194 ANTIENT METAPHYSICS. Book IV. 



Mind, excited by external things prefling upon the organs of our 

 Senfes *. But he does not fay what other Ideas are in the Divine 

 Mind : And the fatft truly is, that he believed there were none, or, 

 in other words, that God did not exill ; and, thofe who believe that 

 there are no Ideas but Ahjlrafl Ideas, mufl: believe the fame, if they 

 know the confequences of their own dodlrine. 



This origin, which I have alTigned to our Ideas, muft, I think, be 

 acknowledged to be much more noble than that which Mr Locke has 

 given to them, and more conformable to our divine original ; for we 

 mufl: fuppofe, that there is fome refemblance betwixt us and that o- 

 riginal. If there was not fuch refemblance, we could not, as I 

 have often taken occafion to obferve, have any comprehenfion of 

 the Supreme Mind. And what more natural refemblance than this, 

 that, as all the Ideas of the Divine Mind do not arife from any 

 thing foreign, but are originally in his Mind, fo are ouk ; and 

 that our Ideas are not, any more than our Minds themfelves, deri- 

 ved from fo vile and low a thing as Matter. If this were not the 

 cafe, I do not think we could be faid to be made after the image of 

 God. 



At the fame time, I agree with Mr Locke, that there are no In- 

 nate Idens, if, by Innate Ideas^ he means Ideas that are prefent to 

 the Mind, and contemplated by it, before they are excited by that 

 tumult^ to ufe the words of Mr Hobbes, which the prefTure of ex- 

 ternal objeds upon our organs produces. But I fay they were 

 there, though latent and unproduced, before any fuch Tumult, and 

 were there even before our exiftence in this world* 



There are, perhaps, who believe, that our Souls did not exift 

 before they came into this Body, and that there is a new creation of 



Soul 



* See Mr Hobbes's words, quoted vol. i. p. 143. 



