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BOOK TWO:
ESSAY CONCERNING HUMAN UNDERSTANDING
Chapters 1 - 16
Of Ideas
Chapter I
Of Ideas in general, and their Original
1. Idea is the object of thinking. Every
man being conscious to himself that he thinks;
and that which his mind is applied about
whilst thinking being the ideas that are
there, it is past doubt that men have in
their minds several ideas,- such as are those
expressed by the words whiteness, hardness,
sweetness, thinking, motion, man, elephant,
army, drunkenness, and others: it is in the
first place then to be inquired, How he comes
by them?
I know it is a received doctrine, that men
have native ideas, and original characters,
stamped upon their minds in their very first
being. This opinion I have at large examined
already; and, I suppose what I have said
in the foregoing Book will be much more easily
admitted, when I have shown whence the understanding
may get all the ideas it has; and by what
ways and degrees they may come into the mind;-
for which I shall appeal to every one's own
observation and experience.
2. All ideas come from sensation or reflection.
Let us then suppose the mind to be, as we
say, white paper, void of all characters,
without any ideas:- How comes it to be furnished?
Whence comes it by that vast store which
the busy and boundless fancy of man has painted
on it with an almost endless variety? Whence
has it all the materials of reason and knowledge?
To this I answer, in one word, from EXPERIENCE.
In that all our knowledge is founded; and
from that it ultimately derives itself. Our
observation employed either, about external
sensible objects, or about the internal operations
of our minds perceived and reflected on by
ourselves, is that which supplies our understandings
with all the materials of thinking. These
two are the fountains of knowledge, from
whence all the ideas we have, or can naturally
have, do spring.
3. The objects of sensation one source of
ideas. First, our Senses, conversant about
particular sensible objects, do convey into
the mind several distinct perceptions of
things, according to those various ways wherein
those objects do affect them. And thus we
come by those ideas we have of yellow, white,
heat, cold, soft, hard, bitter, sweet, and
all those which we call sensible qualities;
which when I say the senses convey into the
mind, I mean, they from external objects
convey into the mind what produces there
those perceptions. This great source of most
of the ideas we have, depending wholly upon
our senses, and derived by them to the understanding,
I call SENSATION.
4. The operations of our minds, the other
source of them. Secondly, the other fountain
from which experience furnisheth the understanding
with ideas is,- the perception of the operations
of our own mind within us, as it is employed
about the ideas it has got;- which operations,
when the soul comes to reflect on and consider,
do furnish the understanding with another
set 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 ourselves, do from these
receive into our understandings 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 called 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 itself. 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 ideas take their beginnings. The
term operations here I use in a large sense,
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. All our ideas are of the one or the other
of these. The understanding seems to me not
to have the least glimmering of any ideas
which it doth not receive from one of these
two. External objects furnish the mind with
the ideas of sensible qualities, which are
all those different perceptions they produce
in us; and the mind furnishes the understanding
with ideas of its own operations.
These, when we have taken a full survey
of them, and their several modes, combinations,
and relations, 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 thoroughly 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
these two have imprinted;- though perhaps,
with infinite variety compounded and enlarged
by the understanding, as we shall see hereafter.
6. Observable in children. 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.
It 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 or order, yet it 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 all that are
born into the world, being surrounded with
bodies that perpetually and diversely affect
them, variety of ideas, whether care be taken
of it or not, are imprinted on the minds
of children. Light and colours are busy at
hand everywhere, when the eye is but open;
sounds and some tangible qualities fail not
to solicit 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 are differently furnished with these,
according to the different objects they converse
with. Men then come to be furnished with
fewer or more simple ideas from without,
according as the objects they converse with
afford greater or less variety; and from
the operations 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. Ideas of reflection later, because they
need attention. And hence we see the reason
why it 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 their mind clear, distinct, lasting
ideas, till the understanding turns inward
upon itself, reflects on its own operations,
and makes them the objects of its own contemplation.
Children when they come first into it, are
surrounded with a world of new things, which,
by a constant solicitation of their senses,
draw the mind constantly to them; forward
to take notice of new, and apt to be delighted
with the variety of changing objects. Thus
the first years are usually employed and
diverted in looking abroad. Men's business
in them is to acquaint themselves with what
is to be found without; 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. The soul begins to have ideas when it
begins to perceive. 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 itself 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 inquire after
the beginning of a man's ideas is the same
as to inquire after the beginning of his
soul. For, by this account, soul and its
ideas, as body and its extension, will begin
to exist both at the same time.
10. The soul thinks not always; for this
wants proofs. But whether the soul be supposed
to exist antecedent to, or coeval with, or
some time after the first rudiments of organization,
or the beginnings of life in the body, I
leave to be disputed by those who have better
thought of that matter. I confess myself
to have one of those dull souls, that doth
not perceive itself always to contemplate
ideas; nor can conceive it any more necessary
for the soul always to think, than for the
body always to move: the perception of ideas
being (as I conceive) to the soul, what motion
is to the body; not its essence, but one
of its operations. And therefore, though
thinking be supposed never so much the proper
action of the soul, yet it is not necessary
to suppose that it should be always thinking,
always in action. That, perhaps, is the privilege
of the infinite Author and Preserver of all
things, who "never slumbers nor sleeps;"
but is not competent to any finite being,
at least not to the soul of man. We know
certainly, by experience, that we sometimes
think; and thence draw this infallible consequence,-
that there is something in us that has a
power to think. But whether that substance
perpetually thinks or no, we can be no further
assured than experience informs us. For,
to say that actual thinking is essential
to the soul, and inseparable from it, is
to beg what is in question, and not to prove
it by reason;- which is necessary to be done,
if it be not a self-evident proposition.
But whether this, "That the soul always
thinks," be a self-evident proposition,
that everybody assents to at first hearing,
I appeal to mankind. It is doubted whether
I thought at all last night or no. The question
being about a matter of fact, it is begging
it to bring, as a proof for it, an hypothesis,
which is the very thing in dispute: by which
way one may prove anything, and it is but
supposing that all watches, whilst the balance
beats, think, and it is sufficiently proved,
and past doubt, that my watch thought all
last night. But he that would not deceive
himself, ought to build his hypothesis on
matter of fact, and make it out by sensible
experience, and not presume on matter of
fact, because of his hypothesis, that is,
because he supposes it to be so; which way
of proving amounts to this, that I must necessarily
think all last night, because another supposes
I always think, though I myself cannot perceive
that I always do so.
But men in love with their opinions may
not only suppose what is in question, but
allege wrong matter of fact. How else could
any one make it an inference of mine, that
a thing is not, because we are not sensible
of it in our sleep? I do not say there is
no soul in a man, because he is not sensible
of it in his sleep; but I do say, he cannot
think at any time, waking or sleeping: without
being sensible of it. Our being sensible
of it is not necessary to anything but to
our thoughts; and to them it is; and to them
it always will be necessary, till we can
think without being conscious of it.
11. It is not always conscious of it. I
grant that the soul, in a waking man, is
never without thought, because it is the
condition of being awake. But whether sleeping
without dreaming be not an affection of the
whole man, mind as well as body, may be worth
a waking man's consideration; it being hard
to conceive that anything should think and
not be conscious of it. If the soul doth
think in a sleeping man without being conscious
of it, I ask whether, during such thinking,
it has any pleasure or pain, or be capable
of happiness or misery? I am sure the man
is not; no more than the bed or earth he
lies on. For to be happy or miserable without
being conscious of it, seems to me utterly
inconsistent and impossible. Or if it be
possible that the soul can, whilst the body
is sleeping, have its thinking, enjoyments,
and concerns, its pleasures or pain, apart,
which the man is not conscious of nor partakes
in,- it is certain that Socrates asleep and
Socrates awake is not the same person; but
his soul when he sleeps, and Socrates the
man, consisting of body and soul, when he
is waking, are two persons: since waking
Socrates has no knowledge of, or concernment
for that happiness or misery of his soul,
which it enjoys alone by itself whilst he
sleeps, without perceiving anything of it;
no more than he has for the happiness or
misery of a man in the Indies, whom he knows
not. For, if we take wholly away all consciousness
of our actions and sensations, especially
of pleasure and pain, and the concernment
that accompanies it, it will be hard to know
wherein to place personal identity.
12. If a sleeping man thinks without knowing
it, the sleeping and waking man are two persons.
The soul, during sound sleep, thinks, say
these men. Whilst it thinks and perceives,
it is capable certainly of those of delight
or trouble, as well as any other perceptions;
and it must necessarily be conscious of its
own perceptions. But it has all this apart:
the sleeping man, it is plain, is conscious
of nothing of all this. Let us suppose, then,
the soul of Castor, while he is sleeping,
retired from his body; which is no impossible
supposition for the men I have here to do
with, who so liberally allow life, without
a thinking soul, to all other animals. These
men cannot then judge it impossible, or a
contradiction, that the body should live
without the soul; nor that the soul should
subsist and think, or have perception, even
perception of happiness or misery, without
the body. Let us then, I say, suppose the
soul of Castor separated during his sleep
from his body, to think apart. Let us suppose,
too, that it chooses for its scene of thinking
the body of another man, v. g. Pollux, who
is sleeping without a soul. For, if Castor's
soul can think, whilst Castor is asleep,
what Castor is never conscious of, it is
no matter what place it chooses to think
in. We have here, then, the bodies of two
men with only one soul between them, which
we will suppose to sleep and wake by turns;
and the soul still thinking in the waking
man, whereof the sleeping man is never conscious,
has never the least perception. I ask, then,
whether Castor and Pollux, thus with only
one soul between them, which thinks and perceives
in one what the other is never conscious
of, nor is concerned for, are not two as
distinct persons as Castor and Hercules,
or as Socrates and Plato were? And whether
one of them might not be very happy, and
the other very miserable? Just by the same
reason, they make the soul and the man two
persons, who make the soul think apart what
the man is not conscious of. For, I suppose
nobody will make identity of persons to consist
in the soul's being united to the very same
numercial particles of matter. For if that
be necessary to identity, it will be impossible,
in that constant flux of the particles of
our bodies, that any man should be the same
person two days, or two moments, together.
13. Impossible to convince those that sleep
without dreaming, that they think. Thus,
methinks, every drowsy nod shakes their doctrine,
who teach that the soul is always thinking.
Those, at least, who do at any time sleep
without dreaming, can never be convinced
that their thoughts are sometimes for four
hours busy without their knowing of it; and
if they are taken in the very act, waked
in the middle of that sleeping contemplation,
can give no manner of account of it.
14. That men dream without remembering it,
in vain urged. It will perhaps be said,-
That the soul thinks even in the soundest
sleep, but the memory retains it not. That
the soul in a sleeping man should be this
moment busy a thinking, and the next moment
in a waking man not remember nor be able
to recollect one jot of all those thoughts,
is very hard to be conceived, and would need
some better proof than bare assertion to
make it be believed. For who can without
any more ado, but being barely told so, imagine
that the greatest part of men do, during
all their lives, for several hours every
day, think of something, which if they were
asked, even in the middle of these thoughts,
they could remember nothing at all of? Most
men, I think, pass a great part of their
sleep without dreaming. I once knew a man
that was bred a scholar, and had no bad memory,
who told me he had never dreamed in his life,
till he had that fever he was then newly
recovered of, which was about the five or
six and twentieth year of his age. I suppose
the world affords more such instances: at
least every one's acquaintance will furnish
him with examples enough of such as pass
most of their nights without dreaming.
15. Upon this hypothesis, the thoughts of
a sleeping man ought to be most rational.
To think often, and never to retain it so
much as one moment, is a very useless sort
of thinking; and the soul, in such a state
of thinking, does very little, if at all,
excel that of a looking-glass, which constantly
receives variety of images, or ideas, but
retains none; they disappear and vanish,
and there remain no footsteps of them; the
looking-glass is never the better for such
ideas, nor the soul for such thoughts. Perhaps
it will be said, that in a waking man the
materials of the body are employed, and made
use of, in thinking; and that the memory
of thoughts is retained by the impressions
that are made on the brain, and the traces
there left after such thinking; but that
in the thinking of the soul, which is not
perceived in a sleeping man, there the soul
thinks apart, and making no use of the organs
of the body, leaves no impressions on it,
and consequently no memory of such thoughts.
Not to mention again the absurdity of two
distinct persons, which follows from this
supposition, I answer, further,- That whatever
ideas the mind can receive and contemplate
without the help of the body, it is reasonable
to conclude it can retain without the help
of the body too; or else the soul, or any
separate spirit, will have but little advantage
by thinking. If it has no memory of its own
thoughts; if it cannot lay them up for its
own use, and be able to recall them upon
occasion; if it cannot reflect upon what
is past, and make use of its former experiences,
reasonings, and contemplations, to what purpose
does it think? They who make the soul a thinking
thing, at this rate, will not make it a much
more noble being than those do whom they
condemn, for allowing it to be nothing but
the subtilist parts of matter. Characters
drawn on dust, that the first breath of wind
effaces; or impressions made on a heap of
atoms, or animal spirits, are altogether
as useful, and render the subject as noble,
as the thoughts of a soul that perish in
thinking; that, once out of sight, are gone
forever, and leave no memory of themselves
behind them. Nature never makes excellent
things for mean or no uses: and it is hardly
to be conceived that our infinitely wise
Creator should make so admirable a faculty
which comes nearest the excellency of his
own incomprehensible being, to be so idly
and uselessly employed, at least a fourth
part of its time here, as to think constantly,
without remembering any of those thoughts,
without doing any good to itself or others,
or being any way useful to any other part
of the creation, If we will examine it, we
shall not find, I suppose, the motion of
dull and senseless matter, any where in the
universe, made so little use of and so wholly
thrown away.
16. On this hypothesis, the soul must have
ideas not derived from sensation or reflection,
of which there is no appearance. It is true,
we have sometimes instances of perception
whilst we are asleep, and retain the memory
of those thoughts: but how extravagant and
incoherent for the most part they are; how
little conformable to the perfection and
order of a rational being, those who are
acquainted with dreams need not be told.
This I would willingly be satisfied in,-
whether the soul, when it thinks thus apart,
and as it were separate from the body, acts
less rationally than when conjointly with
it, or no. If its separate thoughts be less
rational, then these men must say, that the
soul owes the perfection of rational thinking
to the body: if it does not, it is a wonder
that our dreams should be, for the most part,
so frivolous and irrational; and that the
soul should retain none of its more rational
soliloquies and meditations.
17. If I think when I know it not, nobody
else can know it. Those who so confidently
tell us that the soul always actually thinks,
I would they would also tell us, what those
ideas are that are in the soul of a child,
before or just at the union with the body,
before it hath received any by sensation.
The dreams of sleeping men are, as I take
it, all made up of the waking man's ideas;
though for the most part oddly put together.
It is strange, if the soul has ideas of its
own that it derived not from sensation or
reflection, (as it must have, if it thought
before it received any impressions from the
body,) that it should never, in its private
thinking,
(so private, that the man himself perceives
it not,) retain any of them the very moment
it wakes out of them, and then make the man
glad with new discoveries. Who can find it
reason that the soul should, in its retirement
during sleep, have so many hours' thoughts,
and yet never light on any of those ideas
it borrowed not from sensation or reflection;
or at least preserve the memory of none but
such, which, being occasioned from the body,
must needs be less natural to a spirit? It
is strange the soul should never once in
a man's whole life recall over any of its
pure native thoughts, and those ideas it
had before it borrowed anything from the
body; never bring into the waking man's view
any other ideas but what have a tang of the
cask, and manifestly derive their original
from that union. If it always thinks, and
so had ideas before it was united, or before
it received any from the body, it is not
to be supposed but that during sleep it recollects
its native ideas; and during that retirement
from communicating with the body, whilst
it thinks by itself, the ideas it is busied
about should be, sometimes at least, those
more natural and congenial ones which it
had in itself, underived from the body, or
its own operations about them: which, since
the waking man never remembers, we must from
this hypothesis conclude either that the
soul remembers something that the man does
not; or else that memory belongs only to
such ideas as are derived from the body,
or the mind's operations about them.
