But though these, and perhaps some others of our ideas have:
yet there are so few of them that have a visible connexion one with
another, that we can by intuition or demonstration discover the
co-existence of very few of the qualities that are to be found
united in substances: and we are left only to the assistance of our
senses to make known to us what qualities they contain. For of all the
qualities that are co-existent in any subject, without this dependence
and evident connexion of their ideas one with another, we cannot
know certainly any two to co-exist, any further than experience, by
our senses, informs us. Thus, though we see the yellow colour, and,
upon trial, find the weight, malleableness, fusibility, and
fixedness that are united in a piece of gold, yet; because no one of
these ideas has any evident dependence or necessary connexion with the
other, we cannot certainly know that where any four of these are,
the fifth will be there also, how highly probable soever it may be;
because the highest probability amounts not to certainty, without
which there can be no true knowledge. For this co-existence can be
no further known than it is perceived; and it cannot be perceived
but either in particular subjects, by the observation of our senses,
or, in general, by the necessary connexion of the ideas themselves.
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