what he answers. 'The world,' saith the[sub 1] bishop of Worcester, 'hath been strangely amused with ideas of late, and we have been told, that strange things might be done by the help of ideas; and yet these ideas, at last, come to be only common notions of things, which we must make use of in our reasoning. You (i. e. the author of the Essay concerning Human Understanding) say in that chapter about the existence of God, you thought it most proper to express yourself in the most usual and familiar way, by common words and expressions. I would you had done so quite through your book ; for then you had never given that occasion to the enemies of our faith, to take up your new way of ideas, as an effectual battery (as they imagined) against the mysteries of the Christian faith. But you might have enjoyed the satisfaction of your ideas long enough before I had taken notice of them, unless I had found them employed about doing mischief.'
To which our author[sub 2] replies. It is plain, that that which your lordship apprehends, in my book, may be of dangerous consequence to the article which your lordship has endeavoured to defend, is my introducing new terms; and that which your lordship instances in, is that of ideas. And the reason your lordship gives in every of these places, why your lordship has such an apprehension of ideas, that they may be of dangerous consequence to that article of faith which your lordship has endeavoured to defend, is because they have been applied to such purposes. And I might (your lordship says) have enjoyed the satisfaction of my ideas long enough before you had taken notice of them, unless your lordship had found them employed in doing mischief. Which, at last, as I humbly conceive, amounts to thus much, and no more; viz. That your lordship fears ideas, i. e. the term ideas, may, some time or other, prove of very dangerous consequence to what your lordship has endeavoured to defend, because they have been made use of in arguing against it. For I am sure your lordship does not mean, that you apprehend the things, signified by ideas, may be of dangerous consequence to the article of faith your lordship endeavours to defend, because they have been made use of against it: for (besides that your lordship mentions terms) that would be to expect that those who oppose that article, should oppose it without any thoughts; for the things signified by ideas, are nothing but the immediate objects of our minds in thinking : so that unless any one can oppose the article your lordship defends, without thinking on something, he must use the things signified by ideas; for he that thinks, must have some immediate object of his mind in thinking, i. e. must have ideas.
But whether it be the name, or the thing; ideas in sound, or ideas in signification, that your lordship apprehends may be of dangerous consequence to that article of faith which your lordship endeavours to defend—it seems to me, I will not say a new way of reasoning (for that belongs to me); but were it not your lordship's, I should think it a very extraordinary way of reasoning, to write against a book, wherein your lordship acknowledges they are not used to bad purposes, nor employed to do mischief, only because you find that ideas are, by those who oppose your lordship, employed to do mischief; and so apprehend, they may be of dangerous consequence to the article your lordship has engaged in the defence of. For whether ideas as terms, or ideas as the immediate objects of the mind signified by those terms, may be, in your lordship's apprehension, of dangerous
