Chap. VI. ANTIENT METAPHYSICS. 415 



and certainty ; for, though there were no material geometrical figures 

 extant in the univerfe, as indeed there is none that anfwers to the de- 

 finition of them, every demonftration in Euclid would be equally true, 

 though geometry would not be, as I fhall afterwards Qiow, that real 

 fcience, which it truly is. But, if there be no ideas neither, as Mr 

 Hume maintains, there can be no fcience nor knowledge of any kind. 



It appears, therefore, that this controverfy about the exiftence of 

 body was, like the controverfy above mentioned, concerning Jree- 

 ivill^ unknown in the better days of philofophy, that is, in the days 

 of Plato or Ariftotle, or even before their time, but only in later times, 

 when philofophy became frivolous and paradoxical, and, at the fame 

 time, not accurate in making proper diftindions of things ; for, if 

 Pyrrho had accurately diftinguifhed, in the matter of fenfation, as 

 Plato does in the Cratylus, betwixt the objed, the organ, and the per- 

 ception of the mind, I think it is impofhble that he could have thought 

 of advancing fuch a dodrine, which plainly confounds the objed with 

 the perception, making fenfation to be only perception, and fo nothing 

 more but a phantafm or fpedre of the mind. 



Mr Locke has been blamed for giving occafion to this error, by 

 making the diftindion betwixt the primary and fecondary qualities of 

 bodies, maintaining, that the former had a real exiftence in the bodies, 

 while the latter exifted only in our Minds. That Mr Locke did not 

 mean to give a handle to fuch an extravagant fcepticifm, any more 

 than to feveral other abfurd, as well as impious notions, that have 

 been grafted upon his philofophy, 1 hold to be certain. Nor do I 

 think that he was much miftaken, as I (hall ihow afterwards, in ma- 

 king the diftindion, that he has made, betwixt the primary qualities of 

 body, fuch as extenfion and folidity, and thofe he Q2i\h fecondary^ fuch 

 as hot and cold, fweet and bitter. But he was certainly to blame, for not 

 making more explicitly the diftindion with refped to thofe laft fenfa- 



tionsj 



