 Chapter 17 of an Essay Concerning Human Understanding. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. An Essay Concerning Human Understanding by John Locke. Chapter 17 of Reason. Various Significations of the Word Reason. The word reason in the English language has different significations. Sometimes it is taken for true and clear principles. Sometimes for clear and fair deductions from those principles. And sometimes for the cause, and particularly the final cause. But the consideration I shall have of it here is in a signification different from all these. And that is, as it stands for a faculty in man, that faculty whereby man is supposed to be distinguished from beasts, and wherein it is evident he much surpasses them. Wherein reasoning consists. If general knowledge as been shown consists in a perception of the agreement or disagreement of our own ideas and the knowledge of the existence of all things without us, except only of a God whose existence every man may certainly know and demonstrate to himself from his own existence, be had only by our senses what room is there for the exercise of any other faculty, but outward sense and inward perception. What need is there of reason? Very much. Both for the enlargement of our knowledge and regulating our assent. For it hath to do both in knowledge and opinion, and is necessary and assisting to all our other intellectual faculties, and indeed contains two of them, these sagacity and elation. By the one it finds out, and by the other it so orders the intermediate ideas as to discover what connection there is in each link of the chain, whereby the extremes are held together, and thereby, as it were, to draw into view the truth sought for, which is that which we call elation, or inference, and consists in nothing but the perception of the connection there is between the ideas, in each step of the deduction, whereby the mind comes to see either the certain agreement or disagreement of any two ideas, as in demonstration, in which it arrives at knowledge, or their probable connection, on which it gives or withholds its assent, as in opinion. Sense and intuition reach but a very little way. The greatest part of our knowledge depends upon deductions and intermediate ideas, and in those cases where we are feigned to substitute assent instead of knowledge, and take propositions for true. Without being certain they are so. We have need to find out, examine, and compare the grounds of their probability. In both these cases, the faculty which finds out the means and rightly applies them to discover certainty in the one and probability in the other is that which we call reason. Or, as reason perceives the necessary and indubitable connection of all the ideas or proofs one to another, in each step of any demonstration that produces knowledge. So it likewise perceives the probable connection of all the ideas or proofs one to another, in every step of a discourse, to which it will think assent due. This is the lowest degree of that which can truly be called reason. For where the mind does not perceive this probable connection, where it does not discern whether there be any such connection or no, their men's opinions are not the product of judgment or the consequence of reason, but the effects of chance and hazard of a mind floating at all adventures without choice and without direction. Reason and its four degrees. So that we may reason, consider these four degrees. The first and highest is the discovering and finding out of truths. The second, the regular and methodical disposition of them and laying them in a clear and fit order to make their connection and force be plainly and easily perceived. The third is the perceiving their connection. And the fourth, a making a right conclusion. These several degrees may be observed in any mathematical demonstration. It being one thing to perceive the connection of each part as the demonstration is made by another. Another to perceive the dependence of the conclusion on all the parts. A third to make out a demonstration clearly and neatly oneself. And something different from all these to have first found out these intermediate ideas or proofs by which it is made. Whether syllogism is the great instrument of reason. There is one thing more which I shall desire to be considered concerning reason. And that is whether syllogism as is generally thought be the proper instrument of it. And the usefulest way of exercising this faculty. The causes I have to doubt are these. First cause to doubt this. First, because syllogism serves our reason but in one only of the four mentioned parts of it. And that is to show the connection of the proofs in any one instance. And no more. But in this it is of no great use since the mind can perceive such connection where it really is as easily nay perhaps better without it. Men can reason well who cannot make a syllogism. If we will observe the actings of our own minds we shall find that we reason best and clearest. When we only observe the connection of the proof without reducing our thoughts to any rule of syllogism. And therefore we may take notice that there are many men that reason exceedingly clear and rightly. Who know not how to make a syllogism. He that will look into many parts of Asia and America will find men reason there perhaps as acutely as himself. Who yet never heard of a syllogism nor can reduce anyone argument to those forms. And I believe scarce anyone makes syllogisms in reasoning within himself. Indeed syllogism is made use of on occasion to discover a fallacy hid in a rhetorical flourish or cunningly wrapped up in a smooth period. And stripping an absurdity of the cover of wit and good language show it in its naked deformity. But the mind is not taught to reason by these rules. It has a native faculty to perceive the coherence of or incoherence of its ideas and can range them right without any such perplexing repetitions. Tell a country gentlewoman that the wind is southwest and the weather lowering and like terrain. And she will easily understand it is not safe for her to go abroad thin clad in such a day after a fever. She clearly sees the probable connection of all these these southwest wind and clouds rain wedding taking cold relapse and danger of death without tying them together. In those artificial and cumbersome fetters of several syllogisms that clog and hinder the mind which proceeds from one part to another quicker and clear without them. And the probability which she easily perceives in things thus in their native state would be quite lost. If this argument were managed learnedly and proposed in mode and figure or it very often confounds the connection and I think everyone will perceive and mathematical demonstrations that the knowledge gained thereby comes shortest and clearest without syllogism. Secondly, because those syllogism serves to show the force or fallacy of an argument made use of in the usual way of discoursing by supplying the absent proposition and so setting it before the view in a clear light. Yet it no less engages the mind in the perplexity of obscure, equivocal and fallacious terms where with this artificial way of reasoning always abounds. It being adapted more to the attaining of victory in dispute than the discovery and confirmation of truth in fair inquiries. Syllogism helps little in demonstration less in probability. But however it be in knowledge I think I may truly say it is a far less or no use at all in probabilities. For the ascent there being to be determined by the preponderancy after due weighing of all the proofs with all circumstances on both sides nothing is so unfit to assist the mind in that as syllogism. Which running away with one assumed probability or one topical argument pursues that till it has led the mind quite out of sight of the thing under consideration and forcing it upon some remote difficulty holds it fast there entangled perhaps and as it were manacled in the chain of syllogisms without allowing it the liberty much less affording it the helps requisite to show on which side all things considered is the greater probability. Serves not to increase our knowledge but to fence with the knowledge we suppose we have. But let it help us as perhaps may be said and convincing men of their errors and mistakes and yet I would feign see the man that was forced out of his opinion by dent of syllogism. Yet still it fails our reason in that part which if not its highest perfection is yet certainly its hardest task and that which we most need its help in. And that is the finding out of proofs and making of new