Human Understanding
John Locke
1690
AN ESSAY CONCERNING HUMAN UNDERSTANDING
by John Locke
TO THE RIGHT HONOURABLE
LORD THOMAS, EARL OF PEMBROKE AND MONTGOMERY,
BARRON HERBERT OF CARDIFF,
LORD ROSS, OF KENDAL, PAR, FITZHUGH, MARMION, ST. QUINTIN,
AND SHURLAND; LORD PRESIDENT OF HIS MAJESTY'S MOST
HONOURABLE PRIVY COUNCIL; AND LORD LIEUTENANT OF
THE COUNTY OF WILTS, AND OF SOUTH WALES.
MY LORD,
THIS Treatise, which is grown up under your lordship's eye, and
has ventured into the world by your order, does now, by a natural kind
of right, come to your lordship for that protection which you
several years since promised it. It is not that I think any name,
how great soever, set at the beginning of a book, will be able to
cover the faults that are to be found in it. Things in print must
stand and fall by their own worth, or the reader's fancy. But there
being nothing more to be desired for truth than a fair unprejudiced
hearing, nobody is more likely to procure me that than your
lordship, who are allowed to have got so intimate an acquaintance with
her, in her more retired recesses. Your lordship is known to have so
far advanced your speculations in the most abstract and general
knowledge of things, beyond the ordinary reach or common methods, that
your allowance and approbation of the design of this Treatise will
at least preserve it from being condemned without reading, and will
prevail to have those parts a little weighted, which might otherwise
perhaps be thought to deserve no consideration, for being somewhat out
of the common road. The imputation of Novelty is a terrible charge
amongst those who judge of men's heads, as they do of their perukes,
by the fashion, and can allow none to be right but the received
doctrines. Truth scarce ever yet carried it by vote anywhere at its
first appearance: new opinions are always suspected, and usually
opposed, without any other reason but because they are not already
common. But truth, like gold, is not the less so for being newly
brought out of the mine. It is trial and examination must give it
price, and not any antique fashion; and though it be not yet current
by the public stamp, yet it may, for all that, be as old as nature,
and is certainly not the less genuine. Your lordship can give great
and convincing instances of this, whenever you please to oblige the
public with some of those large and comprehensive discoveries you have
made of truths hitherto unknown, unless to some few, from whom your
lordship has been pleased not wholly to conceal them. This alone
were a sufficient reason, were there no other, why I should dedicate
this Essay to your lordship; and its having some little correspondence
with some parts of that nobler and vast system of the sciences your
lordship has made so new, exact, and instructive a draught of, I think
it glory enough, if your lordship permit me to boast, that here and
there I have fallen into some thoughts not wholly different from
yours. If your lordship think fit that, by your encouragement, this
should appear in the world, I hope it may be a reason, some time or
other, to lead your lordship further; and you will allow me to say,
that you here give the world an earnest of something that, if they can
bear with this, will be truly worth their expectation. This, my
lord, shows what a present I here make to your lordship; just such
as the poor man does to his rich and great neighbour, by whom the
basket of flowers or fruit is not ill taken, though he has more plenty
of his own growth, and in much greater perfection. Worthless things
receive a value when they are made the offerings of respect, esteem,
and gratitude: these you have given me so mighty and peculiar
reasons to have, in the highest degree, for your lordship, that if
they can add a price to what they go along with, proportionable to
their own greatness, I can with confidence brag, I here make your
lordship the richest present you ever received. This I am sure, I am
under the greatest obligations to seek all occasions to acknowledge
a long train of favours I have received from your lordship; favours,
though great and important in themselves, yet made much more so by the
forwardness, concern, and kindness, and other obliging
circumstances, that never failed to accompany them. To all this you
are pleased to add that which gives yet more weight and relish to
all the rest: you vouchsafe to continue me in some degrees of your
esteem, and allow me a place in your good thoughts, I had almost
said friendship. This, my lord, your words and actions so constantly
show on all occasions, even to others when I am absent, that it is not
vanity in me to mention what everybody knows: but it would be want
of good manners not to acknowledge what so many are witnesses of,
and every day tell me I am indebted to your lordship for. I wish
they could as easily assist my gratitude, as they convince me of the
great and growing engagements it has to your lordship. This I am sure,
I should write of the Understanding without having any, if I were
not extremely sensible of them, and did not lay hold on this
opportunity to testify to the world how much I am obliged to be, and
how much I am,
MY LORD,
Your Lordship's most humble and most obedient servant,
JOHN LOCKE
Dorset Court,
24th of May, 1689
EPISTLE TO THE READER
I HAVE put into thy hands what has been the diversion of some of
my idle and heavy hours. If it has the good luck to prove so of any of
thine, and thou hast but half so much pleasure in reading as I had
in writing it, thou wilt as little think thy money, as I do my
pains, ill bestowed. Mistake not this for a commendation of my work;
nor conclude, because I was pleased with the doing of it, that
therefore I am fondly taken with it now it is done. He that hawks at
larks and sparrows has no less sport, though a much less
considerable quarry, than he that flies at nobler game: and he is
little acquainted with the subject of this treatise- the
UNDERSTANDING- who does not know that, as it is the most elevated
faculty of the soul, so it is employed with a greater and more
constant delight than any of the other. Its searches after truth are a
sort of hawking and hunting, wherein the very pursuit makes a great
part of the pleasure. Every step the mind takes in its progress
towards Knowledge makes some discovery, which is not only new, but the
best too, for the time at least.
For the understanding, like the eye, judging of objects only by
its own sight, cannot but be pleased with what it discovers, having
less regret for what has escaped it, because it is unknown. Thus he
who has raised himself above the alms-basket, and, not content to live
lazily on scraps of begged opinions, sets his own thoughts on work, to
find and follow truth, will (whatever he lights on) not miss the
hunter's satisfaction; every moment of his pursuit will reward his
pains with some delight; and he will have reason to think his time not
ill spent, even when he cannot much boast of any great acquisition.
This, Reader, is the entertainment of those who let loose their
own thoughts, and follow them in writing; which thou oughtest not to
envy them, since they afford thee an opportunity of the like
diversion, if thou wilt make use of thy own thoughts in reading. It is
to them, if they are thy own, that I refer myself: but if they are
taken upon trust from others, it is no great matter what they are;
they are not following truth, but some meaner consideration; and it is
not worth while to be concerned what he says or thinks, who says or
thinks only as he is directed by another. If thou judgest for
thyself I know thou wilt judge candidly, and then I shall not be
harmed or offended, whatever be thy censure. For though it be
certain that there is nothing in this Treatise of the truth whereof
I am not fully persuaded, yet I consider myself as liable to
mistakes as I can think thee, and know that this book must stand or
fall with thee, not by any opinion I have of it, but thy own. If
thou findest little in it new or instructive to thee, thou art not
to blame me for it. It was not meant for those that had already
mastered this subject, and made a thorough acquaintance with their own
understandings; but for my own information, and the satisfaction of
a few friends, who acknowledged themselves not to have sufficiently
considered it.
