1. The

Here it may be proper to furvey the feveral kinds of evidence, or the different ways whereby truth is let into the mind, and which produce accordingly feveral kinds of knowledge; and these we fhall diftribute into thefe fix, viz. fenfe, consciousness, intelligence, Evidences reason, human and divine teftimony. of Truth. evidence of fenfe, is when we form a propofition according to the evidence of any of our fenfes ; it is upon this evidence that we know and believe the various occurrences in human life; and almost all the hiftories of mankind, that are written by eye and earwitneffes, are built upon this principle.

It is a principle of the Epicureans, that the fenfes are not capable of being deceived; for befides that the ftructure of the organs, and the circumftances of objects confidered, they ought not to reprefent things otherwife than they do. The fenfes are purely paffive; they receive impreffions from furrounding bodies, but pronounce nothing concerning them; that is the business of the mind, which delivers its opinion upon the divers appearances of fenfe, and too often not more hastily than wrong. When therefore we talk of the errors of the fenfes, the meaning is, that things are many times in themselves quite different from what they appear to the fenfes; and that they who take their meafures of judging from the fenfes, will unavoidably be led into a thousand mistakes.

The reasons why people truft so much to sense, I believe, are principally thefe:

I. If fenfe may err, why not reafon? If one power and faculty may be deceived, why not all others? At which rate we fhall have no criterion of truth, nor be in poffeffion of certainty; but univerfal fcepticism must bear down all before it. I anfwer, that because fenfe may be impofed upon, it follows not that reafon may; in cafe fenfe mifleads us, reafon may fet us right again. So that here God hath provided a higher faculty to correct the errors occafioned

cafioned by the faculties below it; and perhaps the fallaciousness of our fenfes was defigned for this very end, that we might make the more frequent ufe of our reason. But should reafon be deceived, there is no faculty above this to inform it better; and are not the wisdom and goodness of God our fecurity, that he would not frame us with fuch a conftitution of mind, as fhould naturally lead us into error? Befides this, we are to confider, that the miftakes of fenfe (when it does mistake) are not dangerous; it has little to do with religion, upon which depends our most important intereft. But reafon rightly understood, and rightly managed, is to be the measure of our conduct; and confequently if free from prejudices, we may be affured that shall never err in matters of moment and confequence.

II. If fenfe may be deceived in one or more instances, why not in all? and if in all, we can be certain of nothing. I anfwer, this way of arguing is entirely inconclufive, because the wife Governor has furnished us with reafon to find out our miftake; and this, by comparing things together, it eafily does. Upon the whole, we may conclude with this observation, that our fenfes were not given us to inform us fo much what things are in themselves, as of the relation they bear to each other, and to our bodies *.

III. As we learn what belongs to the body by the evidence of fenfe; fo we learn what belongs to the foul by an inward consciousness, which may be called a fort of internal feeling, or fpiritual fenfation of what paffes in the mind: Thus it appears that we obtain the knowledge of a multitude of propofitions, as well as fingle ideas, by these two principles, which Mr. Locke calls fenfation and reflection. One of them is a fort of consciousness of what affects the body, and the other

* Grove, v. p. 409.

is a consciousness of what paffes in the mind. Some philofophers define it an inner fentiment of a thing, whereof one may have a clear and diftinét notion; in this fenfe they fay, that we do not know our own foul, nor are we affured of the existence of our own thoughts, otherwife than by confcioufnefs +.

IV. Intelligence relates chiefly to thofe abftract propofitions, which carry their own evidence with them, and admit no doubt about them. Our perception of this felf-evidence in any propofition, is called intelligence; it is our knowledge of those firft principles of truth, which are as it were wrought into the very nature and make of our mind. Accordingly an intelligent being, muft have fome immediate object of his understanding, or at least a capacity of having fuch an intelligent being, among the immediate objects of his mind, muft have fome that are abstract and general; thofe ideas or objects that are immediate, will be adequately and truly known to that mind, whofe ideas they are: thefe propofitions are called axioms or maxims, or first principles; these are the very foundation of all improved knowledge and reasonings; and such an immediate view of things in their own nature, is fometimes called intuition.

