But this admission involves a further consequence. If our intuitive and spontaneous judgments are not formed by the mind out of previously existing simple ideas, but are given already formed out of ideas in combination, it follows that our natural apprehension of a thing or object is not merely that of an aggregate of ideas, but of ideas in a particular combination with and relation to each other. And hence the logical conception of an object, as based on and reflecting the character of this intuitive apprehension, implies not merely the enumeration of certain ideas as constituents of the object, but likewise the apprehension of their co-existence in a particular manner as parts of a connected whole. To conceive an object as a whole, we must know something more than that its definition may be expressed by certain words, each of which is separately intelligible and represents a known idea: we must also be able to combine those ideas into an unity of representation; we must apprehend not merely each idea separately, but also the manner in which they may possibly exist in combination with each other.

For example: I can define a triangle as a rectilinear figure of three sides. But I can also, as far as a mere enumeration of ideas is concerned, speak of a rectilinear figure of two sides, and call it by the name of a biangle. Now what is the reason that the one object is conceivable and the other inconceivable? It is not that the separate ideas in the one definition are less intelligible than in the other; for the idea of two is by itself quite as intelligible as that of three. It is because in the one case we are able, and in the other case unable, to represent to ourselves the several ideas as co-existing in that particular manner which we know to be necessary to constitute a figure. So again, I may speak of a being who sees without eyes and hears without ears; and the language in each of its separate terms is quite as intelligible as when I use the word with instead of without; yet the nature of such seeing and hearing is to me inconceivable, because the manner in which it takes place cannot be apprehended by me as resembling any manner of seeing or hearing with which I can be acquainted by my own experience. And as it is in the simplest instances of conception, so it is in those more complicated instances in which we explain a number of phenomena by reference to a general law. When, for example, we refer the motions of the planets to the law of gravitation, we do not thereby determine what gravitation is, and how it acts upon bodies; we only represent to ourselves the motion as taking place in a certain known manner-as being of the same kind as that with which we are already familiar in the fall of the apple from the tree :

'That

"That very law which moulds a tear,
And bids it trickle from its source,
That law preserves the earth a sphere,
And guides the planets in their course.'

Now the defect of Locke's philosophy in this respect is, that, by representing a complex idea merely as an accumulation of simple ones, and not as an organised whole composed in a certain manner, he leaves no room for a distinction between those groups of ideas whose mode of combination is conceivable or explicable from their likeness to other instances, and those which are inconceivable or inexplicable, as being unlike anything which our experience can present to us. Hence there is no room for a further distinction between the inconceivable or mysterious, and the absurd or self-contradictory; between ideas which may be supposed to co-exist in some manner unknown to us, and those which cannot co-exist, as mutually destroying each other—in brief, between those complex ideas of which we cannot conceive how they are possible, and those of which we can conceive how they are not possible. Regarded merely as heaps of ideas in juxtaposition, any combination is possible of which the parts do not destroy each other; but, within these limits of possibility, there may be some combinations of which the mode is conceivable, as resembling others; and there may be some of which we can only say that they may possibly co-exist in some manner unknown

to us.

This defect is most apparent when the method of Locke comes to be applied to invisible things-to mental philosophy in the first instance, and through that to theology. The idea of an immaterial spirit, he tells us, is gained by putting together the ideas of thinking and willing, or the power of moving or quieting corporeal motion, joined to substance of which we have no distinct idea,' just as the idea of matter is gained by putting together the ideas of coherent solid parts, and a power of being moved, joined with substance, of which likewise we have no positive idea.'* In thus appealing to our obscure apprehension of material substance, by way of illustrating that of spiritual substance, Locke realised the remark of his great rival Leibnitz -Les hommes cherchent ce qu'ils savent, et ne savent pas ce qu'ils cherchent.' He wandered into the region of existence in general, in search of the abstract and remote conception of a spirit, when the witness of his own consciousness was close at hand to supply him with the concrete and immediate conception

of a person. Our consciousness presents to us, not merely the ideas of thinking, willing, and the like, but also the combination of these several mental states into one whole, as attributes of one and the same personal self. I am conscious, not of thinking merely, but of myself as thinking; not of perceiving merely, but of myself as perceiving; not of willing merely, but of myself as willing. And in this apprehension of myself as a conscious agent, is presented directly and intuitively that original idea of substance, which, had it not been given in some one act of consciousness, could never have been invented in relation to others.

In neglecting the conception of a Person, whose unity is given, to seek for that of a Spirit, whose unity has to be invented as a 'supposed I know not what,' Locke adopted the chief error of the scholastic psychology, and transmitted it, modified after his own manner, to his successors. The same conception of the soul, not as a power manifested in consciousness, but as a substance assumed out of it, accounts for nearly all the deficiencies which critics have noticed in Butler's Argument on a Future State; and, long before Locke's time, the bewildered student, in old Marston's play, owed to the same mode of investigation most of the perplexities of which he so humorously complains.†

* In justice to Butler, however, it should be observed that the defects in his argument arise from restrictions necessarily imposed upon him by the purpose of his work. The human consciousness is a thing sui generis, and therefore the positive evidence which it furnishes in behalf of the immortality of the soul has nothing to do with analogy. Arguments derived from a comparison of. the soul with other objects must for the most part be, as Butler's are, of a merely negative character.

