Of the Nearest Truths, viz. of Humane Nature.

CHAP. I. Of the Nearest Truths, viz. of Humane Nature.

RESOLVING on a faithful search into the Nature and certainty of Religion, as being the business which my own and all mens happiness is most concerned in, being conscious of my weakness, and knowing that truths have their certain order, in which they give much light to one another; I found it meet to begin at the most evident, from whence I ascended in the order following.

¹§. 1. I am past all doubt that I have sense, cogitation, understanding and will, with executive operation.

1. 1Obj. Age ostende mihi Deum tuum. Resp. Age ostende mihi hominem tuum: fac te hominem esse cognoscam, & quis meus sit Deus demonstrare non morabor. Theophil. Antioch. ad Autolycum. lib. 1. initio.

Though I could not exactly define what these are, yet I am satisfied that I have them: and I discern, that a simple term doth better express one of these to me, than a definition doth: because they are known so immediately in and of themselves, partly by internal sensation, and partly by intuition. And words are but to make known my mind about them to another, and another's to me; but the things themselves are otherwise to be known. What it is to see, to hear, to smell, to taste,¹ I know better by seeing, hearing, smelling, tasting, than by any definitions of them: and the bare denomination, when I understand the term, is my best expression. And if I could not answer a Sceptic, who denied the certainty of my judgment by sensation and reflexive intuition, yet nature would not suffer me to doubt. Or if any such should really make me doubt, whether I may not possibly live in a continual delusory dream,