192 ANTIENT METAPHYSICS. Book IV. 



in a dormant and unconlcious flatc, till they arc excited by the iin- 

 prcHions of external ohjct'ls upon our organs of Senfc ? For, as I 

 have (hown tliat our Scnfations cannot he the nuitcrials of whicli 

 our Ideas are nuule, it follows of nccelfary confeciucncc, that, it they 

 were not originally in the Mind, they murt he created hy the Mind, 

 that is, produced out of nothing. Now, a power of producing out 

 of nothing is what the antient jjliilofopliers would not allow, even to 

 the Supreme Mind : But no philolbpher, antient or modern, has ever 

 thought tliat it belonged to any Inferior Mind. If, therefore, the 

 Human Mind does not create Ideas, it mud derive them, like the o- 

 ther Materials upon which it operates, from a Superior power ; 

 with this din'erencc only, that the materials of the one kind are Ex- 

 ternal, hut our Ideas are Internal and Original in the Mind. 



It way be ohjeded, that we do not create our Ideas, but only 

 difcover them lurking, as it were, in external obje£ls, and immer- 

 fed in Matter, from which we evolve them. But here I repeat 

 what 1 faid before*, fpeaking of abftratfb Ideas, wliich, by many, arc 

 believed to be the only Ideas, That it is impoflible to ab(lra£t an I- 

 dea from the Matter in which it is inherent, or from other Ideas 

 with which it may be mixed, without previouily knowing what 

 that Idea is. In all compofitions of Bodies we never can find any 

 ingredient in the compofition, or fcparate it from the reft, unlcfs we 

 lirll know what it is : And, if we feck for any man in a crowd, we 

 cannot expe£l to find him, unlcfs wc have fomc knowledge of him 

 before hand. — The truth, therefore, appears to be, that our fenfations, 

 and the perceptions of the operations of our Mind, make us recognize 

 Ideas which were before in our Minds but without our being confcious 

 of them, in the fame manner as the Idea of an old acquaintance, 

 whom I had long forgot, is revived in me by feeing him, or any 

 thing that I knew belonged to him. 



What 



• P. IS' 



