170 



and exercised upon its proper object, at a just dis- 

 tance, and in a due medium. Against sensitive 

 knowledge, reason can never interpose, unless there 

 is a suspicion of failure in the act of sensation. Nor 

 does it enquire then, whesher the evidence of sense 

 be true ; but whether it be truly the evidence .of 

 sense : so that to argue against the evidence of 

 sense, is to oppose the evidence of reason to what, 

 in its nature, admits of no reasoning at all. 



And In'ghly necessary it was, that this evidence of 

 sense should be so immediate, clear, and undoubted, 

 because it is the foundation of all knowledge, human 

 and divine. If then the truth of this admitted of 

 any- doubt, or were capable of any proof, we should 

 wander about in endless scepticism, without the least 

 certainty in any thing. For no proof for it could 

 be more evident, than that which it was brought to 

 prove, and would therefore itself require another 

 proof; and so on with endless confusion. 



A second kind of knowledge is that we have from 

 self-consciousness. We come to the know-ledge of 

 things without us, by the meditation of their ideas ; 

 but we are itn mediately conscious of what passes in 

 our own minds, without llie intervention of any idea. 

 Thus we have a knowledge of all the faculties of our 

 soul, very different from sensitive knowledge; though 

 we have no degree of it antecedent to the exercise 

 of those faculties upon the ideas of sensation : as we 

 should have had no knowledge of our bodily mo- 

 tions, if the parts had not been actually moved. 



