Page:A Collection of Several Philosophical Writings of Dr. Henry More.djvu/234

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The Contents.

framed from some occasions from without.

Chap. IV. 1. What Notions are more particularly comprised in the Idea of a Being absolutely Perfect. 2. That the difficulty of framing the conception of a thing ought to be no Argument against the Existence thereof; the nature of corporeall Matter being so perplex'd and intricate, which yet all men acknowledge to exist. 3. That the Idea of a Spirit is as easy a Notion as of any other Substance whatsoever. What powers and properties are contained in the Notion of a Spirit. 4. That Eternity and Infinity, if God were not, would be cast upon something else; so that Atheism cannot free the Mind from such Intricacies. 5. Goodness, Knowledge and Power, Notions of highest Perfection, and therefore necessarily included in the Idea of a Being absolutely Perfect. 6. As also Necessity, it sounding greater Perfection then Contingency.

Chap. V. 1. What has occasioned sundry men to conceit that the Soul is Abrasa Tabula. 2. That the Mind of Man is not Abrasa Tabula, but has actual Knowledge of her own, and in what sense she has so. 3. A farther illustration of the truth thereof.

Chap. VI. 1. Sundry Instances arguing actuall Knowledge in the Soul: as that she has a more accurate Idea of a Circle and Triangle then Matter can exhibite to her: 2. And that upon one single consideration she assures her self of the Universal Affection of a Triangle. 3. The same argued from the nature of Mathematical and Logical Notions, which come not in by the Senses, as being no Physical affections of the Matter; 4. Because they are produced without any Physical motion upon the Matter; 5. And that contrary kindes may be intirely in one and the same part of Matter at once. 6. That there are certain sure Complex Notions of the Mind for which she was not beholden to Sense.

Chap. VII. 1. The Mind of Man being not unfurnish'd of Innate Truth, that we are with confidence to attend to her naturall and unprejudic'd Dictates and Suggestions. 2. That some Notions and Truths are at least naturally and unavoidably assented unto by the Soul, whether she have of herself Actual Knowledge in her or not. 3. And that the Definition of a Being absolutely Perfect is such. 4. And that this absolutely Perfect Being is God, the Creator and Contriver of all things. 5. The certainty and settledness of this Idea.

Chap. VIII. 1. That the very Idea of God implies his necessary Existence. 2. That his Existence is not hypothetically necessary, but absolutely, with the occasion noted of that slippery Evasion. 3. That to acknowledge God a Being necessarily Existent according to the true Notion of him, and yet to say he may not Exist, is a plain contradiction. 4. That Necessity is a Logical term, and implies an indissoluble connexion betwixt Subject and Prædicate, whence again this Axiome is necessarily and eternally true, God doth exist. 5. A further Demonstration of his Existence from the incompetibility of Contingency or Impossibility to his Nature or Idea. 6. That necessary Self-existence belongs either to God, or to Matter, or to both. 7. The great Incongruities that follow the admission of the Self-existency of Matter. 8. An Answer to an Evasion. 9. That a number of Self-essentiated Deities plainly takes away the Being of the true God. 10. The onely undeniable Demonstration of the Unity of the Godhead. 11. The absurdness in admitting actual Self-existence in the Matter, and denying it in God. 12. That this absurdity cannot be excused from the sensibleness of Matter, sith the Atheist himself is forced to admit such things as fall not under Sense. 13. That it is as foolish a thing to reject the Being of God because he does not immediately fall under the Senses, as it were to reject the Being of Matter because it is so incomprehensible to the Phansy. 14. The

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