discoveries. The rules of syllogism serve not to furnish the mind with those intermediate ideas that may show the connection of remote ones. This way of reasoning discovers no new proofs but is the art of marshaling and ranging the old ones we have already. The 47th proposition of the first book of Euclid is very true but the discovery of it I think not owing to any rules of common logic. A man knows first and then he is able to prove syllogistically so that syllogism comes after knowledge and then a man has little or no need of it. But it is chiefly by the finding out of those ideas that show the connection of distant ones that our stock of knowledge is increased and that useful arts and sciences are advanced. Syllogism at best is but the art of fencing with the little knowledge we have without making any addition to it. And if a man should employ his reason all this way he will not do much otherwise than he who having got some iron out of the bowels of the earth should have it beaten up all into swords and put it in his servant's hands to fence with and bang one another. Had the king of Spain employed the hands of his people and his Spanish iron so he had brought to light but little of that treasure that lay so long hidden the dark entrails of America. And I am apt to think that he who shall employ all the force of his reason only in brandishing of syllogisms will discover very little of that mass knowledge which lies yet concealed in the secret recesses of nature. And which I am apt to think native rustic reason as it formally has done is likelier to open a way to and add to the common stock of mankind rather than any scholastic proceeding by the strict rules of mode and figure. Other helps to reason than syllogism should be sought. I doubt not nevertheless that there are ways to be found to assist our reason in this most useful part. And this the judicious hooker encourages me to say who in his ecclesiastical politic book one section six speaks thus. If there might be added the right steps of true art and learning which helps I must plainly confess this age of the world carrying the name of the learned age doth neither much know nor generally regard. There would undoubtedly be almost as much difference in maturity of judgment between the men therewith enured and that which men now are as between men that are now an innocence. I do not pretend to have found or discovered here any of those right helps of art this great man of deep thought mentions. But that is plain that syllogism and the logic now in use which were as well known in his days can be none of those he means. It is sufficient for me if by a discourse perhaps something out of the way I am sure as to me wholly new and unborrowed. I shall have given occasion to others to cast about for new discoveries and to seek in their own thoughts for those right helps of art. Which will be scarce found I fear by those who servely confine themselves to the rules and dictates of others. For beaten tracks lead this sort of cattle as an observing Roman calls them whose thoughts reach only to imitation. Non quo a endomest said quoitur. But I can be bold to say that this age is adorned with some men of that strength of judgment and largeness of comprehension that if they would employ their thoughts on this subject could open new and undiscovered ways to the advancement of knowledge. We can reason about particulars and the immediate object of our reasonings is nothing but particular ideas. Having here had occasion to speak of syllogism in general and the use of it in reasoning and the improvement of our knowledge. It is fit before I leave this subject to take notice of one manifest mistake and the rules of syllogism is that no syllogistical reasoning can be right and conclusive. But what has at least one general proposition in it as if we could not reason and have knowledge about particulars. Whereas in truth the matter rightly considered the immediate object of all our reasoning and knowledge is nothing but particulars. Every man's reasoning and knowledge is only about the ideas existing in his own mind. Which are truly every one of them particular existences. And our knowledge and reason about other things is only as they correspond with those are particular ideas. So that the perception of the agreement or disagreement of our particular ideas is the whole and utmost of all our knowledge. Universality is but accidental to it and consists only in this. That the particular ideas about which it is our such as more than one particular thing can correspond with and be represented by. But the perception of the agreement or disagreement of our particular ideas and consequently our knowledge is equally clear and certain. Whether either or both or neither of those ideas be capable of representing more real beings than one or no. Our reason often fails us. Reason though it penetrates into the depths of the sea and earth elevates our thoughts as high as the stars and leads us through the vast spaces and large rooms of this mighty fabric. Yet it comes far short of the real extent of even corporal being. And there are many instances wherein it fails us as first in cases when we have no ideas. It perfectly fails us where our ideas fail. It neither does nor can extend itself further than they do. And therefore wherever we have no ideas our reasoning stops and we are at an end of our reckoning. And if at any time we reason about words which do not stand for any ideas it is only about those sounds and nothing else. Secondly because our ideas are often obscure or imperfect. Our reason is often puzzled and at a loss because of the obscurity confusion or imperfection of the ideas it is employed about. And there we are involved in difficulties and contradictions. Thus not having any perfect idea of the least extension of matter nor of infinity we are at a loss about the divisibility of matter. But having perfect clear and distinct ideas of number our reason meets with none of those inextricable difficulties and numbers nor finds itself involved in any contradictions about them. Thus we having but imperfect ideas of the operations of our minds and of the beginning of motion or thought how the mind produces either of them in us and much imperfector yet of the operation of God run into great difficulties about free created agents which reason cannot well extricate itself out of. Thirdly because we perceive not intermediate ideas to show conclusions. Our reason is often at a stand because it perceives not those ideas which could serve to show the certain or probable agreement or disagreement of any other two ideas. And in this some men's faculties far out go others till algebra that great instrument and instance of human sagacity was discovered. Men with amazement looked on several of the demonstrations of ancient mathematicians and could scarce for bear to think that the finding several of those to be something more than human. Fourthly because we often proceed upon wrong principles. The mind by proceeding upon false principles is often engaged in absurdities and difficulties brought into straights and contradictions without knowing how to free itself. And in that case it is in vain to implore the help of reason unless it be to discover the falsehood and reject the influence of those wrong principles. Reason is so far from clearing the difficulties which the building upon false foundation brings a man into that if he will pursue it it entangles him the more and engages him deeper in perplexities. Fifthly because we often employ doubtful terms. As obscure and imperfect ideas often involve our reason so upon the same ground do dubious words and uncertain signs often in discourses and arguing when not rarely attended to puzzle men's reason and bring them to a non plus. But these two latter are our fault and not the fault of reason but yet the consequences of them are nevertheless obvious and the perplexities or errors they fill man's minds with are everywhere observable. Our highest degree of knowledge is intuitive without reasoning. Some of the ideas that are in the mind are so there that they can be by themselves immediately compared with one another. And in these the mind is able to perceive that they agree or disagree as clearly as that it has them. Thus the mind perceives that an arc of a circle is less than the whole circle as clearly as it does the idea of a circle. And this therefore as has been said I call intuitive knowledge which is certain beyond all doubt and needs no probation nor can have any. This being the highest of all human certainty. In this consists the evidence