_J. D._ “Now at length he comes to his main proofs; he that hath so confidently censured the whole current of Schoolmen and Philosophers of _nonsense_, had need to produce strong evidence for himself. So he calls his reasons, No. XXXVI., _demonstrative proofs_. All demonstrations are either from the cause or the effect, not from private notions and conceptions which we have in our minds. That which he calls a demonstration, deserves not the name of an intimation. He argues thus: ‘that which a man conceives in his mind by these words, spontaneity, deliberation, &c.; that they are’. This is his proposition, which I deny. (_a_) The true natures of things are not to be judged by the private _ideas_, or conceptions of men, but by their causes and formal reasons. Ask an ordinary person what _upwards_ signifies, and whether our antipodes have their heads upwards or downwards; and he will not stick to tell you, that if his head be upwards, theirs must needs be downwards. And this is because he knows not the formal reason thereof; that the heavens encircle the earth, and what is towards heaven is upwards. This same erroneous notion of _upwards_ and _downwards_, before the true reason was fully discovered, abused more than ordinary capacities; as appears by their arguments of _penduli homines_, and _pendulæ arbores_. Again, what do men conceive ordinarily by this word _empty_, as when they say an empty vessel, or by this word _body_, as when they say, there is no body in that room? They intend not to exclude the air, either out of the vessel or out of the room: yet reason tells us, that the vessel is not truly empty, and that the air is a true body. I might give a hundred such like instances. He who leaves the conduct of his understanding to follow vulgar notions, shall plunge himself into a thousand errors; like him who leaves a certain guide to follow an _ignus fatuus_, or a will-with-the-wisp. So his proposition is false. (_b_) His reason, ‘that matter of fact is not verified by other men’s arguments, but by every man’s own sense and memory’, is likewise maimed on both sides. Whether we hear such words or not, is matter of fact; and sense is the proper judge of it: but what these words do, or ought truly to signify, is not to be judged by sense but by reason. Secondly, reason may, and doth oftentimes correct sense, even about its proper object. Sense tells us that the sun is no bigger than a good ball; but reason demonstrates, that it is many times greater than the whole globe of the earth. As to his instance: ‘how can it be proved, that to love a thing and to think it good is all one, to a man that doth not mark his own meaning by these words’, I confess it cannot be proved; for it is not true. Beauty, and likeness, and love, do conciliate love as much as goodness, _cos amoris amor_. Love is a passion of the will; but to judge of goodness is an act of the understanding. A father may love an ungracious child, and yet not esteem him good.