1. Our knowledge partly necessary, partly voluntary. Our knowledge, as in other things, so in this,
has so great a conformity with our sight, that it is neither wholly necessary, nor wholly voluntary. If
our knowledge were altogether necessary, all men's knowledge would not only be alike, but every
man would know all that is knowable; and if it were wholly voluntary, some men so little regard or
value it that they would have extreme little, or none at all. Men that have senses cannot choose but
receive some ideas by them; and if they have memory, they cannot but retain some of them; and if
they have memory, they cannot but retain some of them; and if they have any distinguishing faculty,
cannot but perceive the agreement or disagreement of some of them one with another; as he that
has eyes, if he will open them by day, cannot but see some objects and perceive a difference in
them. But though a man with his eyes open in the light, cannot but see, yet there be certain objects
which he may choose whether he will turn his eyes to; there may be in his reach a book containing
pictures and discourses, capable to delight or instruct him, which yet he may never have the will to
open, never take the pains to look into.
2. The application of our faculties voluntary; but, they being employed, we know as things are, not
as we please. There is also another thing in a man's power, and that is, though he turns his eyes
sometimes towards an object, yet he may choose whether he will curiously survey it, and with an
intent application endeavour to observe accurately all that is visible in it. But yet, what he does see,
he cannot see otherwise than he does. It depends not on his will to see that black which appears
yellow; nor to persuade himself that what actually scalds him, feels cold. The earth will not appear
painted with flowers, nor the fields covered with verdure, whenever he has a mind to it: in the cold
winter, he cannot help seeing it white and hoary, if he will look abroad. Just thus is it with our
understanding: all that is voluntary in our knowledge is the employing or withholding any of our
faculties from this or that sort of objects, and a more or less accurate survey of them: but, they being
employed, our will hath no power to determine the knowledge of the mind one way or another; that
is done only by the objects themselves, as far as they are clearly discovered. And therefore, as far
as men's senses are conversant about external objects, the mind cannot but receive those ideas
which are presented by them, and be informed of the existence of things without: and so far as
men's thoughts converse with their own determined ideas, they cannot but in some measure
observe the agreement or disagreement that is to be found amongst some of them, which is so far
knowledge: and if they have names for those ideas which they have thus considered, they must
needs be assured of the truth of those propositions which express that agreement or disagreement
they perceive in them, and be undoubtedly convinced of those truths. For what a man sees, he
cannot but see; and what he perceives, he cannot but know that he perceives.
3. Instance in numbers. Thus he that has got the ideas of numbers, and hath taken the pains to
compare one, two, and three, to six, cannot choose but know that they are equal: he that hath got
the idea of a triangle, and found the ways to measure its angles and their magnitudes, is certain that
its three angles are equal to two right ones; and can as little doubt of that, as of this truth, that it is
impossible for the same thing to be, and not to be.
4. Instance in natural religion. He also that hath the idea of an intelligent, but frail and weak being,
made by and depending on another, who is eternal, omnipotent, perfectly wise and good, will as
certainly know that man is to honour, fear, and obey God, as that the sun shines when he sees it.
For if he hath but the ideas of two such beings in his mind, and will turn his thoughts that way, and
consider them, he will as certainly find that the inferior, finite, and dependent is under an obligation
to obey the supreme and infinite, as he is certain to find that three, four, and seven are less than
fifteen; if he will consider and compute those numbers: nor can he be surer in a clear morning that
the sun is risen; if he will but open his eyes and turn them that way. But yet these truths, being ever
so certain, ever so clear, he may be ignorant of either, or all of them, who will never take the pains
to employ his faculties, as he should, to inform himself about them.