of all those maxims which nobody has any doubt about but every man does not as is said only a sense to but knows to be true as soon as ever they are proposed to his understanding. In the discovery of an ascent to these truths there is no use of the discursive faculty no need of reasoning but they are known by superior and higher degree of evidence. And such if I may guess at things unknown I am apt to think that angels have now and the spirits of just men made perfect shall have in a future state of thousands of things which now either wholly escape our apprehensions or which are shortsighted reason having got some faint glimpse of we in the dark grope after the next is got by reasoning. But though we have here and there a little of this clear light some sparks of bright knowledge yet the greatest part of our ideas are such that we cannot discern their agreement or disagreement by an immediate comparing them. And in all these we have need of reasoning and must by discourse and inference make our discoveries. Now of these are two sorts which I shall take the liberty to mention here again. First through reasonings that are demonstrative. First those whose agreement or disagreement though it cannot be seen by an immediate putting them together yet may be examined by the intervention of other ideas which can be compared with them. In this case when the agreement or disagreement of the intermediate idea on both sides which those which we would compare is plainly discerned. There it amounts to demonstration whereby knowledge is produced which though it be certain yet it is not so easy nor altogether so clear as intuitive knowledge. Because in that there is barely one simple intuition wherein there is no room for any the least mistake or doubt the truth is seen all perfectly at once. In demonstration it is true there is intuition too but not all together at once for there must be a remembrance of the intuition of the agreement of the medium or intermediate idea with that we compared it with before. When we compare it with the other and where there be many mediums there the danger of the mistake is the greater. For each agreement or disagreement of the ideas must be observed and seen in each step of the whole train and retained in the memory just as it is. And the mind must be sure that no part of what is necessary to make up the demonstration is omitted or overlooked. This makes some demonstrations long and perplexed and too hard for those who have not strength of parts distinctly to perceive and exactly carry so many particulars orderly in their heads. And even those who are able to master such intricate speculations are feigned sometimes to go over them again and there is need of more than one review before they can arrive at certainty. But yet where the mind clearly retains the intuition it had of the agreement of any idea with another and that with a third and that with a fourth etc. There the agreement of the first and the fourth is a demonstration and produces certain knowledge which may be called rational knowledge as the other is intuitive. Secondly to supply the narrowness of demonstrative and intuitive knowledge we have nothing but judgment upon probable reasoning. Secondly there are other ideas whose agreement or disagreement can no otherwise be judged of but by the intervention of others which have not a certain agreement with the extremes but an usual or likely one. And in these is that the judgment is properly exercised which is the acquiescing of the mind that any ideas do agree by comparing them with such probable mediums. This though it never amounts to knowledge no not to that which is the lowest degree of it. Yet sometimes the intermediate ideas tie the extreme so firmly together and the probability is so clear and strong that a scent as necessarily follows it as knowledge does demonstration. The great excellency and use of the judgment is to observe right and take a true estimate of the force and weight of each probability and then casting them up all right together choose that side which has the over balance intuition demonstration judgment. Intuitive knowledge is the perception of the certain agreement or disagreement of two ideas immediately compared together. Rational knowledge is the perception of the certain agreement or disagreement of any two ideas by the intervention of one or more other ideas. Judgment is the thinking or taking two ideas to agree or disagree by the intervention of one or more ideas whose certain agreement or disagreement with them it does not perceive but half observed to be frequent and usual. Consequences of words and consequences of ideas though the deducing one proposition from another or making inferences in words be a great part of reason and that which it is usually employed about. Yet the principal act of rationalization is the finding the agreement or disagreement of two ideas one with another by the intervention of a third. As a man by a yard finds two houses to be of the same length which could not be brought together to measure their equality by juxtaposition. Words have their consequences as the signs of such ideas and things agree or disagree as really they are but we observe it only by our ideas for sorts of arguments. Before we quit this subject it may be worth our while a little to reflect on four sorts of arguments that men in their reasonings with others do ordinarily make use of to prevail on their assent or at least so to awe them as to silence their opposition. First argumentum ad vericundium. The first is to allege the opinions of men whose parts learning eminency power or some other cause has gained a name and settled their reputation in the common esteem with some kind of authority. When men are established in any kind of dignity it is thought a breach of modesty for others to derogate any way from it and question the authority of men who are in possession of it. This is apt to be censured as carrying with it too much pride when a man does not readily yield to the determination of approved authors which is want to be received with respect and submission by others. And it is looked upon as insolence for a man to set up and adhere to his own opinion against the current stream of antiquity or to put it in the balance against that of some learned doctor or otherwise approved writer. Whoever backs his tenants with such authorities thinks he ought thereby to carry the cause and is ready to style it impudence in anyone who shall stand out against them. This I think may be called argumentum ad vericundium. Secondly argumentum ad ignoratium. Secondly another way that men ordinarily use to drive others and force them to submit their judgments and receive the opinion in debate is to require the adversary to admit what they allege as proof or to assign a better. And this I call argumentum ad ignoratium. Thirdly argumentum ad hominem. Thirdly a third way is to press a man with consequences drawn from his own principles or concessions. This is already known under the name of argumentum ad hominem. Fourthly argumentum ad justitium. The fourth alone advances us in knowledge and judgment. The fourth is the using of proofs drawn from any of the foundations of knowledge or probability. This I call argumentum ad justitium. This alone of all the four brings true instruction with it and advances us in our way to knowledge. For one it argues that another man's opinion be right because I out of respect or any other consideration but that of conviction will not contradict him. It proves not another man to be in the right way nor that I ought to take the same with him because I know not a better. Three, nor does it follow that another man is in the right way because he has shown me that I am in the wrong. I may be modest and therefore not oppose another man's persuasion. I may be ignorant and not be able to produce a better. I may be in an error and another may show me that I am so. This may dispose me, perhaps, for the reception of truth but helps me not to it. That must come from proofs and arguments and light arising from the nature of things themselves and not from my shame-facedness, ignorance, or error. Above contrary and according to reason. By what has been before a set of reason, we may be able to make some guess of the distinction of things into those that we are according to, above, and contrary to reason. One, according to reason are such propositions whose truth we can discover by examining and tracing those ideas we have from sensation and reflection and by natural deduction find to be true or probable. Two, above reason are such propositions