reducing it to insensible parts can never take away either Solidity Extension Figure or Mobility from any Body but only makes two distinct Bodies or more of one which altogether after division have their certain number § 11. The next thing to be considered is how Bodies operate one upon another and that is manifestly by impulse and nothing else It being impossible to conceive that Body should operate on what it does not touch which is all one as to imagine it can operate where it is not or when it does touch operate any other way than by Motion § 12. If then Bodies cannot operate at a distance if external Objects be not united to our Minds when they produce Ideas in it and yet we perceive these original Qualities in such of them as singly fall under our Senses 't is evident that some motion must be thence continued by our Nerves or animal Spirits by some parts of our Bodies to the Brains the seat of Sensation there to produce in our Minds the particular Ideas we have of them And since the Extension Figure Number and Motion of Bodies of an observable bigness may be perceived at a distance by the sight 't is evident some singly imperceptible Bodies must come from them to the Eyes and thereby convey to the Brain some Motion which produces these Ideas we have of them in us § 13. After the same manner that the Ideas of these original Qualities are produced in us we may conceive that the Ideas of secundary Qualities are also produced viz. by the operation of insensible particles on our Senses For it being manifest that there are Bodies and good store of Bodies each whereof is so small that we cannot by any of our Senses discover either their bulk figure or motion as is evident in the Particles of the Air and Water and other extreamly smaller than those perhaps as much less than the Particles of Air or Water as the Particles of Air or Water are smaller than Pease or Hail-stones Let us suppose at present that the different Motions and Figures Bulk and Number of such Particles affecting the several Organs of our Senses produce in us those different Sensations which we have from the Colours and Smells of Bodies v. g. a Violet by which impulse of those insensible Particles of Matter of different figures and bulks and in a different Degree and Modification we may have the Ideas of the blue Colour and sweet Scent of a Violet produced in our Minds It being no more conceived impossible to conceive that God should annex such Ideas to such Motions with which they have no similitude than that he should annex the Idea of Pain to the motion of a piece of Steel dividing our Flesh with which that Idea hath no resemblance § 14. What I have said concerning Colours and Smells may be understood also of Tastes and Sounds and other the like sensible Qualities which whatever reality we by mistake attribute to them are in truth nothing in the Objects themselves but Powers to produce various Sensations in us and depend on those primary Qualities viz. Bulk Figure Texture and Motion of Parts and therefore I call them Secundary Qualities § 15. From whence I think it is easie to draw this Observation That the Ideas of primary Qualities of Bodies are Resemblances of them and their Patterns do really exist in the Bodies themselves but the Ideas produced in us by these Secundary Qualities have no resemblance of them at all There is nothing like our Ideas existing in the Bodies themselves They are in the Bodies we denominate from them only a Power to produce those Sensations in us And what is Sweet Blue or Warm in Idea is but the certain Bulk Figure and Motion of the insensible Parts in the Bodies themselves we call so § 16. Flame is denominated Hot and Lighâ—â— Snow White and Cold and Manna White and Sweet from the Ideas thâ—â— produce in us Which Qualities are commonly thought to be the same in those Bodies that those Ideas are in us the one the perfect resemblance of the other as they are in a Mirror and it would by most Men be judged very extravagant if one should say otherwise And yet he that will consider that the same Fire that at one distance produces in us the Sensation of Warmth does at a nearer approach produce in us the far different Sensation of Pain ought to bethink himself what Reason he has to say That his Idea of Warmth which was produced in him by the Fire is actually in the Fire and his Idea of Pain which the same Fire produced in him the same way is not in the Fire Why is Whiteness and Coldness in Snow and pain not when it produces the one and the other Idea in us and can do neither but by the Bulk Figure Number and Motion of its solid Parts § 17. The particular Bulk Number Figure and Motion of the parts of Fire or Snow are really in them whether any ones Senses perceive them or no and therefore they may be called real Qualities they really exist in those Bodies But Light Heat Whiteness or Coldness are no more really in them than Sickness or Pain is in Manna Take away the Sensation of them let not the Eyes see Light or Colours nor the Ears hear Sounds let the Palate not Taste nor the Nose Smell and all Colours Tastes Odors and Sounds as they are such particular Ideas vanish and cease and are reduced to their Causes i. e. Bulk Figure and Motion of Parts § 18. A piece of Manna of a sensible Bulk is able to produce in us the Ideas of a round or square Figure and by being removed from one place to another the Idea of Motion This Idea of Motion represents it as it really is in the Manna moving A Circle or Square are the same whether in Idea or Existence in the Mind or in the Manna And this both Motion and Figure are really in the Manna whether we take notice of them or no This every Body is ready to agree to Besides Manna by the Bulk Figure Texture and Motion of its Parts has a Power to produce the Sensations of Sickness and sometimes of acute Pains or Gripings in us That these Ideas of Sickness and Pain are not in the Manna but Effects of its Operations on us and are no where when we feel them not This also every one readily agrees to And yet Men are hardly to be brought to think that Sweetness and Whiteness are not really in Manna which are but the effects of the operations of Manna by the motion size and figure of its Particles on the Eyes and Palate as the pain and sickness caused by Manna are confessedly nothing but the effects of its operations on the Stomach and Guts by the size motion and figure of its insensible parts for by nothing else can a Body operate as has been proved As if it could not operate on the Eyes and Palate and
should often think and that a long while together and not be conscious to it self the next moment after that it had thought § 19. To suppose the Soul to think and the Man not perceive it is as has been said to make two persons in one man And if one consider well these mens way of speaking one shall be lead into a suspicion that they do so For they who tell us that the Soul always thinks do never that I remember say That a man always thinks Can the Soul think and not the Man Or a Man think and not be conscious of it This perhaps would be suspected of Iargon in others If they say The man thinks always but is not always conscious of it they may as well say His Body is extended without having parts For 't is altogether as intelligible to say that any thing is extended without parts as that any thing thinks without being conscious of it without perceiving that it does so They who talk thus may with as much reason if it be necessary to their Hypothesis say That a man is always hungry but that he does not always feel it Whereas hunger consists in that very sensation as thinking consists in being conscious that one thinks If they say That a man is always conscious to himself of thinking I ask How they know it Consciousness is the perception of what passes in a man 's own mind Can another man perceive that I am conscious of any thing when I perceive it not my self No man's Knowledge here can go beyond his Experience Wake a man out of a sound sleep and ask him What he was that moment thinking on If he himself be conscious of nothing he then thought on he must be a notable Diviner of Thoughts that can assure him that he was thinking May he not with more reason assure him he was not asleep This is something beyond Philosophy and it cannot be less than Revelation that discovers to another Thoughts in my mind when I can find none there my self And they must needs have a penetrating sight who can certainly see that I think when I cannot perceive it my self and declare That I do not and yet can see that a Dog or an Elephant do not think though they give all the demonstration of it imaginable except only telling us that they do so This some may suspect to be a step beyond the Rosecrucians it seeming easier to make ones self invisible to others than to make another's thoughts visible to me which are not visible to himself But 't is but defining the Soul to be a substance that always thinks and the business is done If such a definition be of any Authority I know not what it can serve for but to make many men suspect That they have no Souls at all since they find a good part of their Lives pass away without thinking For no Definitions that I know no Suppositions of any Sect are of force enough to destroy constant Experience and perhaps 't is the affectation of knowing beyond what we perceive that makes so much useless dispute and noise in the World § 20. I see no Reason therefore to believe that the Soul thinks before the Senses have furnished it with Ideas to think on and as those are increased and retained so it comes by Exercise to improve its Faculty of thinking in the several parts of it as well as afterwards by compounding those Ideas and reflecting on its own Operations it increases its Stock as well as Facility in remembring imagining reasoning and other modes of thinking § 21. He that will suffer himself to be informed by Observation and Experience and not make his own Hypothesis the Rule of Nature will find few Signs of a Soul accustomed to much thinking in a new born Child and much fewer of any Reasoning at all And yet it is hard to imagine that the rational Soul should think so much and not reason at all And he that will consider that Infants newly come into the World spend the greatest part of their time in Sleep and are seldom awake but when either Hunger calls for the Teat or some Pain the most importunate of all Sensations or some other violent Idea forces the mind to perceive and attend to it He I say who considers this will perhaps find Reason to imagine That a Foetus in the Mother's Womb differs not much from the State of a Vegetable but passes the greatest part of its time without Perception or Thought doing very little but sleep in a Place where it needs not seek for Food and is surrounded with Liquor always equally soft and near of the same Temper where the Eyes have no Light and the Ears so shut up are not very susceptible of Sounds and where there is little or no variety or change of Objects to move the Senses § 22. Follow a Child from its Birth and observe the alterations that time makes and you shall find as the mind by the Senses comes more and more to be furnished with Ideas it comes to be more and more awake thinks more the more it has matter to think on After some time it begins to know the Objects which being most familiar with it have made lasting Impressions Thus it comes by degrees to know the Persons it daily converses with and distinguish them from Strangers which are Instances and Effects of its coming to retain and distinguish the Ideas the Senses convey to it And so we may observe how the Mind by degrees improves in these and advances to the Exercise of those other Faculties of Enlarging Compounding and Abstracting its Ideas and of reasoning about them and reflecting upon all these of which I shall have occasion to speak more hereafter § 23. If it shall be demanded then When a Man begins to have any Ideas I think the true Answer is When he first has any Sensation For since there appear not to be any Ideas in the Mind before the Senses have conveyed any in I conceive that Ideas in the Understanding are coeval with Sensation which is such an Impression or Motion made in some part of the Body as makes it be taken notice of in the Understanding § 24. The Impressions then that are made on our Senses by outward Objects that are extrinsical to the Mind and its own Operations about these Impressions reflected on by its self as proper Objects to be contemplated by it are I conceive the Original of all Knowledge and the first Capacity of Humane Intellect is That the Mind is fitted to receive the Impressions made on it either through the Senses by outward Objects or by its own Operations when it reflects on them This is the first step a Man makes towards the Discovery of any thing and the Ground-work whereon to build all those Notions which ever he shall have naturally in this World All those sublime Thoughts which towre above the Clouds and reach as high as Heaven its self take their
desire any one to assign any simple Idea which it received not from one of those Inlets before-mentioned or any complex Idea not made out of those simple ones Nor will it be so strange to think these few simple Ideas sufficient to employ the quickest Thought or largest Capacity and to furnish the Materials of all that various Knowledge and more various Phansies and Opinions of all Mankind if we consider how many Words may be made out of the various composition of 24 Letters or if going one step farther we will but reflect on the variety of combinations may be made with barely one of these Ideas viz. Number whose stock is inexhaustible and truly infinite◠And what a large and immense field doth Excursion alone afford the Mathematicians CHAP. VIII Some farther Considerations concerning our simple Ideas § 1. COncerning the simple Ideas of Sensation 't is to be considered That whatsoever is so constituted in Nature as to be able by affecting our Senses to cause any perception in the Mind doth thereby produce in the Understanding a simple Idea which whatever be the external cause of it when it comes to be taken notice of by our discerning Faculty it is by the Mind looked on and considered there to be a real positive Idea in the Understanding as much as any other whatsoever though perhaps the cause of it be but a privation in the subject § 2. Thus the Idea of Heat and Cold Light and Darkness White and Black Motion and Rest are equally clear and positive Ideas in the Mind though perhaps some of the causes which produce them are barely privations in those subjects from whence our Senses derive those Ideas These the Understanding in its view of them considers all as distinct positive Ideas without taking notice of the causes that produce them which is an enquiry not belonging to the Idea as it is in the Understanding but to the nature of the things existing without us These are two very different things and carefully to be distinguished it being one thing to perceive and know the Idea of White or Black and quite another to examine what kind of particles they must be and how ranged in the Superficies to make any Object appear white or black § 3. A Painter or Dyer who never enquired into their causes hath the Ideas of White and Black and other Colours as clearly perfectly and distinctly in his Understanding and perhaps more distinctly than the Philosopher who hath busied himself in considering their Natures and thinks he knows how far either of them is in its cause positive or privative and the Idea of Black is no less positive in his Mind than that of White however the cause of that Colour in the external Object may be only a privation § 4. If it were the design of my present Undertaking to enquire into the natural causes and manner of Perception I should offer this as a reason why a privative cause might in some cases at least produce a positive Idea viz. That all Sensation being produced in us only by different degrees and modes of Motion in our animal Spirits variously agitated by external Objects the abatement of any former motion must as necessarily produce a new sensation as the variation or increase of it and so introduce a new Idea which depends only on a different motion of the animal Spirits in that Organ § 5. But whether this be so or no I will not here determine but appeal to every one 's own Experience whether the shadow of a Man though it consists of nothing but the absence of Light and the more the absence of Light is the more discernible is the shadow does not when a Man looks on it cause as clear and positive an Idea in his mind as a Man himself though covered over with clear Sunshine And the picture of a shadow is a positive thing Indeed we have negative Names to which there be no positive Ideas but they consist wholly in negation of some certain Ideas as Silence Invisible but these signifie not any Ideas in the Mind but their absence § 6. And thus one may truly be said to see Darkness For supposing a hole perfectly dark from whence no light is reflected 't is certain one may see the figure of it or it may be painted and whether the Ink I write with make any other Idea is a question The privative causes I have here assigned of positive Ideas are according to the common Opinion but in truth it will be hard to determine whether there be really any Ideas from a privative cause till it be determined Whether Rest be any more a privation than Motion § 7. To discover the nature of our Ideas the better and to discourse of them intelligibly it will be convenient to distinguish them as they are Ideas or Perceptions in our Minds and as they are in the Bodies that cause such Perceptions in us that sowe may not think as perhaps usually is done that they are exactly the Images and resemblances of something inherent in the subject most of those of Sensation being in the Mind no more the likeness of something existing without us than the Names that stand for them are the likeness of our Ideas which yet upon hearing they are apt to excite in us § 8. Whatsoever the Mind perceives in it self or is the immediate object of Perception Thought or Understanding that I call Idea and the power to produce any Idea in our mind I call Quality of the Subject wherein that power is Thus a Snow-ball having the power to produce in us the Ideas of White Cold and Round the powers to produce those Ideas in us as they are in the Snow-ball I call Qualities and as they are Sensations or Perceptions in our Underwandings I call them Ideas which Ideas if I speak of sometimes as in the things themselves I would be understood to mean those Qualities in the Objects which produce them in us § 9. Concerning these Qualities we may I think observe these primary ones in Bodies that produce simple Ideas in us viz. Solidity Extension Motion or Rest Number and Figure § 10. These which I call original or primary Qualities of Body are wholly inseparable from it and such as in all the alterations and changes it suffers all the force can be used upon it it constantly keeps and such as Sense constantly finds in every particle of Matter which has bulk enough to be perceived and the Mind finds inseparable from every particle of Matter though less than to make it self singly be perceived by our Senses v. g. Take a grain of Wheat divide it into two parts each part has still Solidity Extension Figure and Mobility divide it again and it retains still the same qualities and so divide it on till the parts become insensible they must retain still each of them all those qualities For division which is all that a Mill or Pestle or any other Body does upon another in
thereby produce in the Mind particular distinct Ideas which in it self it has not as well as we allow it can operate on the Guts and Stomach and thereby produce distinct Ideas which in it self it has not These Ideas being all effects of the operations of Manna on several parts of our Bodies by the size figure number and motion of its parts why those produced by the Eyes and Palate should rather be thought to be really in the Manna than those produced by the Stomach and Guts or why the pain and sickness Ideas that are the effects of Manna should be thought to be no-where when they are not felt and yet the sweetness and whiteness effects of the same Manna on other parts of the Body by ways equal as unknown should be thought to exist in the Manna when they are not seen nor tasted would need some Reason to explain § 19. Let us consider the red and white colours in Porphyre Hinder light but from striking on it and its Colours vanish it no longer produces any such Ideas in us Upon the return of Light it produces these appearances on us again Can any one think any real alterations are made in the Porphyre by the presence or absence of Light and that those Ideas of whiteness and redness are really in Porphyre in the light when 't is plain it has no colour in the dark It has indeed such a Configuration of Particles both night and day as are apt by the Rays of Light rebounding from some parts of that hard Stone to produce in us the Idea of redness and from others the Idea of whiteness But whiteness or redness are not in it at any time but such a texture that hath the power to produce such a sensation in us § 20. Pound an Almond and the clear white Colour will be altered in to a dirty one and the sweet Tast into an oily one What real Alteration can the beating of the Pestle make in any Body but an Alteration of the Texture of it § 21. Ideas being thus distinguished and understood we may be able to give an Account how the same Water at the same time may produce the Idea of Cold by one Hand and of Heat by the other Whereas it is impossible that the same Water if those Ideas were really in it should at the same time be both Hot and Cold. For if we imagine Warmth as it is in our Hands to be nothing but a certain sort and degree of Motion in the minute Particles of our Nerves or animal Spirits we may understand how it is possible that the same Water may at the same time produce the Sensation of Heat in one Hand and Cold in the other which yet Figure never does that never producing the Idea of a square by one Hand which has produced the Idea of a Globe by another But if the Sensation of Heat and Cold be nothing but the increase or diminution of the motion of the minute Parts of our Bodies caused by the Corpuscles of any other Body it is easie to be understood That if that motion be greater in one Hand than in the other if a Body be applied to the two Hands which has in its minute Particles a greater motion than in those of one of the Hands and a less than in those of the other it will increase the motion of the one Hand and lessen it in the other and so cause the different Sensations of Heat and Cold that depend thereon § 22. I have in what just goes before been engaged in Physical Enquiries a little farther than perhaps I intended But it being necessary to make the Nature of Sensation a little understood and to make the difference between the Qualities in Bodies and the Ideas produced by them in the Mind to be distinctly conceived without which it were impossible to discourse intelligibly of them I hope I shall be pardoned this little Excursion into Natural Philosophy it being necessary in our present Enquiry to distinguish the primary and real Qualities of Bodies which are always in them viz. Solidity Extension Figure Number and Motion or Rest and are sometimes perceived by us viz. when the Bodies they are in are big enough singly to be discerned from those secundary and imputed Qualities which are but the Powers of several Combinations of those primary ones when they operate without being distinctly discerned whereby we also may come to know what Ideas are and what are not Resemblances of something really existing in the Bodies we denominate from them § 23. The Qualities then that are in in Bodies rightly considered are of Three sorts First The Bulk Figure Number Situation and Motion or Rest of their solid Parts these are in them whether we perceive them or no and when they are of that size that we can discover them we have by these an Idea of the thing as it is in it self as is plain in artificial things These I call primary Qualities Secondly The Power that is in any Body by Reason of its insensible primary Qualities to operate after a peculiar manner on any of our Senses and thereby produce in us the different Ideas of several Colours Sounds Smells Tasts c. These are usually called sensible Qualities Thirdly The Power that is in any Body by Reason of the particular Constitution of its primary Qualities to make such a change in the Bulk Figure Texture and Motion of another Body as to make it operate on our Senses differently from what it did before Thus the Sun has a Power to make Wax white and Fire to make Lead fluid The First of these as has been said I think may be properly called real Original or primary Qualities because they are in the things themselves whether they are perceived or no and upon their different Modifications it is that the secundary Qualities depend The other two are only Powers to act differently upon other things which Powers result from the different Modifications of those primary Qualities § 24. But though these two later sorts of Qualities are Powers barely and nothing but Powers relating to several other Bodies and resulting from the different Modifications of the Original Qualities yet they are generally otherwise thought of For the Second sort viz. The Powers to produce several Ideas in us by our Senses are looked upon as real Qualities in the things thus affecting us But the Third sort are call'd and esteemed barely Powers v. g. the Idea of Heat or Light which we receive by our Eyes or touch from the Sun are commonly thought real Qualities existing in the Sun and something more than barely Powers in it But when we consider the Sun in reference to Wax which it melts or blanches we look upon the Whiteness and Softness produced in the Wax not as Qualities in the Sun but Effects produced by Powers in it whilst yet we look on Light and Warmth to be real Qualities something more than bare Powers in the Sun Whereas if rightly
considered these Qualities of Light and Warmth which are Perceptions in me when I am warmed or enlightned by the Sun are no otherwise in the Sun than the changes made in the Wax when it is blanched or melted are in the Sun They are all of them equally Powers in the Sun depending on its primary Qualities whereby it is able in the one case so to alter the Bulk Figure Texture or Motion of some of the insensible parts of my Eyes or Hands as thereby to produce in me the Ideas of Light or Heat and in the other it is able so to alter the Bulk Figure Texture or Motion of the insensible Parts of the Wax as to make them fit to produce in me the distinct Ideas of White and Fluid § 25. The Reason Why the one are ordinarily taken for real Qualities and the other only for bare Powers seems to be because the Ideas we have of distinct Colours Sounds c. containing nothing at all in them of Bulk Figure or Motion we are not apt to think them the Effect of these primary Qualities which appear not to our Senses to operate in their Production and with which they have not any apparent Congruity or conceivable Connexion Hence it is that we are so forward to imagine that those Ideas are the resemblances of something really existing in the Objects themselves Since Sensation discovers nothing of Bulk Figure or Motion of parts in their Production nor can Reason shew how Bodies by their Bulk Figure and Motions should produce in the Mind the Ideas of Blue or Yellow c. But in the other Case in the Operations of Bodies changing the Qualities one of another we plainly discover that the Quality produced hath commonly no resemblance with any thing in the thing producing it wherefore we look on it as a bare Effect of Power For though receiving the Idea of Heat or Light from the Sun we are apt to think 't is a Perception and Resemblance of such a Quality in the Sun yet when we see Wax or a fair Face receive change of Colour from the Sun we cannot imagine that to be the Reception or Resemblance of any thing in the Sun because we find not those different Colours in the Sun it self For our Senses being able to observe a likeness or unlikeness of sensible Qualities in two different external Objects we forwardly enough conclude the Production of any sensible Quality in any Subject to be an Effect of bare Power and not the Communication of any Quality which was really in the efficient when we find no such sensible Quality in the thing that produced it But our Senses not being able to discover any unlikeness between the Idea produced in us and the Quality of the Object producing it we are apt to imagine that our Ideas are resemblances of something in the Objects and not the Effects of certain Powers placed in the Modification of their primary Qualities with which primary Qualities the Ideas produced in us have no resemblance § 26. To conclude beside those before mentioned primary Qualities in Bodies viz. Bulk Figure Extension Number and Motion of their solid Parts all the rest whereby we take notice of Bodies and distinguish them one from another are nothing else but several Powers in them depending on those primary Qualities whereby they are fitted either by immediately operating on our Bodies to produce several different Ideas in us or else by operating on other Bodies so to change their primary Qualities as to render them capable of producing Ideas in us different from what before they did The former of these I think may be called Secundary Qualities immediately perceivable The later Secundary Qualities mediately perceivable CHAP. IX Of Perception § 1. PErception as it is the first faculty of the Mind exercised about our Ideas so it is the first and simplest Idea we have from Reflection and is by some called Thinking in general Though Thinking in the propriety of the English Tongue signifies that sort of operation of the Mind about its Ideas wherein the Mind is active where it with some degree of voluntary attention considers any thing For in bare naked Perception the Mind is for the most part only passive and what it perceives it cannot avoid perceiving § 2. What Perception is every one will know better by reflecting on what he does himself when he sees hears feels c. or thinks than by any discourse of mine Whoever reflects on what passes in himself in his own Mind cannot miss it And if he does not reflect all the words in the World cannot make him have any notion of it § 3. This is certain That whatever alterations are made in the Body if they reach not the Mind whatever impressions are made on the outward parts if they are not taken notice of within there is no Perception Fire may burn our Bodies with no other effect than it does a Billet unless the motion be continued to the Brain and there the sense of Heat or Idea of Pain be produced in the Mind wherein consists actual Perception § 4. How often may a Man observe in himself that whilst his Mind is intently employ'd in the contemplation of some Objects and curiously surveying some Ideas that are there it takes no notice of impressions of sounding Bodies which are brought in though the same alteration be made upon the Organ of Hearing that uses to be for the producing the Idea of a Sound A sufficient impulse there may be on the Organ but it not reaching the observation of the Mind there follows no perception And though the motion that uses to produce the Idea of Sound be made in the Ear yet no sound is heard Want of Sensation in this case is not through any defect in the Organ or that his Ears are less affected than at other times when he does hear but that which uses to produce the Idea though conveyed in by the usual Organ not being taken notice of in the Understanding there follows no Sensation So that where-ever there is Sense or Perception there some Idea is actually produced and present in the Vnderstanding § 5. Therefore I doubt not but Children by the exercise of their Senses about Objects that affect them in the Womb receive some few Ideas before they are born as the unavoidable effects either of the Bodies that environ them or else of those Wants or Diseases they suffer amongst which if one may conjecture concerning things not very capable of examination I think the Ideas of Hunger and Warmth are two which probably are some of the first that Children have and which they scarce ever part with again § 6. But though it be reasonable to imagine that Children receive some Ideas before they come into the World yet these simple Ideas are far from those innate Principles which some contend for and we above have rejected These here mentioned being the effects of Sensation are only from some Affections of the Body