Were it fit to trouble thee with the history of this Essay, I should
tell thee, that five or six friends meeting at my chamber, and
discoursing on a subject very remote from this, found themselves
quickly at a stand, by the difficulties that rose on every side. After
we had awhile puzzled ourselves, without coming any nearer a
resolution of those doubts which perplexed us, it came into my
thoughts that we took a wrong course; and that before we set ourselves
upon inquiries of that nature, it was necessary to examine our own
abilities, and see what objects our understandings were, or were
not, fitted to deal with. This I proposed to the company, who all
readily assented; and thereupon it was agreed that this should be
our first inquiry. Some hasty and undigested thoughts, on a subject
I had never before considered, which I set down against our next
meeting, gave the first entrance into this Discourse; which having
been thus begun by chance, was continued by intreaty; written by
incoherent parcels; and after long intervals of neglect, resumed
again, as my humour or occasions permitted; and at last, in a
retirement where an attendance on my health gave me leisure, it was
brought into that order thou now seest it.
This discontinued way of writing may have occasioned, besides
others, two contrary faults, viz., that too little and too much may be
said in it. If thou findest anything wanting, I shall be glad that
what I have written gives thee any desire that I should have gone
further. If it seems too much to thee, thou must blame the subject;
for when I put pen to paper, I thought all I should have to say on
this matter would have been contained in one sheet of paper; but the
further I went the larger prospect I had; new discoveries led me still
on, and so it grew insensibly to the bulk it now appears in. I will
not deny, but possibly it might be reduced to a narrower compass
than it is, and that some parts of it might be contracted, the way
it has been writ in, by catches, and many long intervals of
interruption, being apt to cause some repetitions. But to confess
the truth, I am now too lazy, or too busy, to make it shorter.
I am not ignorant how little I herein consult my own reputation,
when I knowingly let it go with a fault, so apt to disgust the most
judicious, who are always the nicest readers. But they who know
sloth is apt to content itself with any excuse, will pardon me if mine
has prevailed on me, where I think I have a very good one. I will
not therefore allege in my defence, that the same notion, having
different respects, may be convenient or necessary to prove or
illustrate several parts of the same discourse, and that so it has
happened in many parts of this: but waiving that, I shall frankly avow
that I have sometimes dwelt long upon the same argument, and expressed
it different ways, with a quite different design. I pretend not to
publish this Essay for the information of men of large thoughts and
quick apprehensions; to such masters of knowledge I profess myself a
scholar, and therefore warn them beforehand not to expect anything
here, but what, being spun out of my own coarse thoughts, is fitted to
men of my own size, to whom, perhaps, it will not be unacceptable that
I have taken some pains to make plain and familiar to their thoughts
some truths which established prejudice, or the abstractedness of
the ideas themselves, might render difficult. Some objects had need be
turned on every side; and when the notion is new, as I confess some of
these are to me; or out of the ordinary road, as I suspect they will
appear to others, it is not one simple view of it that will gain it
admittance into every understanding, or fix it there with a clear
and lasting impression. There are few, I believe, who have not
observed in themselves or others, that what in one way of proposing
was very obscure, another way of expressing it has made very clear and
intelligible; though afterwards the mind found little difference in
the phrases, and wondered why one failed to be understood more than
the other. But everything does not hit alike upon every man's
imagination. We have our understandings no less different than our
palates; and he that thinks the same truth shall be equally relished
by every one in the same dress, may as well hope to feast every one
with the same sort of cookery: the meat may be the same, and the
nourishment good, yet every one not be able to receive it with that
seasoning; and it must be dressed another way, if you will have it
go down with some, even of strong constitutions. The truth is, those
who advised me to publish it, advised me, for this reason, to
publish it as it is: and since I have been brought to let it go
abroad, I desire it should be understood by whoever gives himself
the pains to read it. I have so little affection to be in print,
that if I were not flattered this Essay might be of some use to
others, as I think it has been to me, I should have confined it to the
view of some friends, who gave the first occasion to it. My
appearing therefore in print being on purpose to be as useful as I
may, I think it necessary to make what I have to say as easy and
intelligible to all sorts of readers as I can. And I had much rather
the speculative and quick-sighted should complain of my being in
some parts tedious, than that any one, not accustomed to abstract
speculations, or prepossessed with different notions, should mistake
or not comprehend my meaning.
It will possibly be censured as a great piece of vanity or insolence
in me, to pretend to instruct this our knowing age; it amounting to
little less, when I own, that I publish this Essay with hopes it may
be useful to others. But, if it may be permitted to speak freely of
those who with a feigned modesty condemn as useless what they
themselves write, methinks it savours much more of vanity or insolence
to publish a book for any other end; and he fails very much of that
respect he owes the public, who prints, and consequently expects men
should read, that wherein he intends not they should meet with
anything of use to themselves or others: and should nothing else be
found allowable in this Treatise, yet my design will not cease to be
so; and the goodness of my intention ought to be some excuse for the
worthlessness of my present. It is that chiefly which secures me
from the fear of censure, which I expect not to escape more than
better writers. Men's principles, notions, and relishes are so
different, that it is hard to find a book which pleases or
displeases all men. I acknowledge the age we live in is not the
least knowing, and therefore not the most easy to be satisfied. If I
have not the good luck to please, yet nobody ought to be offended with
me. I plainly tell all my readers, except half a dozen, this
Treatise was not at first intended for them; and therefore they need
not be at the trouble to be of that number. But yet if any one
thinks fit to be angry and rail at it, he may do it securely, for I
shall find some better way of spending my time than in such kind of
conversation. I shall always have the satisfaction to have aimed
sincerely at truth and usefulness, though in one of the meanest
ways. The commonwealth of learning is not at this time without
master-builders, whose mighty designs, in advancing the sciences, will
leave lasting monuments to the admiration of posterity: but every
one must not hope to be a Boyle or a Sydenham; and in an age that
produces such masters as the great Huygenius and the incomparable
Mr. Newton, with some others of that strain, it is ambition enough
to be employed as an under-labourer in clearing the ground a little,
and removing some of the rubbish that lies in the way to knowledge;-
which certainly had been very much more advanced in the world, if
the endeavours of ingenious and industrious men had not been much
cumbered with the learned but frivolous use of uncouth, affected, or
unintelligible terms, introduced into the sciences, and there made
an art of, to that degree that Philosophy, which is nothing but the
true knowledge of things, was thought unfit or incapable to be brought
into well-bred company and polite conversation. Vague and
insignificant forms of speech, and abuse of language, have so long
passed for mysteries of science; and hard and misapplied words, with
little or no meaning, have, by prescription, such a right to be
mistaken for deep learning and height of speculation, that it will not
be easy to persuade either those who speak or those who hear them,
that they are but the covers of ignorance, and hindrance of true
knowledge. To break in upon the sanctuary of vanity and ignorance will
be, I suppose, some service to human understanding; though so few
are apt to think they deceive or are deceived in the use of words;
or that the language of the sect they are of has any faults in it
which ought to be examined or corrected, that I hope I shall be
pardoned if I have in the Third Book dwelt long on this subject, and
endeavoured to make it so plain, that neither the inveterateness of
the mischief, nor the prevalency of the fashion, shall be any excuse
for those who will not take care about the meaning of their own words,
and will not suffer the significancy of their expressions to be
inquired into.
