position of God's conserving providence being a continual act of creation? But surely these ideas seem to be shocking

absurdities.

Whereas if conservation be really a continued creation, the modes must be created together with their substances every moment; since it is not possible for creatures, who every moment are supposed to be nothing but the immediate products of the divine will, should be capable, in every one of those very moments in which they are produced or created to form their own modes in simultaneous co-existence with their subjects.

I own there are difficulties on the other side of the question, but the fear of making God the author of sin has bent my opinion this way. We must always inviolably maintain it for the honour of the blessed God, that all spirits as they come out of his hands, are created pure and innocent: every sinful act proceeds from themselves, by an abuse of their own freedom of will, or by a voluntary compliance with the corrupt appetites and inclinations of flesh and blood. We must find some better way therefore to explain God's providential conservation of things, than by representing it as an act of proper and continual creation, lest we impute all the iniquities of all men and devils in all ages, to the pure and holy God who is blessed for evermore.

ESSAY XII.

Remarks on some Chapters of Mr. Locke's Essay on the Human Understanding.

SECT. I.-Of Sensible Qualities, and particularly of Colour.

IT is now universally agreed among all men of reasoning and philosophy, that the sensible qualities, such as colours, sounds, smells, &c. are not really inherent in the bodies themselves, such as we perceive them, but are mere ideas arising in the mind from the different impressions made on the senses. This is excellently explained and proved beyond contradiction by Mr. Locke, in his Second Book, eighth chap.--But I have found one argument more for the same truth, which I think is equally strong, and yet different from all his.

One considerable reason that will prove colour, as well as sensible qualities, not to be really inherent in the bodies themselves, is this: that in order to the perception of different objects, or their different sensible qualities, the external organs of sense must be struck or moved in a different manner by those objects. The way whereby we perceive variety of distinct colours, is by the variety of impressions that are made upon our optic nerves by the rays of light reflected from coloured bodies; these rays of light being reflected in various and different manners, require that the surfaces of these bodies which reflect them should be really different from each other, and be composed of particles of divers figures or sizes, situations or motions, for otherwise they could not reflect the rays of light in different manners; nor can any distinction be made in the several impressions of red and green objects on the eye, through the common medium of air, but what arises from the various shapes and sizes, and dispositions of the particles that compose the surface of a red or green body; because these little particles must variously reflect the various and different rays of light to our eyes. If therefore bodies of divers colours be distinguished by our sight, it must be by the distinct impressions their surfaces make by the rays of light on the eye; for a mere inherent quality, or a supposed teint or dye in the bodies themselves would not diversify the reflections of light, nor do any thing towards it, if the surface of those bodies were of the same configuration of particles. It is plain that we might have the same impressions made on our optic nerves, by various coloured bodies, if these colours were only inherent teints, and had no other difference in their surfaces. The like

may be said of all other sensible qualities, viz. the variety of odors, sapours, sounds. For if all these were only a sort of inherent qualities, such as we perceive them, the surfaces of these several bodies might be the same as to the figure, size and texture of the said particles that compose them, and consequently they would make the same same uniform impressions on our organs of sense, and raise the same uniform sensations; and we could never distinguish these things which we call sensible quali ties, viz. the different taste, smells, &c. of different bodies. All these therefore must arise from the different configurations, &c. of the particles of these different bodies; for nothing else can excite different impressions on our senses.

Shall it be objected here, that Sir Isaac Newton has found by experiment, that the rays of light themselves are différent, according to the various colours which the eye perceives?what need is there then af any difference in the surfaces of objects?

I answer, That the rays of light differ according to Sir Isaac Newton, in the degrees of their refrangibility; and objects of all colours, would reflect the same rays, and in the same manner, if the surfaces of all coloured objects were the same: There must be something therefore in the surface of different coloured objects, more suited to reflect these different rays to the eye; and that object is called red, which reflects the red-making rays, others blue, others yellow, &c.

It is confessed indeed, where a prism separates the different sorts of rays, and throws, for instance, only the red-making rays upon a yellow body very plentifully, and strongly, this yellow body in such a situation will appear red, because there are few other rays for it to reflect: But when red, blue, yellow, green and purple bodies are placed in common light, the surfaces of each of them will reflect to the eye only, or chiefly their own sort of rays, by virtue of their own different surfaces, and thus distinguish their own colours.

Another argument which Mr. Lee uses in his notes on Mr. Locke, is this, that there are many things which appear of different colours at the same time only by their different situation to the light, or the different position of the eye. So glasses, cut diamonds, bubbles, silks, pictures, &c. which prove that colour is not a tincture really inherent in them; but so far as it is in the bodies, it is only a particular texture or disposition of the particles of the surface suited to make different reflections of light to the eye, according to its various positions in relation to the coloured body.