whose truth or probability we cannot by reason derive from those principles. Three, contrary to reason are such propositions as are inconsistent with or irreconcilable to our clear and distinct ideas. Thus the existence of one God is according to reason, the existence of more than one God, contrary to reason, the resurrection of the dead, above reason. Above reason also may be taken in a double sense, either as signifying above probability or above certainty. And in that large sense also, contrary to reason is, I suppose, sometimes taken. Reason and faith not opposite, for faith must be regulated by reason. There is another use of the word reason wherein it is opposed to faith, which though it be in itself a very improper way of speaking, yet common use has so authorized it that it would be folly either to oppose or hope to remedy it. Only I think it may be a miss to take notice that, however faith be opposed to reason, faith is nothing but a firm assent of the mind, which, if it be regulated as is our duty, cannot be afforded to anything but upon good reason. And so cannot be opposite to it. He that believes without having any reason for believing may be in love with his own fancies, but neither seeks truth as he ought nor pays obedience due to his maker, who would have him use those discerning faculties he has given him to keep him out of mistake and error. He that does not this to the best of his power, however he sometimes lights on truth, is in the right but by chance, and I know not whether the luckiness of the accident will excuse the irregularity of his proceeding. This at least is certain, that he must be accountable for whatever mistakes he runs into. Whereas he that makes use of the light and faculties God has given him, and seeks sincerely to discover truth by those helps and abilities he has, may have this satisfaction in doing his duty as a rational creature, that, though he should miss the truth, he will not miss the reward of it. For he governs his assent right and places it as he should, who, in any case or matter whatsoever, believes or disbelieves according as reason directs him. He that doth otherwise transgresses against his own light, and misuses those faculties which were given him to no other end, but to search and follow the clearer evidence and greater probability. But since reason and faith are by some men opposed, we will so consider them in the following chapter. CHAPTER 18 Of faith and reason and their distinct provinces 1. Necessary to know their boundaries It has been above shown, one, that we are of necessity ignorant and want knowledge of all sorts where we want ideas. 2. That we are ignorant and want rational knowledge where we want proofs. 3. That we want certain knowledge and certainty as far as we want clear and determined specific ideas. 4. That we want probability to direct our assent in matters where we have neither knowledge of our own nor testimony of other men to bottom our reason upon. From these things thus premised I think we may come to lay down the measures and boundaries between faith and reason. The want-ware of may possibly have been the cause, if not of great disorders, yet at least of great disputes and perhaps mistakes in the world. For till it be resolved how far we are to be guided by reason and how far by faith we shall in vain dispute and endeavour to convince one another in matters of religion. 2. Faith and reason what as contradistinguished I find every sect as far as reason will help them make use of it gladly, and where it fails them they cry out, it is matter of faith and above reason. And I do not see how they can argue with any one or ever convince a gainsayer who makes use of the same plea without setting down strict boundaries between faith and reason, which ought to be the first point established in all questions where faith has anything to do. Reason therefore here as contradistinguished to faith I take to be the discovery of the certainty or probability of such propositions or truths which the mind arrives at by deduction made from such ideas which it has got by the use of its natural faculties vis by sensation or reflection. Faith on the other side is the ascent to any proposition, not thus made out by the deductions of reason, but upon the credit of the proposer as coming from God in some extraordinary way of communication. This way of discovering truths to men we call revelation. 3. First no new simple idea can be conveyed by traditional revelation. First then I say that no man inspired by God can by any revelation communicate to others any new simple ideas which they had not before from sensation or reflection. For whatsoever impressions he himself may have from the immediate hand of God this revelation, if it be of new simple ideas cannot be conveyed to another either by words or any other signs. Because words by their immediate operation on us cause no other ideas but of their natural sounds and it is by the custom of using them for signs that they excite and revive in our minds latent ideas, but yet only such ideas as were there before. For words seen or heard recall to our thoughts those ideas only which to us they have been want to be signs of, but cannot introduce any perfectly new and formally unknown simple ideas. The same holds in all other signs which cannot signify to us things of which we have before never had any idea at all. Thus whatever things were discovered to Saint Paul when he was wrapped up into the third heaven, whatever new ideas his mind there received, all the description he can make to others of that place is only this, that there are such things as I hath not seen nor ear heard nor hath it entered into the heart of man to conceive. And supposing God should discover to anyone, supernaturally, a species of creatures inhabiting, for example Jupiter or Saturn, for that it is possible there may be such, nobody can deny, which had six senses and imprint on his mind the ideas conveyed to theirs by that sixth sense, he could know more by words produced in the minds of other men those ideas imprinted by that sixth sense than one of us could convey the idea of any color by the sound of words into a man who, having the other four senses perfect, had always totally one of the fifth of seeing. For our simple ideas, then, which are the foundation and sole matter of all our notions and knowledge, we must depend wholly on our reason, I mean our natural faculties, and can by no means receive them or any of them from traditional revelation. I say traditional revelation in distinction to original revelation. By the one I mean that first impression which is made immediately by God on the mind of any man to which we cannot set any bounds, and by the other those impressions delivered over to others in words and the ordinary ways of conveying our conceptions one to another. Four. Secondly, traditional revelation may make us know propositions knowable also by reason, but not with the same certainty that reason doth. Secondly, I say that the same truths may be discovered and conveyed down from revelation which are discernible to us by reason and by those ideas we naturally may have. So God might, by revelation, discover the truth of any proposition in Euclid as well as men by the natural use of their faculties come to make the discovery themselves. In all things of this kind, there is little need or use of revelation God having furnished us with natural and sureer means to arrive at the knowledge of them. For whatsoever truth we come to the clear discovery of, from the knowledge and contemplation of our own ideas, will always be certainer to us than those which are conveyed to us by traditional revelation. For the knowledge we have that this revelation came at first from God can never be so sure as the knowledge we have from the clear and distinct perception of the agreement or disagreement of our own ideas. V.G., if it were revealed some ages since that the three angles of a triangle were equal to two right ones, I might assent to the truth of that proposition upon the credit of the tradition that it was revealed, but that would never amount to so great a certainty as the knowledge of it upon the comparing and measuring my own ideas of two right angles and the three angles of a triangle. The like holds in matter of fact knowable by our senses, V.G., the history of the deluge is conveyed to us by writings which had their original from revelation, and yet nobody, I think, will say he has as certain and clearer knowledge of the flood as Noah that saw it or that he himself would have had had he then been alive and seen