Section I

Summary

I know not whether or not it be a prerogative in the human soul, that, as it is itself a true and positive being, so it is apt to conceive all other things as true and positive beings also. But whether or no this propensity to frame such kind of ideas suppose an excellency, I fear it occasions mistakes, and makes us think and speak after the manner of true and positive beings of such things as are but chimerical, and some of them negations or privations themselves, as death, ignorance, blindness and the like. It concerns us therefore to stand very carefully upon our guard, that we be not insensibly misled by such an innate and unheeded temptation to error as we bring into the world with us. And consequently I may be allowed to consider whether – among other particulars in which this deluding propensity of our minds has too great (though unsuspected) an influence upon us – it may not have imposed on us in the notion we are wont to frame concerning nature. For this being the fruitful parent of other notions, as nature herself is said to be of the creatures of the universe, the notion is so general in its applications, and so important in its influence, that we had need be jealously careful of not over easily admitting a notion, than which there can scarce be any that more deserves to be warily examined before it be thoroughly entertained.