41G LOGIC : oR, Tate RIGHT .115E G! REASON4 is derived from the inward sensations and appetites of hunger, thirst, ease, pleasure, pain, weariness, rest, &c. and all those things which belong to the body; as, hunger is a painful appe- tite ; light is pleasant ; rest is sweet to the weary limbs. Propositions which are built on this evidence, may be named sensible propositions, or the dictates of sense. H. As we learn what belongs to the body by the evidence of sense, so we learn what belongs to the soul by an inward con- sciousness, which may be called a sort of internal feeling, of spiritual sensation of what passes in the mind ; as, I think before I speak ; I desire large knowledge ; I suspect my own prac= tice ; I studied hard to -day; my conscience bears witness of my sincerity ; my soul hates vain thoughts; fear is an uneasy passion ; long meditation on one thing is tiresome. Thus it appears that we obtain the knowledge of a multi- tude of propositions, as well as of single ideas, by those two principles which Mr. Locke calls sensation and reflection : 'one of them is a sort of consciousness of what affects the body, and the other is a consciousness of what passes in the mind. Propositions which are built oil this internal consciousness, have yet no particular or distinguishing naine assigned to them. III. Intelligence relates chiefly to those abstracted propo- sitions which carry their own evidence with them, and admit no .doubt about them. Our perception of this self-evidence in any 'proposition is called intelligence. It is our knowledge of those first principles of truth which are, as it were, wrought into the `very nature and make of our minds : they are so evident in themselves to, every man who attends to them, that they need no proof. It is the prerogative and peculiar excellence of these propositions, that they can scarce ever be proved or denied: they cannot easily be proved because there is nothing supposed -to be more clear or certain, from which an argument may be -drawn to prove them. They cannot well be denied, because :their own evidence is so bright and convincing, that as soon as the terms are understood; the mind necessarily assents; such are these, whatsoeser acted bath a being; nothing has no pro- perties ; a part is less than the whole; nothing can be the cause of itself: . These propositions are called axioms, or maxims, or first principles ; these are the very foundations of all improved 'knowledge and reasonings, and on that account these have been thought to be innate propositions, or truths born with us. Some suppose that a great part of the knowledge of angels `and human souls in the separate state is obtained in this manner, namely, by such an immediate view of things in their own nature, which is called intuition.
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