18. How knows any one that the soul always
thinks? For if it be not a self-evident proposition,
it needs proof. I would be glad also to learn
from these men who so confidently pronounce
that the human soul, or, which is all one,
that a man always thinks, how they come to
know it; nay, how they come to know that
they themselves think when they themselves
do not perceive it. This, I am afraid, is
to be sure without proofs, and to know without
perceiving. It is, I suspect, a confused
notion, taken up to serve an hypothesis;
and none of those clear truths, that either
their own evidence forces us to admit, or
common experience makes it impudence to deny.
For the most that can be said of it is, that
it is possible the soul may always think,
but not always retain it in memory. And I
say, it is as possible that the soul may
not always think; and much more probable
that it should sometimes not think, than
that it should often think, and that a long
while together, and not be conscious to itself,
the next moment after, that it had thought.
19. "That a man should be busy in thinking,
and yet not retain it the next moment,"
very improbable. To suppose the soul to think,
and the man not to perceive it, is, as has
been said, to make two persons in one man.
And if one considers well these men's way
of speaking, one should be led 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 jargon 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 it is altogether as intelligible
to say that a body is extended without parts,
as that anything thinks without being conscious
of it, or 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 anything, when I perceive
it not myself? 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 of. 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 myself,
And they must needs have a penetrating sight
who can certainly see that I think, when
I cannot perceive it myself, and when I declare
that I do not; and yet can see that dogs
or elephants do not think, when 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 Rosicrucians;
it seeming easier to make one's self invisible
to others, than to make another's thoughts
visible to me, which are not visible to himself.
But it is but defining the soul to be "a
substance that always thinks," and the
business is done. If such 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 it is the
affectation of knowing beyond what we perceive,
that makes so much useless dispute and noise
in the world.
20. No ideas but from sensation and reflection,
evident, if we observe children. 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 remembering, imagining,
reasoning, and other modes of thinking.
21. State of a child in the mother's womb.
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 impression
on the body, 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. The mind thinks in proportion to the
matter it gets from experience to think about.
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 distinguishes 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. A man begins to have ideas when he first
has sensation. What sensation is. 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 produces some perception in the understanding.
It is about these impressions made on our
senses by outward objects that the mind seems
first to employ itself, in such operations
as we call perception, remembering, consideration,
reasoning, &c.
24. The original of all our knowledge. In
time the mind comes to reflect on its own
operations about the ideas got by sensation,
and thereby stores itself with a new set
of ideas, which I call ideas of reflection.
These are the impressions that are made on
our senses by outward objects that are extrinsical
to the mind; and its own operations, proceeding
from powers intrinsical and proper to itself,
which, when reflected on by itself, become
also objects of its contemplation- are, as
I have said, the original of all knowledge.
Thus the first capacity of human 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 anything, and the groundwork
whereon to build all those notions which
ever he shall have naturally in this world.
All those sublime thoughts which tower above
the clouds, and reach as high as heaven itself,
take their 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 the reception of simple ideas, the
understanding is for the most part passive.
In this part the understanding is merely
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 not; 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 understanding can no more refuse to have,
nor alter when they are imprinted, nor blot
them out and make new ones itself, 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 diversely affect our organs,
the mind is forced to receive the impressions;
and cannot avoid the perception of those
ideas that are annexed to them.
Chapter II
Of Simple Ideas
1. Uncompounded appearances. 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 it 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 itself uncompounded, contains in
it nothing but one uniform appearance, or
conception in the mind, and is not distinguishable
into different ideas.
2. The mind can neither make nor destroy
them. 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 muchwhat 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
atom of what is already in being. The same
inability will every one find in himself,
who shall go about to fashion in his understanding
one simple idea, not received in by his senses
from external objects, or by reflection from
the operations of his own mind about them.
I would have any one try to fancy 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. Only the qualities that affect the senses
are imaginable. 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 man 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 but with four senses,
the qualities then which are the objects
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 stupendous 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 fabric, 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.
Chapter III Of Simple Ideas of Sense 1.
Division of simple ideas. 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. Ideas of one sense. 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. Few simple ideas have names. 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 by our palates we receive ideas of,
much better provided with names. Sweet, bitter,
sour, harsh, and salt are almost all the
epithets we have to denominate that numberless
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, fruit, or animal. The same
may be said of colours and sounds. I shall,
therefore, in the account of simple ideas
I am here giving, content myself 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.
Chapter IV Idea of Solidity
1. We receive this idea from touch. The
idea of solidity we receive by our touch:
and it arises from the resistance which 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 support us, and hinders our further
sinking downwards; and the bodies which 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 moved 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 justify, 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 itself.
This, of all other, seems the idea most intimately
connected with, and essential to body; so
as nowhere else to be found or imagined,
but only in matter. And though our senses
take no notice of it, 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 further, and considers it, as well as
figure, in the minutest particle of matter
that can exist; and finds it inseparably
inherent in body, wherever or however modified.
2. Solidity fills space. This is the idea
which 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 other two bodies, that move towards
one another in a straight line, from coming
to touch one another, unless it removes from
between them in a line not parallel to that
which they move in. This idea of it, the
bodies which we ordinarily handle sufficiently
furnish us with.
3. Distinct from space. This resistance,
whereby it keeps other bodies out of the
space which 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 which
it will make, 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 from 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 succeeding
immediately into its place? I think it 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 any other body may enter, without
either resistance or protrusion of anything.
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 not: 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 a body, their
very disputes about a vacuum plainly demonstrate,
as is shown in another place.
4. From hardness. Solidity is hereby also
differenced from hardness, in that solidity
consists in repletion, and so an utter exclusion
of other bodies out of the space it possesses:
but hardness, in a firm cohesion of the parts
of matter, making up masses of a sensible
bulk, so that the whole does not easily change
its figure. And indeed, hard and soft are
names that we give to things only in relation
to the constitutions of our own bodies; that
being generally called hard by us, which
will put us to pain sooner than change figure
by the pressure of any part of our bodies;
and that, on the contrary, soft, which changes
the situation of its parts upon an easy and
unpainful touch.
But this difficulty of changing the situation
of the sensible parts amongst themselves,
or of the figure of the whole, gives no more
solidity to the hardest body in the world
than to the softest; nor is an adamant one
jot more solid than water. For, though the
two flat sides of two pieces of marble will
more easily approach each other, between
which there is nothing but water or air,
than if there be a diamond between them;
yet it is not that the parts of the diamond
are more solid than those of water, or resist
more; but because the parts of water, being
more easily separable from each other, they
will, by a side motion, be more easily removed,
and give way to the approach of the two pieces
of marble. But if they could be kept from
making place by that side motion, they would
eternally hinder the approach of these two
pieces of marble, as much as the diamond;
and it would be as impossible by any force
to surmount their resistance, as to surmount
the resistance of the parts of a diamond.
The softest body in the world will as invincibly
resist the coming together of any other two
bodies, if it be not put out of the way,
but remain between them, as the hardest that
can be found or imagined. He that shall fill
a yielding soft body well with air or water,
will quickly find its resistance. And he
that thinks that nothing but bodies that
are hard can keep his hands from approaching
one another, may be pleased to make a trial,
with the air inclosed in a football. The
experiment, I have been told, was made at
Florence, with a hollow globe of gold filled
with water, and exactly closed; which further
shows the solidity of so soft a body as water.
For the golden globe thus filled, being put
into a press, which was driven by the extreme
force of screws, the water made itself way
through the pores of that very close metal,
and finding no room for a nearer approach
of its particles within, got to the outside,
where it rose like a dew, and so fell in
drops, before the sides of the globe could
be made to yield to the violent compression
of the engine that squeezed it.
5. On solidity depend impulse, resistance,
and protrusion. By this idea of solidity
is the extension of body distinguished from
the extension of space:- the extension of
body being nothing but the cohesion or continuity
of solid, separable, movable parts; and the
extension of space, the continuity of unsolid,
inseparable, and immovable parts. Upon the
solidity of bodies also depend their mutual
impulse, resistance, and protrusion. Of pure
space then, and solidity, there are several
(amongst which I confess myself one) who
persuade themselves they have clear and distinct
ideas; and that they can think on space,
without anything in it that resists or is
protruded by body. This is the idea of pure
space, which they think they have as clear
as any idea they can have of the extension
of body: the idea of the distance between
the opposite parts of a concave superficies
being equally as clear without as with the
idea of any solid parts between: and on the
other side, they persuade themselves that
they have, distinct from that of pure space,
the idea of something that fills space, that
can be protruded by the impulse of other
bodies, or resist their motion. If there
be others that have not these two ideas distinct,
but confound them, and make but one of them,
I know not how men, who have the same idea
under different names, or different ideas
under the same name, can in that case talk
with one another; any more than a man who,
not being blind or deaf, has distinct ideas
of the colour of scarlet and the sound of
a trumpet, could discourse concerning scarlet
colour with the blind man I mentioned in
another place, who fancied that the idea
of scarlet was like the sound of a trumpet.
6. What solidity is. If any one ask me,
What this solidity is, I send him to his
senses to inform him. Let him put a flint
or a football between his hands, and then
endeavour to join them, and he will know.
If he thinks this not a sufficient explication
of solidity, what it is, and wherein it consists;
I promise to tell him what it is, and wherein
it consists, when he tells me what thinking
is, or wherein it consists; or explains to
me what extension or motion is, which perhaps
seems much easier. The simple ideas we have,
are such as experience teaches them us; but
if, beyond that, we endeavour by words to
make them clearer in the mind, we shall succeed
no better than if we went about to clear
up the darkness of a blind man's mind by
talking; and to discourse into him the ideas
of light and colours. The reason of this
I shall show in another place.
Chapter V Of Simple Ideas of Divers Senses
Ideas received both by seeing and touching.
The ideas we get by more than one sense are,
of space or extension, figure, rest, and
motion. For these make perceivable impressions,
both on the eyes and touch; and we can receive
and convey into our minds the ideas of the
extension, figure, motion, and rest of bodies,
both by seeing and feeling. But having occasion
to speak more at large of these in another
place, I here only enumerate them.
Chapter VI Of Simple Ideas of Reflection
1. Simple ideas are the operations of mind
about its other ideas. The mind receiving
the ideas mentioned in the foregoing chapters
from without, when it turns its view inward
upon itself, and observes its own actions
about those ideas it has, takes from thence
other ideas, which are as capable to be the
objects of its contemplation as any of those
it received from foreign things.
2. The idea of perception, and idea of willing,
we have from reflection. The two great and
principal actions of the mind, which are
most frequently considered, and which are
so frequent that every one that pleases may
take notice of them in himself, are these
two:-
Perception, or Thinking; and Volition, or
Willing. The power of thinking is called
the Understanding, and the power of volition
is called the Will; and these two powers
or abilities in the mind are denominated
faculties.
Of some of the modes of these simple ideas
of reflection, such as are remembrance, discerning,
reasoning, judging, knowledge, faith, &c.,
I shall have occasion to speak hereafter.
Chapter VII Of Simple Ideas of both Sensation
and Reflection
1. Ideas of pleasure and pain. There be
other simple ideas which convey themselves
into the mind by all the ways of sensation
and reflection, viz. pleasure or delight,
and its opposite, pain, or uneasiness; power;
existence; unity.
2. Mix with almost all our other ideas.
Delight or uneasiness, one or other of them,
join themselves to almost all our ideas both
of sensation and reflection: and there is
scarce any affection of our senses from without,
any retired thought of our mind within, which
is not able to produce in us pleasure or
pain. By pleasure and pain, I would be understood
to signify, whatsoever delights or molests
us; whether it arises from the thoughts of
our minds, or anything operating on our bodies.
For, whether we call it satisfaction, delight,
pleasure, happiness, &c., on the one
side, or uneasiness, trouble, pain, torment,
anguish, misery, &c., on the other, they
are still but different degrees of the same
thing, and belong to the ideas of pleasure
and pain, delight or uneasiness; which are
the names I shall most commonly use for those
two sorts of ideas.
3. As motives of our actions. The infinite
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 ourselves and other contiguous bodies,
in which consist all the actions of our body:
having also given a power to our minds, in
several instances, to choose, amongst its
ideas, which it will think on, and to pursue
the inquiry of this or that subject with
consideration and attention, to excite us
to these actions of thinking and motion that
we are capable of,- has been pleased to join
to several thoughts, and several sensations
a perception of delight. If this were wholly
separated from all our outward sensations,
and inward thoughts, we should have no reason
to prefer 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 adrift, without
any direction or design, and suffer the ideas
of our minds, like unregarded shadows, to
make their appearances there, as it happened,
without attending to them. In which state
man, however furnished with the faculties
of understanding and will, would be a very
idle, inactive creature, and pass his time
only in a lazy, lethargic dream. It has therefore
pleased our wise Creator to annex to several
objects, and the ideas which 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
which he had endowed us with might not remain
wholly idle and unemployed by us.
4. An end and use of pain. 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
this: only this is worth our consideration,
that pain 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
that 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 itself, 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 vehemency
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 function for the future. The
consideration of those objects that produce
it may well persuade 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 unharmed
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, and
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. Another end. 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 complete happiness,
in all the enjoyments which the creatures
can afford us, might be led to seek it in
the enjoyment of Him with whom there is fullness
of joy, and at whose right hand are pleasures
for evermore.
6. Goodness of God in annexing pleasure
and pain to our other ideas. 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 Sovereign Disposer of all
things, may not be unsuitable to the main
end of these inquiries: the knowledge and
veneration of him being the chief end of
all our thoughts, and the proper business
of all understandings.
7. Ideas of existence and unity. Existence
and Unity 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 unity.
8. Idea of power. Power also is another
of those simple ideas which we receive from
sensation and reflection. For, observing
in ourselves 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, occurring every moment to
our senses,- we both these ways get the idea
of power.
9. Idea of succession. Besides these there
is another idea, which, though suggested
by our senses, yet is more constantly offered
to us by what passes in our minds; and that
is the idea of succession. For if we 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. Simple ideas the materials of all our
knowledge. 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 is 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 further 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 desire any one
to assign any simple idea which is not received
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 fancies
and opinions of all mankind, if we consider
how many words may be made out of the various
composition of twenty-four letters; or if,
going one step further, we will but reflect
on the variety of combinations that may be
made with barely one of the above-mentioned
ideas, viz. number, whose stock is inexhaustible
and truly infinite: and what a large and
immense field doth extension alone afford
the mathematicians?
Chapter VIII Some further considerations
concerning our Simple Ideas of Sensation
1. Positive ideas from privative causes.
Concerning the simple ideas of Sensation,
it 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
of the subject.
2. Ideas in the mind distinguished from
that in things which gives rise to them.
Thus the ideas 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
inquiry 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. We may have the ideas when we are ignorant
of their physical causes. A painter or dyer
who never inquired 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. Why a privative cause in nature may occasion
a positive idea. If it were the design of
my present undertaking to inquire 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. Negative names need not be meaningless.
But whether this be so or not 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 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, which
stand not directly for positive ideas, but
for their absence, such as insipid, silence,
nihil, &c.; which words denote positive
ideas, v. g. taste, sound, being, with a
signification of their absence.
6. Whether any ideas are due to causes really
privative. And thus one may truly be said
to see darkness. For, supposing a hole perfectly
dark, from whence no light is reflected,
it is certain one may see the figure of it,
or it may be painted; or whether the ink
I write with makes 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. Ideas in the mind, qualities in bodies.
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 modifications of matter in
the bodies that cause such perceptions in
us: that so we 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. Our ideas and the qualities of bodies.
Whatsoever the mind perceives in itself,
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 snowball having the
power to produce in us the ideas of white,
cold, and round,- the power to produce those
ideas in us, as they are in the snowball,
I call qualities; and as they are sensations
or perceptions in our understandings, 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. Primary qualities of bodies. Qualities
thus considered in bodies are, First, such
as are utterly inseparable from the body,
in what state soever it be; 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 itself 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 reducing it to insensible
parts) can never take away either solidity,
extension, figure, or mobility from any body,
but only makes two or more distinct separate
masses of matter, of that which was but one
before; all which distinct masses, reckoned
as so many distinct bodies, after division,
make a certain number. These I call original
or primary qualities of body, which I think
we may observe to produce simple ideas in
us, viz. solidity, extension, figure, motion
or rest, and number.
