324 ANTIENT METAPHYSICS. Book IIL 



this prefent ftate of our exiftence, and united as we are with matter, 

 cannot be formed without the afliftance of our fenfes, and of fenfible 

 objeds : Whereas, it would be impious and abfurd, in the higheft 

 degree, to fuppofe that the Deity had any fuch dependence upon mat- 

 ter. 



It being thus certain, that there are ideas fomcwhere, the only que- 

 flion remaining is a queflion of fad, Whether or not the human mind 

 has the capacity of forming ideas ? or, in other words. Whether it has 

 the capacity of confidering one or more qualities of a thing, feparate 

 from the reft ? Whether, for example, it can confider the quality of 

 being bounded by three lines in a triangle, abftraded from being 

 white or black, of wood, ftone, or metal ? Or, Whether it can per- 

 ceive it only as it is prefented by the fenfes, that is, w^ith all the qua- 

 lities which are peculiar to it, and diftinguifh it from every other in- 

 dividual triangle ? This queftion I have treated of at great length in 

 the Origin and Progrefs of Language * ; where, 1 think, I have put it 

 beyond all doubt, from fad and obfervation, as well as reafon, that 

 the human mind has fuch a power. And, indeed, if there were 

 nothing elfe to prove it, the fcicnce of arithmetic is alone fufficient ; 

 for, though number be one of the moft abftrad ideas we have, by 

 which we divefl things of every quality and circumftance, even 

 of thofe common attributes of time and fpace, and leave them no- 

 thing but the fimple quality of exifting each by itfelf, yet, even our 

 children are able to form this moft abltrad idea, and add, fubtrad, 

 and multiply, without the leaft thought of applying numbers to parti- 

 cular things ; a proof of which is, that they confider each unit as per- 

 fedly equal to another, without the leaft difference among them,, 

 which they could not do, if they applied them to men, oxen, flieep,. 

 &c. ; and they alfo confider them as indivifible, till they come to be 



taught 



• Vol. I. b. I. c. 9. p. 110. edit. 2> 