it. Therefore he has no greater an assurance than that of his senses that it is writ in the book supposed writ by Moses inspired, but he has not so great an assurance that Moses wrote the book as if he had seen Moses write it, so that the assurance of its being a revelation is less still than the assurance of his senses. V. Even original revelation cannot be admitted against the clear evidence of reason. In propositions then, whose certainty is built upon the clear perception of the agreement or disagreement of our ideas, attained either by immediate intuition as in self-evident propositions, or by evident deductions of reason in demonstrations, we need not the assistance of revelation as necessary to gain our assent and introduce them into our minds. Because the natural ways of knowledge could settle them there, or had done it already, which is the greatest assurance we can possibly have of anything, unless where God immediately reveals it to us, and there too our assurance can be no greater than our knowledge is that it is a revelation from God. But yet nothing, I think, can, under that title, shake or overrule plain knowledge, or rationally prevail with any man to admit it for true in a direct contradiction to the clear evidence of his own understanding. Four, since no evidence of our faculties by which we receive such revelations can exceed, if equal, the certainty of our intuitive knowledge, we can never receive for a truth anything that is directly contrary to our clear and distinct knowledge. V.G. the ideas of one body and one place do so clearly agree, and the mind has so evident a perception of their agreement that we can never assent to a proposition that affirms the same body to be in two distant places at once, however it should pretend to the authority of a divine revelation. Since the evidence, first, that we deceive not ourselves in ascribing it to God, secondly, that we understand it right can never be so great as the evidence of our own intuitive knowledge whereby we discern it impossible for the same body to be in two places at once. And therefore no proposition can be received for divine revelation or obtain the assent due to all such if it be contradictory to our clear intuitive knowledge, because this would be to subvert the principles and foundations of all knowledge, evidence, and assent whatsoever, and there would be left no difference between truth and falsehood, no measures of credible and incredible in the world, if doubtful propositions shall take place before self-evident, and what we certainly know give way to what we may possibly be mistaken in. In propositions therefore contrary to the clear perception of the agreement or disagreement of any of our ideas, it will be in vain to urge them as matters of faith. They cannot move our assent under that or any other title whatsoever, for faith can never convince us of anything that contradicts our knowledge, because though faith be founded on the testimony of God, who cannot lie, revealing any proposition to us, yet we cannot have an assurance of the truth of its being a divine revelation greater than our own knowledge. Since the whole strength of the certainty depends on our knowledge that God revealed it, which in this case where the proposition supposed revealed contradicts our knowledge or reason will always have this objection hanging to it, that we cannot tell how to conceive that to come from God, the bountiful author of our being, which, if received for true, must overturn all the principles and foundations of knowledge he has given us, render our faculties useless, wholly destroy the most excellent part of his workmanship, our understandings, and put a man in a condition wherein he will have less light, less conduct than the beast that perishes. For if the mind of man can never have a clearer and perhaps not so clear evidence of anything to be a divine revelation as it has of the principles of its own reason, it can never have a ground to quit the clear evidence of its reason to give a place to a proposition whose revelation has not a greater evidence than those principles have. 6. Traditional Revelation Much Less Thus far a man has use of reason and ought to hearken to it, even in immediate and original revelation where it is supposed to be made to himself. But to all those who pretend not to immediate revelation, but are required to pay obedience and to receive the truth revealed to others, which, by the tradition of writings or word of mouth, are conveyed down to them, reason has a great deal more to do, and is that only which can induce us to receive them. For matter of faith being only divine revelation, and nothing else faith as we use the word, called commonly divine faith, has to do with no propositions but those which are supposed to be divinely revealed. So that I do not see how those who make revelation alone the sole object of faith can say that it is a matter of faith and not of reason, to believe that such or such a proposition to be found in such or such a book is of divine inspiration, unless it be revealed that that proposition, or all in that book, was communicated by divine inspiration. Without such a revelation, the believing or not believing that proposition, or book, to be of divine authority, can never be matter of faith but matter of reason, and such as I must come to an ascent to only by the use of my reason, which can never require or enable me to believe that which is contrary to itself, it being impossible for reason ever to procure any ascent to that which to itself appears unreasonable. In all things, therefore, where we have clear evidence from our ideas, and those principles of knowledge I have above mentioned, reason is the proper judge, and revelation, though it may, in consenting with it, confirm its dictates, yet cannot in such cases invalidate its decrees. Nor can we be obliged, where we have the clear and evident sentence of reason, to quit it for the contrary opinion, under a pretense that it is matter of faith, which can have no authority against the plain and clear dictates of reason. Thirdly, things above reason are, when revealed, the proper matter of faith, but thirdly, there being many things wherein we have very imperfect notions, or none at all, and other things of whose past, present, or future existence by the natural use of our faculties we can have no knowledge at all, these as being beyond the discovery of our natural faculties, and above reason are, when revealed, the proper matter of faith. Thus that part of the angels rebelled against God, and thereby lost their first happy state, and that the dead shall rise and live again, these and the like being beyond the discovery of reason are purely matters of faith, with which reason has directly nothing to do. Eight, or not contrary to reason, if revealed, are matter of faith, and must carry it against probable conjectures of reason. But since God, in giving us the light of reason, has not thereby tied up his own hands from affording us, when he thinks fit, the light of revelation, and any of those matters wherein our natural faculties are able to give a probable determination, revelation, where God has been pleased to give it, must carry it against the probable conjectures of reason. Because the mind, not being certain of the truth of that it does not evidently know, but only yielding to the probability that appears in it, is bound to give up its assent to such a testimony which, it is satisfied, comes from one who cannot err, and will not deceive. But yet, it still belongs to reason to judge of the truth of its being a revelation, and of the signification of the words wherein it is delivered. Indeed, if anything shall be thought revelation, which is contrary to the plain principles of reason, and the evident knowledge the mind has of its own clear and distinct ideas, their reason must be hearkened to, as to a matter within its province. Since a man can never have so certain a knowledge that a proposition which contradicts the clear principles and evidence of his own knowledge was divinely revealed, or that he understands the words rightly wherein it is delivered, as he has that the contrary is true, and so is bound to consider and judge of it as a matter of reason, and not swallow it without examination as a matter of faith. 