Volume I Part 5 (1/2)
6. Whole and Part not innate ideas.
Let us examine that principle of mathematics, viz. THAT THE WHOLE IS BIGGER THAN A PART. This, I take it, is reckoned amongst innate principles. I am sure it has as good a t.i.tle as any to be thought so; which yet n.o.body can think it to be, when he considers the ideas it comprehends in it, WHOLE and PART, are perfectly relative; but the positive ideas to which they properly and immediately belong are extension and number, of which alone whole and part are relations. So that if whole and part are innate ideas, extension and number must be so too; it being impossible to have an idea of a relation, without having any at all of the thing to which it belongs, and in which it is founded.
Now, whether the minds of men have naturally imprinted on them the ideas of extension and number, I leave to be considered by those who are the patrons of innate principles.
7. Idea of Wors.h.i.+p not innate.
That G.o.d IS TO BE WORs.h.i.+PPED, is, without doubt, as great a truth as any that can enter into the mind of man, and deserves the first place amongst all practical principles. But yet it can by no means be thought innate, unless the ideas of G.o.d and WORs.h.i.+P are innate. That the idea the term wors.h.i.+p stands for is not in the understanding of children, and a character stamped on the mind in its first original, I think will be easily granted, by any one that considers how few there be amongst grown men who have a clear and distinct notion of it. And, I suppose, there cannot be anything more ridiculous than to say, that children have this practical principle innate, ”That G.o.d is to be wors.h.i.+pped,” and yet that they know not what that wors.h.i.+p of G.o.d is, which is their duty. But to pa.s.s by this.
8. Idea of G.o.d not innate.
If any idea can be imagined innate, the idea of G.o.d may, of all others, for many reasons, be thought so; since it is hard to conceive how there should be innate moral principles, without an innate idea of a Deity.
Without a notion of a law-maker, it is impossible to have a notion of a law, and an obligation to observe it. Besides the atheists taken notice of amongst the ancients, and left branded upon the records of history, hath not navigation discovered, in these later ages, whole nations, at the bay of Soldania, in Brazil, and in the Caribbee islands, &c., amongst whom there was to be found no notion of a G.o.d, no religion?
Nicholaus del Techo, in Literis ex Paraquaria, de Caiguarum Conversione, has these words: Reperi eam gentem nullum nomen habere quod Deum, et hominis animam significet; nulla sacra habet, nulla idola.
And perhaps, if we should with attention mind the lives and discourses of people not so far off, we should have too much reason to fear, that many, in more civilized countries, have no very strong and clear impressions of a Deity upon their minds, and that the complaints of atheism made from the pulpit are not without reason. And though only some profligate wretches own it too barefacedly now; yet perhaps we should hear more than we do of it from others, did not the fear of the magistrate's sword, or their neighbour's censure, tie up people's tongues; which, were the apprehensions of punishment or shame taken away, would as openly proclaim their atheism as their lives do.
9. The name of G.o.d not universal or obscure in meaning.
But had all mankind everywhere a notion of a G.o.d, (whereof yet history tells us the contrary,) it would not from thence follow, that the idea of him was innate. For, though no nation were to be found without a name, and some few dark notions of him, yet that would not prove them to be natural impressions on the mind; no more than the names of fire, or the sun, heat, or number, do prove the ideas they stand for to be innate; because the names of those things, and the ideas of them, are so universally received and known amongst mankind. Nor, on the contrary, is the want of such a name, or the absence of such a notion out of men's minds, any argument against the being of a G.o.d; any more than it would be a proof that there was no loadstone in the world, because a great part of mankind had neither a notion of any such thing nor a name for it; or be any show of argument to prove that there are no distinct and various species of angels, or intelligent beings above us, because we have no ideas of such distinct species, or names for them. For, men being furnished with words, by the common language of their own countries, can scarce avoid having some kind of ideas of those things whose names those they converse with have occasion frequently to mention to them. And if they carry with it the notion of excellency, greatness, or something extraordinary; if apprehension and concernment accompany it; if the fear of absolute and irresistible power set it on upon the mind,--the idea is likely to sink the deeper, and spread the further; especially if it be such an idea as is agreeable to the common light of reason, and naturally deducible from every part of our knowledge, as that of a G.o.d is. For the visible marks of extraordinary wisdom and power appear so plainly in all the works of the creation, that a rational creature, who will but seriously reflect on them, cannot miss the discovery of a Deity. And the influence that the discovery of such a Being must necessarily have on the minds of all that have but once heard of it is so great, and carries such a weight of thought and communication with it, that it seems stranger to me that a whole nation of men should be anywhere found so brutish as to want the notion of a G.o.d, than that they should be without any notion of numbers, or fire.
10. Ideas of G.o.d and idea of Fire.
The name of G.o.d being once mentioned in any part of the world, to express a superior, powerful, wise, invisible Being, the suitableness of such a notion to the principles of common reason, and the interest men will always have to mention it often, must necessarily spread it far and wide; and continue it down to all generations: though yet the general reception of this name, and some imperfect and unsteady notions conveyed thereby to the unthinking part of mankind, prove not the idea to be innate; but only that they who made the discovery had made a right use of their reason, thought maturely of the causes of things, and traced them to their original; from whom other less considering people having once received so important a notion, it could not easily be lost again.