† 'I was a scholar: seven useful springs

Did I deflower in quotations

Of crossed opinions 'bout the soul of man:
The more I learnt, the more I learnt to doubt.
Delight, my spaniel, slept, whilst I baused leaves,
Tossed o'er the dunces, pored on the old print
Of titled words; and still my spaniel slept.
And still I held converse with Zabarell,
Aquinas, Scotus, and the musty saw
Of antick Donate; still my spaniel slept.
Still on went I; first, an sit anima;

Then, an 't were mortal. O hold, hold! at that
They're at brain buffets, fell by the ears amain
Pell-mell together; still my spaniel slept.
Then, whether 't were corporeal, local, fixt,
Ex traduce; but whether 't had free will
Or no, hot philosophers

Stood banding factions, all so strongly propt,
I staggered, knew not which was firmer part,
But thought, quoted, read, observed, and pryed,
Stuffed noting-books; and still my spaniel slept.
At length he waked and yawned; and by yon sky,
For aught I know, he knew as much as I.'

What you Will, Act ii. Sc. 1.

The

The false method thus applied to the apprehension of the nature of finite spirits was carried on by a natural transition into the domain of theology; and it is here that we find the connecting link which unites Locke's teaching, in effect if not in intention, with that of Toland :

'It is infinity,' says Locke, which, joined to our ideas of existence, power, knowledge, &c., makes that complex idea whereby we represent to ourselves, the best we can, the Supreme Being. For though in his own essence (which certainly we do not know, not knowing the real essence of a pebble, or a fly, or of our own selves) God be simple and uncompounded, yet I think I may say we have no other idea of him but a complex one of existence, knowledge, power, happiness, &c., infinite and eternal'; which are all distinct ideas, and some of them, being relative, are again compounded of others; all which being, as has been shown, originally got from sensation and reflection, go to make up the idea or notion we have of God.'*

6

The argument thus left Locke's hands in the form, We know not the real essence of God, as we know not the real essence of a pebble or a fly.' In the hands of Toland, by a slight transformation, it comes out with a positive side. We understand the attributes (or nominal essence) of God as clearly as we do those of all things else; and, therefore, the Divine Being himself cannot with more reason be accounted mysterious in this respect than the most contemptible of his creatures.' †

How completely this assertion reversed the catholic teaching of the Church in all ages might be shown by a series of quotations from theologians of various ages and languages, from the second century to the seventeenth. One such only our limits will allow us to give, from the writings of a great English divine of the latter century; and we select it from many others because its language, from the similarity of subject, is peculiarly adapted to shew the contrast to which we refer; and because it also by anticipation exactly points out the error which Locke planted and Toland watered. In a sermon on the text, 'Without controversy great is the mystery of godliness,' Bishop Sanderson

says

'Herein especially it is that this mystery doth so far transcend all other mysteries. Méya, opoλoyovμévws péya: a great, marvellous great mystery. In the search whereof reason, finding itself at a loss, is forced to give it over in the plain field, and to cry out, O altitudo! as being unable to reach the unfathomed depth thereof. We believe and know, and that with fulness of assurance, that all these things are

so as they are revealed in the Holy Scriptures, because the mouth of God, who is Truth itself, and cannot lie, hath spoken them; and our own reason upon this ground teacheth us to submit ourselves and it to the obedience of faith, for the rò ört, that so it is. But then for the Tòs, Nicodemus his question, How can these things be? it is no more possible for our weak understandings to comprehend that, than it is for the eyes of bats or owls to look stedfastly upon the body of the sun, when he shineth forth in his greatest strength. The very angels, those holy and heavenly spirits, have a desire, saith St. Peter-it is but a desire, not any perfect ability-and that but mapakúlai neither, to peep a little into those incomprehensible mysteries, and then cover their faces with their wings, and peep again, and cover again, as being not able to endure the fulness of that glorious lustre that shineth therein.'*

Sanderson's distinction between the Tò őrt, that it is, and the To Tws, how it is, indicates the exact point which Locke overlooked, and which Toland denied. When the older theologians declared the essence of God to be mysterious and incomprehensible, they were not thinking of Locke's Real Essence, of which they knew nothing, but of that logical essence which is comprised in attributes, and can be expressed in a definition, and which Locke calls the Nominal Essence. This is most distinctly stated in the language of Aquinas: The name of God,' he says, does not express the Divine essence as it is, as the name of man expresses in its signification the essence of man as it is,that is to say, by signifying the definition which declares the essence.' The ground of this distinction was the conviction that finite things cannot indicate the nature of the infinite God otherwise than by imperfect analogies. The attributes of God,' it was argued, 'must be represented to our minds, so far as they can be represented at all, under the similitude of the corresponding attributes of man. Yet we cannot conceive them as existing in God in the same manner as they exist in man. In man they are many in God they must be one. In man they are related to and limit each other: in God there can be no relation and no limitation. In man they exist only as capacities at times carried into action: in God, who is purus actus, there can be no distinction between faculty and operation. Hence the Divine attributes may properly be called mysterious; for, though we believe in their co-existence, we are unable to conceive the manner of their co-existence.'

When we examine the controversy between Locke and Stillingfleet, and observe the frequent complaints of the latter against 'the new way of ideas,' we see that Stillingfleet's theological

* Sanderson's Works, vol. i. p. 233.
+ Summa,' Pars i. Qu. xiii. Art. I.

learning