Volume 1

Cyclopaedia: or, an universal dictionary of arts and sciences ... The whole intended as a course of antient and modern learning, extracted from the best authors, dictionaries, journals, memoirs, transactions, ephemerides, &c. in several languages / By E. Chambers.

  • Chambers, Ephraim, approximately 1680-1740.
Date:
1741-1743
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Cyclopaedia: or, an universal dictionary of arts and sciences ... The whole intended as a course of antient and modern learning, extracted from the best authors, dictionaries, journals, memoirs, transactions, ephemerides, &c. in several languages / By E. Chambers. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    KNO Verfitv, or intuitive knowledge is as far extended, as our ideas themfelves; and there can be no idea in the mind, which it does not prefently, bv an intuitive knowledge, perceive to be what it is, and to be different from any other. 2°. As to the agreement, or difagreement of our ideas of co- exiftence, our knowledge herein is very defective, though it is in this that the greateft and moft material parts of our knowledge, concerning fubftances, conflfts: for our ideas of fubftances being nothing but certain collections of limple ideas, co-exiftmg in one fubjeCt, (our idea of flame, for inftance, is a body hot, luminous, and moving upwards.) When we would know any tjiing farther, concerning this or any other fort of fubftance, what do we but enquire what other quali¬ ties, or powers, thefe fubftances have, or have not ? which is nothing elfe but to know what other Ample ideas do, or do not exift with thofe that make up fuch complex idea.—The reafon of this is, that the Ample ideas, which make up our complex ideas of fubftances, have no viftble neceflary con¬ nection, or inconflftence, with other Ample ideas, whofe co- exiftence with them we would inform ourfelves about.— Thefe ideas being likewife, for the moft part, fecondary qua lities, which depend upon the primary qualities of their minute or infenflble parts, or on fomething yet more remote from our comprehenfton; it is impoflible we fhould know which have a neceflary union, or inconflftence, one with another, Ance we know not the root from whence they fpring, or the Aze, ftgure, and texture of parts on which they depend, and from which they refult.—Beftdes this, there is no difeover- able connedtion between any fecondary quality, and thofe primary qualities that it depends on.—We are fo far from knowing what flgure, Aze, or motion produces, (for inftance) a yellow colour, or fweet tafte, or fharp found ; that we can by no means conceive how any Aze, flgure, or motion, can pofflbly produce in us the idea of any colour, tafte, or found, whatfoever; there being no conceivable connection be¬ tween the one and the other. See Particle, Colour, Light, &c. Our knowledge, therefore, of co-exiftence, reaches little fur ther than experience. Some few, indeed, of the primary qualities have a neceflary dependance, and viftble connection one with another: as flgure neceflarily fuppofes extenflon ; receiving or communicating motion by impulfe, fuppofes fo- lidity: but qualities co-exiftent in any fubjeCt, without this dependance and connection, cannot certainly be known to co exift, any farther than experience by our fenfes informs us.— Thus though, upon trial, we And gold yellow, weighty, malle able, fuftble, and Axed; yet becaufe none of thefe have any evident dependance, or neceflary connection with the other we cannot certainly know, that where any four of thefe are, the ftfth will be there alfo, how highly probable foever it may be. But the higheft degree of probability amounts not to certainty, without which there can be no true knowledge for this co-exiftence can be no farther known, than it is per¬ ceived ; and it cannot be perceived but either in particular fubje&s, by the obfervation of our fenfes, or, in general, by the neceflary connection of the ideas themfelves. As to incompatibility, or repugnancy to co-exiftence, we knoiu that no fubjeCt can have of each fort of primary quali¬ ties, more than one particular at once, as one extenflon, or one Agure; and fo of fenftble ideas peculiar to each fenfe: for whatever, of each kind, is prefent in any fubjeCt, excludes all other of that fort; for inftance, one fubjeCt cannot have two frnells, or two colours, at the fame time, As to powers of fubftances, which makes a great part of our enquiries about them, our knowledge reaches little farther than experience; becaufe they conftft in a texture and motion of parts, which we cannot by any means come to difeover; and I doubt whether, with thofe faculties we have, we fhall ever be able to carry our general knowledge much farther in this part. Experience is that which in this part we muft de¬ pend on, and it were to be wifhed that it were more im¬ proved.—We And the advantages forne mens generous pains have this way brought to the flock of natural knowledge and if others, efpecially the philofophers by Are, had been fo wary in their obfervations, and ftneere in their reports, as thofe who call themfelves philofophers ought to have been, our acquaintance with the bodies here about us, and our in fight into their powers and operations, had been yet much greater. See Experience, Experimental, &c. As to the third fort, the agreement, or difagreement of our ideas in any other relation; this is the largeft field of know¬ ledge, and it is hard to determine how far it may extend this part depending on our fagacity, in Anding intermedi- tion neering kind. not the only ones capable of demonftration, and knowledge; and that other, and perhaps more ufeful parts ot contempla- would afford us certainty, if vices, paffions, and domi- intereft did not oppofe, or menace endeavours of this See Morality. . , . As to the fourth fort of knowledge, viz. of the real adlual extftence of things, we have an intuitive knowledge of our own exiftence, a demonftrative knowledge of the exiltence of God, and a fenAtive knoxvledge of the objeCts that prefent themlelves to our fenfes. See Existence. Hitherto we have examined the extent of our knoivledge, in refpeCt of the feveral forts of beings that are: there is an¬ other extent of it, in refpeCt of univerfality, which will alfo deferve to be confldered; and this in regard our knowledge follows the nature of our ideas.