But it must be confessed, Mr. Locke's chapter on this subject is admirably well written, and worthy of diligent perusal and study by every young philosopher.

G g

SECT. II-Of Succession and Duration.

MR. LOCKE's doctrine of succession and duration proceeding from the train of ideas in our minds, is new and ingenious; but his second argument for it, contained in the beginDiag of the fourth section, and taken from that opinion of his, that the mind doth not think in sleep, I cannot approve of; and I think that the middle of that section does rather effectually prove the contrary position: For while a man is very intent upon one idea, he discerns not the succession of so many moments, as if his ideas had been often varied; and since it comes to pass that in sleep we cannot recollect our ideas, but they vanish for the most part as soon as they are formed, it follows, that our ideas of that duration must be very short, since we are so far from recollecting any variety of ideas in that season, that we can scarce believe by mere recollection, that we had any ideas at all at that time: And I am persuaded, should a man all at once lose the memory of what he had done this last week or month, so that the ideas which he had a month past, or the actions that he then did, were the freshest in the recollection, it would scarce appear to him that those last actions or ideas were above a few days old; so that the immediate vanishing and disappearance of our sleeping ideas may be as much to the purpose in this sentiment about duration, as though our sleep had no ideas at all.

Mr. Locke's conjecture, that the train of ideas do succeed one another at certain distances of succession, which cannot be much delayed or hastened, I must acknowledge to be an ingenious thought, and a pretty method of accounting for the original of our notions of duration and succession; and perhaps it may be the reason why motions exceeding swift or exceeding slow, are not perceived by our senses, of which Mr. Locke speaks, book 11. chap. 15, § 9, 10, 11. But here (as in many other places) he avoids distinguishing what part the animal spirits or bodily powers may have, and what the mind, in this succession of ideas, which perhaps might solve this question with more evidence.

What if we should conceive thus, (viz.) that it may be possible for a mind to have ten successive ideas in a separate state in the time wherein it hath but one, when it is in union with this body? The fibres of the brain, which subserve any of the operations of the soul, and the filaments of the nerves, which reach to the outward organs of sense lying betwixt other fibres or filaments, or fleshy parts, can be moved but to a certain limited degree of swiftness; and cousequently those motions of bodies which are swifter than it is possible for these fibres to be moved, cannot be discerned or distinguished: But they appear like a long line quiescent rather than a short body moved, as i

swift arrow, or the fly of a jack. And as for exceeding slow motions, as the hand of a watch, it makes no impression of its motion at all upon the outward organs of sense, or at least so very weak an impression as that it is not communicated distinetly to the inward fibres of the brain, or common sensorium, wheresoever that be; and consequently, the soul can have no sensation or idea of it: Thus the motions, which are exceeding swift, or exceeding slow, are not distinctly discerned. But in a sepa rate spirit, or in a spirit united to such matter whose motions might be much swifter than the fibres of our nerves or brain, it may be possible for us to have many successive ideas in the time wherein now we have but one. And then the duration, or time, might be measured by those spirits, by the usual swiftness of the succession of their ideas, as well as ours are now, where the usual succession is more slow.

SECT. III.-Of Infinity.

IN this seventeenth chapter of infinity, Mr. Locke is exceeding large, because it is a notion that has been the spring of so many long and endless debates among the learned, and therefore he is pardonable, if by a repetition of the same things in copious language, he endeavours to impress his thoughts upon our minds: His notions of infinite as an ever growing, and not a positive complete idea, are of admirable use to stop and put an end to those wranglings about infinity, in time, extension, swift and slow motion, division, number, &c, which have abounded among some writers, And let us chiefly make this use of this consideration of infinity, viz. to shew us how very narrow and bounded our understandings are, and with what au awful sense of the weakness and frailty of our own thoughts and judgments we should reason about an infinite God and his infinite affairs. We finite limited beings soon lose ourselves among infinites, whether great or small, till we retreat within our own bounds, and reason upon things which are made for our grasp of thought. The great incomprehensible being has reserved perfect, positive infinity to himself, and though there may be some positions determined with justice and certainty about it, yet the less we mingle it with our arguments, we are perhaps the more secure from error,

SECT. IV.-Of Power.-Book II. chap. 21.

MR. LOCKE in his 21st chapter of the 2nd book concerning power, sect. 4. supposes that the idea of active power is much more borrowed from spirits than from bodies; and is far better derived from the mind's reflection on its own operations, and its command over the body to put the limbs of it in motion, than it can be from any external sensation whereby we behold one body having peculiar influences over other bodies, to make