I need not, I think, here mention the
resurrection of the dead, the future state of this globe of earth, and
such other things, which are by every one acknowledged to depend
wholly on the determination of a free agent. The things that, as far
as our observation reaches, we constantly find to proceed regularly,
we may conclude do act by a law set them; but yet by a law that we
know not: whereby, though causes work steadily, and effects constantly
flow from them, yet their connexions and dependencies being not
discoverable in our ideas, we can have but an experimental knowledge
of them. From all which it is easy to perceive what a darkness we
are involved in, how little it is of Being, and the things that are,
that we are capable to know. And therefore we shall do no injury to
our knowledge, when we modestly think with ourselves, that we are so
far from being able to comprehend the whole nature of the universe and
all the things contained in it, that we are not capable of a
philosophical knowledge of the bodies that are about us, and make a
part of us: concerning their secondary qualities, powers, and
operations, we can have no universal certainty. Several effects come
every day within the notice of our senses, of which we have so far
sensitive knowledge: but the causes, manner, and certainty of their
production, for the two foregoing reasons, we must be content to be
very ignorant of.
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