whereof our senses having
informed us, our memories still retain the ideas; and of this we are
past all doubt, so long as we remember well. But this knowledge also
reaches no further than our senses have formerly assured us. Thus,
seeing water at this instant, it is an unquestionable truth to me that
water doth exist: and remembering that I saw it yesterday, it will also
be always true, and as long as my memory retains it always an undoubted
proposition to me, that water did exist the 10th of July, 1688; as it
will also be equally true that a certain number of very fine colours did
exist, which at the same time I saw upon a bubble of that water: but,
being now quite out of sight both of the water and bubbles too, it is no
more certainly known to me that the water doth now exist, than that the
bubbles or colours therein do so: it being no more necessary that water
should exist to-day, because it existed yesterday, than that the colours
or bubbles exist to-day, because they existed yesterday, though it be
exceedingly much more probable; because water hath been observed to
continue long in existence, but bubbles, and the colours on them,
quickly cease to be.

12. The Existence of other finite Spirits not knowable, and rests on
Faith.

What ideas we have of spirits, and how we come by them, I have already
shown. But though we have those ideas in our minds, and know we have
them there, the having the ideas of spirits does not make us know that
any such things do exist without us, or that there are any finite
spirits, or any other spiritual beings, but the Eternal God. We have
ground from revelation, and several other reasons, to believe with
assurance that there are such creatures: but our senses not being
able to discover them, we want the means of knowing their particular
existences. For we can no more know that there are finite spirits really
existing, by the idea we have of such beings in our minds, than by the
ideas any one has of fairies or centaurs, he can come to know that
things answering those ideas do really exist.

And therefore concerning the existence of finite spirits, as well as
several other things, we must content ourselves with the evidence of
faith; but universal, certain propositions concerning this matter
are beyond our reach. For however true it may be, v.g., that all the
intelligent spirits that God ever created do still exist, yet it
can never make a part of our certain knowledge. These and the