I have been told that a short Epitome of this Treatise, which was
printed in 1688, was by some condemned without reading, because innate
ideas were denied in it; they too hastily concluding, that if innate
ideas were not supposed, there would be little left either of the
notion or proof of spirits. If any one take the like offence at the
entrance of this Treatise, I shall desire him to read it through;
and then I hope he will be convinced, that the taking away false
foundations is not to the prejudice but advantage of truth, which is
never injured or endangered so much as when mixed with, or built on,
falsehood.
In the Second Edition I added as followeth:-
The bookseller will not forgive me if I say nothing of this New
Edition, which he has promised, by the correctness of it, shall make
amends for the many faults committed in the former. He desires too,
that it should be known that it has one whole new chapter concerning
Identity, and many additions and amendments in other places. These I
must inform my reader are not all new matter, but most of them
either further confirmation of what I had said, or explications, to
prevent others being mistaken in the sense of what was formerly
printed, and not any variation in me from it.
I must only except the alterations I have made in Book II. chap.
xxi.
What I had there written concerning Liberty and the Will, I
thought deserved as accurate a view as I am capable of; those subjects
having in all ages exercised the learned part of the world with
questions and difficulties, that have not a little perplexed
morality and divinity, those parts of knowledge that men are most
concerned to be clear in. Upon a closer inspection into the working of
men's minds, and a stricter examination of those motives and views
they are turned by, I have found reason somewhat to alter the thoughts
I formerly had concerning that which gives the last determination to
the Will in all voluntary actions. This I cannot forbear to
acknowledge to the world with as much freedom and readiness as I at
first published what then seemed to me to be right; thinking myself
more concerned to quit and renounce any opinion of my own, than oppose
that of another, when truth appears against it. For it is truth
alone I seek, and that will always be welcome to me, when or from
whencesoever it comes.
But what forwardness soever I have to resign any opinion I have,
or to recede from anything I have writ, upon the first evidence of any
error in it; yet this I must own, that I have not had the good luck to
receive any light from those exceptions I have met with in print
against any part of my book, nor have, from anything that has been
urged against it, found reason to alter my sense in any of the
points that have been questioned. Whether the subject I have in hand
requires often more thought and attention than cursory readers, at
least such as are prepossessed, are willing to allow; or whether any
obscurity in my expressions casts a cloud over it, and these notions
are made difficult to others' apprehensions in my way of treating
them; so it is, that my meaning, I find, is often mistaken, and I have
not the good luck to be everywhere rightly understood.
Of this the ingenious author of the Discourse Concerning the
Nature of Man has given me a late instance, to mention no other. For
the civility of his expressions, and the candour that belongs to his
order, forbid me to think that he would have closed his Preface with
an insinuation, as if in what I had said, Book II. ch. xxvii,
concerning the third rule which men refer their actions to, I went
about to make virtue vice and vice virtue unless he had mistaken my
meaning; which he could not have done if he had given himself the
trouble to consider what the argument was I was then upon, and what
was the chief design of that chapter, plainly enough set down in the
fourth section and those following. For I was there not laying down
moral rules, but showing the original and nature of moral ideas, and
enumerating the rules men make use of in moral relations, whether
these rules were true or false: and pursuant thereto I tell what is
everywhere called virtue and vice; which "alters not the nature of
things," though men generally do judge of and denominate their actions
according to the esteem and fashion of the place and sect they are of.
If he had been at the pains to reflect on what I had said, Bk. I.
ch. ii. sect. 18, and Bk. II. ch. xxviii. sects. 13, 14, 15 and 20, he
would have known what I think of the eternal and unalterable nature of
right and wrong, and what I call virtue and vice. And if he had
observed that in the place he quotes I only report as a matter of fact
what others call virtue and vice, he would not have found it liable to
any great exception. For I think I am not much out in saying that
one of the rules made use of in the world for a ground or measure of a
moral relation is- that esteem and reputation which several sorts of
actions find variously in the several societies of men, according to
which they are there called virtues or vices. And whatever authority
the learned Mr. Lowde places in his Old English Dictionary, I
daresay it nowhere tells him (if I should appeal to it) that the
same action is not in credit, called and counted a virtue, in one
place, which, being in disrepute, passes for and under the name of
vice in another. The taking notice that men bestow the names of
"virtue" and "vice" according to this rule of Reputation is all I have
done, or can be laid to my charge to have done, towards the making
vice virtue or virtue vice. But the good man does well, and as becomes
his calling, to be watchful in such points, and to take the alarm even
at expressions, which, standing alone by themselves, might sound ill
and be suspected.
'Tis to this zeal, allowable in his function, that I forgive his
citing as he does these words of mine (ch. xxviii. sect. II): "Even
the exhortations of inspired teachers have not feared to appeal to
common repute, Philip. iv. 8"; without taking notice of those
immediately preceding, which introduce them, and run thus: "Whereby
even in the corruption of manners, the true boundaries of the law of
nature, which ought to be the rule of virtue and vice, were pretty
well preserved. So that even the exhortations of inspired teachers,"
&c. By which words, and the rest of that section, it is plain that I
brought that passage of St. Paul, not to prove that the general
measure of what men called virtue and vice throughout the world was,
the reputation and fashion of each particular society within itself;
but to show that, though it were so, yet, for reasons I there give,
men, in that way of denominating their actions, did not for the most
part much stray from the Law of Nature; which is that standing and
unalterable rule by which they ought to judge of the moral rectitude
and gravity of their actions, and accordingly denominate them
virtues or vices. Had Mr. Lowde considered this, he would have found
it little to his purpose to have quoted this passage in a sense I used
it not; and would I imagine have spared the application he subjoins to
it, as not very necessary. But I hope this Second Edition will give
him satisfaction on the point, and that this matter is now so
expressed as to show him there was no cause for scruple.
