ceiving them, is this, viz. That material things being extended, and the Soul not, there is no proportion between them. This, if it fhews any thing, fhews only that a Soul and a Body cannot be united, because one has Surface to be united by, and the other none. But it fhews not why a Soul united to a Body, as ours is, cannot, by that Body, have the Idea of a Triangle excited in it, as well as by being united to God (between whom and the Soul there is as little proportion, as between any Creature immaterial or material and the Soul) fee in God the Idea of a Triangle that is in him, fince we cannot conceive a Triangle whether seen in Matter, or in God, to be without extenfion.

6. He fays, There is no Subftance purely intelligible but that of God. Here again I must confefs my self in the dark, having no notion at all of the Subftance of God; nor being able to conceive how his is more intelligible than any other Substance.

7. One thing more there is, which, I confefs, ftumbles me in the very Foundation of this Hypothefis, which ftands thus; we cannot perceive any thing but what is intimately united to the Soul. The reafon why fome things, (viz. material) cannot be intimately united to the Soul, is, because there is no proportion between the Soul and them.

If this be a good Reafon, it follows, that the greater the proportion there is between the Soul and any other being, the better, and more intimately they can be united. Now then I ask, whether there be a greater proportion between God, an infinite Being, and the Soul, or between finite created Spirits and the Soul. And yet the Author fays, that he believes that there is no Subftance purely intelligible but that of God, and that we cannot intirely know created Spirits at prefent. Make this out upon your Principles of Intimate Union and Proportion, and then they will be of fome use to the clearing of your Hypothefis, otherwife Intimate Union and Proportion are only Sounds ferving to amuse, not instruct us.

8. In the clofe of this Chapter he enumerates the feveral ways whereby he thinks we come by Ideas, and compares them severally with his own way. Which how much more intelligible it is than either of thofe, the following Chapters will fhew; to which I fhall proceed, when I have obferv'd that it feems a bold determination, when he fays, that it must be one of thefe ways, and we can fee Objects no other. Which Affertion must be built on this good Opinion of our Capacities; that God cannot make the Creatures operate, but in ways conceivable to us. That we cannot

difcourfe

difcourfe and reafon about them farther that we conceive, is a great Truth: And 'twould be well if we would not, but would ingenuously own the shortness of our fight where we do not fee. To fay there can be no other, because we conceive no other, does not, I confefs, much inftruct. And if I fhould fay, that 'tis poffible God has made our Souls fo, and fo united them to our Bodies, that upon certain motions made in our Bodies by external Objects, the Soul should have fuch or fuch Perceptions or Ideas, though in a way unconceivable to us this perhaps would appear as true and as inftructive a Propofition as what is fo pofitive ly laid down.

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9. Though the Peripatetick Doctrine of Recherche Species does not at all fatisfie me, yet I de think it were not hard to fhew, that it is as eafie to account for the difficulties he charges on it, as for thofe his own Hypothefis is laden with. But it being not my business to defend what I do not unders ftand, nor to prefer the Learned Gibbrish of the Schools, to what is yet unintelligible to me in P. M. I fhall only take notice of fo much of his Objections as con cerns what I guess to be the truth. Though I do not think any material Species carrying the resemblance of things by a continual flux from the Body we perceive, bring the La

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perception of them to our Senses; yet I think the perception we have of Bodies at a distance from ours, may be accounted for, as far as we are capable of understanding it, by the motion of Particles of Matter coming from them and striking on our Organs. In Feeling and Tafting there is immediate contact. Sound is not unintelligibly explain'd by a vibrating motion communicated to the Medium, and the Effluviums of odorous Bodies, will, without any great difficulties, account for Smells. And therefore P. M. makes his Objections only against visible Species, as the most difficult to be explain'd by material Causes, as indeed they are. But he that shall allow extream fmalnefs in the Particles of Light, and exceeding fwiftnefs in their Motion; and the great Porosity that must be granted in Bodies, if we compare Gold which wants them not, with Air, the medium wherein the Rays of Light come to our Eyes, and that of a Million of Rays that rebound from any vifible Area of any Body, perhaps the or ecco part coming to the Eye, are enough to move the Retina fufficiently to cause a fenfation in the Mind, will not find any great difficulty in the Objections are brought from the impenetrability of Matter; and these Rays ruffling and breaking one another in the Medium which is full of them. As to what

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what is faid, that from one Point we can fee a great number of Objects, that is no Objection against the Species, or vifible Appearances of Bodies being brought into the Eye by the Rays of Light; for the bottom of the Eye or Retina, which, in regard of thefe Rays, is the place of Vifion, is far from being a Point. Nor is it true, that though the Eye be in any one place, yet that the fight is performed in one Point; i.e. that the Rays that bring those visible Species do all meet in a Point; for they cause their distinct Senfations, by ftriking on diftinct parts of the Retina, as is plain in Opticks and the Figure they paint there must be of fome confiderable bignefs, fince it takes up on the Retina, an Area whose Diameter is at least thirty Seconds of a Circle, whereof the Circumference is in the Retina, and the Center fomewhere in the Crystalline; as a little skill in Opticks will manifest to any one that confiders that few Eyes can perceive an Object less than thirty Minutes of a Circle, whereof the Eye is the Center. And he that will but reflect on that feeming odd Experiment of feeing only the two outward ones of three bits of Paper ftuck up against a Wall, at about half a Foot, or a Foot one from another, without feeing the middle one at all, whilst his Eye remains fixed in the fame pofture, must confefs

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