since we oftentimes find a Disease quite strip the Mind of all its Ideas and the flames of a Fever in a few days calcines all those Images to dust and confusion which seem'd to be as lasting as if carved in Marble § 6. But concerning the Ideas themselves it is easie to remark That those that are oftenest refreshed amongst which are those that are conveyed into the Mind by more ways than one by a frequent return of the Objects or Actions that produce them fix themselves best in the Memory and remain clearest and longest there and therefore those which are of the original Qualities of Bodies viz. Solidity Extension Figure Motion and Rest and those that almost constantly affect our Bodies as Heat and Cold and those which are the Affections of all kind of Beings as Existence Duration and Number which almost every Object that affects our Senses every Thought which imploys our Minds bring along with them These I say and the like Ideas are seldom quite lost whilst the Mind retains any Ideas at all § 7. In this secundary Perception as I may so call it or viewing again the Ideas that are lodg'd in the Memory the Mind is oftentimes more than barely passive the appearance of those dormant Pictures depending sometimes on the Will The Mind very often sets it self on work in search of some hidden Idea and turns as it were the Eye of the Soul upon it though sometimes too they start up in our Minds of their own accord and offer themselves to the Understanding and very often are rouzed and tumbled out of their dark Cells into open Day-light by some turbulent and tempestuous Passion our Affections bringing Ideas to our Memory which had otherwise lain quiet and unregarded § 8. Memory in an intellectual Creature is necessary in the next degree to Perception It is of so great moment that where it is wanting all the rest of our Faculties are in a great measure useless And we in our Thoughts Reasonings and Knowledge could not proceed beyond present Objects were it not for the assistance of our Memories wherein there may be two defects First That it loses the Idea quite and so far it produces perfect Ignorance For since we can know nothing farther than we have the Ideas of it when they are gone we are in perfect ignorance Secondly That it moves slowly and retrieves not the Ideas that it has and are laid up in store quick enough to serve the Mind upon occasions This if it be to a great degree is Stupidity and he who through this default in his Memory has not the Ideas that are really preserved there ready at hand when need and occasion calls for them were almost as good be without them quite since they serve him to little purpose The dull Man who loses the opportunity whilst he is seeking in his Mind for those Ideas that should serve his turn is not much more happy in his Knowledge than one that is perfectly ignorant 'T is the business therefore of the Memory to furnish to the Mind those dormant Ideas which it has present occasion for and in the having them ready at hand on all occasions consists that which we call Invention Fancy and quickness of Parts § 9. This faculty of laying up and retaining the Ideas that are brought into the Mind several other Animals seem to have to a great degree as well as Man For to pass by other instances Birds learning of Tunes and the endeavours one may observe in them to hit the Notes right put it past doubt with me that they have Perception and retain Ideas in their Memories and use them for Patterns For it seems to me impossible that they should endeavour to conform their Voices to Notes as 't is plain they do of which they had no Ideas For tho' I should grant Sound may mechanically cause a certain motion of the animal Spirits in the Brains of those Birds whilst the Tune is actually playing and that motion may be continued on to the Muscles of the Wings and so the Bird mechanically be driven away by certain noises because this may tend to the Birds preservation yet that can never be supposed a Reason why it should cause mechanically either whilst the Tune was playing much less after it has ceased such a motion in the Organs of the Bird's voice as should conform it to the Notes of a foreign Sound which imitation can be of no use to the Birds preservation But which is more it cannot with any appearance of Reason be suppos'd much less proved that Birds without Sense and Memory can approach their Notes nearer and nearer by degrees to a Tune play'd yesterday which if they have no Idea of in their Memory is now no-where nor can be a Pattern for them to imitate or which any repeated Essays can bring them nearer to Snce there is no reason why the sound of a Pipe should leave traces in their Brains which not at first but by their after-endeavours should produce the like Sounds and why the Sounds they make themselves should not make traces which they should follow as well as those of the Pipe is impossible to conceive CHAP. XI Of Discerning and other Operations of the Mind § 1. ANother Faculty we may take notice of in our Minds is that of Discerning and distinguishing between the several Ideas it has It is not enough to have a confused perception of something in general Unless the Mind had a distinct perception of different Objects and their Qualities it would be capable of very little Knowledge though the Bodies that affect us were as busie about us as they are now and the Mind were continually employ'd in thinking On this faculty of Distinguishing one thing from another depends the evidence and certainty of several even very general Propositions which have passed for innate Truths because Men over-looking the true cause why those Propositions find universal assent impute it wholly to native uniform Impressions whereas it in truth depends upon this clear discerning Faculty of the Mind whereby it perceives two Ideas to be the same or different But of this more hereafter § 2. How much the imperfection of accurately discriminating Ideas one from another lies either in the dulness or faults of the Organs of Sense or want of accuteness exercise or attention in the Understanding or hastiness and precipitancy natural to some Tempers I will not here examine It suffices to take notice that this is one of the Operations that the Mind may reflect on and observe in it self It is of that consequence to its other Knowledge that so far as this faculty is in it self dull or not rightly made use of for the distinguishing one thing from another so far our Notions are confused and our Reason and Judgment disturbed or misled If in having our Ideas in the Memory ready at hand consists quickness of parts in this of having them unconfused and being able nicely to distinguish one thing
not much unlike the Images in the inside of a Lanthorn turned round by the Heat of a Candle This Appearance of theirs in train though perhaps it may be sometimes faster and sometimes slower yet I guess varies not very much in a waking Man There seem to be certain Bounds to the quickness and slowness of the Succession of those Ideas one to another in our Minds beyond which they can neither delay nor hasten § 10. The Reason I have for this odd conjecture is from observing that in the Impressions made upon any of our Senses we can but to a certain degree perceive any Succession which if exceeding quick the Sense of Succession is lost even in Cases where it is evident that there is a real Succession Let a Cannon-Bullet pass through a Room and in its way take with it any Limb or fleshy Parts of a Man 't is as clear as any Demonstration can be that it must strike successively the two sides of the Room 'T is also evident that it must touch one part of the Flesh first and another after and so in Succession And yet I believe no Body who ever felt the pain of such a shot or heard the blow against the two distant Walls could perceive any Succession either in the pain or sound of so swift a stroke Such a part of Duration as this wherein we perceive no Succession is that which we may call an Instant and is that which takes up the time of only one Idea in our Minds without the Succession of another wherein therefore we perceive no Succession at all § 11. This also happens where the Motion is so slow as not to supply a constant train of fresh Ideas to the Senses as fast as the Mind is capable of receiving new ones into it and so other Ideas of our own Thoughts having room to come into our Minds between those offered to our Senses by the moving Body there the Sense of Motion is lost and the Body though it really move yet not changing perceivable distance with some other Bodies as fast as the Ideas of our own Minds do naturally follow one another in train the thing seems to stand still as is evident in the Hands of Clocks and Shadows of Sun-dials and other constant but slow Motions where though after certain Intervals we perceive by the change of distance that it hath moved yet the Motion it self we perceive not § 12. So that to me it seems that the constant and regular Succession of Ideas in a waking Man are as it were the Measure and Standard of all other Succession which if it either exceeds their pace as where two sounds or pains c. take up in their Succession the Duration of but one Idea or else where any Motion or Succession is so slow as that it keeps not pac◠with the Ideas in our Minds or the quickness in which they take their turns as when any one or more Ideas in their ordinary course come into our Mind between those which are offered to the sight by the different perceptible distances of a Body in Motion or between Sounds or Smells following one another there also the Sense of a constant continued Succession is lost and we perceive it not but with certain gaps of rest between § 13. If it be so that the Ideas of our Minds whilst we have any there do constantly change and shift in a continual Succession it would be impossible may any one say for a Man to think long of any one thing By which if it be meant that a Man may have one self-same single Idea a long time alone in his Mind without any variation at all I think in Matter of Fact it is not possible for which not knowing how the Ideas of our Minds are framed of what Materials they are made whence they have their Light and how they come to make their Appearances I can give no other Reason but Experience and I would have any one try whether he can keep one unvaried single Idea in his Mind without any other for any considerable time together § 14. For Trial let him take any Figure any Degree of Light or Whiteness or what other he pleases and he will I suppose find it difficult to keep all other Ideas out of his Mind But that some either of another kind or various Consideration of that Idea each of which Consideration is a new Idea will constantly succeed one another in his Thoughts let him be as wary as he can § 15 All that is in a Man's Power in this Case I think is only to mind and observe what the Ideas are that take their turns in his Understanding or else to direct the sort and call in such as he hath a desire or use of but hinder the constant Succession of fresh ones I think he cannot though he may commonly chuse whether he will heedfully observe and consider them § 16. Whether these several Ideas in a Man's Mind be made by certain Motions I will not here dispute But this I am sure that they include no Idea of Motion in their Appearance and if a Man had not the Idea of Motion otherwise I think he would have none at all which is enough to my present Purpose and sufficiently shews that the notice we take of the Ideas of our own Minds appearing there one after another is that which gives us the Idea of Succession and Duration without which we should have no such Ideas at all 'T is not then Motion but the constant train of Ideas in our Minds whilst we are waking that furnishes us with the Idea of Duration whereof Motion no otherwise gives us any Perception than as it causes in our Minds a constant Succession of Ideas as I have before shewed and we have as clear an Idea of Succession and Duration by the train of Ideas succeeding one another in our Minds without the Idea of any Motion as by the train of Ideas of the uninterrupted change of distance between two Bodies which we have from Motion and therefore we should as well have the Idea of Duration were there no Sense of Motion at all § 17. Having thus got the Idea of Duration the next thing natural for the Mind to do is to get some measure of this common Duration whereby it might judge of its different lengths and consider the distinct Order wherein several things exist without which a great part of our Knowledge would be confused and a great part of History be rendered very useless This Consideration of Duration◠as set out by certain Periods and marked by certain Measures or Epochs is that I think which most properly we call Time § 18. In the measuring of Extension there is nothing more required but the Application of the Standard or Measure we make use of to the thing of whose Extension we would be informed But in the measuring of Duration this cannot be done because no two different parts of Succession can be put
solid parts of Matter and so includes or at least intimates the Idea of Body Whereas the Idea of pure Distance includes no such thing I preferr also the Word Expansion to Space because Space is often applied to Distance of fleeting successive parts which never exist together as well as to those which are permanent In both these viz. Expansion and Duration the Mind has this common Idea of continued Lengths capable of greater or less quantities For a Man has as clear an Idea of the difference of the length of an Hour and a Day as of an Inch and a Foot § 2. The Mind having got the Idea of the length of any part of Expansion let it be a Span or a Pace or what length you will can as has been said repeat that Idea and so adding it to the former enlarge its Idea of Length and make it equal to two Spans or two Paces and so as often as it will till it equals the distance of any parts of the Earth one from another and increase thus till it amounts to the distance of the Sun or remotest Star By such a progression as this setting out from the place where it is or any other place it can proceed and pass beyond all those lengths and find nothing to stop its going on either in or without Body 'T is true we can easily in our Thoughts come to the end of solid Extension the extremity and bounds of all Body we have no difficulty to arrive at But when the Mind is there it finds nothing to hinder its progress into this endless Expansion of that it can neither find nor conceive any end Nor let any one say That beyond the bounds of Body there is nothing at all unless he will confine GOD within the limits of Matter Solomon whose Understanding was filled and enlarged with Wisdom seems to have other Thoughts when he says Heaven and the Heaven of Heavens cannot contain Thee And he I think very much magnifies to himself the Capacity of his own Understanding who persuades himself that he can extend his Thoughts farther than GOD exists or imagine any Expansion where he is not § 3. Just so is it in Duration The Mind having got the Idea of any length of Duration can double multiply and enlarge it not only beyond its own but beyond the existence of all corporeal Beings and all the measures of Time taken from the great Bodies of the World and their Motions But yet every one easily admits That though we make Duration boundless as certainly it is we cannot yet extend it beyond all being GOD every one easily allows fills Eternity and 't is hard to find a Reason why any one should doubt that he likewise fills Immensity His infinite Being is certainly as boundless one way as another and methinks it ascribes a little too much to Matter to say Where there is no Body there is nothing § 4. Hence I think we may learn the Reason why every one familiarly and without the least hesitation speaks of and supposes Eternity and sticks not to ascribe Infinity to Duration but 't is with more doubting and reserve that many admit or suppose the Infinity of Space The reason whereof seems to me to be this That Duration and Extension being used as names of affections belonging to other Beings we easily conceive in GOD infinite Duration and we cannot avoid doing so but not attributing to him Extension but only to Matter which is finite we are apter to doubt of the existence of Expansion without Matter of which alone we commonly suppose it an Attribute And therefore when Men pursue their Thoughts of Space they are apt to stop at the confines of Body as if Space were there at an end too and reached no farther Or if their Ideas upon consideration carry them farther yet they term what is beyond the limits of the Universe imaginary Space as if it were nothing because there is no Body existing in it Whereas Duration antecedent to all Body and the motions it is measured by they never term imaginary because it is never supposed void of some other real existence And if the names of things may at all direct our Thoughts towards the Originals of Mens Ideas as I am apt to think they may very much one may have occasion to think by the name Duration that the continuation of Existence with a kind of Resistence to any destructive force and the continuation of Solidity which is apt to be confounded with and if we will look into the minute atomical parts of Matter is little different from Hardness were thought to have some Analogy and gave occasion to Words so near of kin as Durare and Durum esse But be that as it will this is certain That whoever pursues his own Thoughts will find them sometimes lanch out beyond the extent of Body into the Infinity of Space or Expansion the Idea whereof is distinct and separate from Body and all other things which may to those who please be a subject of farther meditation § 5. Time in general is to Duration as Place to Expansion They are so much of those boundless Oceans of Eternity and Immensity as is set out and distinguished from the rest as it were by Land-marks and so are made use of to denote the Position of â—inite real Beings in respect one to another in those uniform infinite Oceans of Duration and Space These rightly considered are nothing but Ideas of determinate Distances from certain known points fixed in distinguishable sensible things and supposed to keep the same distance one from another From such points fixed in sensible Beings we reckon and from them we measure out Portions of those infinite Quantities which so considered are that which we call Time and Place For Duration and Space being in themselves uniform and boundless the Order and Position of things without such known setled Points would be lost in them and all things would lie jumbled in an incurable Confâ—â—sion § 6. Time and Place taken thus for determinate distinguishable Portions of those infinite Abysses of Space and Duration set out or supposed to be distinguished from the rest by marks and known Boundaries have each of them a two-fold Acceptation First Time in general is commonly taken for so much of infinite Duration as it measured out by and co-exhistent with the Existence and Motions of the great Bodies of the Universe as far as we know any thing of them and in this Sense Time begins and ends with the frame of this sensible World as in these Phrases before mentioned before all time or when time shall be no more Place likewise is taken sometimes for that Portion of infinite Space which is possessed by and comprehended within the Material World and is thereby distinguished from the rest of Expansion though this may more properly be called Extension than Place Within these two are confined and by the observable Parts of them are measured and determined the
be reckoned its active Powers and passive Capacities which though not strictly simple Ideas yet in this respect for brevities sake may conveniently enough be reckoned amongst them Thus the power of drawing Iron is one of the Ideas of the Complex one of that substance we call a Load-stone and a Power to be so drawn is a part of the Complex one we call Iron which Powers pass for inherent Qualities in those Subjects Because every Substance being as apt by the Powers we observe in it to change some sensible Qualities in other Subjects as it is to produce in us those simple Ideas we receive immediately from it does by those new sensible Qualities introduced into other Subjects discover to us those Powers which do thereby mediately affect our Senses as regularly as its sensible Qualities do it immediately v. g. we immediately by our Senses perceive in Fire its Heat and Colour which are if rightly considered nothing but Powers in it to produce those Ideas in us We also by our Senses perceive the colour and brittleness of Charcoal whereby we come by the Knowledge of another Power in Fire which it has to change the colour and consistency of Wood By the former Fire immediately by the later it mediately discovers to us these several Powers which therefore we look upon to be a part of the Qualities of Fire and so make them a part of the complex Ideas of it For all those Powers that we take Cognizance of terminating only in the alteration of some sensible Qualities in those Subjects on which they operate and so making them exhibit to us new sensible Ideas therefore it is that I have reckoned these Powers amongst the simple Ideas which make the complex ones of the sorts of Substances though these Powers considered in themselves are truly complex Ideas And in this looser sense I crave leave to be understood when I name any of these Potentialities amongst the simple Ideas which we recollect in our Minds when we think of particular Substances For the Powers that are severally in them are necessary to be considered if we will have true distinct Notions of Substances § 8. Nor are we to wonder that Powers make a great part of our complex Ideas of Substances since their secondary Qualities are those which in most of them serve principally to distinguish Substances one from another and commonly make a considerable part of the complex Idea of the several sorts of them For our Senses failing us in the discovery of the Bulk Texture and Figure of the minute parts of Bodies on which their real Constitutions and Differences depend we are fain to make use of their secondary Qualities as the characteristical Notes and Marks whereby to frame Ideas of them in our Minds and distinguish them one from another All which secondary Qualities as has been shewn are nothing but bare Powers For the Colour and Taste of Opium are as well as its foporifick or anodyn Virtues meer Powers depending on its primary Qualities whereby it is sitted to produce different Operations on different parts of our Bodies The Ideas that make our complex ones of corporeal Substances are of these three sorts First The Ideas of the primary Qualities of things which are discovered by our Senses and are in them even when we perceive them not such are the Bulk Figure Number Situation and Motion of the Parts of Bodies which are really in them whether we perceive them or no. Secondly The sensible secondary Qualities which depending on these are nothing but the Powers those Substances have to produce several Ideas in us by our Senses which Ideas are not in the things themselves otherwise than as any thing is in its Cause Thirdly The aptness we consider in any Substance to give or receive such alterations of primary Qualities as that the Substance so altered should produce in us different Ideas from what it did before these are called active and passive Powers all which Powers as far as we have any Notice or Notion of them terminate only in sensible simple Ideas for whatever alteration a Load-stone has the Power to make in the minute Particles of Iron we should have no Notion of any Power it had at all to operate on Iron did not its sensible Motion discover it and I doubt not but there are a thousand Changes that Bodies we daily handle have a Power to cause in one another which we never suspect because they never appear in sensible effects § 10. Powers therefore justly make a great part of our complex Ideas of Substances He that will examine his complex Idea of Gold will find several of its Ideas that make it up to be only Powers as the Power of being melted but of keeping its weight in the Fire of being dissolved in Aq. Regia are Ideas as necessary to make up our complex Idea of Gold as its Colour and Weight which if duly considered are also nothing but different Powers For to speak truly Yellowness is not actually in Gold but is a Power in Gold to produce that Idea in us by our Eyes when placed in a due Light and the Heat which we cannot leave out of our Idea of the Sun is no more really in the Sun than the white Colour it introduces in Wax These are both equally Powers in the Sun operating by the Motion and Figure of its insensible Parts so on a Man as to make him have the Idea of Heat and so on Wax as to make it capable to produce in a Man the Idea of White § 11. Had we Senses acute enough to discern the minute particles of Bodies and the real Constitution on which their sensible Qualities depend I doubt not but they would produce quite different Ideas in us and that which is now the yellow Colour of Gold would then disappear and instead of it we should see an admirable Texture of parts of a certain Size and Figure This Microscopes plainly discover to us for what to our naked Eyes produces a certain Colour is by thus augmenting the acuteness of our Senses discovered to be quite a different thing and the thus altering as it were the proportion of the Bulk of the minute parts of a coloured Object to our usual Sight produces different Ideas from what it did before Thus Sand or pounded Glass which is opaque and white to the naked Eye is pellucid in a Microscope and a Hair seen this way looses its former Colour and is in a great measure pellucid with a mixture of some bright sparkling Colours such as appear from the refraction of Diamonds and other pellucid Bodies Blood to the naked Eye appears all red but by a good Microscope wherein its lesser parts appear shews only some few Globules of Red swimming in a pellucid Liquor and how these red Globules would appear if Glasses could be found that yet could magnifie them 1000 or 10000 times more is uncertain § 12. The infinitely wise contriver of us and
have done some Service to Truth Peace and Learning if by any enlargement on this Subject I can make Men reflect on their own Use of Language and give them reason to suspect that since it is frequent for others it may also be possible for them to have sometimes very good and approved Words in their Mouths and Writings with very uncertain little or no signification And therefore it is not unreasonable for them to be wary herein themselves and not to be unwilling to have them examined by others With this design therefore I shall go on with what I have farther to say concerning this matter CHAP. VI. Of the Names of Substances § 1. THe common Names of Substances as well as other general Terms stand for Sorts which is nothing else but the being made signs of such complex Ideas wherein several particular Substances do or might agree by virtue of which they are capable to be comprehended in one common Conception and be signified by one Name I say do or might agree for though there be but one Sun existing in the World yet the Idea of it being abstracted so as that more Substances if there were several might each agree in it it is as much a Sort as if there were as many Suns as there are Stars They want not their Reasons who think there are and that each fixed Star would answer the Idea the name Sun stands for to one who were placed in a due distance which by the way may shew us how much the Sorts or if you please Genera and Species of Things for those Latin terms signifie to me no more than the English word Sort depend on such Collections of Ideas as Men have made and not on the real Nature of Things since 't is not impossible but that in propriety of Speech that might be a Sun to one which is a Star to another § 2. The measure and boundary of each Sort or Species whereby it is constituted that particular Sort and distinguished from others is that we call its Essence which is nothing but that abstract Idea to which the Name is annexed So that every thing contained in that Idea is essential to that Sort. This though it be all the Essence of natural Substances that we know or by which we distinguish them into Sorts yet I call it by a peculiar name the nominal Essence to distinguish it from that real Constitution of Substances upon which depends this nominal Essence and all the Properties of that Sort which therefore as has been said may be called the real Essence v. g. the nominal Essence of Gold is that complex Idea the word Gold stands for let it be for instance a Body yellow of a certain weight malleable fusible and fixed But the real Essence is the constitution of the insensible parts of that Body on which those Qualities and all the other Properties of Gold depend How far these two are different though they are both called Essence is obvious at â—irst sight to discover § 3. For though perhaps voluntary Motion with Sense and Reason join'd to a Body of a certain shape be the complex Idea to which I and others annex the name Man and so be the nominal Essence of the Species so called Yet no body will say that that complex Idea is the real Essence and Source of all those Operations are to be found in any Individual of that Sort. The foundation of all those Qualities which are the Ingredients of our complex Idea is something quite different And had we such a Knowledge of that Constitution of Man from which his Faculties of Moving Sensation and Reasoning and other Powers flow and on which his so regular shape depends as 't is possible Angels have and 't is certain his Maker has we should have a quite other Idea of his Essence than what now is contained in our Definition of that Species be it what it will And our Idea of any individual Man would be as far different from what it now is as is his who knows all the Springs and Wheels and other contrivances within of the famous Clock at Strasburg is from that which a gazing Country-man has of it who barely sees the motion of the Hand and hears the Clock strike and observes only some of the outward appearances § 4. How much Essence in the ordinary use of the word relates to Sorts and that it is considered in particular Beings no farther than as they are ranked into Sorts appears from hence That take but away the abstract Ideas by which we sort Individuals and rank them under common Names and then the thought of any thing essential to any of them instantly vanishes we have no notion of the one without the other which plainly shews their relation 'T is necessary for me to be as I am GOD and Nature has made me so But there is nothing I have is essential to me An Accident or Disease may very much alter my Colour or Shape a Fever or Fall may take away my Reason or Memory or both and an Apoplex leave neither Sense nor Understanding no nor Life Other Creatures of my shape may be made with more and better or fewer and worse Faculties than I have And others may have Reason and Sense in a shape and body very different from mine None of these are essential to the one or the other or to any Individual whatsoever till the Mind refers it to some Sort or Species of Things and then presently according to the abstract Idea of that Sort something is found essential Let any one examine his own Thoughts and he will find that as soon as he supposes or speaks of Essential the consideration of some Species or the complex Idea signified by some general name comes into his Mind And 't is in reference to that that this or that Quality is said to be essential so that if it be asked whether it be essential to me or any other particular corporeal Being to have Reason I say no nor more than it is essential to this white thing I write on to have words in it But if that particular Being be to be counted of the Sort Man and to have that name Man given it then Reason is essential to it supposing Reason to be a part of the complex Idea the name Man stands for as it is essential to this thing I write on to contain words if I will give it the name Treatise and rank it under that Species So that essential and not essential relate only to our abstract Ideas and the names annexed to them which amounts to no more but this That whatever particular Thing has not in it those Qualities which are contained in the abstract Idea which any general term stands for cannot be ranked under that Species nor be called by that name since that abstract Idea is the very essence of the Species § 5. Thus if the Idea of Body with some People be bare Extension or
dispatch by short and comprehensive signs than the true and precise Nature of Things as they exist have in the framing their abstract Ideas chiefly pursued that end which was to be furnished with store of general and variously comprehensive Names So that in this whole business of Genera and Species the Genus or more comprehensive is but a partial conception of what is in the Species and the Species but a partial Idea of what is to be found in each Individual If therefore any one will think that a Man and an Horse and an Animal and a Plant c. are distinguished by real Essences made by Nature he must think Nature to be very liberal of these real Essences making one for Body another for an Animal and another for an Horse and all these Essences liberally bestowed upon Bucephalus But if we would rightly consider what is done in all these Genera and Species or Sorts we should find that there is no new Thing made but only more or less comprehensive signs whereby we may be enabled to express in a few syllables great number of particular Things as they agree in more or less general conceptions which we have framed to that purpose In all which we may observe that the more general term is always the name of a less complex Idea and that each Genus is but a partial conception of the Species comprehended under it So that if these abstract general Ideas be thought to be complete it can only be in respect of a certain established relation between them and certain names which are made use of to signifie them and not in respect of any thing existing as made by Nature § 32. This is adjusted to the true end of Speech which is to be the easiest and shortest way of communicating our Notions For thus he that would make and discourse of Things as they agreed in the complex Idea of Extension and Solidity needed but use the word Body to denote all such He that to these would join others signified by the words Life Sense and spontaneous Motion needed but use the word Animal to signifie all which partaked of those Ideas and he that had made a complex Idea of a Body with Life Sense and Motion with the Faculty of Reasoning and a certain Shape joined to it needed but use the short monosyllable Man to express all particulars that corresponded to that complex Idea This is the proper business of Genus and Species and this Men do without any consideration of real Essences or substantial Forms which come not within the reach of our Knowledge when we think of those Things nor within the signification of our Words when we discourse with others § 33. Were I to talk with any one of a Sort of Birds I lately saw in St. Iames's Park about three or four foot high with a Covering of something between Feathers and Hair of a dark brown colour without Wings but in the place thereof two or three little branches coming down like sprigs of Spanish Broom long great Legs with Feet only of three Claws and without a Tail I must make this description of it and so may make others understand me But when I am told that the name of it is Cassuaris I may then use that word to stand in discourse for all my complex Idea mentioned in that description though by that word which is now become a specifick name I know no more of the real Essence or Constitution of that sort of Animals than I did before and knew probably as much of the nature of that Species of Birds before I learn'd the name as many English-men do of Swans or Herons which are specifick names very well known of sorts of Birds common in England § 34. From what has been said 't is evident that Men make sorts of Things For it being different Essences alone that make different Species 't is plain that they who make those abstract Ideas which are the nominal Essences do thereby make the Species or Sort. Should there be a Body found having all the other Qualities of Gold except Malleableness 't would no doubt be made a question whether it were Gold or no whether it were of that Species This could be determined only by that abstract Idea to which every one annexed the name Gold so that it would be true Gold to him and belong to that Species who included not Malleableness in his nominal Essence signified by the sound Gold and on the other side it would not be true Gold or of that Species to him who included Malleableness in his specifick Idea And who I pray is it that makes these divers Species even under one and the same name but Men that make two different abstract Ideas consisting not exactly of the same collection of Qualities Nor is it a mere Supposition to imagine that a Body may exist wherein the other obvious Qualities of Gold may be without Malleableness since it is certain that Gold it self will be sometimes so eager as Artists call it that it will as little endure the Hammer as Glass it self What we have said of the putting in or leaving out of Malleableness out of the complex Idea the name Gold is by any one annexed to may be said of its peculiar Weight Fixedness and several other the like Qualities For whatever is left out or put in 't is still the complex Idea to which that name is annexed that makes the Species and as any particular parcel of Matter answers that Idea so the name of the Sort belongs truly to it and it is of that Species And thus any thing is true Gold perfect Metal All which determination of the Species 't is plain depends on the Understanding of Man making this or that complex Idea § 35. This then in short is the case Nature makes many particular Things which do agree one with another in many sensible Qualities and probably too in their internal frameâ— and constitution But â—tis not this real Essence that distinguishes them into Species 't is Men who taking occasion from the Qualities they find united in them and wherein they observe often several individuals to agree range them into Sorts in order to their naming for the convenience of comprehensive signs under which particular Individuals according to their conformity to this or that abstract Idea come to be ranked as under Ensigns so that this is of the Blew that the Red Regiment this is a Man that a Drill And in this I think consists the whole business of Genus and Species § 36. I do not deny but Nature in the constant production of particular Beings makes them not always new and various but very much alike and of kin one to another But I think it is nevertheless true that the Boundaries of the Species whereby Men sort them are made by Men since the Essences of the Species distinguished by different names are as has been proved of Man's making and seldom adequate
