general therefore, the increase of knowledge is necessary to the encrease of dominion; or rather, it is really an enlargement of power and property. Power not guided and directed by knowledge is not properly power, it is brute or blind force. But intelligent power can only augment with knowledge, or intelligence. It is therefore because knowledge is dependent on us, or may be acquired by us, that we can have any power, any sphere of activity; were not the acquisition of knowledge dependent upon us to a certain degree, we could not have any power at all, nothing could be dependent upon us.
If knowledge be progressive, intelligent power must likewise be so.
Knowledge cannot but be progressive.
IV. But the encrease of our power depends upon the encrease of our knowledge; and therefore, if our knowledge must be successive or progressive, so must our power be. Now, “that knowledge must be progressive is evident beyond all doubt.” Being gradually acquired by our application to study nature, take in ideas and compare them, it not only gives us a succession of growing pleasures; but it cannot but be progressive. For, 1. Nature itself, the sole object of all real knowledge, is successive or progressive. What else can direct our conduct, enable us to imitate nature, or to perform any operation in order to attain to any end, but the knowledge of nature’s laws? But nature is progressive in all its productions: and general rules or canons can only be inferred by induction, from the observation of many individuals, or from many experiments about particular objects. Creatures cannot possibly attain to the knowledge of analogies, harmonies and general laws, any other way, than by going over many particular effects which do not all exist at once, but are successive; and by comparing them one with another. 2. And as for abstract or theoretic knowledge,<31> (as mathematics for instance) which is collected from the comparison of ideas and their relations amongst themselves; that must likewise be progressive; because discoveries made this way are nothing but the different appearances, ideas and their relations offer to the mind in different views or juxta-positions. When the immediate juxta-position of known relations is not sufficient to give the mind the view it desires, but intermediate ideas must be employed in order to make the agreement or disagreement in question appear; then it is plain, however fast the mind may mount, yet it must mount by steps. And even where the immediate juxta-position of ideas, without any intermediate mean of comparison, is sufficient, yet one and the same juxta-position can produce but one view, or one truth. In order to every discovery, there must be a different position of objects; for perceiving truth, is nothing but perceiving the agreement or disagreement of ideas in consequence of some one or other way of placing or disposing them in respect to one another. It is perceiving the relations of ideas by comparing them; and no position can be any other position but that one which it is. In fine, all real knowledge must be progressive, because nature is successive; and the laws of nature can only be gathered from particular effects by induction. And all theoretic knowledge must be progressive, because the mind cannot possibly see ideas in different situations or juxta-positions to one another at one and the same time. That is absolutely impossible with regard to created minds.
“Our knowledge therefore is progressive.”
Knowledge must depend on our situations for taking in ideas or views.
Men must have different situations and views.
With respect to the sensible world.
V. “This knowledge, which is in its nature progressive, must depend upon our situations to take in ideas or views.” It must be different as these are different, narrow if these be narrow, and proportionably large as these are large and extensive. 1. It is certain, that the knowledge of no being can possibly<32> exceed or go beyond its ideas. Ideas are the materials of knowledge. It cannot therefore extend further than our ideas; and consequently it cannot reach beyond experience, the only source of all our ideas. 2. Now, if it is asked, why men are placed in different situations? it may be answered, 1. It is because men are made for society, which, as shall be proved in its place, requires that men should be placed in different situations for many wise reasons; and with respect to knowledge, and social intercourse in that way, (for that is all that belongs to the present question) there is this obvious good end or it, even that being placed as it were in various points of sight with regard to nature the common object of our contemplation and imitation, men might thus have different prospects or views of the same object to compare one with another, and only be able to make out a tolerably adequate idea of any object by mutual assistance. 2. In whatever situation any man is placed, he may take in ideas that will afford him an exhaustless fund of pleasing contemplation. For what object does not as it were defy our intellect to exhaust it? however far we advance in any enquiry, there will still remain a surplusage of research with regard to its object, that can never be wholly gone through. Every field of speculation widens and enlarges to our view in proportion as we make progress in it. But, 3. Let us consider well what is demanded, when it is asked, why all men are not in the same situations, or precisely equal, or like ones for taking in ideas? For, in reality, it amounts to asking, why all different places in nature are not the same: since every different one must be a different point of sight. Now, whatever may be the case with respect to spirits without bodies; corporeal beings cannot penetrate one another and occupy the same space; different bodies must have each its own proper place peculiar to it; and consequently, every embodied being must have its own point of sight, or place of<33> observation, which no other can possess at the same time. 4. Nor is this all, every embody’d being must have its own particular organization distinguished by peculiar differences from that of every other of the same species, tho’ similar to them all, in such a manner, that they all are of the same specific sort. And must it not necessarily follow from this, that the sensible world to each individual of the same species, will be just as similar to the sensible world of any other, as their organizations are similar, and just as different as their organizations are different? The external, material world, whether it be called the external cause, or occasion of those sensible ideas and their connexions, which make to each of us what we call the sensible world, is entirely out of the question, when we speak of sensations excited by it in each individual mind according to certain fixed laws. It may be the same, immutable thing in itself. But as for the sensations produced in us from without by means of a material organization, these must be as different as the organizations are, by which they are produced. And it is not more certain, that the organizations of men being so like, that they may be justly said to be specifically the same; our sensations conveyed from without, must likewise be so like, that they may be said to be specifically the same; than it is certain, that our organizations, notwithstanding their specifical agreement, being really so different, that every one is justly said to have a peculiar organization, our sensations conveyed from without must likewise be so different, that every one of us may be said to have different sensations. So that, in reality, there are not only as many different sensible worlds in species, as there are various species of sensitive beings; but there are as many different sensible worlds, as there are different or particular organizations of sensitive beings of any one species. It is similarity amidst vast variety with respect to sensations, and the orders in which they are conveyed, in consequence of similarity<34> amidst variety of organizations, that is the foundation of close and intimate intercourse among individuals of the same sensitive species. And the reason why there can only be a remote and very general intercourse among sensitive beings of a different species is, because there can only be a general similarity between their sensations.
In like manner with regard to mental frame and the moral world.
VI. But which is yet more, every individual of any species of rational beings, howsoever like it may be specifically to the others of the same species, must however have its own particular fabrick of mind, and peculiar cast of understanding; and consequently, every one must take in views in a manner some what different from every other. The views of every one of the same species will be similar, their fabrick of mind being similar; but their views will likewise be different, every man’s complexion, or cast of understanding being different. Similarity of views in consequence of similarity of constitution is all that can constitute the same species of minds; and it will be a sufficient foundation