11. Idea of G.o.d not innate.
This is all could be inferred from the notion of a G.o.d, were it to be found universally in all the tribes of mankind, and generally acknowledged, by men grown to maturity in all countries. For the generality of the acknowledging of a G.o.d, as I imagine, is extended no further than that; which, if it be sufficient to prove the idea of G.o.d innate, will as well prove the idea of fire innate; since I think it may be truly said, that there is not a person in the world who has a notion of a G.o.d, who has not also the idea of fire. I doubt not but if a colony of young children should be placed in an island where no fire was, they would certainly neither have any notion of such a thing, nor name for it, how generally soever it were received and known in all the world besides; and perhaps too their apprehensions would be as far removed from any name, or notion, of a G.o.d, till some one amongst them had employed his thoughts to inquire into the const.i.tution and causes of things, which would easily lead him to the notion of a G.o.d; which having once taught to others, reason, and the natural propensity of their own thoughts, would afterwards propagate, and continue amongst them.
12. Suitable to G.o.d's goodness, that all Men should have an idea of Him, therefore naturally imprinted by Him, answered.
Indeed it is urged, that it is suitable to the goodness of G.o.d, to imprint upon the minds of men characters and notions of himself, and not to leave them in the dark and doubt in so grand a concernment; and also, by that means, to secure to himself the homage and veneration due from so intelligent a creature as man; and therefore he has done it.
This argument, if it be of any force, will prove much more than those who use it in this case expect from it. For, if we may conclude that G.o.d hath done for men all that men shall judge is best for them, because it is suitable to his goodness so to do, it will prove, not only that G.o.d has imprinted on the minds of men an idea of himself, but that he hath plainly stamped there, in fair characters, all that men ought to know or believe of him; all that they ought to do in obedience to his will; and that he hath given them a will and affections conformable to it. This, no doubt, every one will think better for men, than that they should, in the dark, grope after knowledge, as St. Paul tells us all nations did after G.o.d (Acts xvii. 27); than that their wills should clash with their understandings, and their appet.i.tes cross their duty. The Romanists say it is best for men, and so suitable to the goodness of G.o.d, that there should be an infallible judge of controversies on earth; and therefore there is one. And I, by the same reason, say it is better for men that every man himself should be infallible. I leave them to consider, whether, by the force of this argument, they shall think that every man IS so. I think it a very good argument to say,--the infinitely wise G.o.d hath made it so; and therefore it is best. But it seems to me a little too much confidence of our own wisdom to say,--'I think it best; and therefore G.o.d hath made it so.' And in the matter in hand, it will be in vain to argue from such a topic, that G.o.d hath done so, when certain experience shows us that he hath not. But the goodness of G.o.d hath not been wanting to men, without such original impressions of knowledge or ideas stamped on the mind; since he hath furnished man with those faculties which will serve for the sufficient discovery of all things requisite to the end of such a being; and I doubt not but to show, that a man, by the right use of his natural abilities, may, without any innate principles, attain a knowledge of a G.o.d, and other things that concern him. G.o.d having endued man with those faculties of knowledge which he hath, was no more obliged by his goodness to plant those innate notions in his mind, than that, having given him reason, hands, and materials, he should build him bridges or houses,--which some people in the world, however of good parts, do either totally want, or are but ill provided of, as well as others are wholly without ideas of G.o.d and principles of morality, or at least have but very ill ones; the reason in both cases being, that they never employed their parts, faculties, and powers industriously that way, but contented themselves with the opinions, fas.h.i.+ons, and things of their country, as they found them, without looking any further. Had you or I been born at the Bay of Soldania, possibly our thoughts and notions had not exceeded those brutish ones of the Hottentots that inhabit there. And had the Virginia king Apochancana been educated in England, he had been perhaps as knowing a divine, and as good a mathematician as any in it; the difference between him and a more improved Englishman lying barely in this, that the exercise of his faculties was bounded within the ways, modes, and notions of his own country, and never directed to any other or further inquiries. And if he had not any idea of a G.o.d, it was only because he pursued not those thoughts that would have led him to it.
13. Ideas of G.o.d various in different Men.
I grant that if there were any ideas to be found imprinted on the minds of men, we have reason to expect it should be the notion of his Maker, as a mark G.o.d set on his own workmans.h.i.+p, to mind man of his dependence and duty; and that herein should appear the first instances of human knowledge. But how late is it before any such notion is discoverable in children? And when we find it there, how much more does it resemble the opinion and notion of the teacher, than represent the true G.o.d? He that shall observe in children the progress whereby their minds attain the knowledge they have, will think that the objects they do first and most familiarly converse with are those that make the first impressions on their understandings; nor will he find the least footsteps of any other.
It is easy to take notice how their thoughts enlarge themselves, only as they come to be acquainted with a greater variety of sensible objects; to retain the ideas of them in their memories; and to get the skill to compound and enlarge them, and several ways put them together. How, by these means, they come to frame in their minds an idea men have of a Deity, I shall hereafter show.
14. Contrary and inconsistent ideas of G.o.d under the same name.