and Operations one upon another that perhaps Things in this our Mansion would put on quite another face and cease to be what they are if some one of the Stars or great Bodies incomprehensibly remote from us should cease to be or move as it does This is certain Things however absolute and entire they seem in themselves are but Retainers to other parts of Nature for that which they are most taken notice of by us Their observable Qualities Actions and Powers are owing to something without them and there is not so complete and perfect a part that we know of Nature which does not owe the Being it has and the Excellencies of it to its Neighbours and we must look a great deal farther than the Surface of any Body to comprehend perfectly those Qualities that are in it § 12. If this be so it is not to be wondred that we have very imperfect Ideas of Substances and that the real Essences on which depend their Properties and Operations are unknown to us We cannot discover so much as the size figure and texture of their minute and active Parts which is really in them much less the different Motions and Impulses made in and upon them by Bodies from without and the Effects of them upon which depend and by which is formed the greatest and most remarkable part of those Qualities we observe in them and of which our complex Ideas of them are made up This consideration alone may set us at rest as to all hopes of our having the Ideas of their real Essences which whilst we want the nominal Essences we make use of instead of them will be able to furnish us but very sparingly with any general Knowledge or universal Propositions capable of real Certainty § 13. We are not therefore to wonder if Certainty be to be found in very few general Propositions made concerning Substances Our Knowledge of their Qualities and Properties go very seldom farther than our Senses reach and inform us Possibly inquisitive and observing Men may by strength of Iudgment penetrate farther and on Probabilities taken from wary Observation and Hints well laid together often guess right at what Experience has not yet discovered to them But this is but guessing still it amounts only to Opinion and has not that certainty which is requisite to Knowledge For all general Knowledge lies only in our own Thoughts and consists barely in the contemplation of our own abstract Ideas Wherever we perceive any agreement or disagreement amongst them there we have general Knowledge and by putting the Names of those Ideas together accordingly in Propositions can with certainty pronounce general Truths But because the abstract Ideas of Substances for which their specifick Names stand whenever they have any distinct and determinate signification have a discoverable connexion or inconsistency with a very few other Ideas the certainty of universal Propositions concerning Substances is very narrow and scanty in that part which is our principal enquiry concerning them and there is scarce any of the Names of Substances let the Idea it is applied to be what it will of which we can generally and with certainty pronounce that it has or has not this or that other Quality belonging to it and constantly co-existing or inconsistent with that Idea where-ever it is to be found § 14. Before we can have any tolerable knowledge of this kind we must first know what Changes the primary Qualities of one Body do regularly produce in the primary Qualities of another and how Secondly we must know what primary Qualities of any Body produce certain Sensations or Ideas in us which in truth to know all the Effects of Matter under its divers modifications of Bulk Figure Cohesion of Parts Motion and Rest which is I think every body will allow is utterly impossible to be known by us without revelation Nor if it were revealed to us what sort of Figure Bulk and Motion of Corpuscles would produce in us the Sensation of a yellow Colour and what sort of Figure Bulk and Texture of Parts in the superficies of any Body were fit to give such Corpuscles their due motion to produce that Colour Would that be enough to make universal Propositions with certainty concerning the several sorts of them unless we had Faculties acute enough to perceive the Bulk Figure Texture and Motion of Bodies in those minute Parts by which they operate on our Senses and so could by those frame our abstract Ideas of them I have mentioned here only corporeal Substances whose Operations seem to lie more level to our Understandings For as to the Operations of Spirits both their thinking and moving of Bodies we at first sight find our selves at a loss though perhaps when we have applied our Thoughts a little nearer to the consideration of Bodies and their Operations and examined how far our Notions even in these reach with any clearness beyond sensible matter of fact we shall be bound to confess that even in these too our Discoveries amount to very little beyond perfect Ignorance and Incapacity § 15. This is evident the abstract complex Ideas of Substances for which their general Names stand not comprehending their real Constitutions can afford us but very little universal Certainty they not being that on which those Qualities we observe in them and would inform our selves about do depend or with which they have any certain connexion v. g. Let the Idea to which we give the name Man be as it commonly is a Body of the ordinary shape with Sense voluntary Motion and Reason join'd to it This being the abstract Idea and consequently the Essence of our Species Man we can make but very few general certain Propositions concerning Man standing for such an Idea Because not knowing the real Constitution on which Sensation power of Motion and Reasoning with that peculiar Shape depend and whereby they are united together in the same Subject there are very few other Qualities with which we can perceive them to have a necessary connexion and therefore we cannot with Certainty affirm That all Men sleep by intervals That no Man can be nourished by Wood or Stones That all Men will be poisoned by Hemlock because these Ideas have no connexion nor repugnancy with this our nominal Essence of Man with this abstract Idea that Name stands for We must in these and the like appeal to trial in particular Subjects which can reach but a little way We must content our selves with Probability in the rest but can have no general Certainty whilst our specifick Idea of Man contains not that real Constitution which is the root wherein all his inseparable Qualities are united and from whence they flow whilst our Idea the word Man stands for is only an imperfect Collection of some sensible Qualities and Powers in him there is no discernible connexion or repugnance between our specifick Idea and the Operation of either the Parts of Hemlock or Stones upon his Constitution There are Animals
is an ambling Horse or a neighing ambling Animal both being only about the signification of Words and make me know but this That Body Sense and Motion or power of Sensation and Moving are three of those simple Ideas that I always comprehend and signifie by the word Man and where they are not to be found together the name Man belongs not to that Thing And so of the other that Body Sense and Motion and a certain way of going with a certain kind of Voice are some of those simple Ideas which I always comprehend and signifie by the word Palfry and when they are not to be found together the name Palfry belongs not to that thing 'T is just the same and to the same purpose when any term standing for any one or more of the simple Ideas that altogether make up that complex Idea which is called a Man is affirmed of the term Man v. g. suppose a Roman signified by the word Homo all these distinct Ideas united in one subject Corporeitas Sensibilitas Potentia se movendi Rationalitas Risibilitas he might no doubt with great certainty universally affirm one more or all of these together of the word Homo but did no more than say that the word Homo in his Country comprehended in its signification all these Ideas Much like a Romance Knight who by the word Palfry signified these Ideas Body of a certain figure four-legg'd with sense motion ambling neighing white used to have a Woman on his back might with the same certainty universally affirm also any or all of these of the word Palfry but did thereby teach no more but that the word Palfry in his or Romance-Language stood for all these and was not to be applied to any thing where any of theâ—e was wanting But he that shall tell me that in whatever thing Sense Motion Reason and Laughter were united that Thing had actually a notion of GOD or would be cast into a sleep by Opium made indeed an instructive Proposition because neither having the notion of GOD nor being cast into sleep by Opium being contained in the Idea signified by the word Man we are by such Propositions taught something more than barely what the word Man stands for And therefore the Knowledge contained in it is more than verbal § 7. Before a Man makes any Proposition he is supposed to understand the terms he uses in it or else he talks like a Parrot only making a noise by imitation and framing certain Sounds he has learnt of others but not as a rational Creature using them for signs of Ideas he has in his Mind The Hearer also is supposed to understand the Terms as the Speaker uses them or else he talks jargon and makes an untelligible noise And therefore he triâ—les with Words who makes such a Proposition which when it is made contains no more than one of the Terms does and which a Man was supposed to know before v. g. a Triangle hath three sides or Saffron is yellow And this is no farther tolerable than where a Man goes to explain his Terms to one who is supposed or declares himself not to understand him and then it teaches only the signification of that Word and the use of that Sign § 8. We can know then the Truth of two sorts of Propositions with perfect certainty the one is of those trifling Propositions which have a certainty in them but 't is but a verbal Certainty but not instructive And secondly we can know the Truth and so may be certain in Propositions which affirm something of another which is a necessary consequence of its precise complex Idea but not contained in it As that the external Angle of all Triangles is bigger than either of the opposite internal Angles which relation of the cutward Angle to either of the opposite internal Angles making no part of the complex Idea signified by the name Triangle this is a real Truth and conveys with it instructive real Knowledge § 9. We having no knowledge of what Combinations there be of simple Ideas existing together in Substances but by our Senses we cannot make any universal certain Propositions concerning them any farther than our nominal Essences lead us which being to a very few and inconsiderable Truths in respect of those which depend on their real Constitutions the general Propositions that are made about Substances if they are certain are for the most part but trifling and if they are instructive are uncertain and such as we can have no knowledge of their real Truth how much soever constant Observation and Analogy may assist our Judgments in guessing Hence it comes to pass that one may often meet with very clear and coherent Discourses that amount yet to nothing For 't is plain that Names of substantial Beings as well as others having constant and setled significations affixed to them may with great truth be joined negatively and affirmatively in Propositions as their Definitions make them fit to be so joined and Propositions consisting of such Termsâ— may with the same clearness be deduced one from another as those that convey the most real Truths and all this without any knowledge of the Nature or Reality of Things existing without us By this method one may make Demonstrations and undoubted Propositions in Words and yet thereby advance not one jot in the Knowledge of the Truth of Things v. g. he that having learnt these following Words with their ordinary Acceptations annexed to them v. g. Substance Man Animal Form Soul Vegetative Sensitive Rational may make several undoubted Propositions about the Soul without knowing at all what the Soul really is and of this sort a Man may find an infinite number of Propositions Reasonings and Conclusions in Books of Metaphysicks School-Divinity and some sort of natural Philosophy and after all know as little of GOD Spirits or Bodies as he did before he set out § 10. He that hath liberty to define i. e. determine the signification of his Names of Substances as certainly every ones does in effect who makes them stand for his own Ideas and makes their Significations at a venture taking them from his own or other Men's Fansies and not from an Examination and Enquiry into the Nature of Things themselves may with little trouble demonstrate them one of another wherein however Things agree or disagree in their own Nature he need mind nothing but his own Notions with the Names he hath bestowed upon them but thereby no more increases his own Knowledge than he does his Riches who taking a Bag of Counters calls one in a certain place a Pound another in another place a Shilling and a third in a third place a Penny and so proceeding may undoubtedly reckon right and cast up a great summ according to his Counters so placed and standing for more or less as he pleases without being one jot the richer or without even knowing how much a Pound Shilling or Penny is but only that one is
of the Operations of our own Minds within us as it is employ'd about the Idea's it has got which Operations when the Soul comes to reflect on and consider do furnish the Understanding with another sett of Ideas which could not be had from things without and such are Perception Thinking Doubting Believing Reasoning Knowing Willing and all the different actings of our own Minds which we being conscious of and observing in our selves do from these receive into our Understanding as distinct Ideas as we do from Bodies affecting our Senses This Source of Ideas every Man has wholly in himself And though it be not Sense as having nothing to do with external Objects yet it is very like it and might properly enough be call'd internal Sense But as I call the other Sensation so I call this REFLECTION the Ideas it affords being such only as the Mind gets by reflecting on its own Operations within it self By REFLECTION then in the following part of this Discourse I would be understood to mean that notice which the Mind takes of its own Operations and the manner of them by reason whereof there come to be Ideas of these Operations in the Understanding These two I say viz. External Material things as the Objects of SENSATION and the Operations of our own Minds within as the Objects of REFLECTION are to me the only Originals from whence all our Idea's take their beginnings The term Operations here I use in a large sence as comprehending not barely the Actions of the Mind about its Ideas but some sort of Passions arising sometimes from them such as is the satisfaction or uneasiness arising from any thought § 5. The Understanding seems to me not to have the least glimmering of any Ideas which it doth not receive from one of these two Eternal Objects furnish the Mind with the Ideas of sensible qualities which are all those different perceptions they produced in us And the Mind furnishes the Vnderstanding with Ideas of its own Operations These when we have taken a full survey of them and their several modes and the Compositions made out of them we shall find to contain all our whole stock of Ideas and that we have nothing in our Minds which did not come in one of these two ways Let any one examine his own Thoughts and throughly search into his Understanding and then let him tell me Whether all the original Ideas he has there are any other than of the Objects of his Senses or of the Operations of his Mind considered as Objects of his Reflection and how great a mass of Knowledge soever he imagines to be lodged there he will upon taking a strict view see that he has not any Idea in his Mind but what one of those two have imprinted though perhaps with infinite variety compounded and enlarged by the Understanding as we shall see hereafter § 6. He that attentively considers the state of a Child at his first coming into the World will have little reason to think him stored with plenty of Ideas that are to be the matter of his future Knowledge 'T is by degrees he comes to be furnished with them And though the Ideas of obvious and familiar qualities imprint themselves before the Memory begins to keep a Register of Time and Order yet 't is often so late before some unusual qualities come in the way that there are few Men that cannot recollect the beginning of their acquaintance with them And if it were worth while no doubt a Child might be so ordered as to have but a very few even of the ordinary Ideas till he were grown up to a Man But being surrounded with Bodies that perpetually and diversly affect us variety of Idea's whether care be taken about it or no are imprinted on the Minds of Children Light and Colours are busie and at hand every-where when the Eye is but open Sounds and some tangible Qualities fail not to sollicite their proper Senses and force an entrance to the Mind but yet I think it will be granted easily That if a Child were kept in a place where he never saw any other but Black and White till he were a Man he would have no more Ideas of Scarlet or Green than he that from his Childhood never tasted an Oyster or a Pine-Apple has of those particular Relishes § 7. Men then come to be furnished with sewer or more simple Ideas from without according as the Objects they converse with afford greater or lesser variety and from the Operation of their Minds within according as they more or less reflect on them For though he that contemplates the Operations of his Mind cannot but have plain and clear Ideas of them yet unless he turn his Thoughts that way and considers them attentively he will no more have clear and distinct Ideas of all the Operations of his Mind and all that may be observed therein than he will have all the particular Ideas of any Landscape or of the Parts and Motions of a Clock who will not turn his Eyes to it and with attention heed all the Parts of it The Picture or Clock may be so placed that they may come in his way every Day but yet he will have but a confused Idea of all the Parts they are made up of till he applies himself with attention to consider them each in particular § 8. And hence we see the Reason why 't is pretty late before most Children get Ideas of the Operations of their own Minds and some have not any very clear or perfect Ideas of the greatest part of them all their Lives Because though they pass there continually yet like floating Visions they make not deep Impressions enough to leave in the Mind clear and distinct lasting Ideas till the Understanding turn inwards upon its self and reflect on its own Operations and make them the Object of its own Contemplation Whereas Children at their first coming into the World seek particularly after nothing but what may ease their Hunger or other Pain but take all other Objects as they come are generally pleased with all new ones that are not painful and so growing up in a constant attention to outward Sensations seldom make any considerable Reflection on what passes within them till they come to be of riper Years and some scarce ever at all § 9. To ask at what time a Man has first any Ideas is to ask when he begins to perceive having Ideas and Perception being the same thing I know it is an Opinion that the Soul always thinks and that it has the actual Perception of Ideas in its self constantly as long as it exists and that actual thinking is as inseparable from the Soul as actual Extension is from the Body which if true to enquire after the beginning of a Man's Idea's is the same as to enquire after the beginning of his Soul For by this Account Soul and Ideas as Body and Extension will begin to exist both at the same
Rise and Footing here In all that great Extent wherein the mind wanders in those remote Speculations it may seem to be elevated with it stirs not one jot beyond those Ideas which Sense or Reflection have offered for its Contemplation § 25. In this Part the Vnderstanding is meerly passive and whether or no it will have these Beginnings and as it were materials of Knowledge is not in its own Power For the Objects of our Senses do many of them obtrude their particular Ideas upon our minds whether we will or no And the Operations of our minds will not let us be without at least some obscure Notions of them No Man can be wholly ignorant of what he does when he thinks These simple Ideas when offered to the mind the Vnderstanding can no more refuse to have nor alter when they are imprinted nor blot them out and make new ones in it self than a mirror can refuse alter or obliterate the Images or Ideas which the Objects set before it do therein produce As the Bodies that surround us do diversly affect our Organs the mind is forced to receive the Impressions and cannot avoid the Perception of those Ideas that are annexed to them CHAP. II. Of simple Idea's § 1. THE better to understand the Nature Manner and Extent of our Knowledge one thing is carefully to be observed concerning the Ideas we have and that is That some of them are simple and some complex Though the Qualities that affect our Senses are in the things themselves so united and blended that there is no separation no distance between them yet 't is plain the Ideas they produce in the Mind enter by the Senses simple and unmixed For though the Sight and Touch often take in from the same Object at the same time different Ideas as a Man sees at once Motion and Colour the Hand feels Softness and Warmth in the same piece of Wax Yet the simple Ideas thus united in the same Subject are as perfectly distinct as those that come in by different Senses The coldness and hardness which a Man feels in a piece of Ice being as distinct Ideas in the Mind as the Smell and Whiteness of a Lily or as the taste of Sugar and smell of a Rose And there is nothing can be plainer to a Man than the clear and distinct Perception he has of those simple Ideas which being each in it self uncompounded contains in it nothing but one uniform Appearance or Conception in the Mind and is not distinguishable into different Ideas § 2. These simple Ideas the Materials of all our Knowledge are suggested and furnished to the Mind only by those two ways above mentioned viz. Sensation and Reflection When the Understanding is once stored with these simple Ideas it has the Power to repeat compare and unite them even to an almost infinite Variety and so can make at Pleasure new complex Ideas But it is not in the Power of the most exalted Wit or enlarged Understanding by any quickness or variety of Thought to invent or frame one new simple Idea in the Mind not taken in by the ways before mentioned nor can any Force of the Understanding destroy those that are there The Dominion of Man in this little World of his own Understanding being much what the same as it is in the great World of visible things wherein his Power however managed by Art and Skill reaches no farther than to compound and divide the Materials that are made to his Hand but can do nothing towards the making the least Particle of new Matter or destroying one Atome of what is already in Being The same inability will every one find in himself who shall go about to fashion in his Understanding any simple Idea not received in by his Senses from external Objects or from the Operations of his own Mind about them I would have any one try to phansie any Taste which had never affected his Palate or frame the Idea of a Scent he had never smelt And when he can do this I will also conclude that a blind Man hath Ideas of Colours and a deaf Man true distinct Notions of sounds § 3. This is the Reason why though we cannot believe it impossible to God to make a Creature with other Organs and more ways to convey into the Understanding the notice of Corporeal things than those five as they are usually counted which he has given to Man Yet I think it is not possible for any one to imagine any other Qualities in Bodies howsoever constituted whereby they can be taken notice of besides Sounds Tastes Smells visible and tangible Qualities And had Mankind been made with but four Senses the Qualities then which are the Object of the Fifth Sense had been as far from our notice Imagination and Conception as now any belonging to a Sixth Seventh or Eighth Sense can possibly be which whether yet some other Creatures in some other Parts of this vast and stupendious Universe may not have will be a great Presumption to deny He that will not set himself proudly at the top of all things but will consider the Immensity of this Fabrick and the great variety that is to be found in this little and inconsiderable part of it which he has to do with may be apt to think that in other Mansions of it there may be other and different intelligent Beings of whose Faculties he has as little Knowledge or Apprehension as a worm shut up in one drawer of a Cabinet hath of the Senses or Understanding of a Man Such Variety and Excellency being suitable to the Wisdom and Power of the Maker I have here followed the common Opinion of Man's having but five Senses though perhaps there may be justly counted more but either Supposition serves equally to my present Purpose CHAP. III. Of Ideas of one Sense § 1. THE better to conceive the Ideas we receive from Sensation it may not be amiss for us to consider them in reference to the different ways whereby they make their Approaches to our Minds and make themselves perceivable by us First then There are some which come into our Minds by one Sense only Secondly There are others that convey themselves into the Mind by more Senses than one Thirdly Others that are had from Reflection only Fourthly There are some that make themselves way and are suggested to the Mind by all the ways of Sensation and Reflection We shall consider them apart under these several Heads First There are some Ideas which have admittance only through one Sense which is peculiarly adapted to receive them Thus Light and Colours as white red yellow blue with their several Degrees or Shades and Mixtures as Green Scarlet Purple Sea-green and the rest come in only by the Eyes All kinds of Noises Sounds and Tones only by the Ears The several Tastes and Smells by the Nose and Palate And if these Organs or the Nerves which are the Conduits to convey them from without to
their Audience in the Brain the Mind's Presence-Room as I may so call it are any of them so disordered as not to perform their Functions they have no Postern to be admitted by no other way to bring themselves into view and be perceived by the Understanding The most considerable of those belonging to the Touch are Heat and Cold and Solidity all the rest consisting almost wholly in the sensible Configuration as smooth and rough or else more or less firm adhesion of the Parts as hard and soft tough and brittle are obvious enough § 2. I think it will be needless to enumerate all the particular simple Ideas belonging to each Sense Nor indeed is it possible if we would there being a great many more of them belonging to most of the Senses than we have Names for The variety of Smells which are as many almost if not more than Species of Bodies in the World do most of them want Names Sweet and Stinking commonly serve our turn for these Ideas which in effect is little more than to call them pleasing or displeasing though the smell of a Rose and Violet both sweet are certainly very distinct Ideas Nor are the different Tastes that are in Nature much better provided with Names Sweet Bitter and Sowre Harsh and Salt are almost all we have to denominate all the variety of Relishes which are to be found distinct not only in almost every sort of Creatures but in the different Parts of the same Plant or Animal The same may be said of Colour and Sound I shall therefore in the account of simple Ideas I am here giving content my self to set down only such as are most material to our present Purpose or are in themselves less apt to be taken notice of though they are very frequently the Ingredients of our complex Ideas amongst which I think I may well account Solidity which therefore I shall treat of in the next Chapter CHAP. IV. Of Solidity § 1. THE Idea of Solidity we receive by our Touch and it arises from the Resistance we find in Body to the entrance of any other Body into the Place it possesses till it has left it There is no Idea which we receive more constantly from Sensation than Solidity Whether we move or rest in what Posture soever we are we always feel something under us that supports us and hinders our farther sinking downwards and the Bodies we daily handle make us perceive that whilst they remain between them they do by an insurmountable Force hinder the approach of the parts of our Hands that press them That which thus hinders the approach of two Bodies when they are moving one towards another I call Solidity I will not dispute whether this acceptation of the Word solid be nearer to its Original Signification than that which Mathematicians use it in It suffices that I think the common Notion of Solidity will allow if not justifie this use of it but if any one think it better to call it Impenetrability he has my Consent Only I have thought the Term Solidity the more proper to express this Idea not only because of its vulgar use in that Sense but also because it carries something more of positive in it than Impenetrability which is negative and is perhaps more a consequence of Solidity than Solidity it self This of all other seems the Idea most intimately connected with and essential to Body so as no where else to be found or imagin'd but only in matter which though our Senses take no notice of but in masses of matter of a bulk sufficient to cause a Sensation in us Yet the Mind having once got this Idea from such grosser sensible Bodies traces it farther and considers it as well as Figure in the minutest Particle of matter that can exist and finds it inseparably inherent in Body where-ever or however modified § 2. This is the Idea belongs to Body whereby we conceive it to fill space The Idea of which filling of space is That where we imagine any space taken up by a solid Substance we conceive it so to possess it that it excludes all other solid Substances and will for ever hinder any two other Bodies that move towards one another in a strait Line from coming to touch one another unless it remove from between them in a Line not parallel to that they move in This Idea of it the Bodies we ordinarily handle sufficiently furnish us with § 3. This Resistance whereby it keeps other Bodies out of the space it possesses is so great That no force how great soever can surmount it All the Bodies in the World pressing a drop of Water on all sides will never be able to overcome the Resistance it will make as soft as it is to their approaching one another till it be removed out of their way whereby our Idea of Solidity is distinguished both from pure space which is capable neither of Resistance nor Motion and the ordinary Idea of Hardness For a Man may conceive two Bodies at a distance so as they may approach one another without touching or displacing any solid thing till their Superficies come to meet whereby I think we have the clear Idea of Space without Solidity For not to go so far as annihilation of any particular Body I ask Whether a Man cannot have the Idea of the motion of one single Body alone without any other other succeeding immediately into its Place which I think 't is evident he can the Idea of Motion in one Body no more including the Idea of Motion in another than the Idea of a square Figure in one Body includes the Idea of a square Figure in another I do not ask Whether Bodies do so exist that the motion of one Body cannot really be without the motion of another To determine this either way is to beg the Question for or against a Vacuum But my Question is Whether one cannot have the Idea of one Body moved whilst others are at rest and I think this no one will deny◠If so then the Place it deserted gives us the Idea of pure Space without Solidity whereinto another Body may enter without either Resistance or Protrusion of any thing When the Sucker in a Pump is drawn the space it filled in the Tube is certainly the same whether any other body follows the motion of the Sucker or no nor does it imply a contradiction That upon the motion of one Body another that is only contiguous to it should not follow it The necessity of such a motion is built only on the Supposition That the World is full but not on the distinct Ideas of Space and Solidity which are as different as Resistance and not Resistance Protrusion and not Protrusion And that Men have Ideas of Space without Body their very Disputes about a Vacuum plainly demonstrate as is shewed in another Place § 4. Solidity is hereby also differenced from Hardness in that Solidity consists in repletion and so an
