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which have left any representation of themselves with 

 us by our senses : which representation being trans- 

 mitted by the senses to the memory, is properly 

 termed an Idea. 



If any one asks, wliat an idea is, let him look upon 

 a tree, and then immediately shutting his eyes, try if 

 he retains any resemblance of what he saw ; and that 

 is an idea. Thus it is, that all the variety of the vi- 

 sible creation is let in upon our minds through the 

 Senses, as all parts of a delightful and spacious land- 

 scape are contracted, and conveyed into a dark cham_ 

 ber, through an artificial eye in the wall, and so be, 

 come conspicuous and distinguished in miniature. 



Nor 2. Is it material, whether the ideas of sensi- 

 ble objects are true images of their real natures : or 

 whether the objects be only the occasions of produ- 

 cing Hiese ideas, by virtue of an arbitrary law of 

 God, that such a thought in the soul should follow 

 such a motion in the body. For whatever impression 

 sensible objects occasion in us, this we call their idea . 

 it being the only perception of them we are capable 

 of, and the only way we now have of knowing them. 

 And such a, way it is, as answers all the ends of know- 

 ledge in this life, and lays a ground-work sufficient 

 for all that knowledge, which is necessary in order to 

 another. 



The third thing proper to be mentioned r is, that 



to prevent confusion, the word idea is^ in all that 



fellows, confined to the images we have of sensible 



objects, and the various alterations of them by the 



H4 