10. Secondary qualities of bodies. Secondly,
such qualities which in truth are nothing
in the objects themselves but power to produce
various sensations in us by their primary
qualities, i. e. by the bulk, figure, texture,
and motion of their insensible parts, as
colours, sounds, tastes, &c. These I
call secondary qualities. To these might
be added a third sort, which are allowed
to be barely powers; though they are as much
real qualities in the subject as those which
I, to comply with the common way of speaking,
call qualities, but for distinction, secondary
qualities. For the power in fire to produce
a new colour, or consistency, in wax or clay,-
by its primary qualities, is as much a quality
in fire, as the power it has to produce in
me a new idea or sensation of warmth or burning,
which I felt not before,- by the same primary
qualities, viz. the bulk, texture, and motion
of its insensible parts.
11. How bodies produce ideas in us. The
next thing to be considered is, how bodies
produce ideas in us; and that is manifestly
by impulse, the only way which we can conceive
bodies to operate in.
12. By motions, external, and in our organism.
If then external objects be not united to
our minds when they produce ideas therein;
and yet we perceive these original qualities
in such of them as singly fall under our
senses, it is evident that some motion must
be thence continued by our nerves, or animal
spirits, by some parts of our bodies, to
the brains or 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, it 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
which we have of them in us.
13. How secondary qualities produce their
ideas. After the same manner, that the ideas
of these original qualities are produced
in us, we may conceive that the ideas of
secondary 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 are 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 others
extremely smaller than those; perhaps as
much smaller than the particles of air and
water, as the particles of air and water
are smaller than peas 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. that a violet,
by the impulse of such insensible particles
of matter, of peculiar figures and bulks,
and in different degrees and modifications
of their motions, causes the ideas of the
blue colour, and sweet scent of that flower
to be produced in our minds. It being no
more 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. They depend on the primary qualities.
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 as I have said.
15. Ideas of primary qualities are resemblances;
of secondary, not. From whence I think it
easy 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 secondary
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, which we
call so.
16. Examples. Flame is denominated hot and
light; snow, white and cold; and manna, white
and sweet, from the ideas they 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 this 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 are 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 ideas of the primary alone really
exist. The particular bulk, number, figure,
and motion of the parts of fire or snow are
really in them,- whether any one's senses
perceive them or no: and therefore they may
be called real qualities, because 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, odours, 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. The secondary exist in things only as
modes of the primary. A piece of manna of
a sensible bulk is able to produce in us
the idea 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 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 everybody is ready to agree to.
Besides, manna, by tie 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 nowhere 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 thereby produce
in the mind particular distinct ideas, which
in itself it has not, as well as we allow
it can operate on the guts and stomach, and
thereby produce distinct ideas, which in
itself 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 effect of manna, should be thought to
be nowhere when they are not felt; and yet
the sweetness and whiteness, effects of the
same manna on other parts of the body, by
ways equally as unknown, should be thought
to exist in the manna, when they are not
seen or tasted, would need some reason to
explain.
19. Examples. Let us consider the red and
white colours in porphyry. Hinder light 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 porphyry
by the presence or absence of light; and
that those ideas of whiteness and redness
are really in porphyry in. the light, when
it 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 into a dirty one,
and the sweet taste 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. Explains how water felt as cold by one
hand may be warm to the other. 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 sensations
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 easy 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. An excursion into natural philosophy.
I have in what just goes before been engaged
in physical inquiries a little further 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
inquiry 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 secondary and imputed qualities, which
are but the powers of several combinations
of those primary ones, when they operate
without being distinctly discerned;- whereby
we may also come to know what ideas are,
and what are not, resemblances of something
really existing in the bodies we denominate
from them.
23. Three sorts of qualities in bodies.
The qualities, then, that are in bodies,
rightly considered, are of three sorts:-
First, The bulk, figure, number, situation,
and motion or rest of their solid parts.
Those are in them, whether we perceive them
or not; 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 itself; 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, tastes, &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. These
are usually called powers.
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 not: and upon their different modifications
it is that the secondary 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. The first are resemblances; the second
thought to be resemblances, but are not;
the third neither are nor are thought so.
But, though the two latter 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 called 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
mere powers in it. But when we consider the
sun in reference to wax, which it melts or
blanches, we look on the whiteness and softness
produced in the wax, not as qualities in
the sun, but effects produced by powers in
it. Whereas, if rightly considered, these
qualities of light and warmth, which are
perceptions in me when I am warmed or enlightened
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 idea 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. Why the secondary are ordinarily taken
for real qualities, and not for bare powers.
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 effects 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 show how bodies,
by their bulk, figure, and motion, 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 anything in the thing producing it;
wherefore we look on it as a bare effect
of power. For, through receiving the idea
of heat or light from the sun, we are apt
to think it 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 anything
in the sun, because we find not those different
colours in the sun itself. 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. Secondary qualities twofold; first,
immediately perceivable; secondly, mediately
perceivable. To conclude. Besides 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 secondary qualities immediately perceivable:
the latter, secondary qualities, mediately
perceivable.
Chapter IX Of Perception
1. Perception the first simple idea of reflection.
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 in the mind about its ideas,
wherein the mind is active; where it, with
some degree of voluntary attention, considers
anything. For in bare naked perception, the
mind is, for the most part, only passive;
and what it perceives, it cannot avoid perceiving.
2. Reflection alone can give us the idea
of what perception is. 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 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. Arises in sensation only when the mind
notices the organic impression. 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. Impulse on the organ insufficient. How
often may a man observe in himself, that
whilst his mind is intently employed in the
contemplation of some objects, and curiously
surveying some ideas that are there, it takes
no notice of impressions of sounding bodies
made upon the organ of hearing, with the
same alteration that uses to be for the producing
the idea of 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 the man's 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,
and so imprinting no idea in the mind, there
follows no sensation. So that wherever there
is sense or perception, there some idea is
actually produced, and present in the understanding.
5. Children, though they may have ideas
in the womb, have none innate. 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. The effects of sensation in the womb.
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, 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 quite of another nature; not coming
into the mind by any 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. Which ideas appear first, is not evident,
nor important. As there are some ideas which
we may reasonably suppose may be introduced
into the minds of children in the womb, subservient
to the necessities 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 guessed 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 children's 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. Sensations often changed by the judgment.
We are further to consider concerning perception,
that the ideas we receive by sensation are
often, in grown people, altered by the judgment,
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, it is certain that the idea thereby
imprinted on our mind is of a flat circle,
variously shadowed, 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 reflections 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 is truly variety
of shadow or colour, collecting the figure,
it makes it pass for a mark of figure, and
frames to itself the perception of a convex
figure and an uniform colour; when the idea
we receive from thence is only a plane variously
coloured, as is evident in painting. To which
purpose I shall here insert a problem of
that very ingenious and studious promoter
of real knowledge, the learned and worthy
Mr. Molyneux, which he was pleased to send
me in a letter some months since; and it
is this:- "Suppose a man born blind,
and now adult, and taught by his touch to
distinguish between a cube and a sphere of
the same metal, and nighly of the same bigness,
so as to tell, when he felt one and the other,
which is the cube, which the sphere. Suppose
then the cube and sphere placed on a table,
and the blind man be made to see: quaere,
whether by his sight, before he touched them,
he could now distinguish and tell which is
the globe, which the cube?" To which
the acute and judicious proposer answers,
"Not. For, though he has obtained the
experience of how a globe, how a cube affects
his touch, yet he has not yet obtained the
experience, that what affects his touch so
or so, must affect his sight so or so; or
that a protuberant angle in the cube, that
pressed his hand unequally, shall appear
to his eye as it does in the cube."-
I agree with this thinking gentleman, whom
I am proud to call my friend, in his answer
to this problem; and am of opinion that the
blind man, at first sight, would not be able
with certainty to say which was the globe,
which the cube, whilst he only saw them;
though he could unerringly name them by his
touch, and certainly distinguish them by
the difference of their figures felt. This
I have set down, and leave with my reader,
as an occasion for him to consider how much
he may be beholden to experience, improvement,
and acquired notions, where he thinks he
had not the least use of, or help from them.
And the rather, because this observing gentleman
further adds, that "having, upon the
occasion of my book, proposed this to divers
very ingenious men, he hardly ever met with
one that at first gave the answer to it which
he thinks true, till by hearing his reasons
they were convinced."
9. This judgment apt to be mistaken for
direct perception. 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 ideas of light and colours, which are
peculiar only to that sense; and also the
far different ideas of space, figure, and
motion, the several varieties whereof change
the appearances of its proper object, viz.
light and colours; we bring ourselves by
use to judge of the one by the other. This,
in many cases by a settled 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 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 itself;- as a man who reads or
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. How, by habit, ideas of sensation are
unconsciously changed into ideas of judgment.
Nor need we wonder that this is done with
so little notice, if we consider how quick
the actions of the mind are performed. For,
as itself is thought to take up no space,
to have no extension; so its actions seem
to require no time, but many of them seem
to be crowded 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, do
our minds, with one glance, see all the parts
of a demonstration, which may very well be
called a long one, if we consider the time
it will require to put it into words, and
step by step show it another? Secondly, we
shall not be so much surprised that this
is done in us with so little notice, if we
consider how the facility which we get of
doing things, by a custom of doing, makes
them often pass in us without our notice.
Habits, especially such as are begun very
early, come at last to produce actions in
us, which often escape our observation. How
frequently do we, in a day, cover our eyes
with our eyelids, 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 sounds which,
though taken notice of by others, they themselves
neither hear nor observe. And therefore it
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. Perception puts the difference between
animals and vegetables. This faculty of perception
seems to me to be, that which puts the distinction
betwixt the animal kingdom and the inferior
parts of nature. For, however vegetables
have, many of them, some degrees of motion,
and upon the different application of other
bodies 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 sensation: 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 shortening
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 in all animals. Perception,
I believe, is, in some degree, in all sorts
of animals; though in some possibly the avenues
provided by nature for the reception of sensations
are so few, and the perception they are received
with so obscure and dull, that it comes extremely
short of the quickness and variety of sensation
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 made. So that the wisdom and
goodness of the Maker plainly appear in all
the parts of this stupendous fabric, and
all the several degrees and ranks of creatures
in it.
13. According to their condition. 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
itself from one place to another, be bettered
by them. What good would sight and hearing
do to a creature that cannot move itself
to or from the objects wherein at a distance
it perceives good or evil? And would not
quickness of sensation be an inconvenience
to an animal that must lie still where chance
has once placed it, and there receive the
afflux of colder or warmer, clean or foul
water, as it happens to come to it?
14. Decay of perception in old age. But
yet I cannot but think there is some small
dull perception, whereby they are distinguished
from perfect insensibility. And that this
may be so, we have plain instances, even
in mankind itself. Take one in whom decrepit
old age has blotted out the memory of his
past knowledge, and clearly wiped out the
ideas his mind was formerly stored with,
and has, by destroying his sight, hearing,
and smell quite, and his taste to a great
degree, stopped up almost all the passages
for new ones to enter; or if there be some
of the inlets yet half open, the impressions
made are scarcely perceived, or not at all
retained. How far such an one (notwithstanding
all that is boasted of innate principles)
is in his knowledge and intellectual faculties
above the condition of a cockle or an oyster,
I leave to be considered. And if a man had
passed sixty years in such a state, as it
is possible he might, as well as three days,
I wonder what difference there would be,
in any intellectual perfections, between
him and the lowest degree of animals.
15. Perception the inlet of all materials
of knowledge. Perception then being the first
step and degree towards knowledge, and the
inlet of all the materials of it; the fewer
senses any man, as well as any other creature,
hath; and the fewer and duller the impressions
are that are made by them, and the duller
the faculties are that are employed about
them,- the more remote are they from that
knowledge which is to be found in some men.
But this being in great variety of degrees
(as may be perceived amongst men) cannot
certainly be discovered in the several species
of animals, much less in their particular
individuals. It suffices me only to have
remarked here,- that perception is the first
operation of all our intellectual faculties,
and the inlet of all knowledge in our minds.
And I am apt too to imagine, that it is perception,
in the lowest degree of it, which puts the
boundaries between animals and the inferior
ranks of creatures. But this I mention only
as my conjecture by the by; it being indifferent
to the matter in hand which way the learned
shall determine of it.
Chapter X Of Retention
1. Contemplation. The next faculty of the
mind, whereby it makes a further progress
towards knowledge, is that which I call retention;
or the keeping of those simple ideas which
from sensation or reflection it hath received.
This is done two ways. First, by keeping
the idea which is brought into it, for some
time actually in view, which is called contemplation.
2. Memory. The other way of retention is,
the power to revive again in our minds those
ideas which, after imprinting, have disappeared,
or have been as it were laid aside out of
sight. And thus we do, when we conceive heat
or light, yellow or sweet,- the object being
removed. This is memory, which is as it were
the storehouse of our ideas. For, the narrow
mind of man not being capable of having many
ideas under view and consideration at once,
it was necessary to have a repository, to
lay up those ideas which, at another time,
it might have use of. But, our ideas being
nothing but actual perceptions in the mind,
which cease to be anything when there is
no perception of them; this laying up of
our ideas in the repository of the memory
signifies no more but this,- that the mind
has a power in many cases to revive perceptions
which it has once had, with this additional
perception annexed to them, that it has had
them before. And in this sense it is that
our ideas are said to be in our memories,
when indeed they are actually nowhere;- but
only there is an ability in the mind when
it will to revive them again, and as it were
paint them anew on itself, though some with
more, some with less difficulty; some more
lively, and others more obscurely. And thus
it is, by the assistance of this faculty,
that we are said to have all those ideas
in our understandings which, though we do
not actually contemplate, yet we can bring
in sight, and make appear again, and be the
objects of our thoughts, without the help
of those sensible qualities which first imprinted
them there.
3. Attention, repetition, pleasure and pain,
fix ideas. Attention and repetition help
much to the fixing any ideas in the memory.
But those which naturally at first make the
deepest and most lasting impressions, are
those which are accompanied with pleasure
or pain. The great business of the senses
being, to make us take notice of what hurts
or advantages the body, it is wisely ordered
by nature, as has been shown, that pain should
accompany the reception of several ideas;
which, supplying the place of consideration
and reasoning in children, and acting quicker
than consideration in grown men, makes both
the old and young avoid painful objects with
that haste which is necessary for their preservation;
and in both settles in the memory a caution
for the future.
4. Ideas fade in the memory. Concerning
the several degrees of lasting, wherewith
ideas are imprinted on the memory, we may
observe,- that some of them have been produced
in the understanding by an object affecting
the senses once only, and no more than once;
others, that have more than once offered
themselves to the senses, have yet been little
taken notice of: the mind, either heedless,
as in children, or otherwise employed, as
in men intent only on one thing; not setting
the stamp deep into itself. And in some,
where they are set on with care and repeated
impressions, either through the temper of
the body, or some other fault, the memory
is very weak. In all these cases, ideas in
the mind quickly fade, and often vanish quite
out of the understanding, leaving no more
footsteps or remaining characters of themselves
than shadows do flying over fields of corn,
and the mind is as void of them as if they
had never been there.
5. Causes of oblivion. Thus many of those
ideas which were produced in the minds of
children, in the beginning of their sensation,
(some of which perhaps, as of some pleasures
and pains, were before they were born, and
others in their infancy,) if the future course
of their lives they are not repeated again,
are quite lost, without the least glimpse
remaining of them. This may be observed in
those who by some mischance have lost their
sight when they were very young; in whom
the ideas of colours having been but slightly
taken notice of, and ceasing to be repeated,
do quite wear out; so that some years after,
there is no more notion nor memory of colours
left in their minds, than in those of people
born blind. The memory of some men, it is
true, is very tenacious, even to a miracle.
But yet there seems to be a constant decay
of all our ideas, even of those which are
struck deepest, and in minds the most retentive;
so that if they be not sometimes renewed,
by repeated exercise of the senses, or reflection
on those kinds of objects which at first
occasioned them, the print wears out, and
at last there remains nothing to be seen.