—If the ideas, whofe agree¬ ment, or difagreement we perceive, are abftraCt, our know¬ ledge is univerfal; for what is known of fuch general ideas, will be true of every particular thing in which that elience, that is, that abitra# idea is found: and what is once known of fuch ideas, will be perpetually, and for ever true; fo that, as to all general knowledge, we muft fearch, and And it only- in our own minds; and it is only the examining our own ideas, that furnifhes us with it.—Truths belonging to efl’ences of things, (that is, to abftraa ideas) are eternal, and are to be found out by the contemplation only of thofe eflences; as the exiftence of things is to be knozvn only from experience. See Abstract, Abstraction, General Ter?n, &c. Reality of Knowledge.—It is evident, that the mind knows not things immediately, but by the intervention oi the ideas it has of them.—Our knowledge, therefore, is real only fo far, as there is a conformity between our ideas, and the reali- ty of things. But how fhall we know when our ideas agree with things themfelves ? it is anfwerred. There are two torts of ideas, that we may be aflured agree with things; theie are, i°. Simple ideas, which, ftnee the mind can by no means make to itfelf, muft be the effeCt of things operating upon the mind in a natural way, and producing therein thofe per¬ ceptions, which, by the will of our Maker, they are ordain¬ ed, and adapted to.—Hence$ it follows, that Ample ideas are not Actions of our fancies, but the natural and regular pro¬ ductions of things without us, really operating upon us; which carry with them all the conformity our ftate requires, which is to reprefent things under thofe appearances they are Atteft to produce in us.—Thus the idea of whitenefs, as it is in the mind, exactly anfwers that power which is in any body to produce it there; and this conformity between our Ample ideas, and the exiftence of things, is fuificient for real knowledge. 2°. All our complex ideas, except thofe of fubftances, being archetypes of the mind’s own making, and not referred to the exiftence of things, as to their originals, cannot want any conformity neceflary to real knowledge; for that which is not deftgned to reprefent any thing but itfelf, can never be capable of a wrong reprefentation.—Here the ideas them¬ felves are confldered as archetypes, and things no otherwife regarded, than as conformable to them.—Thus the mathema¬ tician confiders the truth, and properties belonging to a rect¬ angle, or circle, only as they are ideas in his own mind, which poflibly he never found exifting mathematically, that is, precifely true; yet his knowledge is not only certain, but real, becaufe real things are no farther concerned, nor in¬ tended to be meant by any fuch propofitions, than as things really agree to thofe archetypes in the mind. 3°. But the complex ideas, which we refer to archetypes without us, may differ from them, and fo our knowledge a- bout them may come Ihort of being real; and fuch are out ideas of fubftances. Thefe muft be taken from fomething, that does, or has exifted, and not be made up of ideas arbi¬ trarily put together, without any real pattern.—Herein, therefore, is founded the reality of our knowledge concerning fubftances, that all our complex ideas of them muft be fuch, and fuch only, as are made up of fuch Ample ones, as have been difeovered to co-exift in nature: and our ideas being thus true, though not perhaps very exaCt copies, are the fub¬ jeCt of real knowledge of them.—Whatever ideas we have, the agreement we And they have with others, will be know- ledge.—\i thofe ideas be abftraCt, it will be general know¬ ledge-, but to make it real, concerning fubftances, the ideas muft be taken from the real exiftence of things.—When¬ ever, therefore, we perceive the agreement, or difagreement of our ideas, there is certain knowledge; and where-ever we are fure thofe ideas agree with the reality of things, there is certain real knowledge. ate ideas, that may fhew the habitudes and relations of ideas, \ Method of improving or enlarging Knowledge.—It being the of fuch cannot it is an hard matter to tell when we are at an end difcqveries.—They who are ignorant of algebra, imagine the wonders of this kind that are to be done bv it and what farther improvements, and helps, advantageous to other parts of knowledge, the fagacious mind of man may yet And out, ir is not eafy to determine. See Algebra, and Analytics. I hisjj at lea ft, we may believe, that the ideas of quantity are received opinion amongft men of letters, that maxims are the foundation of all knowledge, and that feiences are each of them built upon certain praecognita, from whence the under- ftanding is to take its rife, and by which it is to conduit itfelf in its inquiries in the matters belonging to that fcience; the beaten road of the fchools has been to lay down, in the beginning, one or more general propofitions, called principles, as foundations whereon to build the knowledge that was to be had