Delight or Uneasiness which are the names I shall most commonly use for those two sorts of Ideas § 3. The infinitely Wise Author of our being having given us the power over several parts of our Bodies to move or keep them at rest as we think fit and also by the motion of them to move our selves and other contiguous Bodies in which consists all the Actions of our Body He having also given a power to our Minds in several instances to chuse amongst its Ideas which it will think on and to pursue the enquiry of this or that Subject with consideration and attention to excite us to these Actions of thinking and motion that we are capaple of he has been pleased to join to several Thoughts and several Sensations a perception of Delight This if it were wholly separated from all our outward Sensations and inward Thoughts we should have no reason to preferr one Thought or Action to another Negligence to Attention or Motion to Rest. And so we should neither stir our Bodies nor employ our Minds but let our Thoughts if I may so call it run a drift without any direction or design and suffer the Ideas of our Minds like unregarded shadows to make their appearances there as it happen'd without attending to them In which state Man however furnished with the Faculties of Understanding and Will would be a very idle unactive Creature and pass his time only in a lazy lethargick Dream It has therefore pleased our Wise Creator to annex to several Objects and the Ideas we receive from them as also to several of our Thoughts a concomitant pleasure and that in several Objects to several degrees that those Faculties he had endowed us with might not remain wholly idle and unemploy'd by us § 4. Pain has the same efficacy and use to set us on work that Pleasure has we being as ready to employ our Faculties to avoid that as to pursue the other Only this is worth our consideration That it is often produced by the same Objects and Ideas that produce Pleasure in us This their near Conjunction which makes us often feel pain in the sensations where we expected pleasure gives us new occasion of admiring the Wisdom and Goodness of our Maker who designing the preservation of our Being has annexed Pain to the application of many things to our Bodies to warn us of the harm they will do and as advices to withdraw from them But he not designing our preservation barely but the preservation of every part and organ in its perfection hath in many cases annexed pain to those very Ideas which delight us Thus Heat that is very agreeable to us in one degree by a little greater increase of it proves no ordinary torment and the most pleasant of all sensible Objects Light it self if there be too much of it if increased beyond a due proportion to our Eyes causes a very painful sensation Which is wisely and favourably so ordered by Nature that when any Object does by the vehemence of its operation disorder the instruments of sensation whose Structures cannot but be very nice and delicate we might by the pain be warned to withdraw before the Organ be quite put out of order and so be unfitted for its proper sunctions for the future The consideration of those Objects that produce it may well perswade us That this is the end or use of pain For though great light be insufferable to our Eyes yet the highest degree of darkness does not at all disease them because that causing no disorderly motion in it leaves that curious Organ unharm'd in its natural state But yet excess of Cold as well as Heat pains us because it is equally destructive to that temper which is necessary to the preservation of life and the exercise of the several functions of the Body which consists in a moderate degree of warmth or if you please a motion of the insensible parts of our Bodies confined within certain bounds § 5. Beyond all this we may find another reason why God hath scattered up and down several degrees of pleasure and pain in all the things that environ and affect us and blended them together in almost all that our Thoughts and Senses have to do with that we finding imperfection dissatisfaction and want of compleat happiness in all the Enjoyments of the Creatures can afford us might be led to seek it in the enjoyment of him with whom there is fulness of joy and at whose right hand are pleasures for evermore § 6. Though what I have here said may not perhaps make the Ideas of Pleasure and Pain clearer to us than our own Experience does which is the only way that we are capable of having them yet the consideration of the Reason why they are annexed to so many other Ideas serving to give us due sentiments of the Wisdom and Goodness of the Soveraign Disposer of all Things may not be unsuitable to the main end of these enquiries The knowledge and veneration of Him being the chief end of all our Thoughts and the proper business of all Understandings § 7. Existence and Vnity are two other Ideas that are suggested to the Understanding by every Object without and every Idea within When Ideas are in our Minds we consider them as being actually there as well as we consider things to be actually without us which is that they exist or have Existence And whatever we can consider as one thing whether a real Being or Idea suggests to the Understanding the Idea of Vnity § 8. Power also is another of those simple Ideas which we receive from Sensation and Reflection For observing in our selves that we do and can think◠and that we can at pleasure move several parts of our Bodies which were at rest the effects also that natural Bodies are able to produce in one another occuring every moment to our Senses we both these ways get the Idea of Power § 9. Besides these there is another Idea which though suggested by our Senses yet is more constantly offered us by what passes in our own Minds and that is the Idea of Succession For if we will look immediately into ourselves and reflect on what is observable there we shall find our Ideas always whilst we are awake or have any thought passing in train one going and another coming without intermission § 10. These if they are not all are at least as I think the most considerable of those simple Ideas which the Mind has and out of which are made all its other knowledge all which it receives only by the two forementioned ways of Sensation and Reflection Nor let any one think these too narrow bounds for the capacious Mind of Man to expatiate in which takes its flight farther than the Stars and cannot be confined by the limits of the World that extends its thoughts often even beyond the utmost expansion of Matter and makes excursions into that incomprehensible Inane I grant all this but
a Continuity And to divide mentally is to make in the Mind two Superficies where before there was a Continuity and consider them as removed one from the other which can only be done in things considered by the Mind as capable of being separated and by separation of acquiring new distinct Superficies which they then have not but are capable of But neither of these ways of Separation whether real or mental is as I think compatible to pure Space § 13. 'T is true a Man may consider so much of such a Space as is answerable or commensurate to a Foot without considering the rest which is indeed a partial Consideration but not so much as mental Separation or Division since a Man can no more mentally divide without considering two Superficies separate one from the other than he can actually divide without making two Superficies disjoin'd one from the other But a partial consideration is not separating A Man may consider Light in the Sun without its Heat or Mobility in Body without its Extension without thinking of their separation One is only a partial Consideration terminating in one alone and the other is a Consideration of both as existing separately § 14. Thirdly The parts of pure Space are immovable which follows from their inseparability Motion being nothing but change of distance between any two things But this cannot be between Parts that are inseparable which therefore must needs be at perpetual rest one amongst another Thus the clear and distinct Idea of simple Space distinguishes it plainly and sufficiently from Body since its Parts are inseparable immovable and without resistence to the Motion of Body § 15. If any one ask me What this Space I speak of is I will tell him when he tells me what his Extension is For to say as is usually done That Extension is to have partes extra partes is to say only That Extension is Extension For what am I the better informed in the nature of Extension when I am told That Extension is to have parts that are extended exterior to parts that are extended i. e. Extension consists of extended Parts As if one asking What a Fibre was I should answer him That it was a thing made up of several Fibres Would he hereby be enabled to understand what a Fibre was better than he did before Or rather would he not have reason to think that my design was to make sport with him rather than seriously to instruct him § 16. Those who contend that Space and Body are the same bring this Dilemma Either this Space is something or nothing if nothing be between two Bodies they must necessarily touch if it be allowed to be something they ask whether it be Body or Spirit To which I answer by another Question Who told them that there was or could be nothing but solid Beings which could not think and thinking Beings that were not extended Which is all they mean by the terms Body and Spirit § 17. If it be demanded as usually it is whether this Space void of Body be Substance or Accident I shall readily answer I know not nor shall be ashamed to own my Ignorance till they that ask shew me a clear distinct Idea of Substance § 18. I endeavour as much as I can to deliver my self from those Fallacies which we are apt to put upon our selves by taking Words for Things It helps not our Ignorance to feign a Knowledge where we have none by making a noise with Sounds without clear and distinct Significations Names made at pleasure neither alter the nature of things nor make us understand them but as they are signs of and stand for clear and distinct Ideas And I desire those who lay so much stress on the sound of these two Syllables Substance to consider whether applying it as they do to the infinite incomprehensible GOD to finite Spirits and to Body it be in the same sense and whether it stand for the same Idea when each of those three so different Beings are called Substances If so whether it will not thence follow That God Spirits and Body agreeing in the same common nature of Substance differ not any otherwise than in a bare different modification of that Substance as a Tree and a Pebble being in the same sense bodied and agreeing in the common nature of Body differ only in a bare modification of that common matter which will be a very harsh Doctrine If they say That they apply it to God finite Spirits and Matter in three different significations and that it stands for one Idea when GOD is said to be a Substance for another when the Soul is called Substance and for a third when a Body is called so If the name Substance stands for three several distinct Ideas they would do well to make known those distinct Ideas or at least to give three distinct names to them to prevent in so important a Notion the Confusion and Errors that will naturally follow from the promiscuous use of so doubtful a term which is so far from being suspected to have three distinct that it has scarce one clear distinct signification And if they can thus make three distinct Ideas of Substance what hinders why another may not make a fourth § 19. They who first ran into the Notion of Accidents as a sort of real Beings that needed something to inhere in were forced to find out the word Substance to support them Had the poor Indian Philosopher who imagined that the Earth also wanted something to bear it up but thought of this word Substance he needed not to have been at the trouble to find an Elephant to support it and a Tortoise to support his Elephant The word Substance would have done it effectually And he that enquired might have taken it for as good an Answer from an Indian Philosopher That Substance without knowing what it is is that which supports the Earth as we take it for a sufficient Answer and good Doctrine from our European Philosophers That Substance without knowing what it is is that which supports Accidents So that of Substance we have no Idea of what it is but only a confused obscure one of what it does § 20. Whatever a learned Man may do here an intelligent American who enquired into the Nature of Things would scarce take it for a satisfactory Account if desiring to learn our Architecture he should be told That a Pillar was a thing supported by a Basis and a Basis something that supported a Pillar Would he not think himself mocked instead of taught with such an account as this And a Stranger to them would be very liberally instructed in the nature of Books and the things they contained if he should be told that all learned Books consisted of Paper and Letters and that Letters were things inhering in Paper and Paper a thing that held forth Letters a notable way of having clear Ideas of Letters and Paper But were the Latin words Inhoerentia
true the Idea of Extension joins it self so inseparably with all visible and most tangible Qualities that it suffers us to see no one or feel very few external Objects without taking in impressions of Extension too This readiness of Extension to make it self be taken notice of so constantly with other Ideas has been the occasion I guess that some have made the whole essence of Body to consist in Extension which is not much to be wondred at since some have had their Minds by their Eyes and Touch the busiest of all our Senses so filled with the Idea of Extension and as it were wholly possessed with it that they allowed no existence to any thing that had not Extension I shall not now argue with those Men who take the measure and possibility of all Being only from their narrow and gross Imaginations but having here to do only with those who conclude the essence of Body to be Extension because they say they cannot imagine any sensible Quality of any Body without Extension I shall desire them to consider That had they reflected on their Ideas of Tastes and Smells as much as on those of Sight and Touch nay had they examined their Ideas of Hunger and Thirst and several other Pains they would have found that they included in them no Idea of Extension at all which is but an affection of Body as well as the rest discoverable by our Senses which are scarce acute enough to look into the pure Essence of Things § 25. If those Ideas which are constantly joined to all others must therefore be concluded to be the Essence of those Things which have constantly those Ideas joined to them and are inseparable from them then Unity is without doubt the essence of every thing For there is not any Object of Sensation or Reflection which does not carry with it the Idea of one But the weakness of this kind of Argument we have already shewn sufficiently § 26. To conclude whatever Men shall think concerning the existence of a Vacuum this is plain to me That we have as clear an Idea of Space distinct from Solidity as we have of Solidity distinct from Motion or Motion from Space We have not any two more distinct Ideas and we can as easily conceive Space without Solidity as we can conceive Body without Motion though it be never so certain that neither Body nor Motion can exist without Space But whether any one will take Space to be only a relation resulting from the Existence of other Beings at a distance or whether they will think the Words of the most knowing King Solomon The Heaven and the Heaven of Heavens cannot contain Thee or those more emphatical ones of the inspired Philosopher St. Paul In Him we live move and have our Being are to be understood in a literal sense I leave every one to consider only our Idea of Space is I think such as I have mentioned and distinct from that of Body For whether we consider in matter it self the distance of its coherent solid parts and call it in respect of those solid parts Extension or whether considering it as lying between the extremities of any Body in its several dimensions we call it Length Breadth and Thickness or else considering it as lying between any two Bodies or positive Beings without any consideration whether there be any Matter or no between we call it Distance However named or considered it is always the same uniform simple Idea of Space taken from Objects about which our Senses have been conversant whereof having setled Ideas in our Minds we can revive repeat and add them one to another as often as we will and consider the Space or Distance so imagined either as filled with solid parts so that another Body cannot come there without displacing and thrusting out the Body that was there before or else as void of Solidity so that a Body of equal dimensions to that empty or pure Space may be placed in it without the removing or expulsion of any thing that was there § 27. The knowing precisely what our Words stand for would I imagine in this as well as a great many other cases quickly end the dispute For I am apt to think that Men when they come to examine them find their simple Ideas all generally to agree though in discourse with one another they perhaps confound one another with different Names Imagine that Men who abstract their Thoughts and do well examine the Ideas of their own Minds cannot much differ in thinking however they may perplex themselves with words according to the way of speaking of the several Schools or Sects they have been bred up in Though amongst unthinking Men who examine not scrupulously and carefully their own Ideas and strip them not from the marks Men use for them but confound them with words there must be endless dispute wrangling and jargon especially if they be learned bookish Men devoted to some Sect and accustomed to the Language of it and have learned to talk after others But if it should happen that any two thinking Men should really have different Ideas different Notions I do not see how they could discourse or argue one with another Here I must not be mistaken to think that every floating Imagination in Mens Brains is presently of that sort of Ideas I speak of 'T is not easie for the Mind to put off those confused Notions and Prejudices it has imbibed from Custom Inadvertency and common Conversation it requires pains and assiduity to examine its Ideas till it resolves them into those clear and distinct simple ones out of which they are compounded and to see which amongst its simple ones have or have not a necessary connexion and dependence one upon another Till a Man doth this in the primary and original Notions of Things he builds upon floating and uncertain Principles and will often find himself at a loss CHAP. XIV Of Duration and its simple Modes § 1. THere is another sort of Distance or Length the Idea whereof we get not from the permanent parts of Space but from the fleeting and perpetually perishing parts of Succession This we call Duration the simple Modes whereof are any different lengths of it whereof we have distinct Ideas as Hours Days Years c. Time and Eternity § 2. The Answer of a great Man to one who asked what Time was Si non rogas intelligo which amounts to this the more I set my self to think of it the less I understood it might perhaps perswade one That Time which reveals all other things is it self not to be discovered Duration Time and Eternity are not without reason thought to have something very obstruse in their nature But however remote this may seem from our Comprehension yet if we trace them right to their Originals I doubt not but one of those Sources of all our Knowledge viz. Sensation and Reflection will be able to furnish us with those Ideas as clear
so put together silently in his own Fancy § 4. Those of Colours might also be very various some we take notice of as the different degrees or as they are termed Shades of the same Colour But since we very seldom make assemblages of Colours either for Use or Delight but Figure is taken in also and has its part in it as in Painting Weaving Needle-works c. Those which are taken notice of do most commonly belong to mixed Modes as being made up of Ideas of divers kinds viz. Figure and Colour such as Beauty Rain bow c. § 5. All compounded Tastes and Smells are also Modes made up of these simple Ideas of those Senses but they being such as generally we have no names for are less taken notice of and cannot be set down in writing and therefore must be left without enumeration to the Thoughts and Experience of my Reader § 6. In general it may be observed that those simple Modes which are considered but as different degrees of the same simple Idea though they are in themselves many of them very distinct Ideas yet have ordinarily no distinct Names nor are much taken notice of as distinct Ideas where the difference is but very small between them Whether Men have neglected these Modes and given no Names to them as wanting measures nicely to distinguish them or because when they were so distinguished that Knowledge would not be of general or necessary use I leave it to the Thoughts of others it is sufficient to my purpose to shew that all these simple Ideas come to our Minds only by Sensation and Reflection and that when the Mind has them it can variously repeat and compound them and so make new complex Ideas But though White Red or Sweet c. have not been modified or made into complex Ideas by several Combinations so as to be named and thereby ranked into Species yet some others of the simple Ideas viz. those of Unity Duration Motion c. above instanced in as also Power and Thinking have been thus modified to a great variety of complex Ideas with Names belonging to them § 7. The Reason whereof I suppose has been this That the great Concernment of Men being with Men one amongst another the Knowledge of Men and their Actions and the signifying of them to one another was most necessary and therefore they made Ideas of Actions very nicely modified and gave those complex Ideas names that they might the more easily record and discourse of those things they were daily conversant in without long Ambages and Circumlocutions and that the things they were continually to give and receive information about might be the easier and quicker understood That this is so and that Men in framing different complex Ideas and giving them Names have been much governed by the end of Speech in general which is a very short and expedite way of conveying their Thoughts one to another is evident in the Names which in several Arts have been found out and applied to several complex Ideas of modified Actions belonging to their several Trades for dispatch sake in their Direction or Discourses about them Which Ideas are not generally framed in the Minds of Men not conversant about these Operations and thence the words that stand for them by the greatest part of Men of the same Language are not understood v. g. Coltsher Drilling Filtration Cohobation are words standing for certain complex Ideas which being not in the Minds of every body they having no use of them those names of them are not generally understood but by Smiths and Chimists who having framed the complex Ideas which these words stand for and having given names to them or received them from others upon hearing of these names in communication readily conceive those Ideas in their Minds as by Cohobation all the simple Ideas of Distilling and the pouring the Liquor distilled from any thing back upon the remaining Matter and distilling it again Thus we see that there are great varieties of simple Ideas as of Tastes and Smells which have no Names and of Modes many more which either not having been generally enough observed or else not being of any great use to be taken notice of in the Affairs and Converse of Men they have not had names given to them and so pass not for Species which we shall have occasion hereafter to consider more at large when we come to speak of Words CHAP. XIX Of the Modes of Thinking § 1. WHen the Mind turns its view inwards upon its self and contemplates its own Actions Thinking is the first that occurrs wherein it observes a great variety of Modifications and thereof frames to it self distinct Ideas Thus the Perception or Thought which actually accompany and is annexed to any impression on the Body made by an external Object it frames a distinct Idea of which we call Sensation which is as it were the actual entrance of any Idea into the Understanding by the Senses The same Idea when it again recurrs without the operation of the like Object on the eternal Sensory is Remembrance If it be sought after by the Mind and with pain and endeavour found and brought again in view 't is Recollection If it be held there long under attentive Consideration 't is Contemplation When Ideas float in our Mind without any reflection or regard of the Understanding it is that which the French call Resvery our Language has scarce a name for it When the Ideas that offer themselves for as I have observed in another place whilst we are awake there will always be a train of Ideas succeeding one another in our Minds are taken notice of and as it were registred in the Memory it is Attention When the Mind with great earnestness and of a choice fixes its view on any Idea considers it on all sides and will not be called off by the ordinary sollicitation of other Ideas it is that we call Intention or Study Sleep without dreaming is rest from all these and Dreaming it self is the perception of Ideas whilst the outward Senses are stopp'd so that they receive not outward Objects with their usual quickness in the Mind not suggested by any external Objects or known occasion nor under any Choice or Conduct of the Understanding at all and whether that which we call Extasie be not dreaming with the Eyes open I leave to be examined § 2. These are some few instances of those various Modes of thinking which the Mind may observe in it self and so frame as distinct Ideas of as it does of White and Red a Square or a Circle I do not pretend to enumerate them all nor to treat at large of this set of Ideas which are got from Reflection that would be to make a Volume It suffices to my present purpose to have shewn here by some few Examples of what sort those Ideas are and how the Mind comes by them especially since I shall have occasion hereafter to
Duration and Number do they not all contain in them a secret relation of the Parts Figure and Motion have something relative in them much more visibly and sensible Qualities as Colours and Smells c. what are they but the Powers of different Bodies in relation to our Perception c. And if considered in the things themselves do they not depend on the Bulk Figure Texture and Motion of the Parts All which include some kind of relation in them Our Idea therefore of Power I think may well have a place amongst other simple Ideas and be considered as one of them being one of those that makes a principle Ingredient in our complex Ideas of Substances as we shall here after have occasion to shew § 4. Of passive Power all sensible things abundantly furnish us with Ideas whose sensible Qualities and Beings we find to be in a continual flux and therefore with reason we look on them as liable still to the same Change Nor have we of active Power which is the more proper signification of the word Power fewer instances since whatever Change is observed the Mind must collect a Power somewhere able to make that Change as well as a possibility in the thing it self to receive it But yet if we will consider it attentively Bodies by our Senses do not afford us so clear and distinct an Idea of active Power as we have from reflection on the Operations of our Minds For all Power relating to Action and there being but two sorts of Action whereof we have any Idea viz. Thinking and Motion let us consider whence we have the clearest Ideas of the Powers which produce these Actions 1. Of Thinking Body affords us no Idea at all it is only from Reflection that we have that neither have we from Body any Idea of the beginning of Motion A Body at rest affords us no Idea of any active Power to move and when it is set in motion its self that Motion is rather a Passion than an Action in it For when the Ball obeys the stroke of a Billiard-stick◠it is not any action of the Ball but bare passion also when by impulse it sets another Ball in motion that lay in its way it only communicates the Motion it had received from another and loses in it self so much as the other received which gives us but a very obscure Idea of an active Power of Moving in Body whilst we observe it only to transferr but not produce any motion For it is but a very obscure Idea of Power which reaches not the Production of the Action but the Continuation of the Passion For so is Motion in a Body impelled by another the continuation of the Alteration made in it from Rest to Motion being little more an Action than the continuation of the Alteration of its Figure by the same blow is an Action The Idea of the beginning of Motion we have only from reflection on what passes in our selves where we find by Experience that barely by willing it barely by a thought of the Mind we can move the parts of our Bodies which were before at rest So that it seems to me we have from the observation of the operation of Bodies by our Senses but a very imperfect obscure Idea of active Power since they afford us not any Idea in themselves of the Power to begin any Action either Motion or Thought But if from the Impulse Bodies are observed to make one upon another any one thinks he has a clear Idea of Power it serves as well to my purpose Sensation being one of those ways whereby the Mind comes by its Ideas only I thought it worth while to consider here by the way whether the Mind doth not receive its Idea of active Power clearer from reflection on its own Operations than it doth from any external Sensation § 5. This at least I think evident That we find in our selves a Power to begin or forbear continue or end several Thoughts of our Minds and Motions of our Bodies barely by the choice or preference of our Minds This Power the Mind has to prefer the Consideration of any Idea to the not considering it or to prefer the Motion of any part of the Body to its Rest is that I think we call the Will and the actual preferring one to another is that we call Volition or Willing The power of Perception is that we call the Vnderstanding Perception which we make the act of the Understanding is of three sorts 1. The Perception of Ideas in our Minds 2. The Perception of the signification of Signs 3. The Perceception of the Agreement or Disagreement of any distinct Ideas All these are attributed to the Understanding or perceptive Power though it be to the two latter that in strictness of Speech the act of Understanding is usually applied § 6. These Powers of the Mind viz. of Perceiving and of Preferring are usually call'd by another name and the ordinary way of Speaking is That the Understanding and Will are two Faculties of the Mind a word proper enough if it be used as all Words should be so as not to breed any confusion in Mens Thoughts by being supposed as I suspect it has been to stand for some real Beings in the Soul that performed those Actions of Understanding and Volition For when we say the Will is the commanding and superiour Faculty of the Soul that it is or is not free that it determines the inferiour Faculties that it follows the Dictates of the Understanding c. though these and the like Expressions by those that carefully attend to their own Ideas and conduct their Thoughts more by the evidence of Things than the sound of Words may be understood in a clear and distinct sense yet I suspect I say that this way of speaking of Faculties has misled many into a confused Notion of so many distinct Agents in us which had their several Provinces and Authorities and did command obey and perform several Actions as so many distinct Beings which has been no small occasion of wrangling obscurity and uncertainty in Questions relating to them § 7. Every one I think finds in himself a power to begin or forbear continue or put an end to several Actions in himself The power the Mind has at any time to prefer any particular one of those Actions to its forbearance or Vice versa is that Faculty which as I have said we call the Will the actual exercise of that Power we call Volition and the forbearance or performance of that Action consequent to such a preference of the Mind is call'd Voluntary Hence we have the Ideas of Liberty and Necessity which arise from the consideration of the extent of this Power of the Mind over the Actions not only of the Mind but the whole Agent the whole Man § 8. All the Actions that we have any Idea of reducing themselves as has been said to these two viz. Thinking and Motion so far as a
