| If we have really an idea of power, we may attribute power to an unknown quality: But as it is impossible, that that idea can be derived from such a quality, and as there is nothing in known qualities, which can produce it; it follows that we deceive ourselves, when we imagine we are possest of any idea of this kind, after the manner we commonly understand it. |
| All ideas are derived from, and represent impressions. |
| We never have any impression, that contains any power or efficacy. |
| We never therefore have any idea of power. |
| Some have asserted, that we feel an energy, or power, in our own mind; and that having in this manner acquired the idea of power, we transfer that quality to matter, where we are not able immediately to discover it. |
| The motions of our body, and the thoughts and sentiments of our mind, (say they) obey the will; nor do we seek any farther to acquire a just notion of force or power. |
| But to convince us how fallacious this reasoning is, we need only consider, that the will being here considered as a cause, has no more a discoverable connexion with its effects, than any material cause has with its proper effect. |
| So far from perceiving the connexion betwixt an act of volition, and a motion of the body; it is allowed that no effect is more inexplicable from the powers and essence of thought and matter. |
| Nor is the empire of the will over our mind more intelligible. |
| The effect is there distinguishable and separable from the cause, and coued not be foreseen without the experience of their constant conjunction. |
| We have command over our mind to a certain degree, but beyond that, lose all empire over it: And it is evidently impossible to fix any precise bounds to our authority, where we consult not experience. |
| In short, the actions of the mind are, in this respect, the same with those of matter. |
| We perceive only their constant conjunction; nor can we ever reason beyond it. |
| No internal impression has an apparent energy, more than external objects have. |
| Since, therefore, matter is confessed by philosophers to operate by an unknown force, we should in vain hope to attain an idea of force by consulting our own minds. |
| [Footnote 8. The same imperfection attends our ideas of the Deity; but this can have no effect either on religion or morals. |
| The order of the universe proves an omnipotent mind; that is, a mind whose wili is CONSTANTLY ATTENDED with the obedience of every creature and being. |
| Nothing more is requisite to give a foundation to all the articles of religion. |
| nor is It necessary we shoud form a distinct idea of the force and energy of the supreme Being.] |
| It has been established as a certain principle, that general or abstract ideas are nothing but individual ones taken in a certain light, and that, in reflecting on any object, it is as impossible to exclude from our thought all particular degrees of quantity and quality as from the real nature of things. |
| If we be possest, therefore, of any idea of power in general, we must also be able to conceive some particular species of it; and as power cannot subsist alone, but is always regarded as an attribute of some being or existence, we must be able. |