CHAPTER 1. 4E9 to have nothing in it. Soweak and imperfect is our present state ofknowledge. 2. Though a nonentity or not -being is really nothing in itself, yet as it is introduced by some relation to being it may afford foundation for some sort of thoughts or conceptions, or some relative affections which hereafter will be described. On this account nonentity has been usually distinguished from mere nihility or pure nothing. 3. Hence it follows that that old axiom of the schools Non- entis nulla est Scientia, or what has no being cannot be known,, must be understood with some limitation: For (1.) we may know things possible though they have no actual being : (2.) We may know things past andfuture which have no present being : (3.) We may also form a sort of idea of nonentities or not beings from their relation to beings ; we can see a shadow, and talk of silence: And even when we speak of pure nihilitrq or nothing, we are ready to frame some sort of notion or idea of it since we reason and discourse about it. Perhaps this may arise from the imperfection of our present state. 4. Though pure nothing is that which in truth neither has a being nor affections, nor can be properly made the measure of any being, yet negative quantities, which (as mathematicians generally say) are marks and measures of what is less than nothing, are of great use and necessity in algebra; because this science teaches us to form our ideas of all real and positive quan- tities as so much more than nothing. Having distinguished being from its opposites, let us pro- ceed now to lay down a general scheme of the affections of being. The most general and extensive distribution of the affections of being is into absolute and relative. Absolute affections belong to each being considered in itself, and these are nature -or essence and existence, duration and unity, power and act. Relative affections or relations arise from some respect which distinct beings bear to one another,, or at least to some part or property of themselves :. Now these are real or mental. Real relations are those which arise from the - constitution of any being among others in the universe to which it has a real reference whether we think of it or no. Such are, whole and part, cause and effect, subject and adjunct,. time stud place, agreement and difference, number and order, to which.may he added truth and goodness, lest the seataphysiciarrs should coin- plain of this omission. Mental relations,aresuch as arise not from things them- selves, but only from our manner of conceiving them and refer- ring one thing to another : Such are abstracted or second no-
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy OTcyMjk=