saying that the World was supported by a great Elephant was asked what the Elephant rested on to which his answer was A great Tortoise But being again pressed to know what gave support to the broad-back'd Tortoise replied something he knew not what And thus here as in all other cases where we use Words without having clear and distinct Ideas we talk like Children who being questioned what such a thing is which they know not readily give this satisfactory answer That is something which in truth signifies no more when so used either by Children or Men but that they knew not what and that the thing they pretend to know and talk of is what they have no distinct Idea of at all and so are perfectly ignorant of it and in the dark The Idea then we have to which we give the general name Substance being nothing but the supposed but unknown support of those Qualities we find existing which we imagine cannot subsist sine re substante without something to support them we call that Support Substantia which according to the true import of the Word is in plain English standing under or upholding § 3. An obscure and relative Idea of Substance in general being thus made we come to have the Ideas of particular sorts of Substances by collecting such Combinations of simple Ideas as are by Experience and Observation of Mens Senses taken notice of to exist together and are therefore supposed to flow from the particular internal Constitution or unknown Essence of that Substance Thus we come to have the Ideas of a Man Horse Gold Water c. of which Substances whether any one has any other clear Idea farther than of certain simple Ideas coexisting together I appeal to every one 's own Experience 'T is the ordinary Qualities observable in Iron or a Diamond put together that make the true complex Idea of those Substances which a Smith or a Jeweller commonly knows better than a Philosopher who whatever substantial forms he may talk of has no other Idea of those Substances than what is framed by a collection of those simple Ideas are to be found in them only we must take notice that our complex Ideas of Substances besides all these simple Ideas they are made up of have always the confused Idea of something to which they belong and in which they subsist and therefore when we speak of any sort of Substance we say it is a thing having such or such Qualities as Body is a thing that is extended figured and capable of Motion a Spirit a thing capable of thinking and so Hardness Friability and Power to draw Iron we say are Qualities to be found in a Loadstone These and the like fashions of speaking intimate that the Substance is supposed always something besides the Extension Figure Solidity Motion Thinking or other observable Ideas though we know not what it is § 4. Hence when we talk or think of any particular sort of corporeal Substances as Horse Stone c. though the Idea we have of either of them be put the Complication or Collection of those several simple Ideas of sensible Qualities which we use to find united in the thing called Horse or Stone yet because we cannot conceive how they should subsist alone nor one in another we suppose them to exist in and supported by some common subject which Support we denote by the name Substance though it be certain we have no clear or distinct Idea of that thing we suppose a Support § 5. The same happens concerning the Operations of the Mind viz. Thinking Reasoning Fearing c. which we concluding not to subsist of themselves nor apprehending how they can belong to Body or be produced by it we are apt to think these the Actions of some other Substance which we call Spirit whereby yet it is evident that having no other Idea or Notion of Matter but something wherein those many sensible Qualities which affect our Senses do subsist by supposing a Substance wherein Thinking Knowing Doubting and a power of Moving c. do subsist We have as clear a Notion of the Nature or Substance of Spirit as we have of Body the one being supposed to be without knowing what it is the Substratum to those simple Ideas we have from without and the other supposed with a like ignorance of what it is to be the Substratum to those Operations which we experiment in our selves within 'T is plain then that the Idea of corporeal Substance in Matter is as remote from our Conceptions and Apprehensions as that of Spiritual Substance or Spirit and therefore from our not having any notion of the Substance of Spirit we can no more conclude its non-Existence than we can for the same reason deny the Existence of Body It being as rational to affirm there is no Body because we cannot know its Essence as 't is called or have no Idea of the Substance of Matter as to say there is no Spirit because we know not its Essence or have no Idea of a Spiritual Substance § 6. Whatever therefore be the secret and abstract Nature of Substance in general all the Ideas we have of particular distinct Substances are nothing but several Combinations of simple Ideas coexhisting in such though unknown Cause of their Union as makes the whole subsist of it self 'T is by such Combinations of simple Ideas and nothing else that we represent particular Substances to our selves such are the Ideas we have of their several sorts in our Minds and such only do we by their specifick Names signifie to others v. g. Man Horse Sun Water Iron upon hearing which Words every one who understands the Language frames in his Mind a Combination of those several simple Ideas which he has usually observed or fancied to exist together under that denomination all which he supposes to rest in and be as it were adherent to that unknown common Subject which inheres not in any thing else Though in the mean time it be manifest and every one upon Enquiry into his own thoughts will find that he has no other Idea of any Substance v. g. let it be Gold Horse Iron Man Vitriol Bread but what he has barely of those sensible Qualities which he supposes to inhere with a supposition of such a Substratum as gives as it were a support to those Qualities or simple Ideas which he has observed to exist united together Thus the Idea of Sun What is it but an aggregate of these several simple Ideas Bright Hot Roundish having a constant regular motion at a certain distance from us and perhaps some other As he who thinks and discourses of the Sun has been more or less accurate in observing those sensible Qualities Ideas or Properties which are in that thing which he calls the Sun § 7. For he has the perfectest Idea of any particular Substance who has gathered and put together most of those simple Ideas which do exist in it among which are to
all things about us hath fitted our Senses Faculties and Organs to the conveniences of Life and the Business we have to do here We are able by our Senses to know and distinguish things and to examine them so far as to apply them to our Uses and several ways accommodate the Exigences of this Life We have insight enough into their admirable Contrivances and wonderful Effects to admire and magnifie the Wisdom Power and Goodness of their Author Such a Knowledge as this which is suited to our present Condition we want not Faculties to attain But it appears not that God intended we should have a perfect clear and adequate Knowledge of them that perhaps is not in the Comprehension of any finite Being We are furnished with Faculties dull and weak as they are to discover enough in the Creatures to lead us to the Knowledge of the Creator and the Knowledge of our Duty and we are fitted well enough with Abilities to provide for the Conveniences of living These are our Business in this World But were our Senses altered and made much quicker and acuter the appearance and outward Scheme of things would have quite another Face to us and I am apt to think would be inconsistent with our Being or at least well-being in this part of the Universe we inhabit He that considers how little our Constitution is able to bear a remove into parts of this Air not much higher than that we commonly breath in will have reason to be satisfied that in this Globe of Earth alotted for our Mansion the all-wise Architect has suited our Organs and the Bodies that are to affect them one to another If our Sense of Hearing were but 1000 times quicker than it is how would a perpetual noise distract us And we should in the quietest Retirement be less able to sleep or meditate than in the middle of a Sea-fight Nay if that most instructive of our Senses Seeing were in any Man 1000 or 100000 more acute than it is now by the best Microscope he would see things 1000 or 100000 less than he does now and so come nearer the Discovery of the Texture and Motion of the minute Parts of corporeal things and in many of them probably get Ideas of their internal Constitutions But then he would be in a quite different World from other People Nothing would appear the same to him and others the visible Ideas of every thing would be different So that I doubt Whether he and the rest of Men could discourse concerning the Objects of Sight or have any Communication about Colours their appearances being so wholly different And perhaps such a quickness and tenderness of Sight could not endure bright Sun-shine or so much as open Day-light nor take in but a very small part of any Object at once and that too only at a very near distance And if by the help of such Microscopical Eyes if I may so call them a Man could penetrate farther than ordinary into the secret Composition and radical Texture of Bodies he would not make any great advantage by the change if such an acute Sight would not serve to conduct him to the Market and Exchange If he could not see things he was to avoid at a convenient distance nor distinguish things he had to do with by those sensible Qualities others do He that was sharp-sighted enough to see the Configuration of the minute Particles of the Spring of a Clock and observe upon what peculiar Structure and Impulse its elastick Motion depends would no doubt discover something very admirable But if Eyes so framed could not view at once the Hand and the Characters of the Hour-plate and thereby at a distance see what a-Clock it was their Owner could not be much benefited by that acuteness which whilst it discovered the secret contrivance of the Parts of the Machin made him loose its use § 13. And here give me leave to propose an extravagant conjecture of mine viz. That since we have some Reason if there be any Credit to be given to the report of things that our Philosophy cannot account for to imagine that Spirits can assume to themselves Bodies of different Bulk Figure and Conformation of Parts Whether one great advantage some of them have over us may not lie in this that they can so frame and shape to themselves Organs of Sensation or Perception as to suit them to their present Design and the Circumstances of the Object they would consider For how much would that Man exceed all others in Knowledge who had but the Faculty so to alter the Structure of his Eyes that one Sense as to make it capable of all the several degrees of Vision which the assistence of Glasses casually at at first light on has taught us to conceive What wonders would he discover who could so fit his Eye to all sorts of Objects as to see when he pleased the Figure and Motion of the minute Particles in the Blood and other juices of Animals as distinctly as he does at other times the shape and motion of the Animals themselves But to us in our present State unalterable Organs so contrived as to discover the Figure and Motion of the minute parts of Bodies whereon depend those sensible Qualities we now observe in them would perhaps be of no advantage God has no doubt made us so as is best for us in our present Condition He hath fitted us for the Neighbourhood of the Bodies that surround us and we have to do with And though we cannot by the Faculties we have attain to a perfect Knowledge of Things yet they will serve us well enough for those ends above mentioned which are our great Concernment I beg my Reader 's Pardon for laying before him so wild a Phansie concerning the ways of Conception in Beings above us But how extravagant soever it be I doubt whether we can imagine any thing about the Knowledge of Angels but after this manner some way or other in proportion to what we find and observe in our selves And tho' we cannot but allow that the infinite Power and Wisdom of God may frame Creatures with a thousand other Faculties and ways of perceiving things without them than what we have Yet our Thoughts can go no farther than our own so impossible it is for us to enlarge our very Guesses beyond the Ideas received from our own Sensation and Reflection The Supposition at least that Angels do sometimes assume Bodies need not startle us since some of the most ancient and most learned Fathers of the Church seemed to believe that they had Bodies And this is certain that their state and way of Existence is unknown to us § 14. But to return to the Matter in Hand the Ideas we have of Substances and the ways we come by them I say our Ideas of Substances are nothing else but a Collection of a certain number of simple Ideas considered as united in one thing These Ideas of Substances though they
are commonly called simple Apprehensions and the Names of them simple Terms yet in effect are complex and compounded Thus the Idea which an English-man signified by the Name Swan is white Colour long Neck red beak black Legs and whole Feet and all these of a certain size with a power of swimming in the Water and making a certain kind of Noise and perhaps to a Man who has long observed those kind of Birds some other Properties which all terminate in sensible simple Ideas § 15. Besides the complex Ideas we have of material sensible Substances of which I have last spoken by the simple Ideas we have taken from those Operations of our own Minds we experiment daily in our selves as Thinking Understanding Willing Knowing and power of beginning Motion c. coexisting in some Substance we are able to frame the complex Idea of a Spirit And thus by putting together the Ideas of Thinking Perceiving Liberty and power of moving themselves and other things we have as clear a perception and notion of immaterial Substances as we have of material For putting together the Ideas of Thinking and Willing or the power of moving or quieting corporeal Motion joined to Substance of which we have no distinct Idea we have the Idea of Spirit and by putting together the Ideas of coherent solid parts and a power of being moved joined with Substance of which likewise we have no positive Idea we have the Idea of Matter The one is as clear and distinct an Idea as the other The Idea of Thinking and moving a Body being as clear and distinct Ideas as the Ideas of Extension Solidity and being moved For our Idea of Substance is equally obscure or none at all in both it is but a supposed I know not what to support those Ideas we call Accidents § 16. By the complex Idea of extended figured coloured and all other sensible Qualities which is all that we know of it we are as far from the Idea of the Substance of Body as if we knew nothing at all Nor after all the acquaintance and familiarity which we imagine we have with Matter and the many Qualities Men assure themselves they perceive and know in Bodies will it perhaps upon examination be found that they have any more or clearer primary Ideas belonging to Body than they have belonging to Spirit § 17. The primary Ideas we have peculiar to Body as contradistinguished to Spirit are the cohesion of solid and consequently separable parts and a power of communicating Motion by impulse These I think are the original Ideas proper and peculiar to Body for Figure is but the consequence of finite Extension § 18. The Ideas we have belonging and peculiar to Spirit are Thinking and Will or a power of putting Body into motion by Thought and which is consequent to it Liberty For as Body cannot but communicate its Motion by impulse to another Body which it meets with at rest so the Mind can put Bodies into Motion or forbear to do so as it pleases The Ideas of Existence Duration and Mobility are common to them both § 19. There is no reason why it should be thought strange that I make Mobility belong to Spirit For having no other Idea of Motion but change of distance with other Beings that are considered as at rest and finding that Spirits as well as Bodies cannot operate but where they are and that Spirits do operate at several times at several places I cannot but attribute change of place to all finite Spirits for of the infinite Spirit I speak not here For my Soul being a real Being as well as my Body is certainly as capable of changing of distance with any other Body or Being as Body it self and so is capable of Motion And if a Mathematician can consider a certain distance or a change of that distance between two Points one may certainly conceive a distance and a change of distance between two Spirits and so conceive their Motion their approach or removal one from another § 20. Every one finds in himself that his Soul can think will and operate on his Body in the place where that is but cannot operate on a Body or in place an hundred Miles distant from it No body can imagine that his Soul can think or move a Body at Oxford whilst he is at London and cannot but know that being united to his Body it constantly changes place all the whole Journey between Oxford and London as the Coach or Horse does that carries him and I think may be said to be truly all that while in motion Or if that will not be allowed to afford us a clear Idea enough of its motion its being separated from the Body in death I think will For to consider it to go out of the Body or leave it and yet to have no Idea of its motion seems to me impossible § 21. If it be said by any one that it cannot change place because it hath none for Spirits are not in Loco but Vbi I suppose that way of talking will not now be of much weight to many in an Age that is not much disposed to admire or suffer themselves to be deceived by such unintelligible ways of speaking But if any one thinks there is any sense in that distinction and applicable to our present purpose I desire him to put it into intelligible English and then from thence draw a reason to shew that Spirits are not capable of Motion Indeed Motion cannot be attributed to GOD not because he is a Spirit but because he is an Infinite Spirit § 22. Let us compare then our complex Idea of Spirit with our complex Idea of Body and see whether there be any more obscurity in one than in the other and in which most Our Idea of Body as I think is an extended solid Substance capable of communicating Motion by impulse And our Idea of our Souls is of a Substance that thinks and has a power of exciting Motion in Body by Will or Thought These I think are our complex Ideas of Soul and Body as contradistinguished and now let us examine which has most obscurity in it and difficulty to be apprehended I know that People whose Thoughts are immersed in Matter and have so subjected their Minds to their Senses that they seldom reflect on any thing beyond them are apt to say they cannot comprehend a thinking thing which perhaps is true But I affirm when they consider it well they can no more comprehend an extended thing § 23. If any one says he knows not what 't is thinks in him he means he knows not what the substance is of that thinking thing No more say I knows he what the substance is of that solid thing Farther if he says he knows not how he thinks I answer Neither knows he how he is extended how the solid parts of Body are united or cohere together to make Extension For though the pressure of the Particles of Air
and Blame go together Vertue is every-where that which is thought Praise-worthy and nothing else but that which has the allowance of publick Esteem is Vertue Vertue and Praise are so united that they are called often by the same Name Sunt sua proemia Laudi says Virgil and so Cicero nihil habet natura praestantius quam Honestatem quam Laudem quam Dignitatem quam Decus which he tells you are all Names for the same thing Tusc. l. 2. This is the Language of the Heathen Philosophers who well understood wherein their Notions of Vertue and Vice consisted And though perhaps by the different Temper Education Fashion Maxims or Interest of different sorts of Men it fell out that what was thought Praise-worthy in one Place escaped not censure in another and so in different Societies Vertues and Vices were changed Yet as to the Main they for the most part kept the same every where For since nothing can be more natural than to encourage with Esteem and Reputation that wherein every one finds his Advantage and to blame and discountenance the contrary 't is no Wonder that Esteem and Discredit Vertue and Vice should in a great measure everywhere correspond with the unchangeable Rule of Right and Wrong which the Law of God hath established there being nothing◠that so directly and visibly secures and advances the general Good of Mankind in this World as Obedience to the Laws he has set them and nothing that breeds such Mischiefs and Confusion as the neglect of them And therefore Men without renouncing all Sense and Reason and their own Interest which they are so constantly true to could not generally mistake in placing their Commendation and Blame on that side that really deserved it not Nay even those Men whose Practice was otherwise failed not to give their Approbation right few being depraved to that Degree as not to condemn at least in others the Faults they themselves were guilty of whereby even in the Corruption of Manners the true Boundaries of the the Law of Nature which ought to be the Rule of Vertue and Vice were pretty well preserved So that even the Exhortations of inspired Teachers have not feared to appeal to common Repute Whatsoever is lovely whatsoever is of good report if there be any Vertue if there be any praise c. Phil. 4.8 § 12. If any one shall imagine that I have forgot my own Notion of a Law when I make the Law whereby Men judge of Vertue and Vice to be nothing else but the Consent of private Men who have not Authority enough to make a Law Especially wanting that which is so necessary and essential to a Law a Power to inforce it I think I may say that he who imagines Commendation and Disgrace not to be strong Motives on Men to accommodate themselves to the Opinions and Rules of those with whom they converse seems little skill'd in the Nature or History of Mankind the greatest part whereof he shall find to govern themselves chiefly if not solely by this Law of Fashion and so they do that which keeps them in Reputation with their Company little regard the Laws of God or the Magistrate The Penalties that attend the breach of God's Laws some nay perhaps most Men seldom seriously reflect on and amongst those that do many whilst they break the Law entertain Thoughts of future reconciliation and making their Peace for such Breaches And as to the Punishments due from the Laws of the Common-Wealth they frequently flatter themselves with the hopes of Impunity But no Man scapes the Punishment of their Censure and Dislike who offends against the Fashion and Opinion of the Company he keeps and would recommend himself to Nor is there one of ten thousand who is stiff and insensible enough to hear up under the constant Dislike and Condemnation of his own Club. He must be of a strange and unusual Constitution who can content himself to live in constant Disgrace and Disrepute with his own particular Society Solitude many Men have sought and been reconciled to But no Body that has the least Thoughts or Sense of a Man about him can live in Society under the constant Dislike and ill Opinion of his Familiars and those he converses with This is a Burthen too heavy for humane Sufferance And he must be made up of irreconcileable Contradictions who can take Pleasure in Company and yet be insensible of Contempt and Disgrace from his Companions § 13. These Three then First The Law of God Secondly the Law of politick Societies Thirdly the Law of Fashion or private Censure are those to which Men variously compare their Actions And 't is by their Conformity to one of these Laws that they take their measures when they would judge of their Moral Rectitude and denominate their Actions good or bad § 14. Whether the Rule to which as to a Touch-stone we bring our voluntary Actions to examine them by and try their Goodness and accordingly to name them which is as it were the Mark of the value we set upon them Whether I say we take that Rule from the Fashion of the Country or the Will of a Law-maker the Mind is easily able to observe the Relation any Action hath to it and to judge whether the Action agrees or disagrees with the Rule and so hath a Notion of Moral Goodness or Evil which is either Conformity or not Conformity of any Action to that Rule And therefore is often called Moral Rectitude This Rule being nothing but a Collection of several simple Ideas the Conformity thereto is but so ordering the Action that the simple Ideas belonging to it may correspond to those which the Law requires And thus we see how Moral Beings and Notions are founded on and terminated in these simple Ideas we have received from Sensation or Reflection besides which we have nothing at all in our Understandings to employ our Thoughts about For Example let us consider the complex Idea we signifie by the Word Murther and when we have taken it asunder and examined all the Particulars we shall find them to amount to a Collection of simple Ideas derived from Reflection or Sensation viz. First From Reflection on the Operations of our own Minds we have the Ideas of Willing Considering Purposing before hand Malice or wishing Ill to another and also of Life or Perception and Self-motion Secondly From Sensation we have the Collection of the simple sensible Ideas of a Man and of some Action whereby we put an end to that Perception and Motion in the Man all which simple Ideas are comprehended in the Word Murther This Collection of simple Ideas being found by me to agree or disagree with the Esteem of the Country I have been bred in and to be held by most Men there worthy Praise or Blame I call the Action vertuous or vitious If I have the Will of a supreme invisible Law-maker for my Rule then as I supposed the Action commanded or
of within themselves and always those which they communicate about with others And therefore where there are supposed two different Ideas marked by two different Names which are not as distinguishable as the Sounds that stand for them there never fails to be confusion And where any Ideas are distinct as the Ideas of those two Sounds they are marked by there can be between them no confusion The way to prevent it is to collect and unite into our complex Idea as precisely as is possible all those Ingredients whereby it is differenced from others and to them so united in a determinate number and order apply steadily the same Name But this neither accommodating Mens ease or vanity or serving any design but that of naked Truth which is not always the thing aimed at such exactness is rather to be wished than hoped for And since the loose application of Names to uncertain and almost no Ideas serves both to cover our own Ignorance as well as to perplex and confound others which goes for Learning and Superiority in Knowledge it is no wonder that most Men should use it themselves whilst they complain of it in others Though yet I think no small part of the confusion to be found in the Notions of Men might by care and ingenuity be avoided yet I am far from thinking it every-where wilful Some Ideas are so complex and made up of so many parts that the Memory does not easily retain the very same precise Combination of simple Ideas under one Name much less are we able constantly to divine for what precise complex Idea such a Name stands in another Man's use of it From the first of these follows confusion in a Man 's own Reasonings and Opinions within himself from the latter frequent confusion in discoursing and arguing with others But having more at large treated of Words their Defects and Abuses in the following Book I shall here say no more of it § 13. Our complex Ideas being made up of Collections and so variety of simple ones may accordingly be very clear and distinct in one part and very obscure and confused in another In a Man who speaks of a Chiliaderon or a Body of a thousand sides the Idea of the Figure may be very confused though that of the Number be very distinct so that he being able to discourse and demonstrate concerning that part of his complex Idea which depends upon the Number of a Thousand he is apt to think he has a distinct Idea of a Chiliaëdron though it be plain he has no precise Idea of its Figure so as to distinguish it by that from one that has but 999 sides The not observing wherereof causes no small Error in Men's Thoughts and confusion in their Discourses § 14. He that thinks he has a distinct Idea of the Figure of a Chiliaëdron let him for Trial's-sake take another parcel of the same uniform Matter viz. Gold or Wax of an equal Bulk and make it into a Figure of 999 sides He will I doubt not be able to distinguish these two Ideas one from another by the Number of sides and reason and argue distinctly about them whilst he keeps his Thoughts and Reasoning to that part only of these Ideas which is contained in their Numbers as that the sides of the one could be divided into two equal Numbers and of the other not c. But when he goes about to distinguish them by their Figure he will there be presently at a loss and not be able I think to frame in his Mind two Ideas one of them distinct from the other by the bare Figure of these two pieces of Gold as he could if the same parcels of Gold were made one into a Cube the other a Figure of five sides In which in compleat Ideas we are very apt to impose on our selves and wrangle with others especially where they have particular and familiar Names For being satisfied in that part of the Idea which we have clear and the Name which is familiar to us being applied to the whole containing that part also which is imperfect and obscure we are apt to use it for that confused part and draw deductions from it in the obscure part of its Signification as confidently as we do from the other § 15. Having frequently in our Mouths the Name Eternity we are apt to think we have a positive comprehensive Idea of it which is as much as to say that there is no part of that Duration which is not clearly contained in our Idea 'T is true that he that thinks so may have a clear Idea of Duration he may also have a very clear Idea of a very great length of Duration he may also have a clear Idea of the Comparison of that great one with still a greater But it not being possible for him to include in his Idea of any Duration let it be as great as it will the whole Extent together of a Duration where he supposes no end that part of his Idea which is still beyond the Bounds of that large Duration he represents to his own Thoughts is very obscure and undetermined And hence it is that in Disputes and Reasonings concerning Eternity or any other Infinite we are very apt to blunder and involve our selves in manifest Absurdities § 16. In Matter we have no clear Ideas of the smalness of Parts much beyond the smallest that occurr to any of our Senses and therefore when we talk of the divisibility of Matter in infinitum though we have clear Ideas of Division and Divisibility and have also clear Ideas of Parts made out of a whole by Division yet we have but very obscure and confused Ideas of Corpuscles or minute Bodies so to be divided when by former Divisions they are reduced to a smalness much exceeding the perception of any of our Senses and so all that we have clear and distinct Ideas of is of what Division in general or abstractly is and the Relation of Totum and Pars But of the bulk of the Body to be thus infinitely divided after certain Progressions I think we have no clear nor distinct Ideas at all For I ask any one Whether taking the smallest Atom of Dust he ever saw he has any distinct Idea bating still the Number which concerns not Extension betwixt the 100,000 and the 1000,000 part of it Or if he think he can refine his Ideas to that Degree without losing sight of them let him add ten Cyphers to each of those Numbers for that will bring it no nearer the end of infinite Division than the first half does I must confess for my part I have no clear distinct Ideas of the different Bulk or Extension of those Bodies having but a very obscure one of either of them So that I think when we talk of Division of Bodies in infinitum our Idea of their distinct Bulks or Extension which is the Subject and Foundation of Divisions comes to be confounded and almost
