Chap.lV. ANTIENT METAPHYSICS. 95 



of our ideas, without letting us know wherein they agree or dilagrce: 

 So that his definition of a thing of fuch importance as truths not 

 only in philofophy and fcience, but in the common bufinefs of life, 

 is moft ridiculoufly imperfect ; and it (hows very plainly that he 

 knew as little of the nature of truth as he did of the nature of ideas, 

 of w^hich truth inuft be compofed. Whereas, if he had known that, 

 as all things in nature contain or are contained in fomething elfe fo 

 ideas cont.iin or are contained in one another ; and, therefore, W' en 

 the propoiuion is affirmative, the idea of the praedicate contains or 

 is contained in the fubjccl ; and if we will ufe the language o[ . Ir 

 Locke, that may be called the agreement of two ideas: Whereas, 

 if the praedicate of the propofition does not contain the fubjc6\, nor 

 is containtd in it, then the two ideas may be faid to dijagree ; and 

 in this way Mr Locke's language of the agreement or dil greeraent of 

 ideas, may be made intelligible, which, as he has expreffed it, is 

 quiie unintelligible. 



To conclude this fubjed, upon which I have faid fo much; — If 

 we could believe that there was no connexion betwixt things in the 

 univerfe, fuch as I fuppofe, but that every thing exifled by itfelf, 

 and did not contain^ or "was not contained in any thing elfe, the con- 

 fequence would be, that there would be no union of things in the 

 univerfe, which, in that cale, would not oe one but ?nanvy and con- 

 fequently no lyllcm, but a confuied mafs of things : Whereas, up- 

 on the luppofition of things in it being fo united, as I fuppofe, it 

 muft be the moft perfed ivftem that can be imagined; in which 

 there is the moll intimate connedion and cloill-ft union poflible 

 that of whole and part. 



This wonderful conneaion of things in the univerfe, by wlilch 

 there is nothing that does not comprehend (ome other thing, or is not 

 comprehended in it, that is to lay, is not cither a whole cr a pari; — 



or 