Though I am forced to differ from him in these apprehensions he
has expressed, in the latter end of his preface, concerning what I had
said about virtue and vice, yet we are better agreed than he thinks in
what he says in his third chapter (p. 78) concerning "natural
inscription and innate notions." I shall not deny him the privilege he
claims (p. 52), to state the question as he pleases, especially when
he states it so as to leave nothing in it contrary to what I have
said. For, according to him, "innate notions, being conditional
things, depending upon the concurrence of several other
circumstances in order to the soul's exerting them," all that he
says for "innate, imprinted, impressed notions" (for of innate ideas
he says nothing at all), amounts at last only to this- that there
are certain propositions which, though the soul from the beginning, or
when a man is born, does not know, yet "by assistance from the outward
senses, and the help of some previous cultivation," it may
afterwards come certainly to know the truth of; which is no more
than what I have affirmed in my First Book. For I suppose by the
"soul's exerting them," he means its beginning to know them; or else
the soul's "exerting of notions" will be to me a very unintelligible
expression; and I think at best is a very unfit one in this, it
misleading men's thoughts by an insinuation, as if these notions
were in the mind before the "soul exerts them," i.e. before they are
known;- whereas truly before they are known, there is nothing of
them in the mind but a capacity to know them, when the "concurrence of
those circumstances," which this ingenious author thinks necessary "in
order to the soul's exerting them," brings them into our knowledge.
P. 52 I find him express it thus: "These natural notions are not
so imprinted upon the soul as that they naturally and necessarily
exert themselves (even in children and idiots) without any
assistance from the outward senses, or without the help of some
previous cultivation." Here, he says, they exert themselves, as p. 78,
that the "soul exerts them." When he has explained to himself or
others what he means by "the soul's exerting innate notions," or their
"exerting themselves"; and what that "previous cultivation and
circumstances" in order to their being exerted are- he will I
suppose find there is so little of controversy between him and me on
the point, bating that he calls that "exerting of notions" which I
in a more vulgar style call "knowing," that I have reason to think
he brought in my name on this occasion only out of the pleasure he has
to speak civilly of me; which I must gratefully acknowledge he has
done everywhere he mentions me, not without conferring on me, as
some others have done, a title I have no right to.
There are so many instances of this, that I think it justice to my
reader and myself to conclude, that either my book is plainly enough
written to be rightly understood by those who peruse it with that
attention and indifferency, which every one who will give himself
the pains to read ought to employ in reading; or else that I have
written mine so obscurely that it is in vain to go about to mend it.
Whichever of these be the truth, it is myself only am affected
thereby; and therefore I shall be far from troubling my reader with
what I think might be said in answer to those several objections I
have met with, to passages here and there of my book; since I persuade
myself that he who thinks them of moment enough to be concerned
whether they are true or false, will be able to see that what is
said is either not well founded, or else not contrary to my
doctrine, when I and my opposer come both to be well understood.
If any other authors, careful that none of their good thoughts
should be lost, have published their censures of my Essay, with this
honour done to it, that they will not suffer it to be an essay, I
leave it to the public to value the obligation they have to their
critical pens, and shall not waste my reader's time in so idle or
ill-natured an employment of mine, as to lessen the satisfaction any
one has in himself, or gives to others, in so hasty a confutation of
what I have written.
The booksellers preparing for the Fourth Edition of my Essay, gave
me notice of it, that I might, if I had leisure, make any additions or
alterations I should think fit. Whereupon I thought it convenient to
advertise the reader, that besides several corrections I had made here
and there, there was one alteration which it was necessary to mention,
because it ran through the whole book, and is of consequence to be
rightly understood. What I thereupon said was this:-
Clear and distinct ideas are terms which, though familiar and
frequent in men's mouths, I have reason to think every one who uses
does not perfectly understand. And possibly 'tis but here and there
one who gives himself the trouble to consider them so far as to know
what he himself or others precisely mean by them. I have therefore
in most places chose to put determinate or determined, instead of
clear and distinct, as more likely to direct men's thoughts to my
meaning in this matter. By those denominations, I mean some object
in the mind, and consequently determined, i.e. such as it is there
seen and perceived to be. This, I think, may fitly be called a
determinate or determined idea, when such as it is at any time
objectively in the mind, and so determined there, it is annexed, and
without variation determined, to a name or articulate sound, which
is to be steadily the sign of that very same object of the mind, or
determinate idea.
To explain this a little more particularly. By determinate, when
applied to a simple idea, I mean that simple appearance which the mind
has in its view, or perceives in itself, when that idea is said to
be in it: by determined, when applied to a complex idea, I mean such
an one as consists of a determinate number of certain simple or less
complex ideas, joined in such a proportion and situation as the mind
has before its view, and sees in itself, when that idea is present
in it, or should be present in it, when a man gives a name to it. I
say should be, because it is not every one, nor perhaps any one, who
is so careful of his language as to use no word till he views in his
mind the precise determined idea which he resolves to make it the sign
of The want of this is the cause of no small obscurity and confusion
in men's thoughts and discourses.
I know there are not words enough in any language to answer all
the variety of ideas that enter into men's discourses and
reasonings. But this hinders not but that when any one uses any
term, he may have in his mind a determined idea, which he makes it the
sign of, and to which he should keep it steadily annexed during that
present discourse. Where he does not, or cannot do this, he in vain
pretends to clear or distinct ideas: it is plain his are not so; and
therefore there can be expected nothing but obscurity and confusion,
where such terms are made use of which have not such a precise
determination.
Upon this ground I have thought determined ideas a way of speaking
less liable to mistakes, than clear and distinct: and where men have
got such determined ideas of all that they reason, inquire, or argue
about, they will find a great part of their doubts and disputes at
an end; the greatest part of the questions and controversies that
perplex mankind depending on the doubtful and uncertain use of
words, or (which is the same) indetermined ideas, which they are
made to stand for. I have made choice of these terms to signify, (1)
Some immediate object of the mind, which it perceives and has before
it, distinct from the sound it uses as a sign of it. (2) That this
idea, thus determined, i.e. which the mind has in itself, and knows,
and sees there, be determined without any change to that name, and
that name determined to that precise idea. If men had such
determined ideas in their inquiries and discourses, they would both
discern how far their own inquiries and discourses went, and avoid the
greatest part of the disputes and wranglings they have with others.
Besides this, the bookseller will think it necessary I should
advertise the reader that there is an addition of two chapters
wholly new; the one of the Association of Ideas, the other of
Enthusiasm. These, with some other larger additions never before
printed, he has engaged to print by themselves, after the same manner,
and for the same purpose, as was done when this Essay had the second
impression.