Thus the ideas, as well as children, of our
youth, often die before us: and our minds
represent to us those tombs to which we are
approaching; where, though the brass and
marble remain, yet the inscriptions are effaced
by time, and the imagery moulders away. The
pictures drawn in our minds are laid in fading
colours; and if not sometimes refreshed,
vanish and disappear. How much the constitution
of our bodies and the make of our animal
spirits are concerned in this; and whether
the temper of the brain makes this difference,
that in some it retains the characters drawn
on it like marble, in others like freestone,
and in others little better than sand, I
shall not here inquire; though it may seem
probable that the constitution of the body
does sometimes influence the memory, since
we oftentimes find a disease quite strip
the mind of all its ideas, and the flames
of a fever in a few days calcine all those
images to dust and confusion, which seemed
to be as lasting as if graved in marble.
6. Constantly repeated ideas can scarce
be lost. But concerning the ideas themselves,
it is easy 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,
vis. 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 kinds
of beings, as existence, duration, and number,
which almost every object that affects our
senses, every thought which employs 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 remembering, the mind is often active.
In this secondary perception, as I may so
call it, or viewing again the ideas that
are lodged 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 itself
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 roused and tumbled out of their
dark cells into open daylight, by turbulent
and tempestuous passions; our affections
bringing ideas to our memory, which had otherwise
lain quiet and unregarded. This further is
to be observed, concerning ideas lodged in
the memory, and upon occasion revived by
the mind, that they are not only (as the
word revive imports) none of them new ones,
but also that the mind takes notice of them
as of a former impression, and renews its
acquaintance with them, as with ideas it
had known before. So that though ideas formerly
imprinted are not all constantly in view,
yet in remembrance they are constantly known
to be such as have been formerly imprinted;
i. e. in view, and taken notice of before,
by the understanding.
8. Two defects in the memory, oblivion and
slowness. 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 further than we have
the idea of it, when that is 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 occasion. 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. It is the business
therefore of the memory to furnish to the
mind those dormant ideas which it has present
occasion for; in the having them ready at
hand on all occasions, consists that which
we call invention, fancy, and quickness of
parts.
9. A defect which belongs to the memory
of man, as finite. These are defects we may
observe in the memory of one man compared
with another. There is another defect which
we may conceive to be in the memory of man
in general;- compared with some superior
created intellectual beings, which in this
faculty may so far excel man, that they may
have constantly in view the whole scene of
all their former actions, wherein no one
of the thoughts they have ever had may slip
out of their sight. The omniscience of God,
who knows all things, past, present, and
to come, and to whom the thoughts of men's
hearts always lie open, may satisfy us of
the possibility of this. For who can doubt
but God may communicate to those glorious
spirits, his immediate attendants, any of
his perfections; in what proportions he pleases,
as far as created finite beings can be capable?
It is reported of that prodigy of parts,
Monsieur Pascal, that till the decay of his
health had impaired his memory, he forgot
nothing of what he had done, read, or thought,
in any part of his rational age. This is
a privilege so little known to most men,
that it seems almost incredible to those
who, after the ordinary way, measure all
others by themselves; but yet, when considered,
may help us to enlarge our thoughts towards
greater perfections of it, in superior ranks
of spirits. For this of Monsieur Pascal was
still with the narrowness that human minds
are confined to here,- of having great variety
of ideas only by succession, not all at once.
Whereas the several degrees of angels may
probably have larger views; and some of them
be endowed with capacities able to retain
together, and constantly set before them,
as in one picture, all their past knowledge
at once. This, we may conceive, would be
no small advantage to the knowledge of a
thinking man,- if all his past thoughts and
reasonings could be always present to him.
And therefore we may suppose it one of those
ways, wherein the knowledge of separate spirits
may exceedingly surpass ours.
10. Brutes have memory. 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 it is
plain they do) of which they had no ideas.
For, though 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 bird's preservation; yet that
can never be supposed a reason why it should
cause mechanically- either whilst the tune
is playing, much less after it has ceased-
such a motion of the organs in the bird's
voice as should conform it to the notes of
a foreign sound, which imitation can be of
no use to the bird's preservation. But, which
is more, it cannot with any appearance of
reason be supposed (much less proved) that
birds, without sense and memory, can approach
their notes nearer and nearer by degrees
to a tune played yesterday; which if they
have no idea of in their memory, is now nowhere,
nor can be a pattern for them to imitate,
or which any repeated essays can bring them
nearer to. Since 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.
Chapter XI Of Discerning, and other operations
of the Mind
1. No knowledge without discernment. 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 busy about us as they are now,
and the mind were continually employed 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, overlooking 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. The difference of wit and judgment. 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 acuteness, 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 itself It is
of that consequence to its other knowledge,
that so far as this faculty is in itself
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 from another, where there is but
the least difference, consists, in a great
measure, the exactness of judgment, and clearness
of reason, which is to be observed in one
man above another. And hence perhaps may
be given some reason of that common observation,-
that men who have a great deal of wit, and
prompt memories, have not always the clearest
judgment or deepest reason. For wit lying
most in the assemblage of ideas, and putting
those together with quickness and variety,
wherein can be found any resemblance or congruity,
thereby to make up pleasant pictures and
agreeable visions in the fancy; judgment,
on the contrary, lies quite on the other
side, in separating carefully, one from another,
ideas wherein can be found the least difference,
thereby to avoid being misled by similitude,
and by affinity to take one thing for another.
This is a way of proceeding quite contrary
to metaphor and allusion; wherein for the
most part lies that entertainment and pleasantry
of wit, which strikes so lively on the fancy,
and therefore is so acceptable to all people,
because its beauty appears at first sight,
and there is required no labor of thought
to examine what truth or reason there is
in it. The mind, without looking any further,
rests satisfied with the agreeableness of
the picture and the gaiety of the fancy.
And it is a kind of affront to go about to
examine it, by the severe rules of truth
and good reason; whereby it appears that
it consists in something that is not perfectly
conformable to them.
3. Clearness done hinders confusion. To
the well distinguishing our ideas, it chiefly
contributes that they be clear and determinate.
And when they are so, it will not breed any
confusion or mistake about them, though the
senses should (as sometimes they do) convey
them from the same object differently on
different occasions, and so seem to err.
For, though a man in a fever should from
sugar have a bitter taste, which at another
time would produce a sweet one, yet the idea
of bitter in that man's mind would be as
clear and distinct from the idea of sweet
as if he had tasted only gall. Nor does it
make any more confusion between the two ideas
of sweet and bitter, that the same sort of
body produces at one time one, and at another
time another idea by the taste, than it makes
a confusion in two ideas of white and sweet,
or white and round, that the same piece of
sugar produces them both in the mind at the
same time. And the ideas of orange-colour
and azure, that are produced in the mind
by the same parcel of the infusion of lignum
nephriticum, are no less distinct ideas than
those of the same colours taken from two
very different bodies.
4. Comparing. The COMPARING them one with
another, in respect of extent, degrees, time,
place, or any other circumstances, is another
operation of the mind about its ideas, and
is that upon which depends all that large
tribe of ideas comprehended under relation;
which, of how vast an extent it is, I shall
have occasion to consider hereafter.
5. Brutes compare but imperfectly. How far
brutes partake in this faculty, is not easy
to determine. I imagine they have it not
in any great degree: for, though they probably
have several ideas distinct enough, yet it
seems to me to be the prerogative of human
understanding, when it has sufficiently distinguished
any ideas, so as to perceive them to be perfectly
different, and so consequently two, to cast
about and consider in what circumstances
they are capable to be compared. And therefore,
I think, beasts compare not their ideas further
than some sensible circumstances annexed
to the objects themselves. The other power
of comparing, which may be observed in men,
belonging to general ideas, and useful only
to abstract reasonings, we may probably conjecture
beasts have not.
6. Compounding. The next operation we may
observe in the mind about its ideas is COMPOSITION;
whereby it puts together several of those
simple ones it has received from sensation
and reflection, and combines them into complex
ones. Under this of composition may be reckoned
also that of enlarging, wherein, though the
composition does not so much appear as in
more complex ones, yet it is nevertheless
a putting several ideas together, though
of the same kind. Thus, by adding several
units together, we make the idea of a dozen;
and putting together the repeated ideas of
several perches, we frame that of a furlong.
7. Brutes compound but little. In this also,
I suppose, brutes come far short of man.
For, though they take in, and retain together,
several combinations of simple ideas, as
possibly the shape, smell, and voice of his
master make up the complex idea a dog has
of him, or rather are so many distinct marks
whereby he knows him; yet I do not think
they do of themselves ever compound them
and make complex ideas. And perhaps even
where we think they have complex ideas, it
is only one simple one that directs them
in the knowledge of several things, which
possibly they distinguish less by their sight
than we imagine. For I have been credibly
informed that a bitch will nurse, play with,
and be fond of young foxes, as much as, and
in place of her puppies, if you can but get
them once to suck her so long that her milk
may go through them. And those animals which
have a numerous brood of young ones at once,
appear not to have any knowledge of their
number; for though they are mightily concerned
for any of their young that are taken from
them whilst they are in sight or hearing,
yet if one or two of them be stolen from
them in their absence, or without noise,
they appear not to miss them, or to have
any sense that their number is lessened.
8. Naming. When children have, by repeated
sensations, got ideas fixed in their memories,
they begin by degrees to learn the use of
signs. And when they have got the skill to
apply the organs of speech to the framing
of articulate sounds, they begin to make
use of words, to signify their ideas to others.
These verbal signs they sometimes borrow
from others, and sometimes make themselves,
as one may observe among the new and unusual
names children often give to things in the
first use of language.
9. Abstraction. The use of words then being
to stand as outward marks of our internal
ideas, and those ideas being taken from particular
things, if every particular idea that we
take in should have a distinct name, names
must be endless. To prevent this, the mind
makes the particular ideas received from
particular objects to become general; which
is done by considering them as they are in
the mind such appearances,- separate from
all other existences, and the circumstances
of real existence, as time, place, or any
other concomitant ideas. This is called ABSTRACTION,
whereby ideas taken from particular beings
become general representatives of all of
the same kind; and their names general names,
applicable to whatever exists conformable
to such abstract ideas. Such precise, naked
appearances in the mind, without considering
how, whence, or with what others they came
there, the understanding lays up (with names
commonly annexed to them) as the standards
to rank real existences into sorts, as they
agree with these patterns, and to denominate
them accordingly. Thus the same colour being
observed to-day in chalk or snow, which the
mind yesterday received from milk, it considers
that appearance alone, makes it a representative
of all of that kind; and having given it
the name whiteness, it by that sound signifies
the same quality wheresoever to be imagined
or met with; and thus universals, whether
ideas or terms, are made.
10. Brutes abstract not. If it may be doubted
whether beasts compound and enlarge their
ideas that way to any degree; this, I think,
I may be positive in,- that the power of
abstracting is not at all in them; and that
the having of general ideas is that which
puts a perfect distinction betwixt man and
brutes, and is an excellency which the faculties
of brutes do by no means attain to. For it
is evident we observe no footsteps in them
of making use of general signs for universal
ideas; from which we have reason to imagine
that they have not the faculty of abstracting,
or making general ideas, since they have
no use of words, or any other general signs.
11. Brutes abstract not, yet are not bare
machines. Nor can it be imputed to their
want of fit organs to frame articulate sounds,
that they have no use or knowledge of general
words; since many of them, we find, can fashion
such sounds, and pronounce words distinctly
enough, but never with any such application.
And, on the other side, men who, through
some defect in the organs, want words, yet
fail not to express their universal ideas
by signs, which serve them instead of general
words, a faculty which we see beasts come
short in. And, therefore, I think, we may
suppose, that it is in this that the species
of brutes are discriminated from man: and
it is that proper difference wherein they
are wholly separated, and which at last widens
to so vast a distance. For if they have any
ideas at all, and are not bare machines,
(as some would have them,) we cannot deny
them to have some reason. It seems as evident
to me, that they do some of them in certain
instances reason, as that they have sense;
but it is only in particular ideas, just
as they received them from their senses.
They are the best of them tied up within
those narrow bounds, and have not (as I think)
the faculty to enlarge them by any kind of
abstraction.
12. Idiots and madmen. How far idiots are
concerned in the want or weakness of any,
or all of the foregoing faculties, an exact
observation of their several ways of faultering
would no doubt discover. For those who either
perceive but dully, or retain the ideas that
come into their minds but ill, who cannot
readily excite or compound them, will have
little matter to think on. Those who cannot
distinguish, compare, and abstract, would
hardly be able to understand and make use
of language, or judge or reason to any tolerable
degree; but only a little and imperfectly
about things present, and very familiar to
their senses. And indeed any of the forementioned
faculties, if wanting, or out of order, produce
suitable defects in men's understandings
and knowledge.
13. Difference between idiots and madmen.
In fine, the defect in naturals seems to
proceed from want of quickness, activity,
and motion in the intellectual faculties,
whereby they are deprived of reason; whereas
madmen, on the other side, seem to suffer
by the other extreme. For they do not appear
to me to have lost the faculty of reasoning,
but having joined together some ideas very
wrongly, they mistake them for truths; and
they err as men do that argue right from
wrong principles. For, by the violence of
their imaginations, having taken their fancies
for realities, they make right deductions
from them. Thus you shall find a distracted
man fancying himself a king, with a right
inference require suitable attendance, respect,
and obedience: others who have thought themselves
made of glass, have used the caution necessary
to preserve such brittle bodies. Hence it
comes to pass that a man who is very sober,
and of a right understanding in all other
things, may in one particular be as frantic
as any in Bedlam; if either by any sudden
very strong impression, or long fixing his
fancy upon one sort of thoughts, incoherent
ideas have been cemented together so powerfully,
as to remain united. But there are degrees
of madness, as of folly; the disorderly jumbling
ideas together is in some more, and some
less. In short, herein seems to lie the difference
between idiots and madmen: that madmen put
wrong ideas together, and so make wrong propositions,
but argue and reason right from them; but
idiots make very few or no propositions,
and reason scarce at all.
14. Method followed in this explication
of faculties. These, I think, are the first
faculties and operations of the mind, which
it makes use of in understanding; and though
they are exercised about all its ideas in
general, yet the instances I have hitherto
given have been chiefly in simple ideas.
And I have subjoined the explication of these
faculties of the mind to that of simple ideas,
before I come to what I have to say concerning
complex ones, for these following reasons:-
First, Because several of these faculties
being exercised at first principally about
simple ideas, we might, by following nature
in its ordinary method, trace and discover
them, in their rise, progress, and gradual
improvements. Secondly, Because observing
the faculties of the mind, how they operate
about simple ideas,- which are usually, in
most men's minds, much more clear, precise,
and distinct than complex ones,- we may the
better examine and learn how the mind extracts,
denominates, compares, and exercises, in
its other operations about those which are
complex, wherein we are much more liable
to mistake. Thirdly, Because these very
operations of the mind about ideas received
from sensations, are themselves, when reflected
on, another set of ideas, derived from that
other source of our knowledge, which I call
reflection; and therefore fit to be considered
in this place after the simple ideas of sensation.
Of compounding, comparing, abstracting, &c.,
I have but just spoken, having occasion to
treat of them more at large in other places.
15. The true beginning of human knowledge.
And thus I have given a short, and, I think,
true history of the first beginnings of human
knowledge;- whence the mind has its first
objects; and by what steps it makes its progress
to the laying in and storing up those ideas,
out of which is to be framed all the knowledge
it is capable of: wherein I must appeal to
experience and observation whether I am in
the right: the best way to come to truth
being to examine things as really they are,
and not to conclude they are, as we fancy
of ourselves, or have been taught by others
to imagine.
16. Appeal to experience. To deal truly,
this is the only way that I can discover,
whereby the ideas of things are brought into
the understanding. If other men have either
innate ideas or infused principles, they
have reason to enjoy them; and if they are
sure of it, it is impossible for others to
deny them the privilege that they have above
their neighbours. I can speak but of what
I find in myself, and is agreeable to those
notions, which, if we will examine the whole
course of men in their several ages, countries,
and educations, seem to depend on those foundations
which I have laid, and to correspond with
this method in all the parts and degrees
thereof.
