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the theory of knowledge, the theory of conscience, and the theory of faith.

I. In regard to the theory of knowledge, we find already in Culverwel that balance and equipoise between the sensationalist and intellectualist extremes, at which speculation has now with tolerable unanimity arrived. His whole treatise is an assertion of the existence of original elements of knowledge, both speculative and practical. This assertion is made with sunlike clearness, especially in the beginning of Chap. VII. 'There are stamped and printed upon the being of man some clear and indelible principles, some first and alphabetical notions, by putting together of which it can spell out the law of nature.' 'All the fresh springs of common and fountain notions are in the soul of man, for the watering of his essence, for the refreshing of this heavenly plant, this arbor inversa, this enclosed being, this garden of God. And though the wickedness of man may stop the pleasant motion, the clear and crystalline progress of the fountain, yet they cannot hinder the first risings, the bubbling endeavours of it. They may pull off nature's leaves, and pluck off her fruit, and chop off her branches, but yet the root of it is eternal, the foundation of it is inviolable.' 'You must not, nor cannot think that nature's law is confined and contracted within the compass of two or three common notions, as with one foot it fixes a centre, so with the other it measures and spreads out a circumference; it draws several conclusions, which do all meet and crowd into these first and central principles. As in those noble mathematical sciences there are not only some first airuara, which are granted as soon as asked,

if not before, but there are also whole heaps of firm and immovable demonstrations that are built upon them. In the very same manner, nature has some postulata, some πрones, which Seneca renders præsumptiones, which others call anticipationes animi, which she knows a rational being will presently and willingly yield unto; and therefore by virtue of these it does engage and oblige it to all such commands, as shall by just result, by genuine production, by kindly and evident derivation flow from these' (pp. 81, 82).

While these, and many similar expressions, guarantee the strength of Culverwel's adherence to the doctrine of à priori knowledge, he opposes the doctrine of connate species or innate ideas, as strongly as Locke himself; and affirms, that without the suggesting influence of sense and experience, our fundamental beliefs or primary notions would never come into consciousness. He ridicules the Platonic theory of pre-existence, and of knowledge brought ready made from an earlier consciousness; and happily expresses the mingled truth and error of that celebrated doctrine in these words: The Platonists in this were commendable, that they looked on the spirit of man as "the candle of the Lord," though they were deceived in the time when it was lighted' (p. 132). In like manner, in words that very nearly coincide with Locke's doctrine, that reflection is a source of distinct ideas, he says, 'No other innate light, but only the power and principle of knowing and reasoning, is "the candle of the Lord" (p. 128). And the following passage contains the substance of Locke's polemic against innate ideas without its one-sidedness: 'Had you such notions as these when you first peeped into being? at the

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first opening of the soul's eye? in the first exordium of infancy? Had you these connate species in the cradle ? and were they rocked asleep with you? or did you then meditate upon these principles: "Totum est majus parte," and "Nihil potest esse et non esse simul ?" Never tell us that you wanted organical dispositions, for you plainly have recourse to the sensitive powers, and must needs subscribe to this, that all knowledge comes flourishing in at these lattices. Why else should not your candle enlighten you before? Who was it that chained up and fettered your common notions? Who was it that restrained and imprisoned your connate ideas ?' 'There is some time to be allowed for the promulgation of nature's law by the voice of reason. They must have some time to spell the vóμos Yparròs that was of reason's writing. The mind having such gradual and climbing accomplishments, doth strongly evince that the true rise of knowledge is from the observing and comparing of objects, and from thence extracting the quintessence of some such principles as are worthy of all acceptation, that have so much of certainty in them, that they are near to a tautology and identity; for this first principles are' (pp. 125-127).

In these two sets of extracts it is made apparent, that Culverwel had distinctly before his mind the whole truth in regard to what Cousin has styled (not very happily) the logical and chronological origin of our knowledge respectively, and had thus laid hold of results which it required many years of controversy to harmonize. It is true, indeed, as Sir William Hamilton, in his celebrated Dissertation on Common Sense (Reid's Works, p. 782) has remarked,

that Culverwel was anticipated in these views by Lord Herbert of Cherbury, to whom he makes honourable allusion; but there is evidence of independent and critical power, in his references to that author, which show anything but a blind adherence to him; and it must have presupposed the firmest grasp of these principles on their own authority, to unite Culverwel with Herbert, as to the metaphysical foundation, when they departed so widely from each other in respect of the theological superstructure. Had Locke built on the comprehensive foundation laid by this earlier English school, or had he developed more consistently the admissions and concessions of his own system, he would have escaped the reproach of sensationalism, somewhat unjustly cast on him, and have opened a quite different career to European philosophy.

While Culverwel is thus clear as to the existence of original knowledge, and yet free from any mystical exaggeration in regard to its date, it must be acknowledged that he is less precise and satisfactory in laying down the marks by which it is discriminated. In this respect he is more vague and rhetorical than Lord Herbert, though perhaps a candid reader might deduce all the criteria relied on by the earlier writer, from the casual statements, as well as the figures and illustrations, of the later. Like Lord Herbert, he lays the chief stress on universal agreement as the test of original knowledge; but this, like him, he bases on self-evidencing clearness or certainty: 'We cannot justly distrust, but that if there should new nations, nay, if there should new worlds appear, that every rational nature amongst them would comply with and embrace the

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several branches of this law; and as they would not differ in those things that are intrinsical to sense, so neither in those that are essential to the understanding' (p. 116). The same view is thus rhetorically expanded, 'Then look upon the diversities of nations, and there you will see a rough and barbarous Scythian, a wild American, an unpolished Indian, a superstitious Egyptian, a subtle Ethiopian, a cunning Arabian, a luxurious Persian, a treacherous Carthaginian, a lying Cretian, an elegant Athenian, a wanton Corinthian, a desperate Italian, a fighting German, and many other heaps of nations, whose titles I shall now spare, and tell me whether it must not be some admirable and efficacious truth, that shall so overpower them all, as to pass current among them, and be owned and acknowledged by them' (p. 113).

The deepest ground on which this certainty is made by Culverwel, as by Lord Herbert, to rest, is the impossibility of thinking at all without admitting these principles. This is admirably put in the following passage, which, however, is unjust to Descartes, who never meant anything so futile as to reduplicate on his own consciousness, but, like Culverwel himself, based knowledge on its ultimate clearness and certainty: 'Sense is but the gate of certainty-the understanding is the throne of it. Descartes, the French philosopher, resolves all his assurance into thinking that he thinks,-why not into thinking that he sees? and why may he not be deceived in that as in any other operations? And if there be such a virtue in reflecting and reduplicating of it, then there will be more certainty in a super-reflexion, in thinking that he thinks

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