In the Sixth Edition there is very little added or altered. The
greatest part of what is new is contained in the twenty-first
chapter of the second book, which any one, if he thinks it worth
while, may, with a very little labour, transcribe into the margin of
the former edition.
INTRODUCTION
AN ESSAY
CONCERNING HUMAN UNDERSTANDING
As thou knowest not what is the way of the Spirit, nor how the bones
do grow in the womb of her that is with child: even so thou knowest
not the works of God, who maketh all things.- Eccles. 11. 5.
Quam bellum est velle confiteri potius nescire quod nescias, quam
ista effutientem nauseare, atque ipsum sibi displicere.- Cicero, de
Natur. Deor. l. i.
INTRODUCTION
1. An Inquiry into the understanding, pleasant and useful. Since
it is the understanding that sets man above the rest of sensible
beings, and gives him all the advantage and dominion which he has over
them; it is certainly a subject, even for its nobleness, worth our
labour to inquire into. The understanding, like the eye, whilst it
makes us see and perceive all other things, takes no notice of itself;
and it requires art and pains to set it at a distance and make it
its own object. But whatever be the difficulties that lie in the way
of this inquiry; whatever it be that keeps us so much in the dark to
ourselves; sure I am that all the light we can let in upon our
minds, all the acquaintance we can make with our own understandings,
will not only be very pleasant, but bring us great advantage, in
directing our thoughts in the search of other things.
2. Design. This, therefore, being my purpose- to inquire into the
original, certainty, and extent of human knowledge, together with
the grounds and degrees of belief, opinion, and assent;- I shall not
at present meddle with the physical consideration of the mind; or
trouble myself to examine wherein its essence consists; or by what
motions of our spirits or alterations of our bodies we come to have
any sensation by our organs, or any ideas in our understandings; and
whether those ideas do in their formation, any or all of them,
depend on matter or not. These are speculations which, however curious
and entertaining, I shall decline, as lying out of my way in the
design I am now upon. It shall suffice to my present purpose, to
consider the discerning faculties of a man, as they are employed about
the objects which they have to do with. And I shall imagine I have not
wholly misemployed myself in the thoughts I shall have on this
occasion, if, in this historical, plain method, I can give any account
of the ways whereby our understandings come to attain those notions of
things we have; and can set down any measures of the certainty of
our knowledge; or the grounds of those persuasions which are to be
found amongst men, so various, different, and wholly contradictory;
and yet asserted somewhere or other with such assurance and
confidence, that he that shall take a view of the opinions of mankind,
observe their opposition, and at the same time consider the fondness
and devotion wherewith they are embraced, the resolution and eagerness
wherewith they are maintained, may perhaps have reason to suspect,
that either there is no such thing as truth at all, or that mankind
hath no sufficient means to attain a certain knowledge of it.
3. Method. It is therefore worth while to search out the bounds
between opinion and knowledge; and examine by what measures, in things
whereof we have no certain knowledge, we ought to regulate our
assent and moderate our persuasion. In order whereunto I shall
pursue this following method:-
First, I shall inquire into the original of those ideas, notions, or
whatever else you please to call them, which a man observes, and is
conscious to himself he has in his mind; and the ways whereby the
understanding comes to be furnished with them.
Secondly, I shall endeavour to show what knowledge the understanding
hath by those ideas; and the certainty, evidence, and extent of it.
Thirdly, I shall make some inquiry into the nature and grounds of
faith or opinion: whereby I mean that assent which we give to any
proposition as true, of whose truth yet we have no certain
knowledge. And here we shall have occasion to examine the reasons
and degrees of assent.
4. Useful to know the extent of our comprehension. If by this
inquiry into the nature of the understanding, I can discover the
powers thereof; how far they reach; to what things they are in any
degree proportionate; and where they fail us, I suppose it may be of
use to prevail with the busy mind of man to be more cautious in
meddling with things exceeding its comprehension; to stop when it is
at the utmost extent of its tether; and to sit down in a quiet
ignorance of those things which, upon examination, are found to be
beyond the reach of our capacities. We should not then perhaps be so
forward, out of an affectation of an universal knowledge, to raise
questions, and perplex ourselves and others with disputes about things
to which our understandings are not suited; and of which we cannot
frame in our minds any clear or distinct perceptions, or whereof (as
it has perhaps too often happened) we have not any notions at all.
If we can find out how far the understanding can extend its view;
how far it has faculties to attain certainty; and in what cases it can
only judge and guess, we may learn to content ourselves with what is
attainable by us in this state.
5. Our capacity suited to our state and concerns. For though the
comprehension of our understandings comes exceeding short of the
vast extent of things, yet we shall have cause enough to magnify the
bountiful Author of our being, for that proportion and degree of
knowledge he has bestowed on us, so far above all the rest of the
inhabitants of this our mansion. Men have reason to be well
satisfied with what God hath thought fit for them, since he hath given
them (as St. Peter says) pana pros zoen kaieusebeian, whatsoever is
necessary for the conveniences of life and information of virtue;
and has put within the reach of their discovery, the comfortable
provision for this life, and the way that leads to a better. How short
soever their knowledge may come of an universal or perfect
comprehension of whatsoever is, it yet secures their great
concernments, that they have light enough to lead them to the
knowledge of their Maker, and the sight of their own duties. Men may
find matter sufficient to busy their heads, and employ their hands
with variety, delight, and satisfaction, if they will not boldly
quarrel with their own constitution, and throw away the blessings
their hands are filled with, because they are not big enough to
grasp everything. We shall not have much reason to complain of the
narrowness of our minds, if we will but employ them about what may
be of use to us; for of that they are very capable. And it will be
an unpardonable, as well as childish peevishness, if we undervalue the
advantages of our knowledge, and neglect to improve it to the ends for
which it was given us, because there are some things that are set
out of the reach of it. It will be no excuse to an idle and untoward
servant, who would not attend his business by candle light, to plead
that he had not broad sunshine. The Candle that is set up in us shines
bright enough for all our purposes. The discoveries we can make with
this ought to satisfy us; and we shall then use our understandings
right, when we entertain all objects in that way and proportion that
they are suited to our faculties, and upon those grounds they are
capable of being proposed to us; and not peremptorily or intemperately
require demonstration, and demand certainty, where probability only is
to be had, and which is sufficient to govern all our concernments.
If we will disbelieve everything, because we cannot certainly know all
things, we shall do muchwhat as wisely as he who would not use his
legs, but sit still and perish, because he had no wings to fly.