17. Dark room. I pretend not to teach, but
to inquire; and therefore cannot but confess
here again,- that external and internal sensation
are the only passages I can find of knowledge
to the understanding. These alone, as far
as I can discover, are the windows by which
light is let into this dark room. For, methinks,
the understanding is not much unlike a closet
wholly shut from light, with only some little
openings left, to let in external visible
resemblances, or ideas of things without:
would the pictures coming into such a dark
room but stay there, and lie so orderly as
to be found upon occasion, it would very
much resemble the understanding of a man,
in reference to all objects of sight, and
the ideas of them.
These are my guesses concerning the means
whereby the understanding comes to have and
retain simple ideas, and the modes of them,
with some other operations about them.
I proceed now to examine some of these simple
ideas and their modes a little more particularly.
Chapter XII Of Complex Ideas
1. Made by the mind out of simple ones.
We have hitherto considered those ideas,
in the reception whereof the mind is only
passive, which are those simple ones received
from sensation and reflection before mentioned,
whereof the mind cannot make one to itself,
nor have any idea which does not wholly consist
of them. But as the mind is wholly passive
in the reception of all its simple ideas,
so it exerts several acts of its own, whereby
out of its simple ideas, as the materials
and foundations of the rest, the others are
framed. The acts of the mind, wherein it
exerts its power over its simple ideas, are
chiefly these three: (1) Combining several
simple ideas into one compound one; and thus
all complex ideas are made.
(2) The second is bringing two ideas, whether
simple or complex, together, and setting
them by one another, so as to take a view
of them at once, without uniting them into
one; by which way it gets all its ideas of
relations. (3) The third is separating them
from all other ideas that accompany them
in their real existence: this is called abstraction:
and thus all its general ideas are made.
This shows man's power, and its ways of operation,
to be much the same in the material and intellectual
world. For the materials in both being such
as he has no power over, either to make or
destroy, all that man can do is either to
unite them together, or to set them by one
another, or wholly separate them. I shall
here begin with the first of these in the
consideration of complex ideas, and come
to the other two in their due places. As
simple ideas are observed to exist in several
combinations united together, so the mind
has a power to consider several of them united
together as one idea; and that not only as
they are united in external objects, but
as itself has joined them together. Ideas
thus made up of several simple ones put together,
I call complex;- such as are beauty, gratitude,
a man, an army, the universe; which, though
complicated of various simple ideas, or complex
ideas made up of simple ones, yet are, when
the mind pleases, considered each by itself,
as one entire thing, and signified by one
name.
2. Made voluntarily. In this faculty of
repeating and joining together its ideas,
the mind has great power in varying and multiplying
the objects of its thoughts, infinitely beyond
what sensation or reflection furnished it
with: but all this still confined to those
simple ideas which it received from those
two sources, and which are the ultimate materials
of all its compositions. For simple ideas
are all from things themselves, and of these
the mind can have no more, nor other than
what are suggested to it. It can have no
other ideas of sensible qualities than what
come from without by the senses; nor any
ideas of other kind of operations of a thinking
substance, than what it finds in itself But
when it has once got these simple ideas,
it is not confined barely to observation,
and what offers itself from without; it can,
by its own power, put together those ideas
it has, and make new complex ones, which
it never received so united.
3. Complex ideas are either of modes, substances,
or relations. COMPLEX IDEAS, however compounded
and decompounded, though their number be
infinite, and the variety endless, wherewith
they fill and entertain the thoughts of men;
yet I think they may be all reduced under
these three heads:-
1. MODES.
2. SUBSTANCES.
3. RELATIONS. 4. Ideas of modes. First,
Modes I call such complex ideas which, however
compounded, contain not in them the supposition
of subsisting by themselves, but are considered
as dependences on, or affections of substances;-
such as are the ideas signified by the words
triangle, gratitude, murder, &c. And
if in this I use the word mode in somewhat
a different sense from its ordinary signification,
I beg pardon; it being unavoidable in discourses,
differing from the ordinary received notions,
either to make new words, or to use old words
in somewhat a new signification; the later
whereof, in our present case, is perhaps
the more tolerable of the two.
5. Simple and mixed modes of simple ideas.
Of these modes, there are two sorts which
deserve distinct consideration: First, there
are some which are only variations, or different
combinations of the same simple idea, without
the mixture of any other;- as a dozen, or
score; which are nothing but the ideas of
so many distinct units added together, and
these I call simple modes as being contained
within the bounds of one simple idea. Secondly,
there are others compounded of simple ideas
of several kinds, put together to make one
complex one;- v. g. beauty, consisting of
a certain composition of colour and figure,
causing delight to the beholder; theft, which
being the concealed change of the possession
of anything, without the consent of the proprietor,
contains, as is visible, a combination of
several ideas of several kinds: and these
I call mixed modes.
6. Ideas of substances, single or collective.
Secondly, the ideas of Substances are such
combinations of simple ideas as are taken
to represent distinct particular things subsisting
by themselves; the supposed or confused idea
of substance, such as it is, is always the
first and chief Thus if to substance be joined
the simple idea of a certain dull whitish
colour, with certain degrees of weight, hardness,
ductility, and fusibility, we have the idea
of lead; and a combination of the ideas of
a certain sort of figure, with the powers
of motion, thought and reasoning, joined
to substance, the ordinary idea of a man.
Now of substances also, there are two sorts
of ideas:- one of single substances, as they
exist separately, as of a man or a sheep;
the other of several of those put together,
as an army of men, or flock of sheep- which
collective ideas of several substances thus
put together are as much each of them one
single idea as that of a man or an unit.
7. Ideas of relation. Thirdly, the last
sort of complex ideas is that we call Relation,
which consists in the consideration and comparing
one idea with another.
Of these several kinds we shall treat in
their order.
8. The abstrusest ideas we can have are
all from two sources. If we trace the progress
of our minds, and with attention observe
how it repeats, adds together, and unites
its simple ideas received from sensation
or reflection, it will lead us further than
at first perhaps we should have imagined.
And, I believe, we shall find, if we warily
observe the originals of our notions, that
even the most abstruse ideas, how remote
soever they may seem from sense, or from
any operations of our own minds, are yet
only such as the understanding frames to
itself, by repeating and joining together
ideas that it had either from objects of
sense, or from its own operations about them:
so that those even large and abstract ideas
are derived from sensation or reflection,
being no other than what the mind, by the
ordinary use of its own faculties, employed
about ideas received from objects of sense,
or from the operations it observes in itself
about them, may, and does, attain unto.
This I shall endeavour to show in the ideas
we have of space, time, and infinity, and
some few others that seem the most remote,
from those originals.
Chapter XIII Complex Ideas of Simple Modes:-
and First, of the Simple Modes of the Idea
of Space
1. Simple modes of simple ideas. Though
in the foregoing part I have often mentioned
simple ideas, which are truly the materials
of all our knowledge; yet having treated
of them there, rather in the way that they
come into the mind, than as distinguished
from others more compounded, it will not
be perhaps amiss to take a view of some of
them again under this consideration, and
examine those different modifications of
the same idea; which the mind either finds
in things existing, or is able to make within
itself without the help of any extrinsical
object, or any foreign suggestion.
Those modifications of any one simple idea
(which, as has been said, I call simple modes)
are as perfectly different and distinct ideas
in the mind as those of the greatest distance
or contrariety. For the idea of two is as
distinct from that of one, as blueness from
heat, or either of them from any number:
and yet it is made up only of that simple
idea of an unit repeated; and repetitions
of this kind joined together make those distinct
simple modes, of a dozen, a gross, a million.
2. Idea of Space. I shall begin with the
simple idea of space. I have showed above,
chap. V, that we get the idea of space, both
by our sight and touch; which, I think, is
so evident, that it would be as needless
to go to prove that men perceive, by their
sight, a distance between bodies of different
colours, or between the parts of the same
body, as that they see colours themselves:
nor is it less obvious, that they can do
so in the dark by feeling and touch.
3. Space and extension. This space, considered
barely in length between any two beings,
without considering anything else between
them, is called distance: if considered in
length, breadth, and thickness, I think it
may be called capacity. (The term extension
is usually applied to it in what manner soever
considered.)
4. Immensity. Each different distance is
a different modification of space; and each
idea of any different distance, or space,
is a simple mode of this idea. Men, for the
use and by the custom of measuring, settle
in their minds the ideas of certain stated
lengths,- such as are an inch, foot, yard,
fathom, mile, diameter of the earth, &c.,
which are so many distinct ideas made up
only of space. When any such stated lengths
or measures of space are made familiar to
men's thoughts, they can, in their minds,
repeat them as often as they will, without
mixing or joining to them the idea of body,
or anything else; and frame to themselves
the ideas of long, square, or cubic feet,
yards or fathoms, here amongst the bodies
of the universe, or else beyond the utmost
bounds of all bodies; and, by adding these
still one to another, enlarge their ideas
of space as much as they please. The power
of repeating or doubling any idea we have
of any distance and adding it to the former
as often as we will, without being ever able
to come to any stop or stint, let us enlarge
it as much as we will, is that which gives
us the idea of immensity.
5. Figure. There is another modification
of this idea, which is nothing but the relation
which the parts of the termination of extension,
or circumscribed space, have amongst themselves.
This the touch discovers in sensible bodies,
whose extremities come within our reach;
and the eye takes both from bodies and colours,
whose boundaries are within its view: where,
observing how the extremities terminate,-
either in straight lines which meet at discernible
angles, or in crooked lines wherein no angles
can be perceived; by considering these as
they relate to one another, in all parts
of the extremities of any body or space,
it has that idea we call figure, which affords
to the mind infinite variety. For, besides
the vast number of different figures that
do really exist, in the coherent masses of
matter, the stock that the mind has in its
power, by varying the idea of space, and
thereby making still new compositions, by
repeating its own ideas, and joining them
as it pleases, is perfectly inexhaustible.
And so it can multiply figures in infinitum.
6. Endless variety of figures. For the mind
having a power to repeat the idea of any
length directly stretched out, and join it
to another in the same direction, which is
to double the length of that straight line;
or else join another with what inclination
it thinks fit, and so make what sort of angle
it pleases: and being able also to shorten
any line it imagines, by taking from it one
half, one fourth, or what part it pleases,
without being able to come to an end of any
such divisions, it can make an angle of any
bigness. So also the lines that are its sides,
of what length it pleases, which joining
again to other lines, of different lengths,
and at different angles, till it has wholly
enclosed any space, it is evident that it
can multiply figures, both in their shape
and capacity, in infinitum; all which are
but so many different simple modes of space.
The same that it can do with straight lines,
it can also do with crooked, or crooked and
straight together; and the same it can do
in lines, it can also in superficies; by
which we may be led into farther thoughts
of the endless variety of figures that the
mind has a power to make, and thereby to
multiply the simple modes of space.
7. Place. Another idea coming under this
head, and belonging to this tribe, is that
we call place. As in simple space, we consider
the relation of distance between any two
bodies or points; so in our idea of place,
we consider the relation of distance betwixt
anything, and any two or more points, which
are considered as keeping the same distance
one with another, and so considered as at
rest. For when we find anything at the same
distance now which it was yesterday, from
any two or more points, which have not since
changed their distance one with another,
and with which we then compared it, we say
it hath kept the same place: but if it hath
sensibly altered its distance with either
of those points, we say it hath changed its
place: though, vulgarly speaking, in the
common notion of place, we do not always
exactly observe the distance from these precise
points, but from larger portions of sensible
objects, to which we consider the thing placed
to bear relation, and its distance from which
we have some reason to observe.
8. Place relative to particular bodies.
Thus, a company of chess-men, standing on
the same squares of the chess-board where
we left them, we say they are all in the
same place, or unmoved, though perhaps the
chess-board hath been in the mean time carried
out of one room into another; because we
compared them only to the parts of the chess-board,
which keep the same distance one with another.
The chess- board, we also say, is in the
same place it was, if it remain in the same
part of the cabin, though perhaps the ship
which it is in sails all the while. And the
ship is said to be in the same place, supposing
it kept the same distance with the parts
of the neighbouring land; though perhaps
the earth hath turned round, and so both
chess-men, and board, and ship, have every
one changed place, in respect of remoter
bodies, which have kept the same distance
one with another. But yet the distance from
certain parts of the board being that which
determines the place of the chessmen; and
the distance from the fixed parts of the
cabin
(with which we made the comparison) being
that which determined the place of the chess-board;
and the fixed parts of the earth that by
which we determined the place of the ship,-
these things may be said to be in the same
place in those respects: though their distance
from some other things, which in this matter
we did not consider, being varied, they have
undoubtedly changed place in that respect;
and we ourselves shall think so, when we
have occasion to compare them with those
other.
9. Place relative to a present purpose.
But this modification of distance we call
place, being made by men for their common
use, that by it they might be able to design
the particular position of things, where
they had occasion for such designation; men
consider and determine of this place by reference
to those adjacent things which best served
to their present purpose, without considering
other things which, to another purpose, would
better determine the place of the same thing.
Thus in the chess-board, the use of the designation
of the place of each chess-man being determined
only within that chequered piece of wood,
it would cross that purpose to measure it
by anything else; but when these very chess-men
are put up in a bag, if any one should ask
where the black king is, it would be proper
to determine the place by the part of the
room it was in, and not by the chess-board;
there being another use of designing the
place it is now in, than when in play it
was on the chess-board, and so must be determined
by other bodies. So if any one should ask,
in what place are the verses which report
the story of Nisus and Euryalus, it would
be very improper to determine this place,
by saying, they were in such a part of the
earth, or in Bodley's library: but the right
designation of the place would be by the
parts of Virgil's works; and the proper answer
would be, that these verses were about the
middle of the ninth book of his AEneids,
and that they have been always constantly
in the same place ever since Virgil was printed:
which is true, though the book itself hath
moved a thousand times, the use of the idea
of place here being, to know in what part
of the book that story is, that so, upon
occasion, we may know where to find it, and
have recourse to it for use.
10. Place of the universe. That our idea
of place is nothing else but such a relative
position of anything as I have before mentioned,
I think is plain, and will be easily admitted,
when we consider that we can have no idea
of the place of the universe, though we can
of all the parts of it; because beyond that
we have not the idea of any fixed, distinct,
particular beings, in reference to which
we can imagine it to have any relation of
distance; but all beyond it is one uniform
space or expansion, wherein the mind finds
no variety, no marks. For to say that the
world is somewhere, means no more than that
it does exist; this, though a phrase borrowed
from place, signifying only its existence,
not location: and when one can find out,
and frame in his mind, clearly and distinctly,
the place of the universe, he will be able
to tell us whether it moves or stands still
in the undistinguishable inane of infinite
space: though it be true that the word place
has sometimes a more confused sense, and
stands for that space which anybody takes
up; and so the universe is in a place.
The idea, therefore, of place we have by
the same means that we get the idea of space,
(whereof this is but a particular limited
consideration,) viz, by our sight and touch;
by either of which we receive into our minds
the ideas of extension or distance.
11. Extension and body not the same. There
are some that would persuade us, that body
and extension are the same thing, who either
change the signification of words, which
I would not suspect them of,- they having
so severely condemned the philosophy of others,
because it hath been too much placed in the
uncertain meaning, or deceitful obscurity
of doubtful or insignificant terms. If, therefore,
they mean by body and extension the same
that other people do, viz. by body something
that is solid and extended, whose parts are
separable and movable different ways; and
by extension, only the space that lies between
the extremities of those solid coherent parts,
and which is possessed by them,- they confound
very different ideas one with another; for
I appeal to every man's own thoughts whether
the idea of space be not as distinct from
that of solidity, as it is from the idea
of scarlet colour? It is true, solidity cannot
exist without extension, neither can scarlet
colour exist without extension, but this
hinders not, but that they are distinct ideas.
Many ideas require others, as necessary to
their existence or conception, which yet
are very distinct ideas. Motion can neither
be, nor be conceived, without space; and
yet motion is not space, nor space motion;
space can exist without it, and they are
very distinct ideas; and so, I think, are
those of space and solidity. Solidity is
so inseparable an idea from body, that upon
that depends its filling of space, its contact,
impulse, and communication of motion upon
impulse. And if it be a reason to prove that
spirit is different from body, because thinking
includes not the idea of extension in it;
the same reason will be as valid, I suppose,
to prove that space is not body, because
it includes not the idea of solidity in it;
space and solidity being as distinct ideas
as thinking and extension, and as wholly
separable in the mind one from another. Body
then and extension, it is evident, are two
distinct ideas. For,
12. Extension not solidity. First, Extension
includes no solidity, nor resistance to the
motion of body, as body does.
