errors and opinions, I must do mankind that right, as to say there are not so many men in errors and wrong opinions as is commonly supposed. Not that I think they embrace the truth; but indeed, because concerning those doctrines they keep such a stir about, they have no thought, no opinion at all. For if any one should a little catechise the greatest part of the partizans of most of the sects in the world, he would not find, concerning those matters they are so zealous for, that they have any opinions of their own; much less would he have reason to think that they took them upon the examination of arguments and appearance of probability. They are resolved to stick to a party that education or interest has engaged them in; and there, like the common soldiers of an army, show their courage and warmth as their leaders direct, without ever examining or so much as knowing the cause they contend for. If a man's life shows that he has no serious regard for religion; for what reason should we think that he beats his head about the opinions of his church, and troubles himself to examine the grounds of this or that doctrine? It is enough for him to obey his leaders, to have his hand and his tongue ready for the support of the common cause, and thereby approve himself to those who can give him credit, preferment, or protection in that society.* Thus men become professors of, and combatants for, those opinions they were never convinced of nor proselytes to; no, nor ever had so much as floating in their heads; and though one cannot say there are fewer improbable or erroneous opinions in the world than there are, yet it is certain there are fewer that actually assent to them and mistake them for truth than is imagined.

CHAPTER XXI.

OF THE DIVISION OF THE SCIENCES.

1. Three Sorts.-ALL that can fall within the compass of human understanding, being either, First, the nature of things, * Milton has drawn a lively and admirable picture of a character of this kind, in which he is, if possible, still more sarcastic than Locke. "A wealthy man," he says, "addicted to his pleasure and to his profits, finds religion to be a traffic, so entangled, and of so many piddling accounts, that of all mysteries he cannot skill to keep a stock going upon that trade. What should he do? Fain he would have the name to be religious, fain he would bear up with his neighbour in that. What does he, therefore, but resolves to give over toiling, and to find himself out

as they are in themselves, their relations, and their manner of operation; or, Secondly, that which man himself ought to do, as a rational and voluntary agent, for the attainment of any end, especially happiness; or, Thirdly, the ways and means whereby the knowledge of both the one and the other of these is attained and communicated: I think science may be divided properly into these three sorts,

2. I. Physica. First, The knowledge of things, as they are in their own proper beings, their constitution, properties, and operations; whereby I mean not only matter and body, but spirits also, which have their proper natures, constitutions, and operations, as well as bodies. This, in a little more enlarged sense of the word, I call Quoin, or natural philosophy. The end of this is bare speculative truth; and whatsoever can afford the mind of man any such, falls under this branch, whether it be God himself, angels, spirits, bodies, or any of their affections, as number, and figure, &c.

3. II. Practica.-Secondly, HoaкTIK, the skill of right applying our own powers and actions, for the attainment of things good and useful. The most considerable under this head is ethics, which is the seeking out those rules and measures of human actions, which lead to happiness, and the means to practise them. The end of this is not bare speculation and the knowledge of truth, but right, and a conduct suitable to it.

4. III. EnμεLwTik-Thirdly, The third branch may be called Enμεiwrik, or the doctrine of signs; the most usual whereof being words, it is aptly enough termed also Aoyun, logic; the business whereof is to consider the nature of signs, some factor, to whose care and credit he may commit the whole managing of his religious affairs; some divine of note and estimation that must be. To him he adheres, resigns the whole warehouse of his religion, with all the locks and keys into his custody; and indeed makes the very person of that man his religion; esteems his associating with him a sufficient evidence and commendatory of his own piety. So that a man may say his religion is now no more within himself, but is become a dividual movable, and goes and comes near him, according as that good man frequents the house. He entertains him, gives him gifts, feasts him, lodges him; his religion comes home at night, prays, is liberally supped, and sumptuously laid to sleep; rises, is saluted, and after the malinsey, or some well-spiced beverage, and better breakfasted than he whose morning appetite would have gladly fed on green figs between Bethany and Jerusalem; his religion walks abroad at eight, and leaves his kind entertainer in the shop, trading all day without his religion." (Areopag. § 55.)-ED.

the mind makes use of for the understanding of things, or conveying its knowledge to others. For since the things the mind contemplates are none of them, besides itself, present to the understanding, it is necessary that something else, as a sign or representation of the thing it considers, should be present to it; and these are ideas. And because the scene of ideas that makes one man's thoughts cannot be laid open to the immediate view of another, nor laid up anywhere but in the memory, a no very sure repository; therefore to communicate our thoughts to one another, as well as record them for our own use, signs of our ideas are also necessary. Those which men have found most convenient, and therefore generally make use of, are articulate sounds. The consideration, then, of ideas and words, as the great instruments of knowledge, makes no despicable part of their contemplation who would take a view of human knowledge in the whole extent of it. And perhaps if they were distinctly weighed, and duly considered, they would afford us another sort of logic and critic,* than what we have been hitherto acquainted with.