6. Knowledge of our capacity a cure of scepticism and idleness. When
we know our own strength, we shall the better know what to undertake
with hopes of success; and when we have well surveyed the powers of
our own minds, and made some estimate what we may expect from them, we
shall not be inclined either to sit still, and not set our thoughts on
work at all, in despair of knowing anything; nor on the other side,
question everything, and disclaim all knowledge, because some things
are not to be understood. It is of great use to the sailor to know the
length of his line, though he cannot with it fathom all the depths
of the ocean. It is well he knows that it is long enough to reach
the bottom, at such places as are necessary to direct his voyage,
and caution him against running upon shoals that may ruin him. Our
business here is not to know all things, but those which concern our
conduct. If we can find out those measures, whereby a rational
creature, put in that state in which man is in this world, may and
ought to govern his opinions, and actions depending thereon, we need
not to be troubled that some other things escape our knowledge.
7. Occasion of this essay. This was that which gave the first rise
to this Essay concerning the understanding. For I thought that the
first step towards satisfying several inquiries the mind of man was
very apt to run into, was, to take a survey of our own understandings,
examine our own powers, and see to what things they were adapted. Till
that was done I suspected we began at the wrong end, and in vain
sought for satisfaction in a quiet and sure possession of truths
that most concerned us, whilst we let loose our thoughts into the vast
ocean of Being; as if all that boundless extent were the natural and
undoubted possession of our understandings, wherein there was
nothing exempt from its decisions, or that escaped its
comprehension. Thus men, extending their inquiries beyond their
capacities, and letting their thoughts wander into those depths
where they can find no sure footing, it is no wonder that they raise
questions and multiply disputes, which, never coming to any clear
resolution, are proper only to continue and increase their doubts, and
to confirm them at last in perfect scepticism. Whereas, were the
capacities of our understandings well considered, the extent of our
knowledge once discovered, and the horizon found which sets the bounds
between the enlightened and dark parts of things; between what is
and what is not comprehensible by us, men would perhaps with less
scruple acquiesce in the avowed ignorance of the one, and employ their
thoughts and discourse with more advantage and satisfaction in the
other.
8. What "Idea" stands for. Thus much I thought necessary to say
concerning the occasion of this Inquiry into human Understanding. But,
before I proceed on to what I have thought on this subject, I must
here in the entrance beg pardon of my reader for the frequent use of
the word idea, which he will find in the following treatise. It
being that term which, I think, serves best to stand for whatsoever is
the object of the understanding when a man thinks, I have used it to
express whatever is meant by phantasm, notion, species, or whatever it
is which the mind can be employed about in thinking; and I could not
avoid frequently using it.
I presume it will be easily granted me, that there are such ideas in
men's minds: every one is conscious of them in himself; and men's
words and actions will satisfy him that they are in others.
Our first inquiry then shall be,- how they come into the mind.
BOOK I
Neither Principles nor Ideas Are Innate
Chapter I
No Innate Speculative Principles
1. The way shown how we come by any knowledge, sufficient to prove
it not innate. It is an established opinion amongst some men, that
there are in the understanding certain innate principles; some primary
notions, koinai ennoiai, characters, as it were stamped upon the
mind of man; which the soul receives in its very first being, and
brings into the world with it. It would be sufficient to convince
unprejudiced readers of the falseness of this supposition, if I should
only show (as I hope I shall in the following parts of this Discourse)
how men, barely by the use of their natural faculties, may attain to
all the knowledge they have, without the help of any innate
impressions; and may arrive at certainty, without any such original
notions or principles. For I imagine any one will easily grant that it
would be impertinent to suppose the ideas of colours innate in a
creature to whom God hath given sight, and a power to receive them
by the eyes from external objects: and no less unreasonable would it
be to attribute several truths to the impressions of nature, and
innate characters, when we may observe in ourselves faculties fit to
attain as easy and certain knowledge of them as if they were
originally imprinted on the mind.
But because a man is not permitted without censure to follow his own
thoughts in the search of truth, when they lead him ever so little out
of the common road, I shall set down the reasons that made me doubt of
the truth of that opinion, as an excuse for my mistake, if I be in
one; which I leave to be considered by those who, with me, dispose
themselves to embrace truth wherever they find it.
2. General assent the great argument. There is nothing more commonly
taken for granted than that there are certain principles, both
speculative and practical, (for they speak of both), universally
agreed upon by all mankind: which therefore, they argue, must needs be
the constant impressions which the souls of men receive in their first
beings, and which they bring into the world with them, as
necessarily and really as they do any of their inherent faculties.
3. Universal consent proves nothing innate. This argument, drawn
from universal consent, has this misfortune in it, that if it were
true in matter of fact, that there were certain truths wherein all
mankind agreed, it would not prove them innate, if there can be any
other way shown how men may come to that universal agreement, in the
things they do consent in, which I presume may be done.
4. "What is, is," and "It is impossible for the same thing to be and
not to be," not universally assented to. But, which is worse, this
argument of universal consent, which is made use of to prove innate
principles, seems to me a demonstration that there are none such:
because there are none to which all mankind give an universal
assent. I shall begin with the speculative, and instance in those
magnified principles of demonstration, "Whatsoever is, is," and "It is
impossible for the same thing to be and not to be"; which, of all
others, I think have the most allowed title to innate. These have so
settled a reputation of maxims universally received, that it will no
doubt be thought strange if any one should seem to question it. But
yet I take liberty to say, that these propositions are so far from
having an universal assent, that there are a great part of mankind
to whom they are not so much as known.
5. Not on the mind naturally imprinted, because not known to
children, idiots, &c. For, first, it is evident, that all children and
idiots have not the least apprehension or thought of them. And the
want of that is enough to destroy that universal assent which must
needs be the necessary concomitant of all innate truths: it seeming to
me near a contradiction to say, that there are truths imprinted on the
soul, which it perceives or understands not: imprinting, if it signify
anything, being nothing else but the making certain truths to be
perceived. For to imprint anything on the mind without the mind's
perceiving it, seems to me hardly intelligible. If therefore
children and idiots have souls, have minds, with those impressions
upon them, they must unavoidably perceive them, and necessarily know
and assent to these truths; which since they do not, it is evident
that there are no such impressions. For if they are not notions
naturally imprinted, how can they be innate? and if they are notions
imprinted, how can they be unknown? To say a notion is imprinted on
the mind, and yet at the same time to say, that the mind is ignorant
of it, and never yet took notice of it, is to make this impression
nothing. No proposition can be said to be in the mind which it never
yet knew, which it was never yet conscious of. For if any one may,
then, by the same reason, all propositions that are true, and the mind
is capable ever of assenting to, may be said to be in the mind, and to
be imprinted: since, if any one can be said to be in the mind, which
it never yet knew, it must be only because it is capable of knowing
it; and so the mind is of all truths it ever shall know. Nay, thus
truths may be imprinted on the mind which it never did, nor ever shall
know; for a man may live long, and die at last in ignorance of many
truths which his mind was capable of knowing, and that with certainty.
