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more open and acute in the others; and we receive Things variously, according as we are, and according as they appear to us. Now, our Perception being fo uncertain, and fo controverted, it is no, more a Wonder, if we are told, that we may declare, that Snow appears white to us; but that to establish that it is, in its own Effence, really fo, is more than we are able to engage: And, this Foundation being fhaken, all the Knowledge in the World muft, of Neceffity, come to nothing. What! do our Senses themselves embarrass one another? A Picture feems emboffed to the Sight, which, in the handling, feems flat: Musk, which delights the Smell, and is offenfive to the Tafte, fhall we call it agreeable, or no? There are Herbs and Unguents, proper for one Part of the Body, that are hurtful to another: Honey is pleasant to the Tafte, but offenfive to the Sight. They, who, to affift their Lust, were wont, in ancient Times, to make Ufe of Magnifying Glaffes, to reprefent the Members, they were to imploy, bigger, by that ocular Tumidity, to please themselves the more; to which of the two Senfes did they give the Prize, whether to the Sight, that represented the Members large and great as they would defire; or to their Feeling, which represented them little and contemptible? Are they our Senfes, that fupply the Subject with these different Conditions, and yet the Subjects themselves have, nevertheless, but one? As we fee in the Bread we eat, it is nothing but Bread, but, by being eaten, it becomes Bones, Blood, Flefh, Hair, and Nails.

Ut cibus in membra atque artus cum diditur omnes
Difperit, atque aliam naturam fufficit ex fe 1.

i. e.

As Meats, diffus'd through all the Members, lofe Their former Nature, and diff'rent Things compose.

The Humidity, fucked up by the Root of a Tree, becomes Trunk, Leaf, and Fruit; and the Air, though but one, is modulated, in a Trumpet, to a thousand forts of Sounds. Are

Sext. Empir. Pyrrh. Hypot. lib. i, c. 14. p. 19. + Lucret. lib. iii. v. 703, &c.

Sext. Empir. Pyrrh. Hypot. lib. i. c. 14. p. 12.

Are they our Senses, I say, that, in like manner, form these Subjects with so many diverse Qualities, or have they them really fuch in themselves? And, upon this Doubt, what can we determine of their true Effence? Moreover, fince the Accidents of Difeafes, of Delirium, or Sleep, make Things appear otherwife to us than they do to the Healthful, the Wife, and those that are awake, is it not likely, that our right State, and our natural Humours, have also wherewith to give a Being to Things that have Relation to their own Condition, and to accommodate them to themselves, as well as when the Humours are difordered; and is not our Health as capable of giving them an Afpect as Sickness? Why has not the Temperate a certain 1 Form of Objects relative to it as well as the Intemperate ; and why may it not as well ftamp them with its own Cha, racter? He whofe Mouth is out of Tafte, fays the Wine is flat, the healthful Man commends its Flavour, and the Thirsty, its Brifknefs. Now, our Condition always accommodating Things to itfelf, and transforming them accordingly, we cannot know what Things truly are in themselves, becaufe that nothing comes to us but what is falfified and altered by our Senfes. Where the Compass, the Square, and the Rule are awry, all Proportions drawn from thence, and all Building erected by thofe Guides, muft, of Neceffity, be alfo crazy and defective. The Uncertainty of our Senfes renders every Thing uncertain that they produce.

Denique ut in fabricâ, fi prava eft regula prima,
Normaque fi fallax rectis regionibus exit,
Et libella aliqua fi ex parte claudicat hilum,
Omnia mendosè fieri, atque obftipa neceffum eft,
Prava, cubantia, prona, fupina, atque abfona tecta,
Jam ruere ut quædam videantur velle ruantque
Prodita judiciis fallacibus omnia primis:
Hic igitur ratio tibi rerum prava neceffe eft,
Falfaque fit falfis quæcunque à fenfibus orta est TM.

B b 3

1 Sext. Empir. Pyrrh. Hypot. lib. i. c. 14. p. 21. Lucret. lib. iv. v. 516,

c.

i. e.

i. e.

}

But, laftly, as in Building, if the Line
Be not exact and ftraight, the Rule decline,
Or level falfe, how vain is the Design!
Uneven, an ill-shap'd, and tott'ring Wall
Must rise, this Part muft fink, that Part muft fall,
Because the Rules are falfe that fashion'd all

Thus Reafon's Rules are falfe, if all commence,
And rife from failing, and from erring Senfe.