13. The parts of space inseparable, both
really and mentally. Secondly, The parts
of pure space are inseparable one from the
other; so that the continuity cannot be separated,
neither really nor mentally. For I demand
of any one to remove any part of it from
another, with which it is continued, even
so much as in thought. To divide and separate
actually is, as I think, by removing the
parts one from another, to make two superficies,
where before there was 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.
It 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 disjoined
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. The parts of space, immovable. 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 determined idea of simple
space distinguishes it plainly and sufficiently
from body; since its parts are inseparable,
immovable, and without resistance to the
motion of body.
15. The definition of extension explains
it not. 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 thereby 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. Division of beings into bodies and spirits
proves not space and body the same. 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. Substance which we know not, no proof
against space without body. 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 show
me a clear distinct idea of substance.
18. Different meanings of substance. I endeavour
as much as I can to deliver myself from those
fallacies which we are apt to put upon ourselves,
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 determined 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 stands for the same idea, when
each of those three so different beings are
called substances. If so, whether it will
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 body,
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 spirit, 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 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 in ordinary use 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. Substance and accidents of little use
in philosophy. 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 inquired 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. Sticking on and under-propping. Whatever
a learned man may do here, an intelligent
American, who inquired 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 is 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, inhaerentia
and substantio, put into the plain English
ones that answer them, and were called sticking
on and under-propping, they would better
discover to us the very great clearness there
is in the doctrine of substance and accidents,
and show of what use they are in deciding
of questions in philosophy.
21. A vacuum beyond the utmost bounds of
body. But to return to our idea of space.
If body be not supposed infinite, (which
I think no one will affirm), I would ask,
whether, if God placed a man at the extremity
of corporeal beings, he could not stretch
his hand beyond his body? If he could, then
he would put his arm where there was before
space without body; and if there he spread
his fingers, there would still be space between
them without body. If he could not stretch
out his hand, it must be because of some
external hindrance; (for we suppose him alive,
with such a power of moving the parts of
his body that he hath now, which is not in
itself impossible, if God so pleased to have
it; or at least it is not impossible for
God so to move him): and then I ask,- whether
that which hinders his hand from moving outwards
be substance or accident, something or nothing?
And when they have resolved that, they will
be able to resolve themselves,- what that
is, which is or may be between two bodies
at a distance, that is not body, and has
no solidity. In the mean time, the argument
is at least as good, that, where nothing
hinders, (as beyond the utmost bounds of
all bodies), a body put in motion may move
on, as where there is nothing between, there
two bodies must necessarily touch. For pure
space between is sufficient to take away
the necessity of mutual contact; but bare
space in the way is not sufficient to stop
motion. The truth is, these men must either
own that they think body infinite, though
they are loth to speak it out, or else affirm
that space is not body. For I would fain
meet with that thinking man that can in his
thoughts set any bounds to space, more than
he can to duration; or by thinking hope to
arrive at the end of either. And therefore,
if his idea of eternity be infinite, so is
his idea of immensity; they are both finite
or infinite alike.
22. The power of annihilation proves a vacuum.
Farther, those who assert the impossibility
of space existing without matter, must not
only make body infinite, but must also deny
a power in God to annihilate any part of
matter. No one, I suppose, will deny that
God can put an end to all motion that is
in matter, and fix all the bodies of the
universe in a perfect quiet and rest, and
continue them so long as he pleases. Whoever
then will allow that God can, during such
a general rest, annihilate either this book
or the body of him that reads it, must necessarily
admit the possibility of a vacuum. For, it
is evident that the space that was filled
by the parts of the annihilated body will
still remain, and be a space without body.
For the circumambient bodies being in perfect
rest, are a wall of adamant, and in that
state make it a perfect impossibility for
any other body to get into that space. And
indeed the necessary motion of one particle
of matter into the place from whence another
particle of matter is removed, is but a consequence
from the supposition of plenitude; which
will therefore need some better proof than
a supposed matter of fact, which experiment
can never make out;- our own clear and distinct
ideas plainly satisfying us, that there is
no necessary connexion between space and
solidity, since we can conceive the one without
the other. And those who dispute for or against
a vacuum, do thereby confess they have distinct
ideas of vacuum and plenum, i. e. that they
have an idea of extension void of solidity,
though they deny its existence; or else they
dispute about nothing at all. For they who
so much alter the signification of words,
as to call extension body, and consequently
make the whole essence of body to be nothing
but pure extension without solidity, must
talk absurdly whenever they speak of vacuum;
since it is impossible for extension to be
without extension. For vacuum, whether we
affirm or deny its existence, signifies space
without body; whose very existence no one
can deny to be possible, who will not make
matter infinite, and take from God a power
to annihilate any particle of it.
23. Motion proves a vacuum. But not to go
so far as beyond the utmost bounds of body
in the universe, nor appeal to God's omnipotency
to find a vacuum, the motion of bodies that
are in our view and neighbourhood seems to
me plainly to evince it. For I desire any
one so to divide a solid body, of any dimension
he pleases, as to make it possible for the
solid parts to move up and down freely every
way within the bounds of that superficies,
if there be not left in it a void space as
big as the least part into which he has divided
the said solid body. And if, where the least
particle of the body divided is as big as
a mustard-seed, a void space equal to the
bulk of a mustard-seed be requisite to make
room for the free motion of the parts of
the divided body within the bounds of its
superficies, where the particles of matter
are 100,000,000 less than a mustard-seed,
there must also be a space void of solid
matter as big as 100,000,000 part of a mustard-seed;
for if it hold in the one it will hold in
the other, and so on in infinitum. And let
this void space be as little as it will,
it destroys the hypothesis of plenitude.
For if there can be a space void of body
equal to the smallest separate particle of
matter now existing in nature, it is still
space without body; and makes as great a
difference between space and body as if it
were mega chasma, a distance as wide as any
in nature. And therefore, if we suppose not
the void space necessary to motion equal
to the least parcel of the divided solid
matter, but to 1/10 or 1/1000 of it, the
same consequence will always follow of space
without matter.
24. The ideas of space and body distinct.
But the question being here,- Whether the
idea of space or extension be the same with
the idea of body? it is not necessary to
prove the real existence of a vacuum, but
the idea of it; which it is plain men have
when they inquire and dispute whether there
be a vacuum or no. For if they had not the
idea of space without body, they could not
make a question about its existence: and
if their idea of body did not include in
it something more than the bare idea of space,
they could have no doubt about the plenitude
of the world; and it would be as absurd to
demand, whether there were space without
body, as whether there were space without
space, or body without body, since these
were but different names of the same idea.
25. Extension being inseparable from body,
proves it not the same. It is true, the idea
of extension joins itself 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 itself 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 wondered 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 anything 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 essences
of things.
26. Essences of things. 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 everything. 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 shown sufficiently.
27. Ideas of space and solidity distinct.
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 or space
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 itself, 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 not 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 settled
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 anything that was there. But, to avoid
confusion in discourses concerning this matter,
it were possibly to be wished that the name
extension were applied only to matter, or
the distance of the extremities of particular
bodies; and the term expansion to space in
general, with or without solid matter possessing
it,- so as to say space is expanded and body
extended. But in this every one has his liberty:
I propose it only for the more clear and
distinct way of speaking.
28. Men differ little in clear, simple ideas.
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.
I 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 to 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, I do not see how they could discourse
or argue with another. Here I must not be
mistaken, to think that every floating imagination
in men's brains is presently of that sort
of ideas I speak of. It is not easy 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.
Chapter XIV Idea of Duration and its Simple
Modes
1. Duration is fleeting extension. 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. Its idea from reflection on the train
of our ideas. 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 myself to think of it, the less I understand
it,) might perhaps persuade one that time,
which reveals all other things, is itself
not to be discovered. Duration, time, and
eternity, are, not without reason, thought
to have something very abstruse in their
nature. But however remote these 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 these ideas, as clear
and distinct as many others which are thought
much less obscure; and we shall find that
the idea of eternity itself is derived from
the same common original with the rest of
our ideas.
3. Nature and origin of the idea of duration.
To understand time and eternity aright, we
ought with attention to consider what idea
it is we have of duration, and how we came
by it. It is evident to any one who will
but observe what passes in his own mind,
that there is a train of ideas which constantly
succeed one another in his understanding,
as long as he is awake. Reflection on these
appearances of several ideas one after another
in our minds, is that which furnishes us
with the idea of succession: and the distance
between any parts of that succession, or
between the appearance of any two ideas in
our minds, is that we call duration. For
whilst we are thinking, or whilst we receive
successively several ideas in our minds,
we know that we do exist; and so we call
the existence, or the continuation of the
existence of ourselves, or anything else,
commensurate to the succession of any ideas
in our minds, the duration of ourselves,
or any such other thing co-existent with
our thinking.
4. Proof that its idea is got from reflection
on the train of our ideas. That we have our
notion of succession and duration from this
original, viz. from reflection on the train
of ideas, which we find to appear one after
another in our own minds, seems plain to
me, in that we have no perception of duration
but by considering the train of ideas that
take their turns in our understandings. When
that succession of ideas ceases, our perception
of duration ceases with it; which every one
clearly experiments in himself, whilst he
sleeps soundly, whether an hour or a day,
a month or a year; of which duration of things,
while he sleeps or thinks not, he has no
perception at all, but it is quite lost to
him; and the moment wherein he leaves off
to think, till the moment he begins to think
again, seems to him to have no distance.
And so I doubt not it would be to a waking
man, if it were possible for him to keep
only one idea in his mind, without variation
and the succession of others. And we see,
that one who fixes his thoughts very intently
on one thing, so as to take but little notice
of the succession of ideas that pass in his
mind, whilst he is taken up with that earnest
contemplation, lets slip out of his account
a good part of that duration, and thinks
that time shorter than it is. But if sleep
commonly unites the distant parts of duration,
it is because during that time we have no
succession of ideas in our minds. For if
a man, during his sleep, dreams, and variety
of ideas make themselves perceptible in his
mind one after another, he hath then, during
such dreaming, a sense of duration, and of
the length of it. By which it is to me very
clear, that men derive their ideas of duration
from their reflections on the train of the
ideas they observe to succeed one another
in their own understandings; without which
observation they can have no notion of duration,
whatever may happen in the world.
5. The idea of duration applicable to things
whilst we sleep. Indeed a man having, from
reflecting on the succession and number of
his own thoughts, got the notion or idea
of duration, he can apply that notion to
things which exist while he does not think;
as he that has got the idea of extension
from bodies by his sight or touch, can apply
it to distances, where no body is seen or
felt. And therefore, though a man has no
perception of the length of duration which
passed whilst he slept or thought not; yet,
having observed the revolution of days and
nights, and found the length of their duration
to be in appearance regular and constant,
he can, upon the supposition that that revolution
has proceeded after the same manner whilst
he was asleep or thought not, as it used
to do at other times, he can, I say, imagine
and make allowance for the length of duration
whilst he slept. But if Adam and Eve, (when
they were alone in the world), instead of
their ordinary night's sleep, had passed
the whole twenty-four hours in one continued
sleep, the duration of that twenty-four hours
had been irrecoverably lost to them, and
been for ever left out of their account of
time.
6. The idea of succession not from motion.
Thus by reflecting on the appearing of various
ideas one after another in our understandings,
we get the notion of succession; which, if
any one should think we did rather get from
our observation of motion by our senses,
he will perhaps be of my mind when he considers,
that even motion produces in his mind an
idea of succession no otherwise than as it
produces there a continued train of distinguishable
ideas. For a man looking upon a body really
moving, perceives yet no motion at all unless
that motion produces a constant train of
successive ideas: v. g. a man becalmed at
sea, out of sight of land, in a fair day,
may look on the sun, or sea, or ship, a whole
hour together, and perceive no motion at
all in either; though it be certain that
two, and perhaps all of them, have moved
during that time a great way. But as soon
as he perceives either of them to have changed
distance with some other body, as soon as
this motion produces any new idea in him,
then he perceives that there has been motion.
But wherever a man is, with all things at
rest about him, without perceiving any motion
at all,- if during this hour of quiet he
has been thinking, he will perceive the various
ideas of his own thoughts in his own mind,
appearing one after another, and thereby
observe and find succession where he could
observe no motion.
7. Very slow motions unperceived. And this,
I think, is the reason why motions very slow,
though they are constant, are not perceived
by us; because in their remove from one sensible
part towards another, their change of distance
is so slow, that it causes no new ideas in
us, but a good while one after another. And
so not causing a constant train of new ideas
to follow one another immediately in our
minds, we have no perception of motion; which
consisting in a constant succession, we cannot
perceive that succession without a constant
succession of varying ideas arising from
it.
8. Very swift motions unperceived. On the
contrary, things that move so swift as not
to affect the senses distinctly with several
distinguishable distances of their motion,
and so cause not any train of ideas in the
mind, are not also perceived. For anything
that moves round about in a circle, in less
times than our ideas are wont to succeed
one another in our minds, is not perceived
to move; but seems to be a perfect entire
circle of that matter or colour, and not
a part of a circle in motion.
9. The train of ideas has a certain degree
of quickness. Hence I leave it to others
to judge, whether it be not probable that
our ideas do, whilst we are awake, succeed
one another in our minds at certain distances;
not much unlike the images in the inside
of a lantern, 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. Real succession in swift motions without
sense of succession. 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, it is as clear
as any demonstration can be, that it must
strike successively the two sides of the
room: it is also evident that it must touch
one part of the flesh first, and another
after, and so in succession: and yet, I believe,
nobody 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 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. In slow motions. 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 moves,
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
itself we perceive not.
12. This train, the measure of other successions.
So that to me it seems, that the constant
and regular succession of ideas in a waking
man, is, as it were, the measure and standard
of all other successions. Whereof, if any
one either exceeds the pace of our ideas,
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 pace 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. The mind cannot fix long on one invariable
idea. 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. Proof. 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 considerations of
that idea, (each of which considerations
is a new idea), will constantly succeed one
another in his thoughts, let him be as wary
as he can.
15. The extent of our power over the succession
of our ideas. 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 choose whether he will heedfully
observe and consider them.
16. Ideas, however made, include no sense
of motion. 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 shows 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. It 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 showed: and we have as clear
an idea of succession and duration, by the
train of other ideas succeeding one another
in our minds, without the idea of any motion,
as by the train of ideas caused by the uninterrupted
sensible 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. Time is duration set out by measures.
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. A good measure of time must divide its
whole duration into equal periods. 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 together to measure
one another. And nothing being a measure
of duration but duration, as nothing is of
extension but extension, we cannot keep by
us any standing, unvarying measure of duration,
which consists in a constant fleeting succession,
as we can of certain lengths of extension,
as inches, feet, yards, &c., marked out
in permanent parcels of matter. Nothing then
could serve well for a convenient measure
of time, but what has divided the whole length
of its duration into apparently equal portions,
by constantly repeated periods. What portions
of duration are not distinguished, or considered
as distinguished and measured, by such periods,
come not so properly under the notion of
time; as appears by such phrases as these,
viz. "Before all time," and "When
time shall be no more."
19. The revolutions of the sun and moon,
the properest measures of time for mankind.
The diurnal and annual revolutions of the
sun, as having been, from the beginning of
nature, constant, regular, and universally
observable by all mankind, and supposed equal
to one another, have been with reason made
use of for the measure of duration. But the
distinction of days and years having depended
on the motion of the sun, it has brought
this mistake with it, that it has been thought
that motion and duration were the measure
one of another. For men, in the measuring
of the length of time, having been accustomed
to the ideas of minutes, hours, days, months,
years, &c., which they found themselves
upon any mention of time or duration presently
to think on, all which portions of time were
measured out by the motion of those heavenly
bodies, they were apt to confound time and
motion; or at least to think that they had
a necessary connexion one with another. Whereas
any constant periodical appearance, or alteration
of ideas, in seemingly equidistant spaces
of duration, if constant and universally
observable, would have as well distinguished
the intervals of time, as those that have
been made use of. For, supposing the sun,
which some have taken to be a fire, had been
lighted up at the same distance of time that
it now every day comes about to the same
meridian, and then gone out again about twelve
hours after, and that in the space of an
annual revolution it had sensibly increased
in brightness and heat, and so decreased
again,- would not such regular appearances
serve to measure out the distances of duration
to all that could observe it, as well without
as with motion? For if the appearances were
constant, universally observable, in equidistant
periods, they would serve mankind for measure
of time as well were the motion away.
