But as to the powers of substances to change
the sensible qualities of other bodies, which make a great part of our
inquiries about them, and is no inconsiderable branch of our
knowledge; I doubt as to these, whether our knowledge reaches much
further than our experience; or whether we can come to the discovery
of most of these powers, and be certain that they are in any
subject, by the connexion with any of those ideas which to us make its
essence. Because the active and passive powers of bodies, and their
ways of operating, consisting in a texture and motion of parts which
we cannot by any means come to discover; it is but in very few cases
we can be able to perceive their dependence on, or repugnance to,
any of those ideas which make our complex one of that sort of
things. I have here instanced in the corpuscularian hypothesis, as
that which is thought to go furthest in an intelligible explication of
those qualities of bodies; and I fear the weakness of human
understanding is scarce able to substitute another, which will
afford us a fuller and clearer discovery of the necessary connexion
and coexistence of the powers which are to be observed united in
several sorts of them. This at least is certain, that, whichever
hypothesis be clearest and truest, (for of that it is not my
business to determine,) our knowledge concerning corporeal
substances will be very little advanced by any of them, till we are
made to see what qualities and powers of bodies have a necessary
connexion or repugnancy one with another; which in the present state
of philosophy I think we know but to a very small degree: and I
doubt whether, with those faculties we have, we shall ever be able
to carry our general knowledge (I say not particular experience) in
this part much further.
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