26. Hence no science of bodies within our reach.
And therefore I am apt to doubt that, how far soever human
industry may advance useful and experimental philosophy in physical things, scientifical will still be out of our
reach: because we want perfect and adequate ideas of those very bodies which are nearest to us, and most under
our command. Those which we have ranked into classes under names, and we think ourselves best acquainted
with, we have but very imperfect and incomplete ideas of. Distinct ideas of the several sorts of bodies that fall
under the examination of our senses perhaps we may have: but adequate ideas, I suspect, we have not of any one
amongst them. And though the former of these will serve us for common use and discourse, yet whilst we want
the latter, we are not capable of scientifical knowledge; nor shall ever be able to discover general, instructive,
unquestionable truths concerning them. Certainty and demonstration are things we must not, in these matters,
pretend to. By the colour, figure, taste, and smell, and other sensible qualities, we have as clear and distinct ideas
of sage and hemlock, as we have of a circle and a triangle: but having no ideas of the particular primary qualities
of the minute parts of either of these plants, nor of other bodies which we would apply them to, we cannot tell
what effects they will produce; nor when we see those effects can we so much as guess, much less know, their
manner of production. Thus, having no ideas of the particular mechanical affections of the minute parts of bodies
that are within our view and reach, we are ignorant of their constitutions, powers, and operations: and of bodies
more remote we are yet more ignorant, not knowing so much as their very outward shapes, or the sensible and
grosser parts of their constitutions.
