171 



Though this kind ot knowledge be more complex, 

 it is equally certain with that we have from sensa- 

 tion. The assent as necessarily follows upon con- 

 sciousness : indeed it falls in with it. The consci- 

 ousness itself is the very assent ; nor can they be 

 distinguished even in thought. When this intenVal 

 sensation is truly natural, we are never deceived in 

 this article of knowledge : and this also is so clear 

 and distinct, that it admits of no proof from reason. 

 So that neither can this, any more than the former, 

 be called demonstration: since, like that, it is so 

 immediate and intimate to us, that nothing can in- 

 crease its evidence. And for a man to argue away 

 any instances of this knowledge, or to deny their 

 certainty, is no less absurd, than to contradict the 

 clear perceptions of external sense. Only it is to 

 be observed, that all here said of this knowledge, i$ 

 said of the first, immediate, internal perceptions ; 

 not of any farther observations, made upon them by 

 the intellect, or of any deductions afterwards drawn 

 concerning them. 



These two kinds of knowledge are immediate, and 

 consequently a sort of intuition : entirely different 

 from which is, 



The third kind of knowledge, reasoning, which is 

 mediate, and wholly acquired by reduction, by the 

 exercise of that one operation of the mind, illation, 

 or consequence. This we may sub- divide into dif- 

 ferent species, according to the different manner of 

 the intellect's procedure, in making its deductions. 

 I 2 



