Understanding and not of the Will. In which Expreffions they feem to forget that the Understanding is a paffive Power, fince that which is purely fo cannot act, or have any Operation. But now we speak of Happiness, I would further offer it to be confider'd, whether it does not seem a lazy Suppofition, and an unworthy Notion of that Reft which Heaven means, to fuppofe that it confifts in a State of Inactivity, and that in the beatifick Vision of God, and the Contemplation of all thofe intelligible Truths which fhine forth from his glorious Effence, the beatified Soul fhould have nothing to do, but be as purely paffive in her Understanding, as fome fancy fhe is now in her Will, as paffive to the Light of Truth, as they fanfie fhe is now to the Influences of Grace. And if fuch a paffive inactive State as this is to be our future Happiness, whether it be fo conveniently exprefs'd by the name of Life, which imports fo much of Activeness in the ordinary Conception we have of it. Upon which Confiderations it seems reasonable to conclude, if not that Perception it felf is an Act, yet at leaft that the Soul is active as well as paffive in her intellectual Perceptions, which is as much as the present purpose requires.

5. This diftinction of ours, of active and paffive Thought, carries a found, much refembling that of the Schools, concerning Agent and Patient Understanding, but is in fenfe and intention very different from it. For in our

distinction the meaning is, that there are fome Thoughts wherein the Mind acts, and some again wherein it only receives the Action of another, fo that ftill 'tis the fame thinking Principle, and as thinking, that is, both active and paffive. Whereas tho' they diftinguish of an Agent and Patient Understanding, and fo feem to afcribe Thought to each, yet when they come to explain their Senfe, we find that with them 'tis the Patient Understanding only that truly thinks, underftands, or perceives. The Business of that which they call Agent, being not to understand, but to form intelligible Species for the Contemplation of the other. Which indeed is to make it active with a witnefs, tho' not in the way of Understanding. It being certainly a Work of more difficulty to form Ideas, than it is to perceive them, or underftand by them. But the Schools, if they had fo pleas'd, might have fpared this Impofition upon poor Intellectus Agens. For Thanks be to God, we want not Ideas, nor could any Faculty of ours pretend to make them if we did. Nor indeed is it the Bufinefs of Human Understanding to make Ideas, but only to contemplate them, which alone (without working at that intellectual Forge which the Schools have fet up) will fufficiently employ all its Activity as well as Capacity. But concerning this Matter, we fhall have occafion for further Reflections hereafter. In the mean time let us proceed to fome other Confiderations of Thought. SECT

SECT. V.

Of fimple and complex Thought, with fome Remarks concerning Knowledge.

I.

T

His Confideration of Thought will be found perhaps to carry a double Afpect, one refpecting the Act of Thought, as it is in it felf, and the other as it relates to its Object. In Thought of Volition it refpects the Act purely as in it felf, which is fometimes faid to be complex, not as if the A&t it self were compounded (for I know not whether any Act of Thought be complex in that fenfe) but because it compounds or puts together fomething elfe. For fo, for inftance, that Act of the Mind which we call Judgment, which has been fhewn to belong to the Will, as being an Affent or Diffent to what the Understanding proposes to it, this Judgment, I fay, whether immediate or mediate, whether Judgment by way of Propofition, or Judgment by way of Conclufion; whether enunciative or illative Judgment, is a complex Thought, as uniting and compounding one thing with another, in oppofition to that Apprehenfion or Perception which is rightly faid to be fimple, because it refts in the pure view of things as they are, without affirming or denying any thing concerning them, and is indeed the first Act or Operation of the Mind at large (which perceives

in fome degree or other before it wills or judges) but not the first, but rather only Act of the Understanding.

2. But now in Thought of Perception, this distinction of Simple and Complex refpects the Act partly as in it felf, and partly as it relates to the Object: First, as it is in it felf; for as Thought of Volition is in that refpect faid to be fometimes complex, because of the Compofition, or rather Componency, which is in that its Operation, which we call Judgment, fo in the fame refpect, but for a contrary reafon, Thought of Perception is fimple. As indeed it always is as to the Act, even when it is complex as to the Object, as having no Compofition or Divifion in it. But then as it relates to its Object, it is partly simple and partly complex, according as the Nature of the Object is. Then is Perception, in the prefent way of confidering it, faid to be fimple, when the Object of it is fimple, and then complex when the Object of it is complex. And fince the intire and adequate Object of Thought (as will hereafter appear) is comprised within the compass of Ideas and of their Relations, we may more explicitly fay that then is Perception fimple when it is the Contemplation of Ideas only, and then complex when with the Ideas it takes in alfo the Confideration of their Relations and effential Habitudes. It is fimple, when it has for its Object the fingle and folitary Ideas, and 'tis complex when it confiders thofe Truths which refult from those Ideas.

3. Per

3. Perception then is either fimple or complex; but whether one or the other, 'tis always fimple as to the Act, as not compounding or dividing, tho' partly fimple and partly complex as to the Object. And fince it is fo, this Perception, according to the whole Latitude of it, is what the Schools either do or fhould mean by their fimple Apprehenfion; for when they call it fimple, they muft in reafon be prefumed to mean as to the Act, partly in oppofition to the Acts of Compofition that follow, and partly because if they meant fimple as to the Object, they fhould alfo have put a complex Apprehenfion to answer to it in the fame kind, which, meaning it as to the Act, they could not do, because indeed there is no complex Perception as to the Act, and accordingly they were forced to go immediately off to Judgment and Difcourfe. But now even complex Perception. as to the Object, is fimple as to the Act, and is therefore to be concluded within the compass of their fimple Apprehenfion, which fhould not, rightly comparing Things, be understood as to the fimplicity of the Ideas apprehended, but as to the fimplicity of the Act apprehending, which is found as much in a complex as in a fimple Perception. And confequently their fimple Apprehenfion ought to have that reach as to include one as well as the other, or elfe (which is further confiderable) there will, I think, be no place allow'd for, nor notice taken of complex Perception in their whole

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