2. Power, active and passive.
Power thus considered is two-fold, viz., as able to make, or able to receive any
change. The one may be called active, and the other passive power. Whether matter be not wholly destitute of
active power, as its author, God, is truly above all passive power; and whether the intermediate state of created
spirits be not that alone which is capable of both active and passive power, may be worth consideration. I shall not
now enter into that inquiry, my present business being not to search into the original of power, but how we come
by the idea of it. But since active powers make so great a part of our complex ideas of natural substances, (as we
shall see hereafter,) and I mention them as such, according to common apprehension; yet they being not, perhaps,
so truly active powers as our hasty thoughts are apt to represent them, I judge it not amiss, by this intimation, to
direct our minds to the consideration of God and spirits, for the clearest idea of active power.