V. Reasoning is the next fort of evidence, and that is, when one truth is inferred or drawn from others, by natural and juft methods of argument; as, when I furvey the heavens and earth, this gives evidence to my reafon, that there is a God who made them Thus, by the help of truths already known, more may be difcovered; for thofe inferences which arife presently from the application of general truths, to the particular things and cafes contained under them, must be juft, and will hold good, not only in refpect of axioms and first truths, but alfc and equally of theorems and other general truths. When they are

Dr. Watts's Logic, p. 178. + Chambers.

|| Dr. Watts's.

more

more known, thefe may be capable of the like applications, and the truth of fuch confequences as are made by virtue of them, will always be as evident as that of the theorems themselves *: in other words, every juft confequence is founded on fome known truth; by virtue of which, one thing follows from another, and if the premiffes are true, and the inferences are just, they will be fo too. That power which any intelligent being has of furveying his own ideas, and comparing them; of forming to himself out of those that are immediate and abstract, fuch general and fundamental truths as he can be fure of, and of making fuch inferences and conclufions as are agreeable to them, or to any other truth after it comes to be known, in order to find out more truth, prove or difprove fome affertion, refolve fome queftion, determine what is fit to be done upon occafion, &c. the cafe or thing under confideration, being firft fairly ftated and prepared, is what I mean by the faculty of reason, or what intitles him to the epithet rational; or, in fhort, reafon is the faculty for making fuch inferences and conclufions, as are mentioned under the preceding propofition †.

"The propofitions, which I believe upon this kind of evidence, are called conclufions or rational truths, and the knowledge we gain this way is properly fcience."

It is likewise remarked by the aforecited judicious, author, in treating of the nature and foundations of probability, that the force of it refults from reafon and obfervation together 1. As the one is not fufficient without the other, reafon without obfervation wants matter to work upon, and obfervations are neither to be made, juftly by ourselves, nor to be rightly chofen out of those made by others; nor to be aptly applied,

Wollafton's Religion of Nature, p. 43. 4to Edit.

+Ibid. p. 45. Some ufeful obfervations in the feq.

This is objected to by other authors, as thofe obfervations arise from the forementioned fprings of knowledge.

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without

without the affiftance of reafon; both together may fupport opinion and practice in the abfence of knowledge and certainty; for thofe obfervations upon the nature of men and things, which we have made ourfelves, we know; and our own reasoning concerning them, and deductions from them, we know; and from hence there cannot but arife in many cafes an internal obligation to give our affent to this, rather than that, or to act one way rather than another and as to the obfervations of others, they may be fo cautiously, and fkillfully taken under our notice, as to become almost our own, fince our own reafon and experience may direct us in the choice and use of them.

VI. Another kind of evidence, is the teftimony of others, and this is a large part of our knowledge. Ten thousand things there are which we believe, merely upon the authority or credit of thofe who have spoken or written of them; it is by this that most of the tranfactions of human life are managed, we know the characters and laws of our prefent governors, as well as things that are at a vast distance from us, in foreign nations, or in ancient ages: according as the perfons who inform us of any thing, are many, or few, or more or lefs wife, and faithful, and credible, fo our faith is more or lefs firm or wavering, and the propofition believed either certain or doubtful; but in matters of faith an exceeding great probability is called a moral certainty *. Hiftories written by faithful and credible authors, and read with judgment, may fupply us with examples, parallel cafes, and general remarks, for forming our manners and principles too'; and by the frequent perufal of them, and meditation upon them, a judicious judgment is formed of many dubious cafes, and of matters of great importance.

To conclude, that we ought to follow probability in this cafe, as well as the forementioned, is evident; because where there is no greater certainty to be had,

* See Dr. Watts's Logic, and Ditton on the Resurrection.

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