9. Revelation in matters where reason cannot judge, or but probably ought to be hearkened to. First, whatever proposition is revealed of whose truth our mind by its natural faculties and notions cannot judge, that is purely matter of faith and above reason. Secondly, all propositions whereof the mind by use of its natural faculties can come to determine and judge from naturally acquired ideas are a matter of reason. With this difference still, that in those concerning which it has but an uncertain evidence, and so is persuaded of their truth only upon probable grounds which still admit a possibility of the contrary to be true, without doing violence to the certain evidence of its own knowledge and overturning the principles of all reason, in such probable propositions I say an evident revelation ought to determine our assent even against probability. For where the principles of reason have not evidenced a proposition to be certainly true or false, their clear revelation as another principle of truth and ground of assent may determine, and so it may be matter of faith and be also above reason, because reason, in that particular matter being able to reach no higher than probability, faith gave the determination where reason came short, and revelation discovered on which side the truth lay. 10. In matters where reason can afford certain knowledge that is to be hearkened to. Thus far the dominion of faith reaches and that without any violence or hindrance to reason, which is not injured or disturbed but assisted and improved by new discoveries of truth coming from the eternal fountain of all knowledge. Whatever God hath revealed is certainly true, no doubt can be made of it, this is the proper object of faith, but whether it be a divine revelation or no, reason must judge, which can never permit the mind to reject a greater evidence to embrace what is less evident, nor allow it to entertain probability in opposition to knowledge and certainty. There can be no evidence that any traditional revelation is of divine original, in the words we receive it, and in the sense we understand it so clear and so certain as that of the principles of reason. And therefore, nothing that is contrary to and inconsistent with the clear and self-evident dictates of reason has a right to be urged or assented to as a matter of faith wherein reason hath nothing to do. Whatsoever is divine revelation ought to overrule all our opinions, prejudices, and interest, and hath a right to be received with full assent. Such a submission as this of our reason to faith takes not away the landmarks of knowledge. This shakes not the foundations of reason but leaves us that use of our faculties for which they were given us. If the boundaries be not set between faith and reason, no enthusiasm or extravagancy in religion can be contradicted. If the provinces of faith and reason are not kept distinct by these boundaries, there will, in matters of religion, be no room for reason at all, and those extravagant opinions and ceremonies that are to be found in the several religions of the world will not deserve to be blamed. For to this crying up of faith in opposition to reason we may, I think, in good measure ascribe those absurdities that fill almost all the religions which possess and divide mankind. For men, having been principled with an opinion that they must not consult reason in the things of religion, however apparently contradictory to common sense and the very principles of all their knowledge, have let loose their fancies and natural superstition, and have been by them led into so strange opinions and extravagant practices in religion that a considerate man cannot but stand amazed at their follies and judge them so far from being acceptable to the great and wise God that he cannot avoid thinking them ridiculous and offensive to a sober good man. So that, in effect, religion which should most distinguish us from beasts and ought most peculiarly to elevate us as rational creatures above brutes is that wherein men often appear most irrational and more senseless than beasts themselves. Credo cuya impossibile est. I believe, because it is impossible, might, in a good man, pass for a sally of zeal, but would prove a very ill rule for men to choose their opinions or religion by. End of section 19 Section 20 of an Essay Concerning Human Understanding by John Locke Book 4 of Knowledge and Probability This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org Chapter 19 of Enthusiasm End of Footnote 1. He that would seriously set upon the search of truth ought, in the first place, to prepare his mind with a love of it. For he that loves it not will not take much pains to get it, nor be much concerned when he misses it. There is nobody in the commonwealth of learning who does not profess himself a lover of truth, and there is not a rational creature that would not take it amiss to be thought otherwise of. And yet, for all this, one may truly say that there are very few lovers of truth for truth's sake, even amongst those who persuade themselves that they are so. How a man may know whether he be so in earnest is worth inquiry. And I think there is one unerring mark of it. Viz. The not entertaining any proposition with greater assurance than the proofs it is built upon will warrant. Whoever goes beyond this measure of assent, it is plain, receives not truth in the love of it, loves not truth for truth's sake, but for some other by end. For the evidence that any proposition is true, except such as our self-evident, lying only in the proofs a man has of it, whatsoever degrees of assent he affords it, beyond the degrees of that evidence, it is plain that all the surplusage of assurance is owing to some other affection, and not to the love of truth. It being as impossible that the love of truth should carry my assent above the evidence there is to me that it is true, as that the love of truth should make me assent to any proposition for the sake of that evidence, which it has not, that it is true, which is in effect to love it as a truth because it is possible or probable that it may not be true. In any truth that gets not possession of our minds by the irresistible light of self-evidence, or by the force of demonstration, the arguments that gain it assent are the vultures and gauge of its probability to us, and we can receive it for no other than such as they deliver it to our understandings. Whatsoever credit or authority we give to any proposition more than it receives from the principles and proofs it supports itself upon is owing to our inclinations that way, and is so far a derogation from the love of truth as such, which, as it can receive no evidence from our passions or interests, so it should receive no tincture from them. 2. The assuming and authority of dictating to others and a forwardness to prescribe to their opinions is a constant concomitant of this bias and corruption of our judgments. For how almost can it be otherwise, but that he should be ready to impose on another's belief who has already imposed on his own, who can reasonably expect arguments and convictions from him in dealing with others whose understanding is not accustomed to them in his dealing with himself, who does violence to his own faculties, tyrannizes over his own mind, and usurps the prerogative that belongs to truth alone, which is to command ascent by only its own authority, i.e. by and in proportion to that evidence which it carries with it. 3. Upon this occasion I shall take the liberty to consider a third ground of ascent, which with some men has the same authority and is, as confidently relied on, as either faith or reason. I mean enthusiasm, which, lain by reason, would set up revelation without it, whereby in effect it takes away both reason and revelation and substitutes in the room of it the ungrounded fancies of a man's own brain and assumes them for a foundation both of opinion and conduct. 4. Reason is natural revelation whereby the Eternal Father of Light and Fountain of All Knowledge communicates to mankind that portion of truth which he has laid within the reach of their natural faculties. 5. Revelation is natural reason enlarged by a new set of discoveries communicated by God immediately which reason vultures the truth of by the testimony and proofs it gives that they come from God. 6. So that he that takes away reason to make way for revelation puts out the light of both and does much what the same as if he would persuade a man to put out his eyes, the better to receive the remote light of an invisible star by a telescope. 