5. This is the first Division of the Objects of Knowledge.This seems to me the first and most general, as well as natural division of the objects of our understanding. For a man can employ his thoughts about nothing, but either the contemplation of things themselves for the discovery of truth; or about the things in his own power, which are his own actions, for the attainment of his own ends; or the signs the mind makes use of both in the one and the other, and the right ordering of them for its clearer information. All which three, viz., things, as they are in themselves knowable; actions as they depend on us, in order to happiness; and the right use of signs in order to knowledge, being toto cœlo different, they seemed to me to be the three great provinces of the intellectual world, wholly separate and distinct one from another.

* Criticism.-ED.

END OF ESSAY ON HUMAN UNDERSTANDING.

APPENDIX.

CONTROVERSY WITH THE BISHOP OF WORCESTER.

[IT was originally my intention to reprint the whole of those Letters of Locke which were addressed to the Bishop of Worcester, on the subject of the Essay on the Human Understanding. But upon a more diligent examination of those compositions, I found there was much in them which could scarcely be denominated philosophical, containing matter merely of temporary interest, or turning upon points appertaining solely to the disputants themselves. There are, nevertheless, several passages in those letters, which, because they throw some light on topics discussed in the Essay on the Human Understanding, have usually been subjoined as notes to that work. It has been judged more advisable in the present edition, to introduce them by way of Appendix; first, that they might not interfere with the New Notes; and secondly, because they will probably be read with more advantage where they now stand.

I would not, by what has been said above, be understood to detract from the merit of the Letters to the Bishop of Worcester, which may in themselves be regarded as models of controversial writing; but the very nature of the dispute often led Locke over the ground which he had previously trodden in his Essay, and compelled him to repeat diffusely and hurriedly, what he had there stated in a briefer and more masterly manner. In itself, moreover, his style of correspondence is too voluminous; not, perhaps, through any aversion of his for brevity, but because of his earnest anxiety not to betray the cause of truth from the apprehension of growing tedious. But the taste of the present age is intolerant, at least in what relates to truth and philosophy. We read no page of a book with so much pleasure as the last, because too frequently we read to boast of it as an achievement rather than to profit by it as an exercise. For this reason, most persons will probably be content with those portions of Locke's correspondence with the Bishop of Worcester which are here given. They will perceive with how great dexterity he defends himself from the assaults of his adversary, and how triumphantly he establishes the important truths laid down with modest dogmatism in his great system of philosophy. Should any one, from these specimens, desire to read more, he may congratulate himself upon his own taste and judgment, which will at least incite him to a careful perusal of the minor treatises bequeathed us by the great philosopher.-ED.]

No. I. Vol. I. p. 134, par. 8.

This modest apology of our author could not procure him the free use of the word idea: but great offence has been taken at it, and it has been censured as of dangerous consequence: to which you may

see what he answers. "The world," saith the Bishop of Worcester, "hath been strangely amused with ideas of late; and we have been told that strange things might be done by the help of ideas, and yet these ideas, at last, come to be only common notions of things, which we must make use of in our reasoning. You (i. e., the author of the Essay concerning Human Understanding) say in that chapter about the existence of God, you thought it most proper to express yourself in the most usual and familiar way, by common words and expressions. I would you had done so quite through your book; for then you had never given that occasion to the enemies of our faith, to take up your new way of ideas, as an effectual battery (as they imagined) against the mysteries of the Christian faith. But you might have enjoyed the satisfaction of your ideas long enough before I had taken notice of thein, unless I had found them employed about doing mischief."

To which our author replies: + It is plain that that which your lordship apprehends in my book may be of dangerous consequence to the article which your lordship has endeavoured to defend, my introducing new terms: and that which your lordship instances in, is that of ideas. And the reason that your lordship gives in every of these places why your lordship has such an apprehension of ideas, that they may be of dangerous consequence to that article of faith which your lordship has endeavoured to defend, is, because they have been applied to such purposes. And I might your lordship says) have enjoyed the satisfaction of my ideas long enough, before you had taken notice of them, unless your lordship had found them employed in doing mischief. Which, at last, as I humbly conceive, amounts to thus much, and no more, viz., that your lordship fears ideas, i. e., the term ideas, may some time or other prove of very dangerous consequence to what your lordship has endea voured to defend, because they have been made use of in arguing against it. For I am sure your lordship does not mean, that you apprehend the things signified by ideas, may be of dangerous consequence to the article of faith your lordship endeavours to defend, because they have been made use of against it: for (besides that your lordship mentions terms) that would be to expect that those who oppose that article should oppose it without any thoughts; for the things signified by ideas, are nothing but the immediate objects of our minds in thinking: so that unless any one can oppose the article your lordship defends, without thinking on something, he must use the thing signified by ideas; for he that thinks, must have some immediate object of his mind in thinking: i. e., must have ideas.

"But whether it be the name or the thing; ideas in sound, or ideas in signification; that your lordship apprehends may be of dangerous consequence to that article of faith which your lordship endeavours to defend; it seems to me, I will not say a new way of reasoning, (for that belongs to me,) but were it not your lordship's, I should think it a very extraordinary way of reasoning to write against a book wherein your lordship acknowledges they are not used to bad purposes nor employed to do mischief; only because you find that ideas are, by those who

* Answer to Mr. Locke's First Letter.

In his Second Letter to the Bishop of Worcester.