d agility; it knew no
rest but in motion, no quiet but in activity. It did not so properly
apprehend, as irradiate the object; not so much find, as make things
intelligible. It did not arbitrate upon the several reports of sense,
and all the varieties of imagination, like a drowsy judge, not only
hearing, but also directing their verdict. In sum, it was vegete,
quick, and lively, open as the day, untainted as the morning, full of
the innocence and sprightliness of youth, it gave the soul a bright
and a full view into all things, and was not only a window, but itself
the prospect. Briefly, there is as much difference between the clear
representations of the understanding then and the obscure discoveries
that it makes now as there is between the prospect of a casement and
of a keyhole.

Now, as there are two great functions of the soul, contemplation and
practise, according to that general division of objects, some of which
only entertain our speculation, others also employ our actions, so the
understanding, with relation to these, not because of any distinction
in the faculty itself, is accordingly divided into speculative and
practical; in both of which the image of God was then apparent.

1. For the understanding speculative. There are some general maxims
and notions in the mind of man which are the rules of discourse and
the basis of all philosophy: as, that the same thing can not at the
same time be and not be; that the whole is bigger than a part; that
two dimensions, severally equal to a third, must also be equal to one
another. Aristotle, indeed, affirms the mind to be at first a mere
_tabula rasa_, and that these notions are not ingenit, and imprinted
by the finger of nature, but by the later and more languid impressions
of sense, being only the reports of observation, and the result of so
many repeated experiments.

(1.) That these notions are universal, and what is universal must
needs proceed from some universal, constant principle, the same in all
particulars, which here can be nothing else but human nature.

(2.) These can not be infused by observation, because they are the
rules by which men take their first apprehensions and observations of
things, and therefore, in order of nature, must needs precede them;
as the being of the rule must be before its application to the thing
directed by it. From whence it follows that these were notions not
descending from us, but born with us, not our offspring, but o