5. Immediate revelation being a much easier way for men to establish their opinions and regulate their conduct than the tedious and not always successful labor of strict reasoning, it is no wonder that some have been very apt to pretend to revelation and to persuade themselves that they are under the peculiar guidance of heaven in their actions and opinions, especially in those of them which they cannot account for by the ordinary methods of knowledge and principles of reason. Hence we see that in all ages men in whom melancholy has mixed with devotion or whose conceit of themselves has raised them into an opinion of a greater familiarity with God and a nearer admittance to his favor than as afforded to others have often flattered themselves with the persuasion of an immediate intercourse with the deity and frequent communication from the divine spirit. God I own cannot be denied to be able to enlighten the understanding by a ray darted into the mind immediately from the fountain of light. This they understand he has promised to do and who then has so good a title to expect it as those who are his peculiar people chosen by him and depending on him. 6. Their minds being thus prepared whatever groundless opinion comes to settle itself strongly upon their fancies is an illumination from the spirit of God and presently of divine authority and whatsoever odd action they find in themselves a strong inclination to do that impulses concluded to be a call or direction from heaven and must be obeyed. It is a permission from above and they cannot err in executing it. 7. This I take to be properly enthusiasm, which though founded neither on reason nor divine revelation, but rising from the conceits of a warmed or overweening brain, works yet where it once gets footing more powerfully on the persuasions and actions of men than either of those two are both together. Men being most forwardly obedient to the impulses they receive from themselves and the whole man is sure to act more vigorously where the whole man is carried by a natural motion. 8. For strong conceit like a new principle carries all easily with it when got above common sense and freed from all restraint of reason and check of reflection. It is heightened into divine authority in concurrence with our own temper and inclination. 8. Though the odd opinions and extravagant actions enthusiasm has run men were enough to warn them against this wrong principle so apt to misguide them both in their belief and conduct. Yet the love of something extraordinary, the ease and glory it is to be inspired and be above the common and natural ways of knowledge so flatters many men's laziness, ignorance, and vanity that when once they are got into this way of immediate revelation of illumination without search and of certainty without proof and without examination it is a hard matter to get them out of it. Reason is lost upon them. They are above it. They see the light infused into their understandings and cannot be mistaken. It is clear and visible there like the light of a bright sunshine shows itself and needs no other proof but its own evidence. They feel the hand of God moving them within and the impulses of the spirit and cannot be mistaken in what they feel. Thus they support themselves and are sure reason hath nothing to do with what they see and feel in themselves. What they have a sensible experience of admits no doubt, needs no probation. Would he not be ridiculous who should require to have it prove to him that the light shines and that he sees it? It is his own proof and can have no other. When the spirit brings light into our minds it dispels darkness. We see it as we do that of the sun at noon and need not the twilight of reason to show it us. This light from heaven is strong, clear and pure, carries its own demonstration with it and we may as naturally take a glow worm to assist us to discover the sun as to examine the celestial ray by our dim candle. Reason. Nine. This is the way of talking of these men. They are sure because they are sure and their persuasions are right because they are strong in them. For when what they say is stripped of the metaphor of seeing and feeling, this is all it amounts to. And yet these similes so impose on them that they serve them for certainty in themselves and demonstration to others. Ten. But to examine a little soberly this internal light and this feeling on which they build so much, these men have they say clear light and they see. They have awakened sense and they feel. This cannot, they are sure, be disputed them. For when a man says he sees or feels, nobody can deny it him that he does so. But here let me ask. This seeing, is it the perception of the truth of the proposition, or of this, that it is a revelation from God? This feeling, is it a perception of an inclination or fancy to do something, or of the spirit of God moving that inclination? These are two very different perceptions and must be carefully distinguished if we would not impose upon ourselves. I may perceive the truth of a proposition and yet not perceive that it is an immediate revelation from God. I may perceive the truth of a proposition in Euclid without it being, or my perceiving it to be, a revelation. Nay, I may perceive I came not by this knowledge in a natural way and so may conclude it revealed without perceiving that it is a revelation from God. Because there be spirits which without being divinely commissioned may excite those ideas in me and lay them in such order before my mind that I may perceive their connection so that the knowledge of any proposition coming into my mind, I know not how, is not a perception that is from God. Much less is a strong persuasion that it is true, a perception that it is from God, or so much as true. But however it be called light and seen, I suppose it is at most but belief and assurance. And the proposition taken for a revelation is not such as they know to be true, but take to be true. For where a proposition is known to be true, revelation is needless, and it is hard to conceive how there can be a revelation to anyone of what he knows already. If therefore it be a proposition which they are persuaded but do not know to be true, whatever they may call it, it is not seen but believing. For these are two ways whereby truth comes into the mind wholly distinct, so that one is not the other. What I see I know to be so, by the evidence of the thing itself. What I believe I take to be so upon the testimony of another. But this testimony I must know to be given, or else what ground have I of believing? I must see that it is God that reveals this to me, or else I see nothing. The question then here is, how do I know that God is the revealer of this to me, that this impression is made upon my mind by the Holy Spirit, and that therefore I ought to obey it? If I know not this, how greatsoever the assurance is that I am possessed with, it is groundless. Whatever light I pretend to, it is but enthusiasm. For whether the proposition supposed to be revealed be in itself evidently true, or visibly probable, or by the natural ways of knowledge uncertain, the proposition that must be well grounded and manifested to be true is this, that God is the revealer of it, and that what I take to be a revelation is certainly put into my mind by him, and is not an illusion dropped in by some other spirit or raised by my own fancy. For if I mistake not, these men receive it for true, because they presume God revealed it. Does it not then stand them upon to examine on what grounds they presume it to be a revelation from God, or else all their confidence is mere presumption, and this light they are so dazzled with is nothing but an igneous fatuous that leads them constantly round in this circle. It is a revelation because they firmly believe it, and they believe it because it is a revelation. 