20. But not by their motion, but periodical
appearances. For the freezing of water, or
the blowing of a plant, returning at equidistant
periods in all parts of the earth, would
as well serve men to reckon their years by
as the motions of the sun: and in effect
we see, that some people in America counted
their years by the coming of certain birds
amongst them at their certain seasons, and
leaving them at others. For a fit of an ague;
the sense of hunger or thirst; a smell or
a taste; or any other idea returning constantly
at equidistant periods, and making itself
universally be taken notice of, would not
fail to measure out the course of succession,
and distinguish the distances of time. Thus
we see that men born blind count time well
enough by years, whose revolutions yet they
cannot distinguish by motions that they perceive
not. And I ask whether a blind man, who distinguished
his years either by the heat of summer, or
cold of winter; by the smell of any flower
of the spring, or taste of any fruit of the
autumn, would not have a better measure of
time than the Romans had before the reformation
of their calendar by Julius Caesar, or many
other people whose years, notwithstanding
the motion of the sun, which they pretended
to make use of, are very irregular? And it
adds no small difficulty to chronology, that
the exact lengths of the years that several
nations counted by, are hard to be known,
they differing very much one from another,
and I think I may say all of them from the
precise motion of the sun. And if the sun
moved from the creation to the flood constantly
in the equator, and so equally dispersed
its light and heat to all the habitable parts
of the earth, in days all of the same length,
without its annual variations to the tropics,
as a late ingenious author supposes, I do
not think it very easy to imagine, that (notwithstanding
the motion of the sun) men should in the
antediluvian world, from the beginning, count
by years, or measure their time by periods
that had no sensible marks very obvious to
distinguish them by.
21. No two parts of duration can be certainly
known to be equal. But perhaps it will be
said,- without a regular motion, such as
of the sun, or some other, how could it ever
be known that such periods were equal? To
which I answer,- the equality of any other
returning appearances might be known by the
same way that that of days was known, or
presumed to be so at first; which was only
by judging of them by the train of ideas
which had passed in men's minds in the intervals;
by which train of ideas discovering inequality
in the natural days, but none in the artificial
days, the artificial days, or nuchtheerha,
were guessed to be equal, which was sufficient
to make them serve for a measure; though
exacter search has since discovered inequality
in the diurnal revolutions of the sun, and
we know not whether the annual also be not
unequal. These yet, by their presumed and
apparent equality, serve as well to reckon
time by (though not to measure the parts
of duration exactly) as if they could be
proved to be exactly equal. We must, therefore,
carefully distinguish betwixt duration itself,
and the measures we make use of to judge
of its length. Duration, in itself, is to
be considered as going on in one constant,
equal, uniform course: but none of the measures
of it which we make use of can be known to
do so, nor can we be assured that their assigned
parts or periods are equal in duration one
to another; for two successive lengths of
duration, however measured, can never be
demonstrated to be equal. The motion of the
sun, which the world used so long and so
confidently for an exact measure of duration,
has, as I said, been found in its several
parts unequal. And though men have, of late,
made use of a pendulum, as a more steady
and regular motion than that of the sun,
or, (to speak more truly), of the earth;-
yet if any one should be asked how he certainly
knows that the two successive swings of a
pendulum are equal, it would be very hard
to satisfy him that they are infallibly so;
since we cannot be sure that the cause of
that motion, which is unknown to us, shall
always operate equally; and we are sure that
the medium in which the pendulum moves is
not constantly the same: either of which
varying, may alter the equality of such periods,
and thereby destroy the certainty and exactness
of the measure by motion, as well as any
other periods of other appearances; the notion
of duration still remaining clear, though
our measures of it cannot (any of them) be
demonstrated to be exact. Since then no two
portions of succession can be brought together,
it is impossible ever certainly to know their
equality. All that we can do for a measure
of time is, to take such as have continual
successive appearances at seemingly equidistant
periods; of which seeming equality we have
no other measure, but such as the train of
our own ideas have lodged in our memories,
with the concurrence of other probable reasons,
to persuade us of their equality.
22. Time not the measure of motion. One
thing seems strange to me,- that whilst all
men manifestly measured time by the motion
of the great and visible bodies of the world,
time yet should be defined to be the "measure
of motion": whereas it is obvious to
every one who reflects ever so little on
it, that to measure motion, space is as necessary
to be considered as time; and those who look
a little farther will find also the bulk
of the thing moved necessary to be taken
into the computation, by any one who will
estimate or measure motion so as to judge
right of it. Nor indeed does motion any otherwise
conduce to the measuring of duration, than
as it constantly brings about the return
of certain sensible ideas, in seeming equidistant
periods. For if the motion of the sun were
as unequal as of a ship driven by unsteady
winds, sometimes very slow, and at others
irregularly very swift; or if, being constantly
equally swift, it yet was not circular, and
produced not the same appearances,- it would
not at all help us to measure time, any more
than the seeming unequal motion of a comet
does.
23. Minutes, hours, days, and years not
necessary measures of duration. Minutes,
hours, days, and years are, then, no more
necessary to time or duration, than inches,
feet, yards, and miles, marked out in any
matter, are to extension. For, though we
in this part of the universe, by the constant
use of them, as of periods set out by the
revolutions of the sun, or as known parts
of such periods, have fixed the ideas of
such lengths of duration in our minds, which
we apply to all parts of time whose lengths
we would consider; yet there may be other
parts of the universe, where they no more
use there measures of ours, than in Japan
they do our inches, feet, or miles; but yet
something analogous to them there must be.
For without some regular periodical returns,
we could not measure ourselves, or signify
to others, the length of any duration; though
at the same time the world were as full of
motion as it is now, but no part of it disposed
into regular and apparently equidistant revolutions.
But the different measures that may be made
use of for the account of time, do not at
all alter the notion of duration, which is
the thing to be measured; no more than the
different standards of a foot and a cubit
alter the notion of extension to those who
make use of those different measures.
24. Our measure of time applicable to duration
before time. The mind having once got such
a measure of time as the annual revolution
of the sun, can apply that measure to duration
wherein that measure itself did not exist,
and with which, in the reality of its being,
it had nothing to do. For should one say,
that Abraham was born in the two thousand
seven hundred and twelfth year of the Julian
period, it is altogether as intelligible
as reckoning from the beginning of the world,
though there were so far back no motion of
the sun, nor any motion at all. For, though
the Julian period be supposed to begin several
hundred years before there were really either
days, nights, or years, marked out by any
revolutions of the sun,- yet we reckon as
right, and thereby measure durations as well,
as if really at that time the sun had existed,
and kept the same ordinary motion it doth
now. The idea of duration equal to an annual
revolution of the sun, is as easily applicable
in our thoughts to duration, where no sun
or motion was, as the idea of a foot or yard,
taken from bodies here, can be applied in
our thoughts to duration, where no sun or
motion was, as the idea of a foot or yard,
taken from bodies here, can be applied in
our thoughts to distances beyond the confines
of the world, where are no bodies at all.
25. As we can measure space in our thoughts
where there is no body. For supposing it
were 5639 miles, or millions of miles, from
this place to the remotest body of the universe,
(for being finite, it must be at a certain
distance), as we suppose it to be 5639 years
from this time to the first existence of
any body in the beginning of the world;-
we can, in our thoughts, apply this measure
of a year to duration before the creation,
or beyond the duration of bodies or motion,
as we can this measure of a mile to space
beyond the utmost bodies; and by the one
measure duration, where there was no motion,
as well as by the other measure space in
our thoughts, where there is no body.
26. The assumption that the world is neither
boundless nor eternal. If it be objected
to me here, that, in this way of explaining
of time, I have begged what I should not,
viz. that the world is neither eternal nor
infinite; I answer, That to my present purpose
it is not needful, in this place, to make
use of arguments to evince the world to be
finite both in duration and extension. But
it being at least as conceivable as the contrary,
I have certainly the liberty to suppose it,
as well as any one hath to suppose the contrary;
and I doubt not, but that every one that
will go about it, may easily conceive in
his mind the beginning of motion, though
not of all duration, and so may come to a
step and non ultra in his consideration of
motion. So also, in his thoughts, he may
set limits to body, and the extension belonging
to it; but not to space, where no body is,
the utmost bounds of space and duration being
beyond the reach of thought, as well as the
utmost bounds of number are beyond the largest
comprehension of the mind; and all for the
same reason, as we shall see in another place.
27. Eternity. By the same means, therefore,
and from the same original that we come to
have the idea of time, we have also that
idea which we call Eternity; viz. having
got the idea of succession and duration,
by reflecting on the train of our own ideas,
caused in us either by the natural appearances
of those ideas coming constantly of themselves
into our waking thoughts, or else caused
by external objects successively affecting
our senses; and having from the revolutions
of the sun got the ideas of certain lengths
of duration,- we can in our thoughts add
such lengths of duration to one another,
as often as we please, and apply them, so
added, to durations past or to come. And
this we can continue to do on, without bounds
or limits, and proceed in infinitum, and
apply thus the length of the annual motion
of the sun to duration, supposed before the
sun's or any other motion had its being;
which is no more difficult or absurd, than
to apply the notion I have of the moving
of a shadow one hour to-day upon the sun-dial
to the duration of something last night,
v. g. the burning of a candle, which is now
absolutely separate from all actual motion;
and it is as impossible for the duration
of that flame for an hour last night to co-exist
with any motion that now is, or for ever
shall be, as for any part of duration, that
was before the beginning of the world, to
co-exist with the motion of the sun now.
But yet this hinders not but that, having
the idea of the length of the motion of the
shadow on a dial between the marks of two
hours, I can as distinctly measure in my
thoughts the duration of that candle-light
last night, as I can the duration of anything
that does now exist: and it is no more than
to think, that, had the sun shone then on
the dial, and moved after the same rate it
doth now, the shadow on the dial would have
passed from one hour-line to another whilst
that flame of the candle lasted.
28. Our measures of duration dependent on
our ideas. The notion of an hour, day, or
year, being only the idea I have of the length
of certain periodical regular motions, neither
of which motions do ever all at once exist,
but only in the ideas I have of them in my
memory derived from my senses or reflection;
I can with the same ease, and for the same
reason, apply it in my thoughts to duration
antecedent to all manner of motion, as well
as to anything that is but a minute or a
day antecedent to the motion that at this
very moment the sun is in. All things past
are equally and perfectly at rest; and to
this way of consideration of them are all
one, whether they were before the beginning
of the world, or but yesterday: the measuring
of any duration by some motion depending
not at all on the real co-existence of that
thing to that motion, or any other periods
of revolution, but the having a clear idea
of the length of some periodical known motion,
or other interval of duration, in my mind,
and applying that to the duration of the
thing I would measure.
29. The duration of anything need not be
co-existent with the motion we measure it
by. Hence we see that some men imagine the
duration of the world, from its first existence
to this present year 1689, to have been 5639
years, or equal to 5639 annual revolutions
of the sun, and others a great deal more;
as the Egyptians of old, who in the time
of Alexander counted 23,000 years from the
reign of the sun; and the Chinese now, who
account the world 3,269,000 years old, or
more; which longer duration of the world,
according to their computation, though I
should not believe to be true, yet I can
equally imagine it with them, and as truly
understand, and say one is longer than the
other, as I understand, that Methusalem's
life was longer than Enoch's. And if the
common reckoning Of 5639 should be true,
(as it may be as well as any other assigned,)
it hinders not at all my imagining what others
mean, when they make the world one thousand
years older, since every one may with the
same facility imagine (I do not say believe)
the world to be 50,000 years old, as 5639;
and may as well conceive the duration of
50,000 years as 5639. Whereby it appears
that, to the measuring the duration of anything
by time, it is not requisite that that thing
should be co-existent to the motion we measure
by, or any other periodical revolution; but
it suffices to this purpose, that we have
the idea of the length of any regular periodical
appearances, which we can in our minds apply
to duration, with which the motion or appearance
never co-existed.
30. Infinity in duration. For, as in the
history of the creation delivered by Moses,
I can imagine that light existed three days
before the sun was, or had any motion, barely
by thinking that the duration of light before
the sun was created was so long as (if the
sun had moved then as it doth now) would
have been equal to three of his diurnal revolutions;
so by the same way I can have an idea of
the chaos, or angels, being created before
there was either light or any continued motion,
a minute, an hour, a day, a year, or one
thousand years. For, if I can but consider
duration equal to one minute, before either
the being or motion of any body, I can add
one minute more till I come to sixty; and
by the same way of adding minutes, hours,
or years (i. e. such or such parts of the
sun's revolutions, or any other period whereof
I have the idea) proceed in infinitum, and
suppose a duration exceeding as many such
periods as I can reckon, let me add whilst
I will, which I think is the notion we have
of eternity; of whose infinity we have no
other notion than we have of the infinity
of number, to which we can add for ever without
end.
31. Origin of our ideas of duration, and
of the measures of it. And thus I think it
is plain, that from those two fountains of
all knowledge before mentioned, viz. reflection
and sensation, we got the ideas of duration,
and the measures of it. For, First, by observing
what passes in our minds, how our ideas there
in train constantly some vanish and others
begin to appear, we come by the idea of succession.
Secondly, by observing a distance in the
parts of this succession, we get the idea
of duration. Thirdly, by sensation observing
certain appearances, at certain regular and
seeming equidistant periods, we get the ideas
of certain lengths or measures of duration,
as minutes, hours, days, years, &c. Fourthly,
by being able to repeat those measures of
time, or ideas of stated length of duration,
in our minds, as often as we will, we can
come to imagine duration, where nothing does
really endure or exist; and thus we imagine
to-morrow, next year, or seven years hence.
Fifthly, by being able to repeat ideas of
any length of time, as of a minute, a year,
or an age, as often as we will in our own
thoughts, and adding them one to another,
without ever coming to the end of such addition,
any nearer than we can to the end of number,
to which we can always add; we come by the
idea of eternity, as the future eternal duration
of our souls, as well as the eternity of
that infinite Being which must necessarily
have always existed. Sixthly, by considering
any part of infinite duration, as set out
by periodical measures, we come by the idea
of what we call time in general.
Chapter XV Ideas of Duration and Expansion,
considered together
1. Both capable of greater and less. Though
we have in the precedent chapters dwelt pretty
long on the considerations of space and duration,
yet, they being ideas of general concernment,
that have something very abstruse and peculiar
in their nature, the comparing them one with
another may perhaps be of use for their illustration;
and we may have the more clear and distinct
conception of them by taking a view of them
together. Distance or space, in its simple
abstract conception, to avoid confusion,
I call expansion, to distinguish it from
extension, which by some is used to express
this distance only as it is in the 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 prefer 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. Expansion not bounded by matter. 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. It 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 further than God exists, or
imagine any expansion where He is not.
3. Nor duration by motion. 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 all 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 it 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. Why men more easily admit infinite duration
than infinite expansion. 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 it 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 further. Or if their ideas, upon
consideration, carry them further, 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 to
the motions which 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 original of men's
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 resistance to
any destructive force, and the continuation
of solidity (which is apt to be confounded
with, and if we will look into the minute
anatomical 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. And that
durare is applied to the idea of hardness,
as well as that of existence, we see in Horace,
Epod. xvi. ferro duravit secula. But, be
that as it will, this is certain, that whoever
pursues his own thoughts, will find them
sometimes launch 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 further
meditation.
5. Time to duration is as place to expansion.
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 landmarks; and so are made use of
to denote the position of finite real beings,
in respect one to another, in those uniform
infinite oceans of duration and space. These,
rightly considered, are only 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 our 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 settled points,
would be lost in them; and all things would
lie jumbled in an incurable confusion.
6. Time and place are taken for so much
of either as are set out by the existence
and motion of bodies. 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 twofold acceptation.
