now
concerning those ideas we have; nor be able to surmount all the
difficulties, and resolve all the questions that might arise concerning
any of them. We have the ideas of a SQUARE, a CIRCLE, and EQUALITY; and
yet, perhaps, shall never be able to find a circle equal to a square,
and certainly know that it is so. We have the ideas of MATTER and
THINKING, but possibly shall never be able to know whether [any mere
material being] thinks or no; it being impossible for us, by the
contemplation of our own ideas, without revelation, to discover whether
Omnipotency has not given to some systems of matter, fitly disposed,
a power to perceive and think, or else joined and fixed to matter, so
disposed, a thinking immaterial substance: it being, in respect of our
notions, not much more remote from our comprehension to conceive that
GOD can, if he pleases, superadd to matter A FACULTY OF THINKING, than
that he should superadd to it ANOTHER SUBSTANCE WITH A FACULTY OF
THINKING; since we know not wherein thinking consists, nor to what sort
of substances the Almighty has been pleased to give that power, which
cannot be in any created being, but merely by the good pleasure and
bounty of the Creator. For I see no contradiction in it, that the first
Eternal thinking Being, or Omnipotent Spirit, should, if he pleased,
give to certain systems of created senseless matter, put together as he
thinks fit, some degrees of sense, perception, and thought: though, as
I think I have proved, lib. iv. ch. 10, Section 14, &c., it is no less
than a contradiction to suppose matter (which is evidently in its own
nature void of sense and thought) should be that Eternal first-thinking
Being. What certainty of knowledge can any one have, that some
perceptions, such as, v. g., pleasure and pain, should not be in some
bodies themselves, after a certain manner modified and moved, as well as
that they should be in an immaterial substance, upon the motion of the
parts of body: Body, as far as we can conceive, being able only to
strike and affect body, and motion, according to the utmost reach of our
ideas, being able to produce nothing but motion; so that when we allow
it to produce pleasure or pain, or the idea of a colour or sound, we are
fain to quit our reason, go beyond our ideas, and attribute it wholly to
the good pleasure of our Maker. For, since we must allow He has annexed
effects to motion which we can no way conceive motion able to produce,
what reas