Chapter IV
Of the Reality of Knowledge
1. Objection. "Knowledge placed in our ideas may be all unreal or
chimerical." I doubt not but my reader, by this time, may be apt to
think that I have been all this while only building a castle in the
air; and be ready to say to me:
"To what purpose all this stir? Knowledge, say you, is only the
perception of the agreement or disagreement of our own ideas: but
who knows what those ideas may be? Is there anything so extravagant as
the imaginations of men's brains? Where is the head that has no
chimeras in it? Or if there be a sober and a wise man, what difference
will there be, by your rules, between his knowledge and that of the
most extravagant fancy in the world? They both have their ideas, and
perceive their agreement and disagreement one with another. If there
be any difference between them, the advantage will be on the
warm-headed man's side, as having the more ideas, and the more lively.
And so, by your rules, he will be the more knowing. If it be true,
that all knowledge lies only in the perception of the agreement or
disagreement of our own ideas, the visions of an enthusiast and the
reasonings of a sober man will be equally certain. It is no matter how
things are: so a man observe but the agreement of his own
imaginations, and talk conformably, it is all truth, all certainty.
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