Ideas to make them real but that they be so framed that there be a possibility of existing conformable to them These Ideas being themselves Archetypes cannot differ from their Achetypes and so cannot be chimerical unless any one will jumble together in them inconsistent Ideas Indeed as any of them have the Names of a known Language assigned to them by which he that has them in his Mind would signifie them to others so barely Possibility of existing is not enough they must have a Conformity to the ordinary Signification of the Name that is given them that they may not be thought phantastical as if a Man would give the Name of Justice to that Idea which common use calls Liberality But this Phantasticalness relates more to Propriety of Speech than Reality of Ideas For a Man to be undisturbed in Danger but sedately to consider what is fittest to be done and to execute it steadily is a mixed Mode or a complex Idea of an Action which may exist But to be undisturbed in Danger without using ones Reason or Industry is what is also possible to be and so is as real an Idea as the other Though the first of these having the Name Courage given to it may in respect of that Name be a right or wrong Idea But the other whilst it has not a common received Name of any known Language assigned to it is not capable of any Rectitude or Deformity being made with no reference to any thing but its self § 5. Thirdly Our complex Ideas of Substances being made all of them in reference to Things existing without us and intended to be Representations of Substances as they really are are no farther real than as they are such Combinations of simple Ideas that are really united and co-exist in Things without us On the Contrary those are phantastical which are made up of such Collections of simple Ideas as were really never united never were found together in any Substance v. g. a rational Creature consisting of a Horse's Head joined to a body of humane shape or such as the Centaurs are described Or a Body yellow very malleable fusible and fixed but lighter than common Water Or an uniform unorganized Body consisting as to Sense all of similar Parts with Perception and voluntary Motion joined to it Whether such Substances as these can possibly exist or no 't is probable we do not know But be that as it will these Ideas of Substances being made conformable to no Pattern existing that we know and consisting of such Collections of Ideas as no Substance ever shewed us united together they ought to pass with us for barely imaginary But much more are those complex Ideas which contain in them any Inconsistency or Contradiction of their Parts CHAP. XXX Of Adequate and Inadequate Ideas § 1. OF our real Ideas some are Adequate and some are Inadequate Those I call Adequate which perfectly represent those Archetypes which the Mind supposes them taken from which it intends them to stand for and to which it refers them Inadequate Ideas are such which are but a partial or incompleat representation of those Archetypes to which they are referred Upon which account it is plain § 2. First That all our simple Ideas are adequate Because being nothing but the effects of certain Powers in Things fitted and ordained by GOD to produce such Sensations in us they cannot but be correspondent and adequate to those Powers And we are sure they agree to the reality of Things For if Sugar produce in us the Ideas which we call Whiteness and Sweetness we are sure there is a power in Sugar to produce those Ideas in our Minds or else they could not have been produced And so each Sensation answering the Power that operates on any of our Senses the Idea so produced is a real Idea and not a fiction of the Mind which has no power to produce any simple Idea and cannot but be adequate since it ought only to answer that power and so all simple Ideas are adequate 'T is true the Things producing in us these simple Ideas are but few of them denominated by us as if they were only the causes of them but as if those Ideas were real Beings in them For though Fire be call'd painful to the Touch whereby it signified the power of producing in us the Idea of Pain yet it is denominated also Light and Hot as if Light and Heat were really something in the Fire more than a power to excite these Ideas in us and therefore are called Qualities in or of the Fire But these being nothing in truth but powers to excite such Ideas in us I must in that sense be understood when I speak of secundary Qualities as being in Things or of their Ideas as being in the Objects that excite them in us Such ways of speaking though accommodated to the vulgar Notions without which one cannot be well understood yet truly signifie nothing but those Powers which are in Things to excite certain Sensations or Ideas in us Since were there no fit Organs to receive the impressions Fire makes on the Sight and Touch nor a Mind joined to those Organs to receive the Ideas of Light and Heat by those impressions from the Fire or the Sun there would yet be no more Light or Heat in the World than there would be Pain if there were no sensible Creature to feel it though the Sun should continue just as it is now and Mount AEtna flame higher than ever it did Solidity and Extension and the termination of it Figure with Motion and Rest whereof we have the Ideas would be really in the World as they are whether there were any sensible Being to perceive them or no And therefore those we have reason to look on as the real modifications of Matter and such as are the exciting Causes of all our various Sensations from Bodies But this being an Enquiry not belonging to this place I shall enter no farther into it but proceed to shew what complex Ideas are adequate and what not § 3. Secondly Our complex Ideas of Modes being voluntary Collections of simple Ideas which the Mind puts together without reference to any real Archetypes or standing Patterns existing any where are and cannot but be adequate Ideas Because they not being intended for Copies of Things really existing but for Archetypes made by the Mind to rank and denominate Things by cannot want any thing they having each of them that combination of Ideas and thereby that perfection the Mind intended they should So that the Mind acquiesces in them and can find nothing wanting Thus by having the Idea of a Figure with three sides meeting at three Angles I have a compleat Idea wherein I require nothing else to make it perfect That the Mind is satisfied with the perfection of this its Idea is plain in that it doe not conceive that any Understanding hath or can have a more compleat or perfect Idea of that thing
Child uses determine themselves to those Persons Afterwards when time and a larger acquaintance has made them observe that there are a great many other Things in the World that in some common agreements of Shape and several other Qualities resemble their Father and Mother and those Persons they have been used to they frame an Idea which they find those many Particulars do partake in and to that they give with others the name Man for example And thus they come to have a general Name and a general Idea Wherein they make nothing new but only leave out of the complex Idea they had of Pete◠and Iames Mary and Iane that which is peculiar to each and retain only what is common to them all § 8. By the same way that they come by the general Name and Idea of Man they easily advance to more general Names and Notions For observing that several Things that differ from their Idea of Man and cannot therefore be comprehended under that Name have yet certain Qualities wherein they agree with Man by retaining only those Qualities and uniting them into one Idea they have again another and a more general Idea to which having given a Name they make a term of a more comprehensive extension Which new Idea is made not by any new addition but only as before by leaving out the shape and some other Properties signified by the name Man and retaining only a Body with Life Sense and spontaneous Motion comprehended under the name Animal § 9. That this is the way whereby Men first formed general Ideas and general Names to them I think is so evident that there needs no other proof of it but the considering of a Man's self or others and the ordinary proceedings of their Minds in Knowledge And he that thinks general Natures or Notions are any thing else but such abstract and partial Ideas of more complex ones taken at first from particular Existences will I fear be at a loss where to find them For let any one reflect wherein does his Idea of a Man differ from that of Peter and Paul or his Idea of an Horse from that of Bucephalus but in the leaving out something that is peculiar to each Individual and retaining so much of those particular complex Ideas of several particular Existences as they are found to agree in Of the complex Ideas signified by the names Man and Horse leaving out but those particulars wherein they differ and retaining only those wherein they agree and of those making a new distinct complex Idea and giving the name Animal to it one has a more general term that comprehends with Man several other Creatures Leave out the Idea of Animal Sense and spontaneous Motion and the remaining complex Idea made up of the remaining simple ones of Body Life and Nourishment becomes a more general one under the more comprehensive term Vivens And not to dwell longer upon this particular so evident in it self by the same way the Mind proceeds to Body Substance and at last to Being Thing and such universal terms which stand for any of our Ideas whatsoever To conclude this whole mystery of Genera and Species which make such a noise in the Schools and are with Justice so little regarded out of them is nothing else but abstract Ideas more or less comprehensive with Names annexed to them In all which this is constant and unvariable That every more general term stands for such an Idea as is but a part of any of those contained under it § 10. This may shew us the reason why in the defining of Words which is nothing but declaring their signification we make use of the Genus or next general Word that comprehends it Which is not out of necessity but only to save the labour of enumerating the several simple Ideas which the next general Word or Genus stands for or perhaps sometimes the shame of not being able to do it But though defining by Genus and Differentia I crave leave to use these terms of Art though originally Latin since they most properly suit those Notions they are applied to I say though defining by the Genus be the shortest way yet I think it may be doubted whether it be the best This I am sure it is not the only and so not absolutely necessary For Definition being nothing but making another understand by Words what Idea the term defined◠stands for a definition is best made by enumerating those simple Ideas that are combined in the signification of the term Defined and if instead of such an enumeration Men have accustomed themselves to use the next general term it has not been out of necessity or for greater clearness but for quickness and dispatch sake For I think that to one who desired to know what Idea the word Man stood for if it should be said that a Man was a solid extended Substance having Life Sense spontaneous Motion and the Faculty of Reasoning I doubt not but the meaning of the term Man would be as well understood and the Idea it stands for be at least as clearly made known as when it is defined to be a rational Animal which by the several definitions of Animal Vivens and Corpus resolves it self into those enumerated Ideas I have in explaining the term Man followed here the ordinary Definition of the Schools which though perhaps not the most exact yet serves well enough to my present purpose And one may in this instance see what gave occasion to that Rule that a Definition must consist of its Genus and Differentia and it suffices to shew us the little necessity there is of such a Rule or advantage in the strict observing of it For Definitions as has been said being only the explaining of one Word by several others so that the meaning or Idea it stands for may be certainly known Languages are not always so made according to the Rules of Logick that every term can have its signification exactly and clearly expressed by two others Experience sufficiently satisfies us to the contrary or else those who have made this Rule have done ill that they have given us so few Definitions conformable to it But of Definitions more in the next Chapter § 11. To return to general Words it is plain by what has been said That General and Vniversal belong not to the real existence of Things but are the Inventions and Creatures of the Vnderstanding made by it for its own use and concern only Signs whether Words or Ideas Words are general as has been said when used for signs of general Ideas and so are applicable indifferently to many particular Things And Ideas are general when they are set up as the Representatives of many particular Things but Universality belongs not to Things themselves which are all of them particular in their Existence even those Words and Ideas which in their signification are general When therefore we quit Particulars the Generals that rest are only
Reason that makes the defining of mixed Modes so necessary especially of moral Words is what I mentioned a little before and that is That it is the only way whereby the signification of the most of them can be known with certainty For the Ideas they stand for being for the most part such whose component Parts no-where exist together but scattered and mingled with others it is the Mind alone that collects them and gives them the union of one Idea and it is only by Words enumerating the several simple Ideas which the Mind has united that we can make known to others what their Names stand for and not by any application to the Senses as we can do in sensible simple Ideas and also to some degree in Substances § 19. Thirdly For the explaining the signification of the Names of Substances as they stand for the Ideas we have of their distinct Species both the fore-mentioned ways viz. of shewing and defining are requisite in many cases to be made use of For there being ordinarily in each Sort some leading Qualities to which we suppose the other which makes up our complex Idea of that Species annexed we give the Name to some Quality or Idea which is the most observable and we take to be the most distinguishing Idea of that Species These leading or characteristical as I may so call them Ideas in the sorts of Animals and Vegetables is as has been before remarked mostly Figure and in inanimate Bodies Colour and in some both together Now § 20. These leading sensible Qualities are those which make the chief Ingredients of our specifick Ideas and consequently the best Definitions of our specifick Names as attributed to Sorts of Substances coming under our Knowledge For though the Sound Man in its own Nature be as apt to signifie a complex Idea made up of Animality and Rationality united in the same Subject as to signifie any other combination yet used as a mark to stand for a sort of Creatures we count of our own kind perhaps the outward shape is as necessary to be taken into our complex Idea signified by the word Man as any other we find in it And therefore why Plato's Animal implume Bipes latis unguibus should not be as good a Definition of the Name Man standing for that sort of Creatures will not be easie to shew for 't is the Shape as the leading Quality that seems more to determine that Species than a Faculty of Reasoning which appears not at first and in some never And if this be not allow'd to be so I do not know how they can be excused from Murther who kill monstrous Births as we call them because of an unordinary Shape without knowing whether they have a Rational Soul or no which can be no more discerned in a well-formed than ill-shaped Infant as soon as born And who is it has informed us that a Rational Soul can inhabit no Tenement unless it has just such a sort of Frontispiece or can join it self to and inform no sort of Body but one that is just of such an outward Structure § 21. Now these leading Qualities are best made known by shewing and can hardly be made known otherwise For the shape of an Horse or Cassuary will be but rudely and imperfectly imprinted on the Mind by Words the sight of the Animals doth it a thousand times better And the Idea of the particular Colour of Gold is not to be got by any description of it but only by the frequent exercise of the Eyes about it as is evident in those who are used to this Metal who will frequently distinguish true from counterfeit pure from adulterate by the sight where others who have as good Eyes but yet by use have not got the precise nice Idea of that peculiar Yellow shall not perceive any difference The like may be said of those other simple Ideas peculiar in their kind to any Substance for which precise Ideas there are no peculiar Names The particular ringing sound there is in Gold distinct from the sound of other Bodies has no particular Name annexed to it no more than the particular Yellow that belongs to that Metal § 22. But because many of the simple Ideas that make up our specifick Ideas of Substances are Powers which lie not obvious to our Senses in the Things as they ordinarily appear therefore in the signification of our Names of Substances some part of the signification will be better made known by enumerating those simple Ideas than in shewing the Substance it self For he that to the yellow shining Colour of Gold got by sight shall from my enumerating them have the Ideas of great Ductility Fusibility Fixedness and Solubility in Aq. Regia will have a perfecter Idea of Gold than he can have by seeing a piece of Gold and thereby imprinting in his Mind only its obvious Qualities But if the formal Constitution of this shining heavy ductil Thing from whence all these its Properties flow lay open to our Senses as the formal Constitution or Essence of a Triangle does the signification of the word Gold might as easily be ascertained as that of Triangle § 23. Hence we may take notice how much the foundation of all our Knowledge of corporeal Things lies in our Senses For how Spirits separate from Bodies whose Knowledge and Ideas of these Things is certainly much more perfect than ours know them we have no Notion no Idea at all The whole extent of our Knowledge or Imagination reaches not beyond our own Ideas limited to our ways of Perception Though yet it be not to be doubted that Spirits of a higher rank than those immersed in Flesh may have as clear Ideas of the radical Constitution of Substances as we have of a Triangle and so perceive how all their Properties and Operations flow from thence but the manner how they come by that Knowledge exceeds our Conceptions § 24. But though Definitions will serve to explain the Names of Substances as they stand for our Ideas yet they leave them not without great imperfection as they stand for Things For our Names of Substances being not put barely for our Ideas but being made use of ultimately to represent Things and so are put in their place their signification must agree with the Truth of Things as well as with Mens Ideas And therefore in Substances we are not always to rest in the ordinary complex Idea commonly received as the signification of that Word but to go a little farther and enquire into the Nature and Properties of the Things themselves and thereby perfect as much as we can our Ideas of their distinct Species or else learn them from such as are used to that sort of Things and are experienced in them For since 't is intended their Names should stand for such Collections of simple Ideas as do really exist in Things themselves as well as for the complex Idea in other Mens Minds which in their ordinary acceptation they
stand for therefore to define their Names right natural History is to be enquired into and their Properties are with care and examination to be found out For it is not enough for the avoiding Inconveniences in Discourses and Arguings about natural Bodies and substantial Things to have learned from the Propriety of the Language the common but confused or very imperfect Idea to which each Word is applied and to keep them to that Idea in our use of them but we must by acquainting our selves with the History of that sort of Things rectifie and setle our complex Idea belonging to each specifick Name and in discourse with others if we find them mistake us we ought to tell what the complex Idea is that we make such a Name stand for This is the more necessary to be done by all those who search after Knowledge and philosophical Verity in that Children being taught Words whilst they have but imperfect Notions of Things apply them at random and without much thinking or framing clear distinct Ideas which Custom it being easie and serving well enough for the ordinary Affairs of Life and Conversation they are apt to continue when they are Men And so begin at the wrong end learning Words first and perfectly but make the Notions to which they apply those Words afterwards very overtly By this means it comes to pass that Men speaking the proper Language of their Country i. e. according to Grammar-Rules of that Language do yet speak very improperly of Things themselves and by their arguing one with another make but small progress in the discoveries of useful Truths and the knowledge of Things as they are to be found in themselves and not in our Imaginations and it matters not much for the improvement of our Knowledge how they are call'd § 25. It were therefore to be wished That Men versed in physical Enquiries and acquainted with the several sorts of natural Bodies would set down those simple Ideas wherein they observe the Individuals of each sort constantly to agree This would remedy a great deal of that confusion which comes from several Persons applying the same Name to a Collection of a smaller or greater number of sensible Qualities proportionably as they have been more or less acquainted with or accurate in examining the Qualities of any sort of Things which come under one denomination But a Dictionary of this sort containing as it were a Natural History requires too many hands as well as too much time cost pains and sagacity ever to be hoped for and till that be done we must content our selves with such Definitions of the Names of Substances as explain the sense Men use them in And 't would be well where there is occasion if they would afford us so much This yet is not usually done but Men talk to one another and dispute in Words whose meaning is not agreed between them out of a mistake that the signification of common Words are certainly established and the precise Ideas they stand for perfectly known and that it is a shame to be ignorant of them Both which Suppositions are false no Names of complex Ideas having so setled determined Significations that they are constantly used for the same precise Ideas Nor is it a shame for a Man not to have a certain knowledge of any thing but by the necessary ways of attaining it and so it is no discredit not to know what precise Idea any Sound stands for in another Man's Mind without he declare it to me by some other way than barely using that Sound there being no other way without such a Declaration certainly to know it Indeed the necessity of Communication by Language brings Men to an agreement in the signification of common Words within some tolerable latitude that may serve for ordinary Conversation and so a Man cannot be supposed wholly ignorant of the Ideas which are annexed to Words by common Use in a Language familiar to him But common Use being but a very uncertain Rule which reduces it self at last to the Ideas of particular Men proves often but a very variable Standard But though such a Dictionary as I have above mentioned will require too much time cost and pains to be hoped for in this Age yet methinks it is not unreasonable to propose that Words standing for Things which are known and distinguished by their outward shapes should be expressed by little Draughts and Prints made of them A Vocabulary made after this fashion would perhaps with more ease and in less time teach the true signification of many Terms especially in Languages of remote Countries or Ages and setle truer Ideas in Mens Minds of several Things whereof we read the Names in ancient Authors than all the large and laborious Comments of learned Criticks Naturalists that treat of Plants and Animals have found the benefit of this way And he that has had occasion to consult them will have reason to confess that he has a clearer Idea of Apium or Ibex from a little Print of that Herb or Beast than he could have from a long definition of the Names of either of them And so no doubt he would have of Strigil and Sistrum if instead of a Curry-comb and Cymbal which are the English names Dictionaries render them by he could see stamp'd in the Margin small Pictures of these Instruments as they were in use amongst the Ancients Toga Tunica Pallium are Words easily translated by Gown Coat and Cloak but we have thereby no more true Ideas of the fashion of those Habits amongst the Romans than we have of the Faces of the Taylors who made them Such Things as these which the Eye distinguishes by their shapes would be best let into the Mind by Draughts made of them and more determine the signification of such Words than any other Words set for them or made use of to define them But this only by the bye § 26. Fifthly If Men will not be at the pains to declare the meaning of their Words and Definitions of their Terms are not to be had yet this is the least that can be expected that in all Discourses wherein one Man pretends to instruct or convince another he should use the same Word constantly in the same sense If this were done which no body can refuse without great disingenuity many of the Books extant might be spared many of the Controversies in Dispute would be at an end several of those great Volumes swollen with ambiguous Words now used in one sense and by and by in another would shrink into a very narrow compass and many of the Philosophers to mention no others as well as Poets Works might be contained in a Nut-shell § 27. But after all Words are so scanty in respect of that infinite variety is in Mens Thoughts that Men wanting Terms to suit their precise Notions will notwithstanding their utmost caution be forced often to use the same Word in somewhat different senses And though in the
ordered as to reflect the greater number of Globules of Light and to give them that proper Rotation which is fit to produce this Sensation of White in us the more White will that Body appear that from an equal space sends to the Retina the greater number of such Corpuscles with that peculiar sort of Motion I do not say that the nature of Light consists in very small round Globules nor of Whiteness in such a texture of parts as gives a certain Rotation to these Globules when it reflects them for I am not now treating physically of Light or Colours But this I think I may say that I cannot and I would be glad any one would make intelligible that he did conceive how Bodies without us can any ways affect our Senses but by the immediate contact of the sensible Bodies themselves as in Tasting and Feeling or the impulse of some insensible Particles coming from them as in Seeing Hearing and Smelling by the different impulse of which Parts caused by their different Size Figure and Motion the variety of Sensations is produced in us § 12. Whether then they be Globules or no or whether they have a Verticity about their own Centres that produce the Idea of Whiteness in us this is certain that the more Particles of Light are reflected from a Body fitted to give them that peculiar Motion which produces the Sensation of Whiteness in us and possibly too the quicker the peculiar Motion is the whiter does the Body appear from which the greater number are reflected as is evident in the same piece of Paper put in the Sun-beams in the Shade and in a dark Hole in each of which it will produce in us the Idea of Whiteness in far different degrees § 13. Not knowing therefore what number of Particles nor what Motion of them is fit to produce any precise degree of Whiteness we cannot demonstrate the certain Equality of any two degrees of Whiteness because we have no certain Standard to measure them by nor Means to distinguish every the least real difference the only help we have being from our Senses which in this point fail us But where the difference is so great as to produce in the Mind clearly distinct Ideas whose differences can be perfectly retained there these Ideas of Colours as we see in different kinds as Blue and Red are as capable of Demonstration as Ideas of Number and Extension What I have here said of Whiteness and Colours I think holds true in all secundaries Qualities and their Modes § 14. These two viz. Intuition and Demonstration are the degrees of our Knowledge whatever comes short of one of these with what assurance soever embraced is but Faith or Opinion but not Knowledge at least in all general Truths There is indeed another Perception of the Mind employ'd about the particular existence of finite Beings without us which going beyond bare probability and yet not reaching perfectly to either of the fore-going degrees of Certainty passes under the name of Knowledge There can be nothing more certain than that the Idea we receive from an external Object is in our Minds this is intuitive Knowledge But whether there be any thing more than barely that Idea in our Minds whether we can thence certainly infer the existence of any thing without us which corresponds to that Idea is that whereof some Men think there may be a Question made because Men may have such Ideas in their Minds when no such Thing exists no such Object affects their Senses But yet here I think we are provided with an Evidence that puts us past doubting For I ask any one Whether he be not invincibly conscious to himself of a different Perception when he looks on the Sun by day and thinks on it by night when he actually tastes Wormwood or smells a Rose or only thinks on that Savour or Odour We as plainly find the difference there is between any Idea revived in our Minds by our own Memory and actually coming into our Minds by our Senses as we do between any two distinct Ideas If any one say a Dream may do the same thing and all these Ideas may be produced in us without any external Objects he may please to dream that I make him this answer 1. That 't is no great matter whether I remove his Scruple or no Where all is but dream Reasoning and Arguments are of no use Truth and Knowledge nothing 2. That I believe he will allow a very manifest difference between dreaming of being in a Fire and being actually in it But yet if he be resolved to appear so sceptical as to maintain that what I call being actually in the Fire is nothing but a dream and that we cannot thereby certainly know that any such thing as Fire actually exists without us I answer That we certainly finding that Pleasure or Pain follows upon the application of certain Objects to us whose Existence we perceive or dream that we perceive by our Senses this Certainty is as great as our Happiness or Misery beyond which we have no concernment to know or to be So that I think we may add to the two former sorts of Knowledge this also of the existence of particular external Objects by that perception and consciousness we have of the actual entrance of Ideas from them and allow these three degrees of Knowledge viz. Intuitive Demonstrative and Sensitive in each of which there are different degrees and ways of Evidence and Certainty § 15. But since our Knowledge is founded on and employ'd about only our Ideas Will it not follow from thence that it is conformable to our Ideas and that where our Ideas are clear and distinct or obscure and confused our Knowledge will be so too To which I answer No For our Knowledge consisting in the perception of the Agreement or Disagreement of any two Ideas its clearness or obscurity consists in the clearness or obscurity of that Perception and not in the clearness or obscurity of the Ideas themselves v. g. a Man that has as clear Ideas of the Angles of a Triangle and of Equality to two right ones as any Mathematician in the World may yet have but a very obscure Perception of their Agreement and so have but a very obscure Knowledg of it But obscure and confused Ideas can never produce any clear or distinct Knowledge because as far as any Ideas are confused or obscure so far the Mind can never perceive clearly whether they agree or disagree CHAP. III. Of the Extent of Humane Knowledge § 1. KNowledge as has been said lying in the Perception of the Agreement or Disagreement of any of our Ideas it follows from hence That First We can have Knowledge no farther than we have Ideas § 2. Secondly That we can have no Knowledge farther than we can have Perception of that Agreement or Disagreement Which Perception being 1. Either by Intuition or the immediate comparing any two Ideas or 2. By Reason
the Figure of any of the Wheels the dissolving of Silver in aqua fortis and Gold in aq regia and not vice versa would be then perhaps no more difficult to know than it is to a Smith to understand why the turning of one Key will open a Lock and not the turning of another But whilst we are destitute of Senses acute enough to discover the minute Particles of Bodies and to give us Ideas of their mechanical Affections we must be content to be ignorant of their properties and ways of Operation nor can we be assured about them any farther than some few Trials we make are able to reach But whether they will succeed again another time we cannot be certain This hinders our certain Knowledge of universal Truths concerning natural Bodies And our Reason carries us herein very little beyond particular matter of Fact § 26. And therefore I am apt to doubt that how far soever humane Industry may advance useful and experimental Philosophy in physical Things scientifical will still be out of our reach because we want perfect and adequate Ideas of those very Bodies which are nearest to us and most under our Command Those which we have ranked into Classes under names and we think our selves best acquainted with we have but very imperfect and incompleat Ideas of Distinct Ideas of the several sorts of Bodies that fall under the Examination of our Senses perhaps we may have but adequate Ideas I suspect we have not of any one amongst them And though the former of these will serve us for common Use and Discourse yet whilst we want the latter we are not capable of scientifical Knowledge nor shall ever be able to discover general instructive Truths concerning them Certainty and Demonstration are Things we must not in these Matters pretend to By the Colour Figure Taste and Smell and other sensible Qualities we have as clear and distinct Ideas of Sage and Hemlock as we have of a Circle and a Triangle But having no Ideas of the particular primary Qualities of the minute parts of either of these Plants nor of other Bodies we would apply them to we cannot tell what effects they will produce Nor when we see those Effects can we so much as guess much less know their manner of production Thus having no Ideas of the particular mechanical Affections of the minute parts of Bodies that are within our view and reach we are ignorant of their Constitutions Powers and Operations and of Bodies more remote we are ignorant of their very outward Shapes and Beings § 27. This at first sight will shew us how disproportionate our Knowledge is to the whole extent even of material Beings to which if we add the Consideration of that infinite number of Spirits that may be and probably are which are yet more remote from our Knowledge whereof we have no cognizance nor can frame to our selves any distinct Ideas of their several ranks and sorts we shall find this cause of Ignorance conceal from us in an impenetrable obscurity almost the whole intellectual World a greater certainly and more beautiful World than the material For bating some very few and those if I may so call them superficial Ideas which Spirit we by reflection get of our own and of the Father of all Spirits the eternal independent Author of them and us and all Things we have no certain information so much as of their Existence but by revelation Angels of all sorts are naturally beyond our discovery And all those Intelligences whereof 't is likely there are more Orders than of corporeal Substances are Things whereof our natural Faculties give us no certain account at all That there are Minds and thinking Beings in other Men as well as himself every Man has a reason from their Words and Actions to be satisfied But between us and the Great GOD we can have no certain knowledge of the Existence of any Spirits but by revelation much less have we distinct Ideas of their different Natures Conditions States Powers and several Constitutions wherein they agree or differ from one another and from us And therefore in what concerns their different Species and Properties we are under an absolute ignorance § 28. Secondly What a small part of the substantial Beings that are in the Universe the want of Ideas leave open to our Knowledge we have seen In the next place another cause of Ignorance of no less moment is the want of a discoverable Connexion between those Ideas we have For where-ever we want that we are utterly uncapable of universal and certain Knowledge and are as in the former case left only to Observation and Experiment which how narrow and confined it is how far from general Knowledge we need not be told I shall give some few instances of this cause of our Ignorance and so leave it 'T is evident that the bulk figure and motion of several Bodies about us produce in us several Sensations as of Colours Sounds Tastes or Smells Pleasure and Pain c. those mechanical Affections of Bodies having no affinity at all with these Ideas they produce in us there being no conceivable connexion between any impulse of any sort of Body and any perception of a Colour or Smell we find in our Minds we can have no distinct knowledge of such Operations beyond our Experience and can reason no otherwise about them than as the effects or appointment of an infinitely Wise Agent which perfectly surpass our Comprehensions As the Ideas of sensible secundary Qualities we have in our Minds can by us be no way deduced from bodily Causes nor any correspondence or connexion be found between them and those primary Qualities which Experience shews us produce them in us so on the other side the Opetions of our Minds upon our Bodies is as unconceivable How any thought should produce a motion in Body is as remote from the nature of our Ideas as how any Body should produce any Thought in the Mind That it is so if Experience did not convince us the Considerations of the Things themselves would never be able in the least to discover to us These and the like though they have a constant and regular connexion in the ordinary course of Things yet that connexion being not discoverable in the Ideas themselves which appearing to have no necessary dependence one on another we can attribute their connexion to nothing else but the arbitrary Determination of that All-wise Agent who has made them to be and to operate as they do in a way utterly above our weak Understanding to conceive § 29. In some of our Ideas there are certain Relations Habitudes and Connexions so visibly included in the Nature of the Ideas themselves that we cannot conceive them separable from them by any Power whatsoever And in these only we are capable of certain and universal Knowledge Thus the Idea of a right-lined Triangle necessarily carries with it an equality of its Angles to two right ones
