University of Virginia Library

Search this document 
An essay concerning human understanding

  
[frontispiece]
  
[title page]
  
To The Right Honourable Lord Thomas,
  
Epistle to the Reader

expand section 
Introduction An Essay Concerning Human Understanding
expand section1. 
Book I Neither Principles Nor Ideas Are Innate
expand section2. 
Book II Of Ideas
expand section3. 
Book III Of Words
collapse section4. 
Book IV Of Knowledge and Probability
expand section1. 
Chapter I Of Knowledge in General
expand section2. 
Chapter II Of the Degrees of our Knowledge
expand section3. 
Chapter III Of the Extent of Human Knowledge
expand section4. 
Chapter IV Of the Reality of Knowledge
expand section5. 
Chapter V Of Truth in General
expand section6. 
Chapter VI Of Universal Propositions: their Truth and Certainty
expand section7. 
Chapter VII Of Maxims
expand section8. 
Chapter VIII Of Trifling Propositions
expand section9. 
Chapter IX Of our Threefold Knowledge of Existence
collapse section10. 
Chapter X Of our Knowledge of the Existence of a God
  
1. We are capable of knowing certainly that there is a God.
  
2. For man knows that he himself exists.
  
3. He knows also that nothing cannot produce a being; therefore something must have existed from eternity.
  
4. And that eternal Being must be most powerful.
  
5. And most knowing.
  
6. And therefore God.
  
7. Our idea of a most perfect Being, not the sole proof of a God.
  
8. Recapitulation--something from eternity.
  
9. Two sorts of beings, cogitative and incogitative.
  
10. Incogitative being cannot produce a cogitative being.
  
11. Therefore, there has been an eternal cogitative Being.
  
12. The attributes of the eternal cogitative Being.
  
13. Whether the eternal Mind may he also material or no.
  
14. Not material: first, because each particle of matter is not cogitative.
  
15. Secondly, because one particle alone of matter cannot be cogitative.
  
16. Thirdly, because a system of incogitative matter cannot be cogitative.
  
17. And that whether this corporeal system is in motion or at rest.
  
18. Matter not co-eternal with an eternal Mind.
  
19. Objection: Creation out of nothing.
expand section11. 
Chapter XI Of our Knowledge of the Existence of Other Things
expand section12. 
Chapter XII Of the Improvement of our Knowledge
expand section13. 
Chapter XIII Some Further Considerations Concerning our Knowledge
expand section14. 
Chapter XIV Of Judgment
expand section15. 
Chapter XV Of Probability
expand section16. 
Chapter XVI Of the Degrees of Assent
expand section17. 
Chapter XVII Of Reason
expand section18. 
Chapter XVIII Of Faith and Reason, and their Distinct Provinces
expand section19. 
Chapter XIX Of Enthusiasm
expand section20. 
Chapter XX Of Wrong Assent, or Error
expand section21. 
Chapter XXI Of the Division of the Sciences

collapse section Collapse All | Expand All expand section
previous sectionChapter X Of our Knowledge of the Existence of a God An essay concerning human understanding
next section

11. Therefore, there has been an eternal cogitative Being.

If, therefore, it be evident, that something necessarily must exist from eternity, it is also as evident, that that something must necessarily be a cogitative being: for it is as impossible that incogitative matter should produce a cogitative being, as that nothing, or the negation of all being, should produce a positive being or matter.

previous sectionChapter X Of our Knowledge of the Existence of a God An essay concerning human understanding
next section