METAPHYSICS. 29 



Precision of Expression. 



We find it extremely difficult to define to others, 

 with clearness and precision, exactly what we wish 

 them to understand, that is to say, neither more nor 

 less ; and besides this, a man will sometimes feel 

 himself decided by an inward sense of his own situa- 

 tion, which probably he would find great difficulty in 

 explaining to the satisfaction of others. No man 

 can exactly judge, from his own sensations, what 

 another would feel in the same circumstances. 



Ideas and Perceptions. 



When the senses are employed in investigating the 

 nature of impressions, the objects that produce them, 

 and the circumstances by which they are modified, 

 they are called organs of perception. 



The knowledge we acquire of the relations of an 

 impression (on the brain), is usually termed idea, 

 sometimes perception. 



Cause and Effect according to the Necessarians. 



The state of things at this moment is the effect of 

 the state of things that existed the preceding mo- 

 ment, and the cause of the state of things that shall 

 exist the next moment. 



Ex nihilo nihiljit. 



There is nothing made from nothing. Hence, what- 

 ever exists must be eternal : whatever is eternal is 

 infinite, since it has neither beginning nor end : what- 

 ever is infinite is singular, for if it were not, there 

 would be several, the one serving as a boundary to 

 the other, and of course could not be infinite. 



Whatever is singular is always like itself. It fol- 

 lows that a being, singular, eternal, and always alike, 

 must be immoveable, since it cannot enter a vacuum 

 which is nothing, nor a plenum which is already full. 