Nor can we conceive this Relation this connexion of these two Ideas to be possibly mutable or depend on any arbitrary Power which of choice made it thus or could make it otherwise But the coherence and continuity of the parts of Matter the production of Sensation in us of Colours and Sounds c. by impulse and motion nay the original Rules and Communication of Motion being such wherein we can discover no natural connexion with any Ideas we have we cannot but ascribe them to the arbitrary Will and good Pleasure of the Wise Architect I need not I think here mention the Resurrection of our Bodies the future state of this Globe of Earth and such other Things which are by every one acknowledged to depend wholly on the Determination of a free Agent The Things that as far as our Observation reaches we constantly find to proceed regularly we may conclude do act by a Law set them but yet a Law that we know not whereby though Causes work steddily and Effects constantly flow from them yet their Connexions and Dependencies being not discoverable in our Ideas we can have but an experimental Knowledge of them From all which 't is easie to perceive what a darkness we are involved in how little 't is of being and the things that are that we are capable to know And therefore we shall do no injury to our Knowledge when we modestly think with our selves that we are so far from being able to comprehend the whole nature of the Universe and all the things contained in it that we are not capable of a philosophical Knowledge of the Bodies that are about us and make a part of us Concerning their secundary Qualities Powers and Operations we can have no universal certainty Several Effects come every day within the notice of our Senses of which we have so far sensitive Knowledge but the causes manner and certainty of their production for the two foregoing Reasons we must be content to be ignorant of In these we can go no farther than particular Experience informs us of matter of fact and by Analogy to guess what Effects the like Bodies are upon other tryals like to produce But as to a perfect Science of natural Bodies not to mention spiritual Beings we are I think so far from being capable of any such thing that I conclude it lost labour to seek after it § 30. Thirdly Where we have adequate Ideas and where there is a certain and discoverable connexion between them yet we are often ignorant for want of tracing those Ideas we have or may have and finding out those intermediate Ideas which may shew us what habitude of agreement or disagreement they have one with another And thus many are ignorant of mathematical Truths not out of any imperfection of their Faculties or uncertainty in the Things themselves but for want of application in acquâ—ring examining and by due ways comparing those Ideas That which has most contributed to hinder the due tracing of our Ideas and finding out their Relations and Agreements or Disagreements one with another has been I suppose the ill use of Words It is impossible that Men should ever truly seek or certainly discover the Agreement or Disagreement of Ideas themselves whilst their Thoughts flutter about or stick only in Sounds of doubtful and uncertain significations Mathematicians abstracting their Thoughts from Names and accustoming themselves to set before their Minds the Ideas themselves that they would consider and not Sounds instead of them have avoided thereby a great part of that perplexity puddering and confusion which has so much hindred Mens progress in other parts of Knowledge who sticking in Words of undetermined and uncertain signification were unable to distinguish True from False Certain from Probable Consistent from Inconsistent in their own Opinions Whereby the increase brought into the Stock of real Knowledge has been very little in proportion to the Schools Disputes and Writings the World has been fill'd with whilst Men being lost in the great Wood of Words knew not whereabout they were how far their Discoveries were advanced or what was wanting in their own or the general Stock of Knowledge Had Men in their discoveries of the material done as they have in those of the intellectual World involved all in the obscurity of uncertain and doubtful terms and ways of talking Volumes writ of Navigation and Voyages Theories and Stories of Zones and Tydes multiplied and disputed nay Ships built and Fleets set out would never have taught us the way beyond the Line and the Antipodes would be still as much unknown as when it was declared Heresie to hold there were any But having spoken sufficiently of Words and the ill or careless use that is commonly made of them I shall not say any thing more of it here § 31. Hitherto we have examined the extent of our Knowledge in respect of the several sorts of Beings that are There is another extent of it in respect of Vniversality which will also deserve to be considered and in this regard our Knowledge follows the Nature of our Ideas If the Ideas are abstract whose agreement or disagreement we perceive our Knowledge is universal For what is known of such general Ideas will be true of every particular thing in whom that Essence i. e. that abstract Idea is to be found and what is once known of such Ideas will be perpetually and for ever true So that as to all general Knowledge we must search and find it only in our own Minds and 't is only the examining of our own Ideas that furnisheth us with that Truths belonging to Essences of Things that is to abstract Ideas are eternal and are to be found out by the contemplation only of those Essences as the Existence of Things is to be known only from Experience But having more to of this in the Chapters where I shall speak of general and real Knowledge this may here suffice as to the Universality of our Knowledge in general CHAP. IV. Of the Reality of our Knowledge § 1. I doubt not but my Reader by this time may be apt to think that I have been all this while only building a Castle in the Air and be ready to say to me To what purpose all this stir Knowledge say you is only the perception of the agreement or disagreement of our own Ideas but who knows what those Ideas may be Is there any thing so extravagant as the Imaginations of Men's Brains Where is the Head that has no Chimeras in it Or if there be a sober and a wise Man what difference will there be by your Rules between his Knowledge and that of the most extravagant Fancy in the World They both have their Ideas and perceive their agreement and disagreement one with another If there be any difference between them the advantage will be on the warm-headed Man's side as having the more Ideas and the more lively And so by your Rules he will be the more
so remote from that internal real Constitution on which their sensible Qualities depend and are made up of nothing but an imperfect Collection of those apparent Qualities our Senses can discover there can be very few general Propositions concerning Substances of whose real Truth we can be certainly assured since there are but few simple Ideas of whose connexion and necessary co-existence we can have certain and undoubted Knowledge I imagine amongst all the secundary Qualities of Substances and the Powers relating to them there cannot any two be named whose necessary co-existence or repugnance to co-exist can certainly be known unless in those of the same sense which necessarily exclude one another as I have elsewhere shewed No one I think by the Colour that is in any Body can certainly know what Smell Taste Sound or tangible Qualities it has nor what Alterations it is capable to make or receive on or from other Bodies the same may be said of the Sound or Taste c. Our specifick Names of Substances signifying any Collections of such Ideas 't is not to be wondred that we can with them make very few general Propositions of undoubted real certainty but yet so far as any complex Idea of any sort of Substances contains in it any simple Idea whose necessary co-existence with any other may be discovered so far universal Propositions may with certainty be made concerning it v. g. Could any one discover a necessary connexion between Malleableness and the Colour or Weight of Gold or any other part of the complex Idea signified by that Name he might make a certain universal Proposition concerning Gold in this respect and the real Truth of this Proposition That all Gold is malleable would be as certain as of this The three Angles of all right-lined Triangles are equal to two right ones § 11. Had we such Ideas of Substances as to know what real Constitutions produce those sensible Qualities we find in them and how those Qualities flowed from thence we could by the specifick Ideas of their real Essences in our own Minds more certainly find out their Properties and discover what Qualities they had or had not than we can now by our Senses and to know the Properties of Gold it would be no more necessary that Gold should exist and that we should make Experiments upon it than it is necessary for the knowing the Properties of a Triangle that a Triangle should exist in any Matter the Idea in our Minds would serve for the one as well as the other But we are so far from being admitted into the Secrets of Nature that we scarce so much as ever approach the first entrance towards them For we are wont to consider the Substances we meet with each of them as an entire thing by it self having all its Qualities in it self and independent of other Things overlooking for the most part the Operations of those invisible Fluids they are encompassed with and upon whose Motions and operations depend the greatest part of those qualities which are taken notice of in them and are made by us the inherent marks of Distinction whereby we know and denominate them Put a piece of Gold any where by it self let no other Body encompass it it will immediately lose all its Colour and Weight and perhaps Malleableness too which for ought I know would be changed into a perfect Friability Water in which to us Fluidity is an essential Quality left to it self would cease to be fluid But if inanimate Bodies owe so much of their present state to other Bodies without them that they would not be what they appear to us were those Bodies that environ them removed it is yet more so in Vegetables which are nourished grow and produce Leaves Flowers and Seeds in a constant Succession And if we look a little nearer into the state of Animals we shall find that their Dependence as to Life Motion and the most considerable Qualities to be observed in them is so wholly on extrinsical Causes and Qualities of other Bodies that make no part of them that they cannot subsist a moment without them though yet those Bodies on which they depend are little taken notice of and make no part of the complex Ideas we frame of those Animals Take the Air but a minute from the greatest part of living Creatures and they presently lose Sense Life and Motion This the necessity of breathing has forced into our Knowledge But how many other extrinsical and possibly very remote Bodies do the Springs of those admirable Machines depend on which are not vulgarly observed or so much as thought on and how many are there which the severest Enquiry can never discover The Inhabitants of this spot of the Universe though removed so many millions of Miles from the Sun yet depend so much on the duly tempered motion of Particles coming from or agitated by it that were this Earth removed but a small part of that distance out of its present situation and placed a little farther or nearer that Source of Heat 't is more than probable that the greatest part of the Animals in it would immediately perish since we find them so often destroy'd by an excess or defect of the Sun's warmth which an accidental position in some parts of this our little Globe exposes them to The Qualities observed in a Load-stone must needs have their Source far beyond the Confines of that Body and the ravage made often on several sorts of Animals by invisible Causes the certain death as we are told of some of them by barely passing the Line or as 't is certain of others by being removed into a Neighbouring-Country evidently shew that the Concurrence and Operation of several Bodies with which they are seldom thought to have any thing to do is absolutely necessary to make them be what they appear to us and to preserve those Qualities we know and distinguish them by We are then quite out of the way when we think that Things contain within themselves the Qualities that appear to us in them And we in vain search for that Constitution within the Body of a Fly or an Elephant upon which depend those Qualities and Powers we observe in them for which perhaps to understand them aright we ought to look not only beyond this our Earth and Atmosphere but even beyond the Sun or remotest Star our Eyes have yet discovered For how much the Being and Operation of particular Substances in this our Globe depend on Causes utterly beyond our view is impossible for us to determine We see and perceive some of the Motions and grosser Operations of Things here about us but whence the Streams come that keep all these curious Machines in motion and repair how conveyed and modified is beyond our notice and apprehension and the great Parts and Wheels as I may so say of this stupendious Structure of the Universe may for ought we know have such a connexion and dependence in their Influences
But if another shall come and make to himself another Idea different from Cartes of the thing which yet with Cartes he calls by the same name Body and make his Idea which he expresses by the word Body to consist of Extension and Solidity together he will as easily demonstrate that there may be a Vacuum or Space without a Body as Cartes demonstrated the contrary because the Idea to which he gives the name Space being bare Extension and the Idea to which he gives the name Body being the complex Idea of Extension and Resistibility or Solidity together these two Ideas are not exactly one and the same but in the Understanding as distinct as the Ideas of One and Two White and Black or as of Corporeity and Humanity if I may use those barbarous terms And therefore the predication of them in our Minds or in Words standing for them is not identical but the negation of them one of another as certain and evident as that it is impossible for the same thing to be and not to be § 14. But yet though both these Propositions as you see may be equally demonstrated viz. That there may be a Vacuum and that there cannot be a Vacuum by these two certain Principles viz. What is is and the same thing cannot be and not be yet neither of these Principles will serve to prove to us that any or what Bodies do exist for that we are leâ—t to our Senses to discover to us as far as they can Those universal and self-evident Principles being only our constant clear and distinct Knowledge of our own Ideas more general or comprehensive can assure us of nothing that passes without the Mind their certainty is founded only upon the Knowledge we have of each Idea by its self and of its distinction from others about which we cannot be mistaken whilst they are in our Minds though we may and often are mistaken when we retain the Names without the Ideas or use them confusedly sometimes for one and sometimes for another Idea In which cases the sorce of these Axioms reaching only to the Sound and not the Signfication of the Words serves only to lead us into Confusion Mistake and Errour § 15. But let them be of what use they will in verbal Propositions they cannot discover or prove to us the least Knowledge of the Nature of Substances as they are found and exist without us any farther than grounded on Experience And though the consequence of these two Propositions called Principles be very clear and their use not very dangerous or hurtful in the probation of such Things wherein there is no need at all of them for proof but such as are clear by themselves without them viz. where our Ideas are clear and distinct and known by the Names that stand for them yet when these Principles viz. What is is and It is impossible for the same thing to be and not to be are made use of in the probation of Propositions wherein are Words standing for complex Ideas v. g Man Horse Gold Vertue there they are of infinite danger and most commonly make Men receive and retain Falshood for manifest Truth and Uncertainty for Demonstration upon which follows Errour Obstinacy and all the mischiefs that can happen from wrong reasoning The reason whereof is not that these Principles are less true in such Propositions consisting of Words standing for complex Ideas than in those of simple Ideas But because Men mistake generally thinking such Propositions to be about the reality of Things and not the bare signification of Words when indeed they are for the most part nothing else as is clear in the demonstration of Vacuum where the word Body sometimes stands for one Idea and sometimes for another But shall be yet made more manifest § 16. As for instance Let Man be that concerning which you would by these first Principles demonstrate any thing and we shall see that so far as demonstration is by these Principles it is only verbal and gives us no certain universal true Proposition or knowledge of any Being existing without us First a Child having framed the Idea of a Man it is probable that his Idea is just like that picture which the Painter makes of the visible appearances joined together and such a complexion of Ideas together in his Understanding makes up the single complex Idea which he calls Man whereof White or Flesh-colour in England being one the Child can demonstrate to you that a Negro is not a Man because White-colour was one of the constant simple Ideas of the complex Idea he calls Man and therefore he can demonstrate by the Principle It is impossible for the same Thing to be and not to be that a Negro is not a Man the foundation of his Certainty being not that universal Proposition which perhaps he never heard nor thought of but the clear distinct perception he hath of his own simple Ideas of Black and White which he cannot be persuaded to take nor can ever mistake one for another whether he knows that Maxim or no And to this Child or any one who hath such an Idea which he calls Man Can you never demonstrate that a Man hath a Soul because his Idea of Man includes no such Notion or Idea in it And therefore to him the Principle of What is is proves not this matter but it depends upon Collection and Observation by which he is to make his complex Idea called Man § 17. Secondly Another that hath gone farther in framing and collecting the Idea he calls Man and to the outward Shape adds Laughter and rational Discourse may demonstrate that Infants and Changelings are no Men by this Maxim It is impossible for the same Thing to be and not to be And I have discoursed with very rational Men who have actually denied that they are Men. § 18. Thirdly Perhaps another makes us the complex Idea which he calls Man only out of the Ideas of Body in general and the Powers of Language and Reason and leaves out the Shape wholly This Man is able to demonstrate that a Man may have no Hands but be Quadrupes neither of those being included in his Idea of Man and in whatever Body or Shape he found Speech and Reason join'd that was a Man because having a clear knowledge of such a complex Idea it is certain that What is is § 19. So that if rightly considered I think we may say that where our Ideas are clear and distinct and the Names agreed on that shall stand for each clear and distinct Idea there is little need or no use at all of these Maxims to prove the agreement or disagreement of any of them He that cannot discern the Truth or Falshood of such Propositions without the help of these and the like Maxims will not be helped by these Maxims to do it since he cannot be supposed to know the Truth of these Maxims themselves without proof if he cannot know
the Truth of others without proof which are as self-evident as these And upon the very same grounds intuitive Knowledge neither requires nor admits any proof one part of it more than another He that will suppose it does take away the foundation of all Knowledge and Certainty And he that needs any proof to make him certain and give his Assent to this Proposition that Two is equal to Two will also have need of a proof to make him admit that What is is He that needs a probation to convince him that Two is not Three that White is not Black that a Triangle is not a Circle c. or any other two clear distinct Ideas are not one and the same will need also a demonstration to convince him that it is impossible for the same thing to be and not to be § 20. And as these Maxims are of little use where we have clear and distinct Ideas so they are as I have shewed of dangerous use where our Ideas are not clear and distinct and where we use Words that are not annexed to clear and distinct Ideas but to such as are of a loose and wandering signification sometimes standing for one and sometimes for another Idea from which follows mistake and errour which these Maxims brought as proofs to establish Propositions wherein the terms stand for confused or uncertain Ideas do by their Authority confirm and rivet CHAP. VIII Of Trifling Propositions § 1. WHether the Maxims treated of in the fore-going Chapter be of that use to real Knowledge as is generally supposed I leave to be considered This I think may confidently be affirmed That there are universal Propositions that though they be certainly true yet they add no light to our Understandings bring no increase to our Knowledge Such are § 2. First All purely identical Propositions These obviously and at first blush appear to contain no Instruction in them For when we affirm the same term of it self whether it be barely verbal or whether it contains any clear and real Idea it shews us nothing but what we must certainly know before whether such a Proposition be either made by or proposed to us Indeed that most general one What is is may serve sometimes to shew a Man the absurdity he is guilty of when by circumlocution or equivocal terms he would in particular instances deny the same thing of it self because no body will so openly bid defiance to common sense as to affirm visible and direct Contradictions in plain Words Or if he does a Man is excused if he break off any farther discourse with him But yet I think I may say that neither that received Maxim nor any other identical Proposition teaches us any thing And though in such kind of Propositions this great and magnified Maxim boasted to be the foundation of Demonstration may be and often is made use of to confirm them yet all it proves amounts to no more than this That the same Word may with great certainty be affirmed of it self without any doubt of the Truth of any such Proposition and let me add also without any real Knowledge § 3. For at this rate any very ignorant person who can but make a Proposition and knows what he means when he says Ay or No may make a million of Propositions of whose Truth he may be infallibly certain and yet not know one thing in the World thereby v. g. what is a Soul is a Soul◠or a Soul is a Soul a Spirit is a Spirit a Fetiche is a Fetiche c. These all being equivalent to this Proposition viz. What is is i. e. what hath Existence hath Existence or who hath a Soul hath a Soul What is this more than trifling with Words It is but like a Monkey shifting his Oyster from one hand to the other and had he had but Words might no doubt have said Oyster in right hand is subject and Oyster in left hand is predicate and so might have made a self-evident Proposition of Oyster i. e. Oyster is Oyster and yet with all this not have been one whit the wiser or more knowing and that way of handling the matter would much at one have satisfied the Monkey's Hunger or a Man's Understanding and they would have improved in Knowledge and bulk together § 4. Secondly Another sort of trifling Propositions is when a part of the complex Idea is predicated of the Name of the whole a part of the definition of the Word defined Such are all Propositions wherein the Genus is predicated of the Species or more comprehensive of less comprehensive terms◠For what Information what Knowledge carries this Preposition in it viz. Lead is a Metal to a Man who knows the complex Idea the name Lead stands for All the simple Ideas that go to the complex one signified by the term Metal being nothing but what he before comprehended and signified by the name Lead Indeed to a Man that knows the signification of the word Metal and not of the word Lead it is a shorter way to explain the signification of the word Lead by saying it is a Metal which at once expresses several of its simple Ideas than to enumerate them one by one telling him it is a Body very heavy fusible and malleable § 5. Alike trifling it is to predicate any other part of the Definition of the Term defined or to affirm any one of the simple Ideas of a complex one of the name of the whole complex Idea as all Gold is fusible For Fusibility being one of the simple Ideas that goes to the making up the complex one the sound Gold stands for what can it be but playing with Sounds by affirming that of the name Gold which is comprehended in its received signification 'T would be thought little better than ridiculous to affirm gravely as a Truth of moment that Gold is yellow and I see not how it is any jot more material to say It is fusible unless that Quality be left out of the complex Idea of which the sound Gold is the mark in ordinary speech What Instruction can it carry with it to tell one that which he hath been told already or he is supposed to know before For I am supposed to know the signification of the Word another uses to me or else he is to tell me And if I know that the name Gold stands for this complex Idea of Body Yellow Heavy Fusible Malleable 't will not much instruct me to put it solemnly afterwards in a Proposition and gravely say All Gold is fusible Such Propositions can only serve to shew the disingenuity of one who will go from the definition of his own Terms by re-minding him sometimes of it but carry no Knowledge with them but of the signification of Words however certain they be § 6. Every Man is an Animal or living Body is as certain a Proposition as can be but no more conducing to the Knowledge of Things than to say a Palfry
nothing For Example let us suppose the Matter of the next Peble we meet with eternal closely united and the parts firmly at rest together if there were no other Being in the World Must it not eternally remain so a dead inactive Lump Is it possible to conceive it can add Motion to it self being purely Matter or produce any thing Matter then by its own Strength cannot produce in it self so much as Motion the Motion it has must also be from Eternity or else be produced and added to Matter by some other Being more powerful than Matter Matter as is evident having no◠Power to produce Motion in it self But let us suppose Motion eternal too yet Matter incogitative Matter and Motion whatever changes it might produce of Figure and Bulk could never produce Thought Knowledge will still be as far beyond the Power of Motion and Matter to produce as Matter is beyond the Power of nothing to produce And I appeal to every one 's own Thoughts whether he cannot as easily conceive Matter produced by nothing as Thought to be produced by pure Matter when before there was no such thing as Thought or an intelligent Being existing Divide Matter into as minute parts as you will which we are apt to imagine a sort of spiritualizing or making a thinking thing of it vary the Figure and Motion of it as much as you please a Globe Cube Cone Prism Cylinder c. whos 's Diametres are but 1000000th part of a Gry will operate no otherwise upon other Bodies of proportionable Bulk than those of an inch or foot Diametre and you may as rationally expect to produce Sense Thought and Knowledge by putting together in a certain Figure and Motion gross Particles of Matter as by those that are the very minutest that do any where exist They knock impell and resist one another just as the greater do and that is all they can do So that if we will suppose nothing first or eternal Matter can never begin to be If we suppose bare Matter without Motion eternal Motion can never begin to be If we suppose only Matter and Motion first or eternal Thought can never begin to be Whatsoever therefore is eternal must be a cogitative Being a Spirit Whatsoever is first of all Things must necessarily contain in it and actually have at least all the Perfections that can ever after exist nor can it ever give to another any perfection that it hath not either actually in it self or at least in a higher degree § 11. If therefore it be evident that something necessarily must exist from Eternity 't is also as evident that that Something must necessarily be a cogitative Being For it is as impossible that incogitative Matter should produce a cogitative Being as that nothing or the negation of all Being should produce a positive Being or Matter § 12. Though this discovery of the necessary Existence of an eternal Mind do sufficiently lead us into the Knowledge of a GOD since it will hence follow that all other knowing Beings that have a beginning must depend on him and have no other ways of Knowledge or extent of Power than what he gives them and therefore if he made those he made also the less-excellent pieces of this Universe all inanimate Beings whereby his Omniscience Power and Providence will be established and all his other Attributes necessarily follow yet to clear up this a little farther we will see what Doubts can be raised against it § 13. First Perhaps it will be said that though it be as clear as demonstration can make it that there must be an eternal Being and that Being must also be knowing Yet i◠does not follow but that thinking Being may also be material Let it be so it equally still follows that there is a GOD. For if there be an Eternal Omniscient Omnipotent Being it is certain that there is a GOD whether you imagine that Being to be material or no. But herein I suppose lies the danger and deceit of that Supposition There being no way to avoid the demonstration that there is an eternal knowing Being Men devoted to Matter would willingly have it granted that this knowing Being is material and then letting slide out of their Minds or the Discourse the demonstration whereby an eternal knowing Being was proved necessarily to exist would argue all to be Matter and so deny a GOD that is an eternal cogitative Being whereby they are so far from establishing that they destroy their own Hypothesis For if there can be in their Opinion eternal Matter without an eternal cogitative Being they manifestly separate Matter and Thinking and suppose no necessary connexion of the one with the other and so establish the necessity of an eternal Spirit but not of Matter since it has been proved already that an eternal cogitative Being is unavoidably to be granted Now if Thinking and Matter may be separated the eternal Existence of Matter will not follow from the eternal Existence of a cogitative Being and they suppose it to no purpose § 14. But now let us see how they can satisfie themselves or others that this eternal thinking Being is material First I would ask them Whether they imagine that all Matter every particle of Matter thinks This I suppose they will scarce say since then there would be as many eternal thinking Beings as there are Particles of Matter and so an infinity of Gods And yet if they will not allow Matter as Matter that is every Particle of Matter to be as well cogitative as extended they will have as hard a task to make out to their own Reason cogitative Being out of incogitative Particles as an extended Being out of unextended Parts if I may so speak § 15. Secondly If all Matter do not think I next ask Whether it be only one Atom that does so This has as many Absurdities as the other for then this Atom of Matter must be alone eternal or not If this alone be eternal then this alone by its powerful Thought or Will made all the rest of Matter And so we have the creation of Matter by a powerful Thought which is that the Materialists stick at For if they suppose one single thinking Atom to have produced all the rest of Matter they cannot ascribe that Pre-eminency to it upon any other account than that of its Thinking the only supposed difference But allow it to be by some other way which is above our conception it must be still Creation and these Men must give up their great Maxim Ex nihilo nil fit If it be said that all the rest of Matter is equally eternal as that thinking Atom it will be to say any thing at pleasure though never so absurd For to suppose all Matter eternal and yet one small particle in Knowledge and Power infinitely above all the rest is without any the least appearance of Reason to frame any Hypothesis Every particle of Matter as Matter is capable of all the
