that two or more should be one, identity and diversity are ways of comparing, useful to the understanding. All modes or relations terminating in substances, the identity and diversity of them too will be in the same way determined. As to things whose existence is in succession, v. g. motion and thought, concerning their diversity there can be no question; because, each perishing the moment it begins, they cannot exist in different times or in distant places.

From what has been said it is easy to discover the principium individuationis : existence itself determines a being to a time and place incommunicable to two beings of the same kind. Suppose a body, under one immutable superficies, existing in a determined time and space; considered in any instant, it is in that instant the same with itself, and so must continue as long as it exists. In like manner, if two or more atoms be joined in the same mass, every one will be the same by the same rule: and, while they continue united, the mass will be the same mass. But let one atom be taken away, or a new one added, it is no longer the same body. The identity of living creatures depends not on the same particles, but on some

thing else. An oak, growing from a plant to a great tree, and then lopped, is the same oak; and a colt, grown up to a horse, is the same horse, though, in these cases, there be a change in the parts. We must consider, therefore, wherein an oak differs from a mass of matter. It seems to be in this ;-the one is the cohesion of particles any how united; the other, such an organisation of parts as is fit to receive and distribute nourishment, so as to frame wood, bark, leaves, &c. in which consists vegetable life. That being one plant, it continues to be the same plant as long as it partakes of the same life, though that life be communicated to new particles of matter: for this organisation being at any one instant in any one collection of matter, is that individual life which, existing in the same continuity of insensibly succeeding parts, has that identity which makes the same plant, and all the parts of it, parts of the same plant while they exist united in that organisation. The case is the same in brutes. Something like this we have in machines. For example, what is a watch? It is an organisation of parts to a certain end. If we would suppose this machine one continued body, whose parts were repaired by addition or separation of insensible parts with one common life, we should have something like an animal, with this difference; that in an animal the organisation and the life begin together; but in machines, the force coming from without, is often away when the organ is fitted to receive it.

This also shows wherein the identity of the same man consists, viz. in participation of the same continued life by particles of matter successively united to the same organised body. He that shall place the identity of man in any thing else will find it hard to make an embryo and one in years the same man by any supposition, that will not make it possible for Socrates, Pilate, and St. Austin to be the same man: for if identity of soul make the same man, and if it be