So that if the capacity of knowing be the natural impression contended
for, all the truths a man ever comes to know will, by this account, be
every one of them innate; and this great point will amount to no more,
but only to a very improper way of speaking; which, whilst it pretends
to assert the contrary, says nothing different from those who deny
innate principles. For nobody, I think, ever denied that the mind
was capable of knowing several truths. The capacity, they say, is
innate; the knowledge acquired. But then to what end such contest
for certain innate maxims? If truths can be imprinted on the
understanding without being perceived, I can see no difference there
can be between any truths the mind is capable of knowing in respect of
their original: they must all be innate or all adventitious: in vain
shall a man go about to distinguish them. He therefore that talks of
innate notions in the understanding, cannot (if he intend thereby
any distinct sort of truths) mean such truths to be in the
understanding as it never perceived, and is yet wholly ignorant of.
For if these words "to be in the understanding" have any propriety,
they signify to be understood. So that to be in the understanding, and
not to be understood; to be in the mind and never to be perceived,
is all one as to say anything is and is not in the mind or
understanding. If therefore these two propositions, "Whatsoever is,
is," and "It is impossible for the same thing to be and not to be,"
are by nature imprinted, children cannot be ignorant of them: infants,
and all that have souls, must necessarily have them in their
understandings, know the truth of them, and assent to it.
6. That men know them when they come to the use of reason, answered.
To avoid this, it is usually answered, that all men know and assent to
them, when they come to the use of reason; and this is enough to prove
them innate. I answer:
7. Doubtful expressions, that have scarce any signification, go
for clear reasons to those who, being prepossessed, take not the pains
to examine even what they themselves say. For, to apply this answer
with any tolerable sense to our present purpose, it must signify one
of these two things: either that as soon as men come to the use of
reason these supposed native inscriptions come to be known and
observed by them; or else, that the use and exercise of men's
reason, assists them in the discovery of these principles, and
certainly makes them known to them.
8. If reason discovered them, that would not prove them innate. If
they mean, that by the use of reason men may discover these
principles, and that this is sufficient to prove them innate; their
way of arguing will stand thus, viz. that whatever truths reason can
certainly discover to us, and make us firmly assent to, those are
all naturally imprinted on the mind; since that universal assent,
which is made the mark of them, amounts to no more but this,- that
by the use of reason we are capable to come to a certain knowledge
of and assent to them; and, by this means, there will be no difference
between the maxims of the mathematicians, and theorems they deduce
from them: all must be equally allowed innate; they being all
discoveries made by the use of reason, and truths that a rational
creature may certainty come to know, if he apply his thoughts
rightly that way.
9. It is false that reason discovers them. But how can these men
think the use of reason necessary to discover principles that are
supposed innate, when reason (if we may believe them) is nothing
else but the faculty of deducing unknown truths from principles or
propositions that are already known? That certainly can never be
thought innate which we have need of reason to discover; unless, as
I have said, we will have all the certain truths that reason ever
teaches us, to be innate. We may as well think the use of reason
necessary to make our eyes discover visible objects, as that there
should be need of reason, or the exercise thereof, to make the
understanding see what is originally engraven on it, and cannot be
in the understanding before it be perceived by it. So that to make
reason discover those truths thus imprinted, is to say, that the use
of reason discovers to a man what he knew before: and if men have
those innate impressed truths originally, and before the use of
reason, and yet are always ignorant of them till they come to the
use of reason, it is in effect to say, that men know and know them not
at the same time.
10. No use made of reasoning in the discovery of these two maxims.
It will here perhaps be said that mathematical demonstrations, and
other truths that are not innate, are not assented to as soon as
proposed, wherein they are distinguished from these maxims and other
innate truths. I shall have occasion to speak of assent upon the first
proposing, more particularly by and by. I shall here only, and that
very readily, allow, that these maxims and mathematical demonstrations
are in this different: that the one have need of reason, using of
proofs, to make them out and to gain our assent; but the other, as
soon as understood, are, without any the least reasoning, embraced and
assented to. But I withal beg leave to observe, that it lays open
the weakness of this subterfuge, which requires the use of reason
for the discovery of these general truths: since it must be
confessed that in their discovery there is no use made of reasoning at
all. And I think those who give this answer will not be forward to
affirm that the knowledge of this maxim, "That it is impossible for
the same thing to be and not to be," is a deduction of our reason. For
this would be to destroy that bounty of nature they seem so fond of,
whilst they make the knowledge of those principles to depend on the
labour of our thoughts. For all reasoning is search, and casting
about, and requires pains and application. And how can it with any
tolerable sense be supposed, that what was imprinted by nature, as the
foundation and guide of our reason, should need the use of reason to
discover it?
11. And if there were, this would prove them not innate. Those who
will take the pains to reflect with a little attention on the
operations of the understanding, will find that this ready assent of
the mind to some truths, depends not, either on native inscription, or
the use of reason, but on a faculty of the mind quite distinct from
both of them, as we shall see hereafter. Reason, therefore, having
nothing to do in procuring our assent to these maxims, if by saying,
that "men know and assent to them, when they come to the use of
reason," be meant, that the use of reason assists us in the
knowledge of these maxims, it is utterly false; and were it true,
would prove them not to be innate.
12. The coming to the use of reason not the time we come to know
these maxims. If by knowing and assenting to them "when we come to the
use of reason," be meant, that this is the time when they come to be
taken notice of by the mind; and that as soon as children come to
the use of reason, they come also to know and assent to these
maxims; this also is false and frivolous. First, it is false;
because it is evident these maxims are not in the mind so early as the
use of reason; and therefore the coming to the use of reason is
falsely assigned as the time of their discovery. How many instances of
the use of reason may we observe in children, a long time before
they have any knowledge of this maxim, "That it is impossible for
the same thing to be and not to be?" And a great part of illiterate
people and savages pass many years, even of their rational age,
without ever thinking on this and the like general propositions. I
grant, men come not to the knowledge of these general and more
abstract truths, which are thought innate, till they come to the use
of reason; and I add, nor then neither. Which is so, because, till
after they come to the use of reason, those general abstract ideas are
not framed in the mind, about which those general maxims are, which
are mistaken for innate principles, but are indeed discoveries made
and verities introduced and brought into the mind by the same way, and
discovered by the same steps, as several other propositions, which
nobody was ever so extravagant as to suppose innate. This I hope to
make plain in the sequel of this Discourse. I allow therefore, a
necessity that men should come to the use of reason before they get
the knowledge of those general truths; but deny that men's coming to
the use of reason is the time of their discovery.