this part of the World where Knowledge and Plenty seem to vie each with other yet to any one that will seriously reflect on it I suppose it will appear past doubt that were the use of Iron lost among us we should in a few Ages be unavoidably reduced to the Wants and Ignorance of the ancient savage Americans whose natural Endowments and Provisions come no way short of those of the most flourishing and polite Notions So that he who first made known the use of that one contemptible Mineral may be truly styled the Father of Arts and Author of Plenty § 12. I would not therefore be thought to dis-esteem or dissuade the Study of Nature I readily agree the Contemplation of his Works gives us occasion to admire revere and glorifie their Author and if rightly directed may be of greater benefit to Mankind than the Monuments of exemplary Charity that have at so great Charge been raised by the Founders of Hospitals and Alms-houses He that first invented Printing discovered the Use of the Compass or made publick the Virtue and right Use of Kin Kina did more for the propagation of Knowledge for the acquisition of Conveniencies of Life and saved more from the Grave than those who built Colleges Work-houses and Hospitals All that I would say is that we should not be too forwardly possessed with the Opinion or Expectation of Knowledge where it is not to be had or by Ways that will not attain it That we should not take doubtful Systems for compleat Sciences nor unintelligible Notions for scientifical Demonstrations In the Knowledge of Bodies we must be content to glean what we can from particular Experiments since we cannot from a Discovery of their real Essences grasp at a time whole Sheaves and in bundles comprehend the Nature and Properties of whole Species together Where our Enquiry is concerning Co-existence or Repugnancy to co-exist which by Contemplation of our Ideas we cannot discover there Experience Observation and natural History must give us by our Senses and by retail an insight into corporeal Substances The Knowledge of Bodies we must get by our Senses warily employed in taking notice of their Qualities and Operations on one another and what we hope to know of separated Spirits in this World we must I think expect only from Revelation He that shall consider how little general Maxims precarious Principles and Hypotheses laid down at Pleasure have promoted true Knowledge or helped to satisfie the Enquiries of rational Men after real Improvements How little I say the setting out at the end has for many Ages together advanced Men's Progress towards the Knowledge of natural Philosophy will think we have Reason to thank those Men who in this latter Age have taken another Course and have trod out to us though not an easier way to learned Ignorance yet a surer way to profitable Knowledge § 13. Not that we may not to explain any Phoenomena of Nature make use of any probable Hypothesis whatsoever Hypotheses if they are well made are at least great helps to the Memory and often direct us to new Discoveries But my Meaning is that we should not take up any one too hastily which the Mind that would always penetrate into the Causes of Things and have Principles to rest on is very apt to do till we have very well examined Particulars and made several Experiments in that thing we would explain by our Hypothesis and see whether it will agree to them all whether our Principles will carry us quite through and not be as inconsistent with one Phaenomenon of Nature as they seem to accommodate and explain another And at least that we take care that the Name of Principles deceive us not nor impose on us by making us receive that for an unquestionable Truth which is really at best but a very doubtful conjecture such as are most I had almost said all of the Hypotheses in natural Philosophy § 14. But whether natural Philosophy be capable of Certainty or no the ways to enlarge our Knowledge as far as we are capable seem to me in short to be these two First The First is to get and settle in our Minds as far as we can clear distinct and constant Ideas of those Things we would consider and know For it being evident that our Knowledge cannot exceed our Ideas where they are either imperfect or obscure we cannot expect to have certain and perfect Knowledge Secondly The other is the Art of finding out those intermediate Ideas which may shew us the Agreement or Repugnancy of other Ideas which cannot be immediately compared § 15. That these two and not the relying on Maxims and drawing Consequences from some general Propositions are the right Method of improving our Knowledge in other Ideas of Modes the Consideration of Mathematical Knowledge will easily inform us Where first we shall find that he that has not a perfect and clear Idea of those Angles or Figures of which he desires to know any thing is utterly thereby uncapable of any Knowledge about them Suppose but a Man not to have a perfect exact Idea of a right Angle a Scalenum or Trapezium and there is nothing more clear that he will in vain seek any Demonstration about them And farther it is evident that it was not the influence of those Maxims which are taken for Principles in Mathematicks that hath led the Masters of that Science into those wonderful Discoveries they have made Let a Man of good Parts know all the Maxims generally made use of in Mathematicks never so perfectly and contemplate their Extent and and Consequences as much as he pleases he will by their Assistence I suppose scarce ever come to know that the square of the Hypotieneuson in a right angled Triangle is equal to the squares of the two other sides The Knowledge that the Whole is equal to all its Parts and if you take Equal from Equal the remainder will be Equal c. helped him not I presume to this Demonstration And a Man may I think pore long enough on those Axioms without ever seeing one jot the more of mathematical Truths They have been discovered by the Thoughts otherways applied The Mind had other Objects other Views before it far different from those Maxims when it first got the Knowledge of such kind of Truths in Mathematicks which Men well enough acquainted with those received Axioms but ignorant of their Method who first made these Demonstrations can never sufficiently admire And who knows what Methods may hereafter be found out to enlarge our Knowledge in other Things as well as that of Algebra in Mathematicks which so readily finds out Ideas of Quantities to measure others by whose Equality or Proportion we could otherwise very hardly or perhaps never come to know CHAP. XIII Some farther Considerations concerning our Knowledge § 1. OVr Knowledge as in other Things so in this has a great Conformity with our Sight that it is neither wholly necessary nor
current stream of Antiquity or to put it in the balance against that of some learned Doctor or otherwise approved Writer Whoever backs his Tenets with such Authorities thinks he ought thereby to carry the Cause and is ready to style it Impudence in any one who shall stand out against them This I think may be called Argumentum ad Verecundiam Secondly § 20. Another way that Men ordinarily use to drive others and force them to submit their Judgments and receive the Opinion in debate is to require the Adversary to admit what they alledge as a Proof or to assign a better And this I call Argumentum ad Ignorantiam § 21. Thirdly A third way is to press a Man with Consequences drawn from his own Principles or Concessions This is already known under the Name of Argumentum ad Hominem § 22. Fourthly The fourth is the using of Proofs drawn from any of the Foundations of Knowledge or Probability This I call Argumentum ad Iudicium This alone of all the four brings true Instruction with it and advances us in our way to Knowledge For 1. It argues not another Man's Opinion to be right because I out of respect or any other consideration but that of conviction will not contradict him 2. It proves not another Man to be in the right way nor that I ought to take the same with him because I know not a better 3. Nor does it follow that another Man is in the right way because he has shewn me that I am in the wrong I may be modest and therefore not oppose another Man's Persuasion I may be ignorant and not be able to produce a better I may be in an Errour and another may shew me that I am so This may dispose me perhaps for the reception of Truth but helps me not to it That must come from Proofs and Arguments and light arising from the nature of Things themselves and not from my Shamefacedness Ignorance or Errour § 23. By what has been before said of Reason we may be able to make some guess at th◠distinction of Things into those that are according to above and contrary to Reason 1. According to Reason are such Propositions whose Truth we can discover by examining and tracing those Ideas we have from Sensation and Reflexion and by natural deduction find to be true or probable 2. Above Reason are such Propositions whose Truth or Probability we cannot by Reason derive from those Principles 3. Contrary to Reason are such Propositions as are inconsistent with or irreconcileable to our clear and distinct Ideas Thus the Existence of one GOD is according to Reason the Existence of more than one GOD contrary to Reason the Resurrection of the Body after death above Reason Above Reason also may be taken in a double sense viz. Above Probability or above Certainty and in that large sense also Contrary to Reason is I suppose sometimes taken § 24. There is another use of the word Reason wherein it is opposed to Faith which though it be in it self a very improper way of speaking yet common Use has so authorized it that it would be folly either to oppose or hope to remedy it Only I think it may not be amiss to take notice that however Faith be opposed to Reason Faith is nothing but a firm Assent of the Mind which if it be regulated as is our Duty cannot be afforded to any thing but upon good Reason and so cannot be opposite to it He that believes without having any Reason for believing may be in love with his own Fansies but neither seeks Truth as he ought nor pays the Obedience due to his Maker who would have him use those discerning Faculties he has given him to keep him out of Mistake and Errour He that does not this to the best of his power however he sometimes lights on Truth is in the right but by chance and I know not whether the luckiness of the Accident will excuse the irregularity of his proceeding This at least is certain that he must be accountable for whatever Mistakes he runs into whereas he that makes use of the Light and Faculties GOD has given him and seeks sincerely to discover Truth by those Helps and Abilities he has may have this satisfaction in doing his Duty as a rational Creature that though he should miss Truth he will not miss the Reward of it For he governs his Assent right and places it as he should who in any case or matter whatsoever believes or disbelieves according as Reason directs him He that does otherwise transgresses against his own Light and misuses the Faculties which were given him to no other end but to search and follow the clearer Evidence and greater Probability But since Reason and Faith are by some Men opposed we will so consider them in the following Chapter CHAP. XVIII Of Faith and Reason and their distinct Provinces § 1. IT has been above shewn 1. That we are of necessity ignorant and want Knowledge of all sorts where we want Ideas 2. That we are ignorant and want rational Knowledge where we want Proofs 3. That we want general Knowledge and Certainty as far as we want clear and determined specifick Ideas 4. That we want Probability to direct our Assent in matters where we have neither Knowledge of our own nor Testimony of other Men to bottom our Reason upon From these things thus premised I think we may come to lay down the measures and boundaries between Faith and Reason the want whereof may possibly have been the cause if not of great Disorders yet at least of great Disputes and perhaps Mistakes in the World For till it be resolved how far we are to be guided by Reason and how far by Faith we shall in vain dispute and endeavour to convince one another in Matters of Religion § 2. I find every Sect as far as Reason will help them make use of it gladly and where it fails them they cry out 'T is matter of Faith and above Reason And I do not see how they can ever be convinced by any who makes use of the same plea without setting down strict boundaries between Faith and Reason which ought to be the first point established in all Questions where Faith has any thing to do Reason therefore here as contradistinguished to Faith I take to be the discovery of the Certainty or Probability of such Propositions or Truths which the Mind arrives at by Deductions made from such Ideas which it has got by the use of its natural Faculties viz. by Sensation or Reflexion Faith on the other side is the Assent to any Proposition not thus made out by the Deductions of Reason but upon the Credit of the Proposer as coming immediately from GOD which we call Revelation § 3. First Then I say That no Man inspired by GOD can by any Revelation communicate to others any new simple Ideas which they had not before from Sensation or Reflexion For
whatsoever impressions he himself may have from the immediate hand of GOD this Revelation if it be of new simple Ideas cannot be conveyed to another either by Words or any other signs because Words by their immediate Operation on us cause no other Ideas but of their natural Sounds and 't is by the Custom of using them for Signs that they excite and revive in our Minds latent Ideas but yet only such Ideas as were there before For Words seen or heard recall to our Thoughts those Ideas only which to us they have been wont to be Signs of but cannot introduce any perfectly new simple Ideas which were never there before The same holds in all other Signs which cannot signifie to us Things of which we have before never had any Ideas at all Thus whatever Things were discovered to St. Paul when he was rapp'd up into the Third Heaven whatever new Ideas his Mind there received all the description he can make to others of that Place is only this That there are such Things as Eye hath not seen nor Ear heard nor hath it entred into the Heart of Man to conceive And supposing God should discover to any one supernaturally a Species of Creatures inhabiting For Example Iupiter or Saturn for that it is possible there may be such no body can deny which had six Senses and imprint on his Mind the Ideas convey'd to theirs by that sixth Sense he could no more by Words produce in the Minds of other Men those Ideas imprinted by that sixth Sense than one of us could convey the Idea of any Colour by the sound of Words into a Man who having the other four Senses perfect had always totally wanted the fifth of Seeing For our simple Ideas then which are the Foundation and sole Matter of all our Notions and Knowledge we must depend wholly on our Reason I mean our natural Faculties and can by no means receive them or any of them from Traditional Revelation I say Traditional Revelation in distinction to Original Revelation By the one I mean that first Impression which is made immediately by GOD on the Mind of any Man to which I pretend not to set any Bounds and by the other those Impressions delivered over to others in Words and the ordinary ways of conveying our Conceptions one to another § 4. Secondly I say that the same Truths may be discovered and conveyed down from Revelation which are discoverable to us by Reason and those clear Ideas we have So God might by Revelation discover the Truth of any Proposition in Euclid as well as Men by the natural use of their Faculties come to make the discovery themselves In all Things of this Nature there is little need or use of Revelation GOD having furnished us with natural and surer means to arrive at the Knowledge of them For whatsoever Truth we come to the discovery of from the Knowledge and Contemplation of our own clear Ideas will always be certainer to us than those which are conveyed to us by Traditional Revelation for the Knowledge we have that this Revelation came at first from GOD can never be so sure as the Knowledge we have from our own clear and distinct Ideas As if it were revealed some Ages since That the three Angles of a Triangle were equal to two right ones I might assent to the Truth of that Proposition upon the Credit of the Tradition that it was revealed but that would never amount to so great a Certainty as the Knowledge of it upon the comparing and measuring my own clear Ideas of two right Angles and the three Angles of a Triangle The like holds in Matter of Fact knowable by our Senses v. g. the History of the Deluge is conveyed to us by Writings which had their Original from Revelation and yet no body I think will say he has as certain and clear a Knowledge of the Flood as Noah that saw it or that he himself would have had had he then been alive and seen it For he has no greater an assurance than that of his Senses that it is writ in the Book supposed writ by Moses but he has not so great an assurance that Moses writ that Book as if he had seen Moses write it so that the assurance of its being a Revelation is less still than the assurance of his Senses § 5. In Propositions then whose Certainty is built upon clear and perfect Ideas and evident Deductions of Reason we need not the assistence of Revelation as necessary to gain our Assent and introduce them into our Minds Because the natural ways of Knowledge could settle them there or had done it already which is the greatest assurance we can possibly have of any thing unless where God immediately reveals it to us and there too our Assurance can be no greater than our Knowledge is that it is a Revelation from God But yet nothing I think can under that Title shake or over-rule plain Knowledge nor rationally prevail with any Man to admit it for true in a direct contradiction to the clear Evidence of his own Understanding For since no Evidence of our Faculties by which we receive such Revelations can exceed if equal the Certainty of our intuitive Knowledge we can never receive for a Truth any thing that is directly contrary to our clear and distinct Knowledge v. g. The Idea of one Body and one Place does so clearly agree and the Mind has so evident a Perception of it that we can never assent to a Proposition that affirms the same Body to be in two distant Places at once however it should pretend to the Authority of a divine Revelation since the Evidence First That we deceive not our selves in ascribing it to GOD Secondly That we understand it right can never be so great as the Evidence of our own intuitive Knowledge whereby we discern it impossible for the same Body to be in two Places at once And therefore no Proposition can be received for divine Revelation or obtain the Assent due to all such if it be contradictory to our clear intuitive Knowledge Since this would be to subvert the Principles and Foundations of all Knowledge Evidence and Assent whatsoever and leave no difference between Truth and Falshood no measures of Credible and Incredible in the World if doubtful Propositions shall take place before self-evident and what we certainly know give way to what we may possibly be mistaken in In Propositions therefore contrary to our distinct and clear Ideas 't will be in vain to urge them as Matters of Faith They cannot move our Assent under that or any other Title whatsoever For Faith can never convince us of any thing that contradicts our Knowledge Because though Faith be founded on the Testimony of God revealing any Proposition to us who cannot lie yet we cannot have an assurance of the Truth of its being a divine Revelation greater than our own Knowledge since the whole strength of the Certainty depends upon
Probability there I think it is not in our Choice to take which side we please if manifest odds appears on either The greater Probability I think in that Case will determine the Assent and a Man can no more avoid assenting or taking it to be true where he perceives the greater Probability than he can avoid knowing it to be true where he perceives the Agreement or Disagreement of any two Ideas If this be so the Foundation of Errour will lie in wrong Measures of Probability as the Foundation of Vice in wrong Measures of Good § 17. Fourthly The fourth and last wrong Measure of Probability I shall take notice of and which keeps in Ignorance or Error more People than all the other together is that which I have mentioned in the fore-going Chapter I mean the giving up our Assent to the common received Opinions either of our Friends or Party Neighbourhood or Country How many Men have no other ground for their Tenets than the supposed Honesty or Learning or Number of those of the same Profession As if honest or bookish Men could not err or Truth were to be established by the Vote of the Multitude yet this with most Men serves the Turn The Tenet has had the attestation of reverend Antiquity it comes to me with the Pass-port of former Ages and therefore I am secure in the Reception I give it other Men have been and are of the same Opinion for that is all is said and therefore it is reasonable for me to embrace it A Man may more justifiably throw up Cross and Pile for his Opinions than take them up by such Measures All Men are liable to Error and most Men are in many Points by Passion or Interest under Temptation to it If we could but see the secret motives that influenced the Men of Name and Learning in the World and the Leaders of Parties we should not always find that it was the embracing of Truth for its own sake that made them espouse the Doctrines they owned and maintained This at least is certain there is not an Opinion so absurd which a Man may not receive upon this ground There is no Error to be named which has not had its Professors And a Man shall never want crooked Paths to walk in if he thinks he is in the right way where-ever he has the Foot-steps of others to follow § 18. But notwithstanding the great Noise is made in the World about Errors and Opinions I must do Mankind that Right as to say There are not so many Men in Errors and wrong Opinions as is commonly supposed Not that I think they embrace the Truth but indeed because concerning those Doctrines they keep such a stir about they have no Thought no Opinion at all For if any one should a little catechise the greatest part of the Partisans of most of the Sects in the World he would not find concerning those Matters they are so zealous for that they have any Opinions of their own much less would he have Reason to think that they took them upon the Examination of Arguments and Appearance of Probability They are resolved to stick to a Party that Education or Interest has engaged them in and there like the common Soldiers of an Army shew their Courage and Warmth as their Leaders direct without ever examining or so much as knowing the Cause they contend for If a Man's Life shews that he has no serious Regard to Religion for what Reason should we think that he beats his Head about the Opinions of his Church and troubles himself to examine the grounds of this or that Doctrine 'T is enough for him to obey his Leaders to have his Hand and his Tongue ready for the support of the common Cause and thereby approve himself to those who can give him Credit Preferment or Protection in that Society Thus Men become Professors of and Combatants for those Opinions they were never convinced of nor Proselites to no nor ever had so much as floating in their Heads And though one cannot say there are fewer improbable Opinions in the World than there are yet this is certain there are fewer that actually assent to them than is imagined CHAP. XX. Of the Division of the Sciences § 1. ALL that can fall within the compass of humane Understanding being either First The Nature of Things as they are in themselves their Relations and their manner of Operation Or Secondly that which Man himself ought to do as a rational and voluntary Agent for the Attainment of any Ends especially Happiness Or Thirdly The ways and means whereby the Knowledge of both the one and the other of these are attained and communicated I think Science may be divided properly into these Three sorts § 2. First The Knowledge of Things as they are in their own proper Beings their Constitutions Properties and Operations whereby I mean not only Matter and Body but Spirits also which have their proper Natures Constitutions and Operations as well as Bodies This in a little more enlarged Sense of the Word I call 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or natural Philosophy The end of this is bare speculative Truth and whatsoever can afford the Mind of Man any such falls under this branch whether it be God himself Angels Spirits Bodies or any other of their Affections as Number and Figure c. § 3. Secondly 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The Skill of Right applying our own Powers and Actions for the Attainment of Things good and useful The most considerable under this Head is Ethicks which is the seeking out those Rules and Measures of humane Actions which lead to Happiness and the Means to practise them The end of this is not bare Speculation and the Knowledge of Truth but Right and a Conduct suitable to it § 4. Thirdly The third Branch may be called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or the Doctrine of Signs the most usual whereof being Words it is aptly enough termed also 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Logick the business whereof is to consider the Nature of Signs the Mind makes use of for the understanding of Things or conveying its Knowledge to others For since the Things the Mind contemplates are none of them besides it self present to the Understanding 't is necessary that something else as a Sign or Representation of the thing it considers should be present to it And these are Ideas And because the Ideas of one Man's Mind cannot immediately be laid open to the view of another nor be themselves laid up any where but in the Memory which is apt to let them go and lose them Therefore to communicate our Ideas one to another as well as record them for our own use Signs of our Ideas are also necessary Those which Men have found most convenient and therefore generally make use of are articulate Sounds The Consideration then of Ideas and Words as the great Instruments of Knowledge make no despicable part of their Contemplation who would take a
which happen to them there and so depend on something exterior to the Mind no otherwise differing in their manner of production from other Ideas derived from Sense but only in the precedency of Time Whereas those innate Principles are supposed to be of quite another nature not coming into the Mind by the accidental alterations in or operations on the Body but as it were original Characters impressed upon it in the very first moment of its Being and Constitution § 7. As there are some Ideas which we may reasonably suppose may be introduced into the Minds of Children in the Womb subservient to the necessity of their Life and being there So after they are born those Ideas are the earliest imprinted which happen to be the sensible Qualities which first occur to them amongst which Light is not the least considerable nor of the weakest efficacy And how covetous the Mind is to be furnished with all such Ideas as have no pain accompanying them may be a little guess'd by what is observable in Children new-born who always turn their Eyes to that part from whence the Light comes lay them how you please But the Ideas that are most familiar at first being various according to the divers circumstances of Childrens first entertainment in the World the order wherein the several Ideas come at first into the Mind is very various and uncertain also neither is it much material to know it § 8. We are farther to consider concerning Perception that the Ideas we receive by sensation are often in grown People alter'd by the Iudgment without our taking notice of it When we set before our Eyes a round Globe of any uniform colour v. g. Gold Alabaster or Jet 't is certain that the Idea thereby imprinted in our Mind is of a flat Circle variously shadow'd with several degrees of Light and Brightness coming to our Eyes But we having by use been accustomed to perceive what kind of appearance convex Bodies are wont to make in us what alterations are made in the reflexions of Light by the difference of the sensible Figures of Bodies the Judgment presently by an habitual custom alters the Appearances into their Causes So that from that which truly is variety of shadow or colour collecting the Figure it makes it pass for a mark of Figure and frames to it self the perception of a convex Figure and an uniform Colour when the Idea we receive from thence is only a Plain variously colour'd as is evident in Painting § 9. But this is not I think usual in any of our Ideas but those received by Sight Because Sight the most comprehensive of all our Senses conveying to our Minds the far different Ideas of Light and Colours which are peculiar only to that Sense and also of Space Figure and Motion the several varieties whereof change the appearances of its proper Objects viz. Light and Colours it accustoms it self by use to judge of the one by the other This in many cases by a setled habit in things whereof we have frequent experience is performed so constantly and so quick that we take that for the Perception of our Sensation which is but an Idea formed by our Judgment so that one viz. that of Sensation serves only to excite the other and is scarce taken notice of it self as a Man who reads and hears with attention and understanding takes little notice of the Characters or Sounds but of the Ideas that are excited in him by them § 10. Nor need we wonder that this is done with so little notice if we consider how very quick the actions of the Mind are performed For as it self takes up no space has no extension so its actions seem to require no time but many of them seem to be crouded into an Instant I speak this in comparison to the actions of the Body Any one may easily observe this in his own Thoughts who will take the pains to reflect on them How as it were in an instant does our Minds with one glance see all the parts of a demonstration which may very well be called along one if we consider the time it will require to put it into words and step by step shew it another Secondly we shall not be so much surprized that this is done in us with so little notice if we consider how the facility we get of doing things by a custom of doing makes them often pass in us without our noticeâ— Habits especially such as are begun very early come at last to produce actions in us which often scape our observation How frequently do we in a day cover our Eyes with our Eye-lids without perceiving that we are at all in the dark Men that by custom have got the use of a By-word do almost in every sentence pronounce soundsâ— which though taken notice of by others they themselves neither hear nor observe And therefore 't is not so strange that our Mind should often change the Idea of its Sensation into that of its Judgment and make one serve only to excite the other without our taking notice of it § 11. This faculty of Perception seems to me to be that which puts the distinction betwixt the â—nimal Kingdom and â—he inferior parts of Nature For however Vegetables have many of them some degrees of Motion and upon the different application of other 〈◊〉 it s to them do very briskly alter their Figures and Motions and so have obtained the name of sensitive Plants from a motion which has some resemblance to that which in Animals follows upon Sensationâ— Yet I suppose it is all bare Mechanism and no otherwise produced than the turning of a wild Oat-beard by the insinuation of the Particles of Moisture or the shortning of a Rope by the affusion of Water All which is done without any sensation in the Subject or the having or receiving any Ideas § 12. Perception I believe is in some degree in all sorts of Animals though in some possibly the Avenues provided for the reception of Sensations are so few by Nature and the Perception they are received with so obscure and dull that it comes extreamly short of the quickness and variety of Sensations which is in other Animals but yet it is sufficient for and wisely adapted to the state and condition of that sort of Animals who are thus constituted by Nature So that the Wisdom and Goodness of the Maker plainly appears in all the Parts of this stupendious Fabrick and all the several degrees and ranks of Creatures in it § 13. We may I think from the Make of an Oyster or Cockle reasonably conclude that it has not so many nor so quick Senses as a Man or several other Animals nor if it had would it in that state and incapacity of transferring it self from one place to another be better'd by them What good would Sight and Hearing do to a Creature that cannot move it self to or from the Objects wherein at a distance it perceives Good or