CHAPTER III. 337 axles, &c. together with the various connexions and adjustments of each part, whence the exact and uniform motion of the index is derived, which points to the minute or the hour. So when a common understanding reads Virgil's tEneid, he has but a vul- gar idea of that poem, yet his mind is naturally entertained with the story, and his ears with the verse : but when a critic, or a man who has skill in poesy, reads it, he has a learned idea of its peculiar beauties, he tastes and relishes a superior pleasure ; he admires the Roman poet, and wishes he had known the Christian. Theology, which would have furnished him with nobler materials and machines than all the heathen idols. It is with a vulgar idea that the world beholds the cartoons of Raphael at Hampton - court, and every one feels his share of pleasure and entertainment: but a painter contemplates the won- ders of that Italian pencil, and sees a thousand beauties in them which the vulgar eye neglected : his learned ideas, give him a transcendent delight, and yet, at the same time, discover the blemishes which the common gazer never observed. III. Ideas are either perfect or imperfect, which, are other- wise called adequate or indequate. Those are adequate ideas which perfectly represent their archetypes or objects. Inadequate ideas are but a partial, or in- complete representation of those archetypes to which they are referred. All our simple ideas are, in some sense, adequate or perfect, because simple ideas, considered merely as our first perceptions, have no parts in them : so we may be said to have a perfect idea of white, .black, sweet, sour, length, light, motion, rest, &c. We have also a perfect idea of various figures, as a triangle, a square, a cylinder, a cube, a sphere, which are complex ideas : but our idea o image of a thousand sides, our idea of the city of London, or the powers of a loadstone, are very imperfect, as well as all our ideas of infinite length or breadth, infinite power, wisdom or duration for the idea of infinite is endless and ever growing, and can never be completed. Note L When we have a perfect idea of any thing in all its parts, it is called a complete idea ; when in all its properties, it is called comprehensive. But when we have but an inadequate and imperfect idea, we are only said to apprehend it ; therefore we use the term apprehension, when we speak of our knowledge of God, who can never be comprehended by his creatures. Note 2. Though there are a multitude of ideas which may be called perfect, or adequate, in a vulgar sense : yet there are scarce any ideas which are adequate, comprehensive, andcomplete in a philosophical sense : for there is scarce any thing in the world that we know, as to all the parts, and powers, and properties of it, in perfection. Even so plain an idea as that of a triangle has, perhaps, infinite properties belonging to it, of which we know" VOL. VII.
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