First, Time in general is commonly taken
for so much of infinite duration as is measured
by, and co-existent with, the existence and
motions of the great bodies of the universe,
as far as we know anything 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
be more properly called extension than place.
Within these two are confined, and by the
observable parts of them are measured and
determined, the particular time or duration,
and the particular extension and place, of
all corporeal beings.
7. Sometimes for so much of either as we
design by measures taken from the bulk or
motion of bodies. Secondly, sometimes the
word time is used in a larger sense, and
is applied to parts of that infinite duration,
not that were really distinguished and measured
out by this real existence, and periodical
motions of bodies, that were appointed from
the beginning to be for signs and for seasons
and for days and years, and are accordingly
our measures of time; but such other portions
too of that infinite uniform duration, which
we upon any occasion do suppose equal to
certain lengths of measured time; and so
consider them as bounded and determined.
For, if we should suppose the creation, or
fall of the angels, was at the beginning
of the Julian period, we should speak properly
enough, and should be understood if we said,
it is a longer time since the creation of
angels than the creation of the world, by
7640 years: whereby we would mark out so
much of that undistinguished duration as
we suppose equal to, and would have admitted,
7640 annual revolutions of the sun, moving
at the rate it now does. And thus likewise
we sometimes speak of place, distance, or
bulk, in the great inane, beyond the confines
of the world, when we consider so much of
that space as is equal to, or capable to
receive, a body of any assigned dimensions,
as a cubic foot; or do suppose a point in
it, at such a certain distance from any part
of the universe.
8. They belong to all finite beings. Where
and when are questions belonging to all finite
existences, and are by us always reckoned
from some known parts of this sensible world,
and from some certain epochs marked out to
us by the motions observable in it. Without
some such fixed parts or periods, the order
of things would be lost, to our finite understandings,
in the boundless invariable oceans of duration
and expansion, which comprehend in them all
finite beings, and in their full extent belong
only to the Deity. And therefore we are not
to wonder that we comprehend them not, and
do so often find our thoughts at a loss,
when we would consider them, either abstractly
in themselves, or as any way attributed to
the first incomprehensible Being. But when
applied to any particular finite beings,
the extension of any body is so much of that
infinite space as the bulk of the body takes
up. And place is the position of any body,
when considered at a certain distance from
some other. As the idea of the particular
duration of anything is, an idea of that
portion of infinite duration which passes
during the existence of that thing; so the
time when the thing existed is, the idea
of that space of duration which passed between
some known and fixed period of duration,
and the being of that thing. One shows the
distance of the extremities of the bulk or
existence of the same thing, as that it is
a foot square, or lasted two years; the other
shows the distance of it in place, or existence
from other fixed points of space or duration,
as that it was in the middle of Lincoln's
Inn Fields, or the first degree of Taurus,
and in the year of our Lord 1671, or the
1000th year of the Julian period. All which
distances we measure by preconceived ideas
of certain lengths of space and duration,-
as inches, feet, miles, and degrees, and
in the other, minutes, days, and years, &c.
9. All the parts of extension are extension,
and all the parts of duration are duration.
There is one thing more wherein space and
duration have a great conformity, and that
is, though they are justly reckoned amongst
our simple ideas, yet none of the distinct
ideas we have of either is without all manner
of composition: it is the very nature of
both of them to consist of parts: but their
parts being all of the same kind, and without
the mixture of any other idea, hinder them
not from having a place amongst simple ideas.
Could the mind, as in number, come to so
small a part of extension or duration as
excluded divisibility, that would be, as
it were, the indivisible unit or idea; by
repetition of which, it would make its more
enlarged ideas of extension and duration.
But, since the mind is not able to frame
an idea of any space without parts, instead
thereof it makes use of the common measures,
which, by familiar use in each country, have
imprinted themselves on the memory (as inches
and feet; or cubits and parasangs; and so
seconds, minutes, hours, days, and years
in duration);- the mind makes use, I say,
of such ideas as these, as simple ones: and
these are the component parts of larger ideas,
which the mind upon occasion makes by the
addition of such known lengths which it is
acquainted with. On the other side, the ordinary
smallest measure we have of either is looked
on as an unit in number, when the mind by
division would reduce them into less fractions.
Though on both sides, both in addition and
division, either of space or duration, when
the idea under consideration becomes very
big or very small its precise bulk becomes
very obscure and confused; and it is the
number of its repeated additions or divisions
that alone remains clear and distinct; as
will easily appear to any one who will let
his thoughts loose in the vast expansion
of space, or divisibility of matter. Every
part of duration is duration too; and every
part of extension is extension, both of them
capable of addition or division in infinitum.
But the least portions of either of them,
whereof we have clear and distinct ideas,
may perhaps be fittest to be considered by
us, as the simple ideas of that kind out
of which our complex modes of space, extension,
and duration are made up, and into which
they can again be distinctly resolved. Such
a small part in duration may be called a
moment, and is the time of one idea in our
minds, in the train of their ordinary succession
there. The other, wanting a proper name,
I know not whether I may be allowed to call
a sensible point, meaning thereby the least
particle of matter or space we can discern,
which is ordinarily about a minute, and to
the sharpest eyes seldom less than thirty
seconds of a circle, whereof the eye is the
centre.
10. Their parts inseparable. Expansion and
duration have this further agreement, that,
though they are both considered by us as
having parts, yet their parts are not separable
one from another, no not even in thought:
though the parts of bodies from whence we
take our measure of the one; and the parts
of motion, or rather the succession of ideas
in our minds, from whence we take the measure
of the other, may be interrupted and separated;
as the one is often by rest, and the other
is by sleep, which we call rest too.
11. Duration is as a line, expansion as
a solid. But there is this manifest difference
between them,- That the ideas of length which
we have of expansion are turned every way,
and so make figure, and breadth, and thickness;
but duration is but as it were the length
of one straight line, extended in infinitum,
not capable of multiplicity, variation, or
figure; but is one common measure of all
existence whatsoever, wherein all things,
whilst they exist, equally partake. For this
present moment is common to all things that
are now in being, and equally comprehends
that part of their existence, as much as
if they were all but one single being; and
we may truly say, they all exist in the same
moment of time. Whether angels and spirits
have any analogy to this, in respect to expansion,
is beyond my comprehension: and perhaps for
us, who have understandings and comprehensions
suited to our own preservation, and the ends
of our own being, but not to the reality
and extent of all other beings, it is near
as hard to conceive any existence, or to
have an idea of any real being, with a perfect
negation of all manner of expansion, as it
is to have the idea of any real existence
with a perfect negation of all manner of
duration. And therefore, what spirits have
to do with space, or how they communicate
in it, we know not. All that we know is,
that bodies do each singly possess its proper
portion of it, according to the extent of
solid parts; and thereby exclude all other
bodies from having any share in that particular
portion of space, whilst it remains there.
12. Duration has never two parts together,
expansion altogether. Duration, and time
which is a part of it, is the idea we have
of perishing distance, of which no two parts
exist together, but follow each other in
succession; an expansion is the idea of lasting
distance, all whose parts exist together,
and are not capable of succession. And therefore,
though we cannot conceive any duration without
succession, nor can put it together in our
thoughts that any being does now exist tomorrow,
or possess at once more than the present
moment of duration; yet we can conceive the
eternal duration of the Almighty far different
from that of man, or any other finite being.
Because man comprehends not in his knowledge
or power all past and future things: his
thoughts are but of yesterday, and he knows
not what tomorrow will bring forth. What
is once past he can never recall; and what
is yet to come he cannot make present. What
I say of man, I say of all finite beings;
who, though they may far exceed man in knowledge
and power, yet are no more than the meanest
creature, in comparison with God himself
Finite or any magnitude holds not any proportion
to infinite. God's infinite duration, being
accompanied with infinite knowledge and infinite
power, He sees all things, past and to come;
and they are no more distant from His knowledge,
no further removed from His sight, than the
present: they all lie under the same view:
and there is nothing which He cannot make
exist each moment He pleases. For the existence
of all things, depending upon His good pleasure,
all things exist every moment that He thinks
fit to have them exist. To conclude: expansion
and duration do mutually embrace and comprehend
each other; every part of space being in
every part of duration, and every part of
duration in every part of expansion. Such
a combination of two distinct ideas is, I
suppose, scarce to be found in all that great
variety we do or can conceive, and may afford
matter to further speculation.
Chapter XVI Idea of Number
1. Number the simplest and most universal
idea. Amongst all the ideas we have, as there
is none suggested to the mind by more ways,
so there is none more simple, than that of
unity, or one: it has no shadow of variety
or composition in it: every object our senses
are employed about; every idea in our understandings;
every thought of our minds, brings this idea
along with it. And therefore it is the most
intimate to our thoughts, as well as it is,
in its agreement to all other things, the
most universal idea we have. For number applies
itself to men, angels, actions, thoughts;
everything that either doth exist, or can
be imagined.
2. Its modes made by addition. By repeating
this idea in our minds, and adding the repetitions
together, we come by the complex ideas of
the modes of it. Thus, by adding one to one,
we have the complex idea of a couple; by
putting twelve units together, we have the
complex idea of a dozen; and so of a score,
or a million, or any other number.
3. Each mode distinct. The simple modes
of number are of all other the most distinct;
every the least variation, which is an unit,
making each combination as clearly different
from that which approacheth nearest to it,
as the most remote; two being as distinct
from one, as two hundred; and the idea of
two as distinct from the idea of three, as
the magnitude of the whole earth is from
that of a mite. This is not so in other simple
modes, in which it is not so easy, nor perhaps
possible for us to distinguish betwixt two
approaching ideas, which yet are really different.
For who will undertake to find a difference
between the white of this paper and that
of the next degree to it: or can form distinct
ideas of every the least excess in extension?
4. Therefore demonstrations in numbers the
most precise. The clearness and distinctness
of each mode of number from all others, even
those that approach nearest, makes me apt
to think that demonstrations in numbers,
if they are not more evident and exact than
in extension, yet they are more general in
their use, and more determinate in their
application. Because the ideas of numbers
are more precise and distinguishable than
in extension; where every equality and excess
are not so easy to be observed or measured;
because our thoughts cannot in space arrive
at any determined smallness beyond which
it cannot go, as an unit; and therefore the
quantity or proportion of any the least excess
cannot be discovered; which is clear otherwise
in number, where, as has been said, 91 is
as distinguishable from go as from
9000, though 91 be the next immediate excess
to 90. But it is not so in extension, where,
whatsoever is more than just a foot or an
inch, is not distinguishable from the standard
of a foot or an inch; and in lines which
appear of an equal length, one may be longer
than the other by innumerable parts: nor
can any one assign an angle, which shall
be the next biggest to a right one.
5. Names necessary to numbers. By the repeating,
as has been said, the idea of an unit, and
joining it to another unit, we make thereof
one collective idea, marked by the name two.
And whosoever can do this, and proceed on,
still adding one more to the last collective
idea which he had of any number, and gave
a name to it, may count, or have ideas, for
several collections of units, distinguished
one from another, as far as he hath a series
of names for following numbers, and a memory
to retain that series, with their several
names: all numeration being but still the
adding of one unit more, and giving to the
whole together, as comprehended in one idea,
a new or distinct name or sign, whereby to
know it from those before and after, and
distinguish it from every smaller or greater
multitude of units. So that he that can add
one to one, and so to two, and so go on with
his tale, taking still with him the distinct
names belonging to every progression; and
so again, by subtracting an unit from each
collection, retreat and lessen them, is capable
of all the ideas of numbers within the compass
of his language, or for which he hath names,
though not perhaps of more. For, the several
simple modes of numbers being in our minds
but so many combinations of units, which
have no variety, nor are capable of any other
difference but more or less, names or marks
for each distinct combination seem more necessary
than in any other sort of ideas. For, without
such names or marks, we can hardly well make
use of numbers in reckoning, especially where
the combination is made up of any great multitude
of units; which put together, without a name
or mark to distinguish that precise collection,
will hardly be kept from being a heap in
confusion.
6. Another reason for the necessity of names
to numbers. This I think to be the reason
why some Americans I have spoken with, (who
were otherwise of quick and rational parts
enough,) could not, as we do, by any means
count to 1000; nor had any distinct idea
of that number, though they could reckon
very well to 20. Because their language being
scanty, and accommodated only to the few
necessaries of a needy, simple life, unacquainted
either with trade or mathematics, had no
words in it to stand for 1000; so that when
they were discoursed with of those greater
numbers, they would show the hairs of their
head, to express a great multitude, which
they could not number; which inability, I
suppose, proceeded from their want of names.
The Tououpinambos had no names for numbers
above 5; any number beyond that they made
out by showing their fingers, and the fingers
of others who were present. And I doubt not
but we ourselves might distinctly number
in words a great deal further than we usually
do, would we find out but some fit denominations
to signify them by; whereas, in the way we
take now to name them, by millions of millions
of millions, &c., it is hard to go beyond
eighteen, or at most, four and twenty, decimal
progressions, without confusion. But to show
how much distinct names conduce to our well
reckoning, or having useful ideas of numbers,
let us see all these following figures in
one continued line, as the marks of one number:
v. g.
Nonillions Octillions Septillions Sextillions
Quintrillions
857324 162486 345896 437918 423147 Quartrillions
Trillions Billions Millions Units
248106 235421 261734 368149 623137 The ordinary
way of naming this number in English, will
be the often repeating of millions, of millions,
of millions, of millions, of millions, of
millions, of millions, of millions, (which
is the denomination of the second six figures).
In which way, it will be very hard to have
any distinguishing notions of this number.
But whether, by giving every six figures
a new and orderly denomination, these, and
perhaps a great many more figures in progression,
might not easily be counted distinctly, and
ideas of them both got more easily to ourselves,
and more plainly signified to others, I leave
it to be considered. This I mention only
to show how necessary distinct names are
to numbering, without pretending to introduce
new ones of my invention.
7. Why children number not earlier. Thus
children, either for want of names to mark
the several progressions of numbers, or not
having yet the faculty to collect scattered
ideas into complex ones, and range them in
a regular order, and so retain them in their
memories, as is necessary to reckoning, do
not begin to number very early, nor proceed
in it very far or steadily, till a good while
after they are well furnished with good store
of other ideas: and one may often observe
them discourse and reason pretty well, and
have very clear conceptions of several other
things, before they can tell twenty. And
some, through the default of their memories,
who cannot retain the several combinations
of numbers, with their names, annexed in
their distinct orders, and the dependence
of so long a train of numeral progressions,
and their relation one to another, are not
able all their lifetime to reckon, or regularly
go over any moderate series of numbers. For
he that will count twenty, or have any idea
of that number, must know that nineteen went
before, with the distinct name or sign of
every one of them, as they stand marked in
their order; for wherever this fails, a gap
is made, the chain breaks, and the progress
in numbering can go no further. So that to
reckon right, it is required, (1) That the
mind distinguish carefully two ideas, which
are different one from another only by the
addition or subtraction of one unit: (2)
That it retain in memory the names or marks
of the several combinations, from an unit
to that number; and that not confusedly,
and at random, but in that exact order that
the numbers follow one another. In either
of which, if it trips, the whole business
of numbering will be disturbed, and there
will remain only the confused idea of multitude,
but the ideas necessary to distinct numeration
will not be attained to.
8. Number measures all measureables. This
further is observable in number, that it
is that which the mind makes use of in measuring
all things that by us are measurable, which
principally are expansion and duration; and
our idea of infinity, even when applied to
those, seems to be nothing but the infinity
of number. For what else are our ideas of
Eternity and Immensity, but the repeated
additions of certain ideas of imagined parts
of duration and expansion, with the infinity
of number; in which we can come to no end
of addition? For such an inexhaustible stock,
number (of all other our ideas) most clearly
furnishes us with, as is obvious to every
one. For let a man collect into one sum as
great a number as he pleases, this multitude,
how great soever, lessens not one jot the
power of adding to it, or brings him any
nearer the end of the inexhaustible stock
of number; where still there remains as much
to be added, as if none were taken out. And
this endless addition or addibility (if any
one like the word better) of numbers, so
apparent to the mind, is that, I think, which
gives us the clearest and most distinct idea
of infinity: of which more in the following
chapter.
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