The procedure, extent, and limits of human understanding / [Anon].

  • Browne, Peter, approximately 1666-1735.
Date:
1729
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The procedure, extent, and limits of human understanding / [Anon]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    451/496 (page 439)
    \ ^. Accoring to their fundamental Principle, fhat if our Words do not ft and for Id eas, they are Sounds and nothing elje * that the Mind neither doth nor can extend itfelf farther than They^; and that where we have no Ideas our Reafoning Stops, and we are at an end of our Reckoning; it is plain that the Mind is tied down altogether to Obje£ts of Senfation ; of which only, as we have feen, it can properly Ipeaking ha ye Direct and Immediate Ideas , and that it can never carry one Thought beyond the fix'd Stars, any more than if all without them were an empty Void1 Nay this laft Conlequence from thole Principles would be neverthelels true, tho’ we Ihould al¬ low ourielves to have Simple original Ideas of the Operations of our own Minds ; and tho’ we ihould moil abiurdly call our Complex Notions and Conceptions of things here below, by the Name of Ideas : For all thele are ftill within our fcanty limited Syftem ; and will not give us the leaft Dir eld View over its Bounds; from whence we might form any one ilich Idea, or even Co?nplex Notion or Conception, not only of the real True Nature, but even of the Ex- iftence of any thing in another World, as.we have of things Here which are within the Im¬ mediate Reach and Compafs of Senle andRea- fon. But much lels can they help us to any Dir ell Idea or Notion either of the Exiftence of God, or of his real I'rue Nature and Attri¬ butes ; which is the Foundation of all Religion natural and revealed. F f 4 Tho’ »