But be the word idea proper or improper, I do not see how it is the better or the worse, because ill men have made use of it, or because it has been made use of to bad purposes; for if that be a reason to condemn, or lay it by, we must lay by the terms, scripture, reason, perception, distinct, clear, &c. Nay, the name of God himself will not escape; for I do not think any one of these, or any other term, can bf produced, which hath not been made use of by such men, and to such purposes. And therefore, if the unitarians, in their late pamphlets, have talked very much of, and strangely amused the world with ideas, I cannot believe your lordship will think that word one jot the worse, or the more dangerous, because they use it; any more than, for their use of them, you will think reason or scripture terms ill or dangerous. And therefore what your lordship says, that I might have enjoyed the satisfaction of my ideas long enough before your lordship had taken notice of them, unless you had found them employed in doing mischief; will, I presume, when your lordship has considered again of this matter, prevail with your lordship, to let me enjoy still the satisfaction I take in my ideas, i. e. as much satisfaction as I can take in so small a matter, as is the using of a proper term, notwithstanding it should be employed by others in doing mischief.
For, my lord, if I should leave it wholly out of my book, and substitute the word notion every where in the room of it, and every body else do so too, (though your lordship does not, I suppose, suspect that I have the vanity to think they would follow ray example) my book would, it seems, be the more to your lordship's liking; but I do not see how this would one jot abate the mischief your lordship complains of. For the unitarians might as much employ notions, as they do now ideas, to do mischief; unless they are such fools to think they can conjure with this notable word idea, and that the force of what they say, lies in the sound, and not in the signification of their terms.
This I am sure of, that the truths of the Christian religion can be no more battered by one word than another; nor can they be beaten down or endangered by any sound whatsoever. And I am apt to flatter myself, that your lordship is satisfied that there is no harm in the word ideas, because you say, you should not have taken any notice of my ideas, if the enemies of our faith had not taken up my new way of ideas, as an effectual battery against the mysteries of the Christian faith. In which place, by new way of ideas, nothing, I think, can be construed to be meant, but my expressing myself by that of ideas; and not by other more common words, and of ancienter standing in the English language.
As to the objection, of the author's way by ideas being a new way, he thus answers: my new way by ideas, or my way by ideas, which often occurs in your lordship's letter, is, I confess, a very large and doubtful expression, and may, in the full latitude, comprehend my whole essay; because treating in it of the understanding, which is nothing but the faculty of thinking, I could not well treat of that faculty of the mind, which consists in thinking, without considering the immediate objects of the mind in thinking, which I call ideas: and therefore in treating of the understanding, I guess it will not be thought strange, that the greatest part of my book has been taken up, in considering what these objects of the mind, in thinking, are; whence they come; what use the mind makes of them, in its several ways of thinking; and what are the outward marks whereby it signifies them to others, or records them for its own use. And this, in short, is my way by ideas, that which your lordship calls my new way by ideas; which, my lord, if it be new, it is but a new history of an old thing. For I think it will not be doubted, that men always performed the actions of thinking, reasoning, believing, and knowing, just after the same manner they do now; though whether the same account has here-
