3. Power includes relation. I confess power includes in it some kind
of relation, (a relation to action or change,) as indeed which of
our ideas, of what kind soever, when attentively considered, does not?
For, our ideas of extension, duration, and number, do they not all
contain in them a secret relation of the parts? Figure and motion have
something relative in them much more visibly. And sensible
qualities, as colours and smells, &c., what are they but the powers of
different bodies, in relation to our perception, &c.? And, if
considered in the things themselves, do they not depend on the bulk,
figure, texture, and motion of the parts? All which include some
kind of relation in them. Our idea therefore of power, I think, may
well have a place amongst other simple ideas, and be considered as one
of them; being one of those that make a principal ingredient in our
complex ideas of substances, as we shall hereafter have occasion to
observe.
4. The clearest idea of active power had from spirit. We are
abundantly furnished with the idea of passive power by almost all
sorts of sensible things. In most of them we cannot avoid observing
their sensible qualities, nay, their very substances, to be in a
continual flux. And therefore with reason we look on them as liable
still to the same change. Nor have we of active power (which is the
more proper signification of the word power) fewer instances.
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