141 An EXAMINATION of P. MALE BRANCHE'S O pinion of feeing all things in I. God. "T HE acute and ingenious Author of the Recherche de la Verité among a great many very fine Thoughts, judicious Reafonings, and uncommon Reflections has in that Treatife ftarted the Notion of Seeing all things in God, as the best way to explain the Nature and Manner of the Ideas in our Understanding. The defire I had to have my unaffected Ignorance remov'd, has have it hade neceffary for me to fee whether this Hypothefis, when examin'd, and the parts of it put together, can be thought to cure our Ignorance, or is intelligible and fatisfactory to one who would not deceive himself, take Words for Things, and think he knows what he knows not. 2. This I obferve at the entrance that Recherche that P.Malebranche having enumerated, and de la Verité, in the following Chapters fhew'd the diffi culties 1.3.p.2.c.1. culties of the other ways, whereby he thinks human Understanding may be attempted to be explain'd, and how unfufficient they are to give a fatisfactory Account of the Ideas we have, erects this of Seeing all things in God upon their ruine as the true, because it is impoffible to find a better. Which Argument fo far being only Argumentum ad Ignorantiam lofes all its Force as foon as we confider the weakness of our Minds, and the narrownefs of our Capacities, and have but Humility enough to allow that there may be many things which we cannot fully comprehend, and that God is not bound in all he does to fubject his ways of operation to the fcrutiny of our Thoughts, and confine himself to do nothing but what we must comprehend. And it will very little help to cure my Ignorance, that this is the beft of four or five Hypothefes propos'd, which are all defective; if this too has in it what is inconsistent with it felf, or unintelligible to me. 3. The P. Malbranche Recherche de la Verité, l. 3. p. 2. c. I. tells us that whatever the Mind perceives must be actually prefent and intimately united to it. That the things that the Mind perceives are its own Senfations, Imaginations, or Notions; which being in the Soul the modifications of it, need no Ideas to represent them. But all things ex teriour teriour to the Soul we cannot perceive but by the intervention of Ideas, fuppofing that the things themselves cannot be intimately united to the Soul. But because Spiritual things may poffibly be united to the Soul, therefore he thinks it probable that they can discover themselves immediately without Ideas; though of this he doubts, because he believes not there is any Substance purely intelligible, but that of God; and that though Spirits can poffibly unite themfelves to our Minds, yet at prefent we cannot entirely know them. But he speaks here principally of material things, which he fays certainly cannot unite themselves to our Souls in fuch a manner as is neceffary that it should perceive them; because being extended, the Soul not being fo, there is no proportion between them. 4. This is the Sum of his Doctrine contain'd in the Ift, Ch. of the 2d Part of the 3d Book, as far as I can comprehend it. Wherein, I confefs, there are many Expreffions which carrying with them, to my Mind, no clear Ideas, are like to remove but little of my Ignorance by their Sounds. Y.g. What it is to be intimately united to the Soul. What it is for two Souls or Spirits to be intimately united; for intimate Union being an Idea taken from Bodies, when the Parts of one get within the Sur face face of the other and touch their inward Parts. What is the Idea of intimate Union I must have between two Beings that hath neither of them any Extenfion or Sur, face? And if it be not fo explain'd as to give me a clear Idea of that Union, it will make me understand very little more of the nature of the Ideas in my Mind, when 'tis faid I fee them in God, who being intimately united to the Soul exhibits them to it; than when it is only faid they are by the appointment of God produc'd in the Mind by certain motions of our Bodies, to which our Minds are united. Which however imperfect a way of explaining this Matter, will ftill be as good as any other that does not by clear Ideas remove my ignorance of the manner of my Perception. 5. But he fays that certainly material things cannot unite themfelves to our Souls. Our Bodies are united to our Souls, yes; but, fays he, not after a manner which is neceffary that the Soul may perceive them, Explain this manner of Union, and fhew wherein the difference confifts betwixt the Union neceffary and not necessary to Perception, and then I fhall confefs this dif ficulty remov❜d. The Reason that he gives why material things cannot be united to our Souls after a manner that is neceffary to the Souls per ceiving |