492 A BRIEF SCHEME OF ONTOLOGY. A being is possible when the ideas which are supposed to máke up its nature may be actually united and have no inconsis- tency, as a golden mountain or á riverof wine ; but where the ideas are inconsistent it is called an impossible, as au iron animal, or silent thunder. This has neither essence nor existence. Impossibles may be distinguished into four sorts ; some things are metaphysically or absolutely impossible in the abstracted rea- son and nature of things, as a cubical circle, a thinking statue, a purple smell, or a bushel of souls. Others may be called phy- sically or naturally impossible, i. e. according to the present laws of nature, such are three eclipses of the sun in a month, or that a full moon should always last. Others are morally impos- sible, that is improbable in the highest degree ; so we may ven- ture to say that it is impossible for an atheist to be strictly virtu- ous, or for a Hottentot to forma system of religion or mathe- matics ; and such are many of the legends of thepopish saints. Other things are said to be conditionally impossible, i. e. when such a condition is put as makes that thing impossible, which otherwise would not be 'so, as a tree bearing fruit on supposition it has no bloom. Note 1. It is absolutely impossible that the same thing should both he and not be in the sane sense, and at the same time, and in the same respect. 2. When we pronounce any thing absolutely or naturally possible or impossible, we should do it with great caution, since we know so little what ideas are or are not mutually consistent, either in abstracted reason, or according to thepresent laws of nature. 3. God is the only being that carries actual existence in his very nature and essence, and there- fore wemay say with assurance God exists. 4. Proper existence belongs only to individuals, for all general natures, i. e. genus, species, &c. are but abstracted ideas of the mind, and never exist alone, but only in individual beings. But let us proceed to the ideas of necessity and contingency, whichin this chapter relate to the existence of things, in the sixth chapter to actions. All things which exist have either a necessary existence, i. e. they are because they must be ; or they have a contingent existence, i. e. they are, though they might not have been, and may cease to be. A necessary being wants no cause and is independent ;,but à contingent being is dependent, because it wants a cause to make it exist. This dependence is either total or partial; constant or occasional; for existenceor for duration, or for operation, &c. see more in chap. 4. and in chap. 10. Note, Independence in the highest sense belongs only to God, and is the same with self-existence, and near a-kin to the idea of necessary existence.
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy OTcyMjk=