E.
Will any man say that brutes have ideas of Unity & Existence? I believe not. Yet if they are suggested by all the ways of sensation, 'tis strange they should want them[158].
I.
It is a strange thing and deserves our attention, that the more time and pains men have consum'd in the study of philosophy, by so much the more they look upon themselves to be ignorant & weak creatures. They discover flaws and imperfections in their faculties wch other men never spy out. They find themselves under a necessity of admitting many inconsistent, irreconcilable opinions for true. There is nothing they touch with their hand, or behold with their eyes, but has its dark sides much larger and more numerous than wt is perceived, & at length turn scepticks, at least in most things. I imagine all this proceeds from, &c. Exord. Introd.[159]
I.
These men with a supercilious pride disdain the common single information of sense. They grasp at knowledge by sheafs & bundles. ('Tis well if, catching at too much at once, they hold nothing but emptiness & air.) They in the depth of their understanding contemplate abstract ideas.
It seems not improbable that the most comprehensive & sublime intellects see more m.v.'s at once, i.e. that their visual systems are the largest.
Words (by them meaning all sorts of signs) are so necessary that, instead of being (wn duly us'd or in their own nature) prejudicial to the advancement of knowledge, [pg 046] or an hindrance to knowledge, without them there could in mathematiques themselves be no demonstration.
Mem. To be eternally banishing Metaphisics, &c., and recalling men to Common Sense[160].