As to what remains, who can be fit to judge of these Dif-
ferences? As we fay in Controverfies of Religion, that
we must have a Judge, neither inclining to the one Side,
nor the other, free from all Choice and Affection, which
cannot be amongst Chriftians: Juft fo it falls out in this;
for, if he be Old, he cannot judge from the Sense of Old-
Age, being himself a Party in the Cafe; if Young, there
is the fame Exception; if Healthful, Sick, Asleep, or
Awake, he is still the fame incompetent Judge: We must
have fome one exempt from all these Qualities, to the
End that, without Prejudice or Prepoffeffion, he may
judge of thefe, as of Things indifferent to him; and, by
this Rule, we must have a Judge that never was.
To judge of the Appearances that we receive of Sub-
jects, we ought to have a deciding Inftru-
ment; to prove this Inftrument, we must
have Demonftration; to verify the Demon-
ftration, an Inftrument; and here is our Ne
plus ultra. Seeing the Senfes cannot deter-
mine our Difpute, being full of Uncertainty
themselves, it must then be Reason that must
do it, but every Reason must have another to fupport it,
and fo we run back to all Infinity: Our Fancy does not
apply itself to Things that are strange, but is conceived
by the Mediation of the Senfes; and the Senfes do not
comprehend the foreign Subject, but only their own Pas-
fions, by which Means Fancy and Appearance are no Part
of the Subject, but only of the Paffion and Suffering of
Senfe, which Paffion and Subject are different Things;

'Tis impoffible to judge definitively of a Subject, by the Appearances

we receive of

it

from the Senfes,

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wherefore whoever judges by Appearances, judges by another Thing than the Subject. And if we say, that the Paffions of the Senfes convey to the Soul the Quality of ftrange Subjects by Refemblance; how can the Soul and Understanding be affured of this Resemblance, having, of itself, no Commerce with the foreign Subjects? As they who never knew Socrates, cannot, when they fee his Picture, fay it is like him.

Now, whoever would, notwithstanding, judge by Appearances, if it be by all, it is impoffible, because they hinder one another by their Contrarieties and Differences, as we fee by Experience: Shall fome felect Appearances govern the reft? You must verify this Select by another Select, the second by the third, and, confequently, there will never be any End on't. Finally, there is no conftant Existence, neither of the Objects Being, nor our own: Both we, and our Judgments, and all mortal Things, are inceffantly Running and Rolling, and, confequently, nothing certain can be established from the one to the other, both the Judging and the Judged being in a continual Motion and Sway.

Nothing that exifts, except God is really and conftantly fubfifting.

We have no Communication with Being, by reason that all Human Nature is always in the midft, betwixt being Born and Dying, giving but an obfcure Appearance and Shadow, a weak and uncertain Opinion of itself: And if, peradventure, you fix your Thoughts to comprehend your Being, it would be but like grafping Water, for the more you clinch your Hand to fqueefe and hold what is, in its own Nature, flowing, fo much more you lofe of what you would grasp and hold: Therefore, seeing that all Things are fubject to pafs from one Change to another, Reason, that there looks for what really fubfifts, finds itself deceived, not being able to comprehend any Thing that is Subfifting and Permanent, because that every Thing is either entering into Being, and is not yet wholly arrived at it, or begins to Die before it is Born., Plato faid", That Bodies had never any Existence, but only Birth; conceiving, that Homer had made the Ocean,

B b 4

In Theateto, P. 139.

and

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and Thetis, Father and Mother of the Gods, to fhew us, that all Things are in a perpetual Fluctuation, Motion, and Variation; the Opinion of all the Philofo¿ phers, as he fays, before his Time, Parmenides only excepted, who would not allow Things to have Motion;' of the Power whereof he makes a great Account. Pythagoras was of Opinion, That all Matter was Flowing and Unftable: The Stoics, That there is no Time prefent, and that what we call fo, is nothing but the Juncture and Meeting of the Future and Paft.' Heraclitus, That never any Man entered twice into the fame River: Epicharmus, That he who borrowed Money an ⚫ Hour ago, does not owe it now; and that he who was invited Over-night to come the next Day to Dinner, comes that Day uninvited, confidering, that they are no more the fame Men, but are become others; and that there could not a mortal Subftance be found "twice in the fame Condition: For, by the Suddenness "and Levity of the Change, it one while Disperses, and "another while Re-affembles; it comes, and then goes, "after fuch a manner, that what begins to be Born, never arrives to the Perfection of Being; forafmuch as "that Birth is never Finished and never Stays, as being at an End, but, from the Seed, is evermore Changing and "Shifting from one to another: As, from the human "Seed, first in the Mother's Womb is made a formless

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Embryo, after being delivered thence,a fucking Infant; "afterwards it becomes a Boy, then a Youth, then a "full-grown Man, then a Man in Years, and, at laft, a "decrepid Old Man: So that Age, and fubfequent Gene"ration, is always Destroying and Spoiling that which 86 went before.

Mutat enim mundi naturam totius ætas,

Ex alioque alius ftatus excipere omnia debet,
Nec manet illa fui fimilis res, omnia migrant,
Omnia commutat natura, et vertere cogit 9.

i. e.

Seneca, Ep. 58. And Plutarch, in his Tract, intitled, The Signification

of the Word, lib. i. c. 12.

P The following Lines, marked " are a verbal Quotation from the last mentioned Tract of Plutarch, except the Verfes of Lucretius.

9 Lucret. lib. v. v. 826, &c.

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