11. In all that is of divine revelation there is need of no other proof but that it is an inspiration from God, for he cannot deceive nor be deceived. But how shall it be known that any proposition in our minds is a truth infused by God? A truth that is revealed to us by him, which he declares to us, and therefore we ought to believe. Here it is that enthusiasm fails of the evidence it pretends to. For men thus possessed most of a light whereby they say they are enlightened, and brought into the knowledge of this or that truth. But if they know it to be a truth, they must know it to be so, either by its own self-evidence to natural reason, or by the rational proofs that make it out to be so. If they see and know it to be a truth, either of these two ways they in vain suppose it to be a revelation. For they know it to be true the same way that any other man naturally may know that it is so without the help of revelation. For thus all the truths of what kind so ever that men inspired are enlightened with came into their minds and are established there. If they say they know it to be true because it is a revelation from God, the reason is good. But then it will be demanded how they know it to be a revelation from God. If they say by the light it brings with it, which shines bright in their minds and they cannot resist, I beseech them to consider whether this be any more than what we have taken notice of already. This, that it is a revelation because they strongly believe it to be true. For all the light they speak of is but a strong though ungrounded persuasion of their own minds that it is a truth. For rational grounds from proofs that it is a truth they must acknowledge to have none. For then it is not received as a revelation, but upon the ordinary grounds that other truths are received. And if they believe it to be true because it is a revelation and have no other reason for its being a revelation but because they are fully persuaded without any other reason that it is true, they believe it to be a revelation only because they strongly believe it to be a revelation, which is a very unsafe ground to proceed on, either in our tenets or actions. And what ready your way can there be to run ourselves into the most extravagant errors and miscarriages than thus to set up fancy for our supreme and sole guide, and to believe any proposition to be true, any action to be right, only because we believe it to be so. The strength of our persuasions is no evidence at all of their own rectitude. Crooked things may be as stiff and inflexible as straight, and men may be as positive and peremptory in error as in truth. How come else the untractable zealots in different and opposite parties? For if the light which everyone thinks he has in his mind, which in this case is nothing but the strength of his own persuasion, be an evidence that it is from God, contrary opinions have the same title to inspirations, and God will be not only the father of lights, but the opposite and contrary lights, leading men contrary ways, and contradictory propositions will be divine truths if an ungrounded strength of assurance be an evidence that any proposition is a divine revelation. 12. This cannot be otherwise, whilst firmness of persuasion is made the cause of believing and confidence of being in the right is made an argument of truth. St. Paul himself believed he did well in that he had a call to it when he persecuted the Christians whom he confidently thought in the wrong, but yet it was he, not they, who were mistaken. Good men are men still liable to mistakes, and are sometimes warmly engaged in errors which they take for divine truths shining in their minds with the clearest light. 13. Light. True light in the mind can be nothing else but the evidence of the truth of any proposition, and if it be not a self-evident proposition, all the light it has or can have is from the clearness and validity of those proofs upon which it is received. To talk of any other light in the understanding is to put ourselves in the dark, or in the power of the Prince of Darkness, and by our own consent to give ourselves up to delusion, to believe a lie. For if strength of persuasion be the light which must guide us, I ask how shall anyone distinguish between the delusions of Satan and the inspirations of the Holy Ghost? He can transform himself into an angel of light, and they who are led by this sun of the morning are as fully satisfied of the illumination, i.e., are as strongly persuaded that they are enlightened by the Spirit of God as anyone who is so, they acquiesce and rejoice in it, are acted by it, and nobody can be more sure nor more in the right if their own strong belief may be judged than they. 14. He, therefore, that will not give himself up to all the extravagancies of delusion and air, must bring this guide of his light within to the trial. God, when he makes the prophet, does not un-make the man. He leaves all his faculties in the natural state to enable him to judge of his inspirations, whether they be of divine original or no. When he illuminates the mind with supernatural light, he does not extinguish that which is natural. If he would have us assent to the truth of any proposition, he either evidences that truth by the usual methods of natural reason or else makes it known to be a truth, which he would have us assent to by his authority and convinces us that it is from him by some marks which reason cannot be mistaken in. Reason must be our last judge and guide in everything. I do not mean that we must consult reason and examine whether a proposition revealed from God can be made out by natural principles, and if it cannot, that then we must reject it, but consult it we must, and by it examine whether it be a revelation from God or no. And if reason finds it to be revealed from God, reason then declares for it as much as for any other truth and makes it one of her dictates. Every conceit that thoroughly warms our fancies must pass for an inspiration if there be nothing but the strength of our persuasions whereby to judge of our persuasions. If reason must not examine their truth extrinsical to the persuasions themselves, inspirations and delusions, truth and falsehood will have the same measure and will not be possible to be distinguished. 15. If this internal light or any proposition which under that title we take for inspired be conformable to the principles of reason or to the word of God, which is a tested revelation, reason warrants it, and we may safely receive it for true and be guided by it in our belief and actions. If it receive no testimony nor evidence from either of these rules, we cannot take it for a revelation or so much as for true till we have some other mark that it is a revelation besides our believing that it be so. Thus we see the holy men of old who had from God had something else besides an internal light of assurance in their own minds to testify to them that it was from God. They were not left to their own persuasions alone that those persuasions were from God, but had outward signs to convince them of the author of those revelations, and when they were to convince others they had a power given them to justify the truth of their commission from heaven, and by visible signs to assert the divine authority of a message they were sent with. Moses saw the bush burn without being consumed, and heard a voice out of it. This is something besides finding an impulse upon his mind to go to Pharaoh that he might bring his brethren out of Egypt, and yet he thought this not enough to authorize him to go with that message till God, by another miracle of his rod, turned into a serpent, had assured him of a power to testify his mission, by the same miracle repeated before them, whom he was sent to. Gideon was sent by an angel to deliver Israel from the Midianites, and yet he desired a sign to convince him that this commission was from God. These and several the like instances to be found among the prophets of old are enough to show that they thought not an inward seeing or persuasion of their minds without any other proof of sufficient evidence that it was from God. Those of Scripture does not everywhere mention their demanding or having such proofs. 16. In what I have said I am far from denying that God can or doth sometimes enlighten men's minds in the apprehending of certain truths, or excite them to good actions by the immediate influence and assistance of the Holy Spirit, without any extraordinary signs accompanying it. But in such cases, too, we have reason and Scripture on airing rules to know whether it be from God or no, where the truth embraced is consonant to the revelation in the written word of God, or the action conformable to the dictates of right reason or holy writ. We may be assured that we run no risk in entertaining it as such, because though perhaps it be not an immediate revelation from God extraordinarily operating on our minds, yet we are sure it is warranted by that revelation which he has given us of truth. But it is not the strength of our private persuasion within our selves that can warrant it to be a light or motion from heaven. Nothing can do that but the written word of God without us, or that standard of reason which is common to us with all men. Where reason or Scripture is expressed for any opinion or action, we may receive it of divine authority. But it is not the strength of our own persuasions which can by itself give it that stamp. The bent of our own minds may favor it as much as we please. That may show it to be a fondling of our own, but will by no means prove it to be an offspring of heaven and of divine original. End of section 20