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"Your Bulwarks, Entrenchments and Redoubts lay so cunningly hid in your Way of Ideas, that they were altogether Invisible; so that the most quick-sighted Engineer living could not discern them, or take any sure Aim at them: Much less such a Dull Eye as mine; who, tho' I bend my Sight as strongly and steadily as I am able, yet I cannot, for my Heart, see what kind of Things those Spiritual Ideas are."

— Sergeant, John (1622-1707)

Author

Sergeant, John (1622-1707)

Work Title

Non Ultra, or, A Letter to a Learned Cartesian Settling the Rule of Truth, and First Principles, Upon their Deepest Ground

Place of Publication

London

Publisher

Printed for A. Roper

Date

1698

Metaphor

"Your Bulwarks, Entrenchments and Redoubts lay so cunningly hid in your Way of Ideas, that they were altogether Invisible; so that the most quick-sighted Engineer living could not discern them, or take any sure Aim at them: Much less such a Dull Eye as mine; who, tho' I bend my Sight as strongly and steadily as I am able, yet I cannot, for my Heart, see what kind of Things those Spiritual Ideas are."

Metaphor in Context

2. I must confess, Dear Sir, That when I heard you discourse, you did it so ingeniously in the Cartesian Way of Wit, which consists in Explicating and Doubting, and seems to exclude Proving, that I did not see how the Great Cartesius himself could have defended his Doctrine better: For, he could not have Doubted more scrupulously than you did; nor, I think, have Explicated himself more ingeniously. You guarded his Doctrine so warily, that it was scarce possible to attack it. Tho', that I may not flatter you, I cannot say you did this by the Evidence of any Proposition you Advanc'd, but by your Ready Exceptions against any thing that Art or Nature could oppose; at least, taking them as manag'd by one no better skill'd than I am. Your Cause seem'd to me, as if it had been secur'd in some Castle; made Impregnable, not by means of the Ordinary Methods of Fortification, us'd in Lawful War; but, (which is against the Old Laws of Arms,) by a kind of Enchantment. Your Bulwarks, Entrenchments and Redoubts lay so cunningly hid in your Way of Ideas, that they were altogether Invisible; so that the most quick-sighted Engineer living could not discern them, or take any sure Aim at them: Much less such a Dull Eye as mine; who, tho' I bend my Sight as strongly and steadily as I am able, yet I cannot, for my Heart, see what kind of Things those Spiritual Ideas are. And, which leaves me in a helpless Condition as to that Particular, such very Ingenious Cartesians as Mr. Le Grand, who, having por'd so long upon them, should be best acquainted with them, and therefore best qualified to inform me what they are, gives me no Account of them; unless we can think there may be such Things as are made up of Contradictions, and altogether Chimerical. As you may see in the 2d Examen of my Ideae Cartesianae Expensae, §§. 26, 27, 28, 29, 30.
(pp. 4-6)