13. By this they are not distinguished from other knowable truths.
In the mean time it is observable, that this saying, that men know and
assent to these maxims "when they come to the use of reason,"
amounts in reality of fact to no more but this,- that they are never
known nor taken notice of before the use of reason, but may possibly
be assented to some time after, during a man's life; but when is
uncertain. And so may all other knowable truths, as well as these;
which therefore have no advantage nor distinction from others by
this note of being known when we come to the use of reason; nor are
thereby proved to be innate, but quite the contrary.
14. If coming to the use of reason were the time of their
discovery it would not prove them innate. But, secondly, were it
true that the precise time of their being known and assented to
were, when men come to the use of reason; neither would that prove
them innate. This way of arguing is as frivolous as the supposition
itself is false. For, by what kind of logic will it appear that any
notion is originally by nature imprinted in the mind in its first
constitution, because it comes first to be observed and assented to
when a faculty of the mind, which has quite a distinct province,
begins to exert itself? And therefore the coming to the use of speech,
if it were supposed the time that these maxims are first assented
to, (which it may be with as much truth as the time when men come to
the use of reason,) would be as good a proof that they were innate, as
to say they are innate because men assent to them when they come to
the use of reason. I agree then with these men of innate principles,
that there is no knowledge of these general and self-evident maxims in
the mind, till it comes to the exercise of reason: but I deny that the
coming to the use of reason is the precise time when they are first
taken notice of, and if that were the precise time, I deny that it
would prove them innate. All that can with any truth be meant by
this proposition, that men "assent to them when they come to the use
of reason," is no more but this,- that the making of general
abstract ideas, and the understanding of general names, being a
concomitant of the rational faculty, and growing up with it,
children commonly get not those general ideas, nor learn the names
that stand for them, till, having for a good while exercised their
reason about familiar and more particular ideas, they are, by their
ordinary discourse and actions with others, acknowledged to be capable
of rational conversation. If assenting to these maxims, when men
come to the use of reason, can be true in any other sense, I desire it
may be shown; or at least, how in this, or any other sense, it
proves them innate.
15. The steps by which the mind attains several truths. The senses
at first let in particular ideas, and furnish the yet empty cabinet,
and the mind by degrees growing familiar with some of them, they are
lodged in the memory, and names got to them. Afterwards, the mind
proceeding further, abstracts them, and by degrees learns the use of
general names. In this manner the mind comes to be furnished with
ideas and language, the materials about which to exercise its
discursive faculty. And the use of reason becomes daily more
visible, as these materials that give it employment increase. But
though the having of general ideas and the use of general words and
reason usually grow together, yet I see not how this any way proves
them innate. The knowledge of some truths, I confess, is very early in
the mind but in a way that shows them not to be innate. For, if we
will observe, we shall find it still to be about ideas, not innate,
but acquired; it being about those first which are imprinted by
external things, with which infants have earliest to do, which make
the most frequent impressions on their senses. In ideas thus got,
the mind discovers that some agree and others differ, probably as soon
as it has any use of memory; as soon as it is able to retain and
perceive distinct ideas. But whether it be then or no, this is
certain, it does so long before it has the use of words; or comes to
that which we commonly call "the use of reason." For a child knows
as certainly before it can speak the difference between the ideas of
sweet and bitter (i.e. that sweet is not bitter), as it knows
afterwards (when it comes to speak) that wormwood and sugarplums are
not the same thing.
16. Assent to supposed innate truths depends on having clear and
distinct ideas of what their terms mean, and not on their
innateness. A child knows not that three and four are equal to
seven, till he comes to be able to count seven, and has got the name
and idea of equality; and then, upon explaining those words, he
presently assents to, or rather perceives the truth of that
proposition. But neither does he then readily assent because it is
an innate truth, nor was his assent wanting till then because he
wanted the use of reason; but the truth of it appears to him as soon
as he has settled in his mind the clear and distinct ideas that
these names stand for. And then he knows the truth of that proposition
upon the same grounds and by the same means, that he knew before
that a rod and a cherry are not the same thing; and upon the same
grounds also that he may come to know afterwards "That it is
impossible for the same thing to be and not to be," as shall be more
fully shown hereafter. So that the later it is before any one comes to
have those general ideas about which those maxims are; or to know
the signification of those general terms that stand for them; or to
put together in his mind the ideas they stand for; the later also will
it be before he comes to assent to those maxims;- whose terms, with
the ideas they stand for, being no more innate than those of a cat
or a weasel, he must stay till time and observation have acquainted
him with them; and then he will be in a capacity to know the truth
of these maxims, upon the first occasion that shall make him put
together those ideas in his mind, and observe whether they agree or
disagree, according as is expressed in those propositions. And
therefore it is that a man knows that eighteen and nineteen are
equal to thirty-seven, by the same self-evidence that he knows one and
two to be equal to three: yet a child knows this not so soon as the
other; not for want of the use of reason, but because the ideas the
words eighteen, nineteen, and thirty-seven stand for, are not so
soon got, as those which are signified by one, two, and three.
17. Assenting as soon as proposed and understood, proves them not
innate. This evasion therefore of general assent when men come to
the use of reason, failing as it does, and leaving no difference
between those suppose innate and other truths that are afterwards
acquired and learnt, men have endeavoured to secure an universal
assent to those they call maxims, by saying, they are generally
assented to as soon as proposed, and the terms they are proposed in
understood: seeing all men, even children, as soon as they hear and
understand the terms, assent to these propositions, they think it is
sufficient to prove them innate. For since men never fail after they
have once understood the words, to acknowledge them for undoubted
truths, they would infer, that certainly these propositions were first
lodged in the understanding, which, without any teaching, the mind, at
the very first proposal immediately closes with and assents to, and
after that never doubts again.
18. If such an assent be a mark of innate, then "that one and two
are equal to three, that sweetness is not bitterness," and a
thousand the like, must be innate. In answer to this, I demand whether
ready assent given to a proposition, upon first hearing and
understanding the terms, be a certain mark of an innate principle?
If it be not, such a general assent is in vain urged as a proof of
them: if it be said that it is a mark of innate, they must then
allow all such propositions to be innate which are generally
assented to as soon as heard, whereby they will find themselves
plentifully stored with innate principles. For upon the same ground,
viz. of assent at first hearing and understanding the terms, that
men would have those maxims pass for innate, they must also admit
several propositions about numbers to be innate; and thus, that one
and two are equal to three, that two and two are equal to four, and
a multitude of other the like propositions in numbers, that
everybody assents to at first hearing and understanding the terms,
must have a place amongst these innate axioms. Nor is this the
prerogative of numbers alone, and propositions made about several of
them; but even natural philosophy, and all the other sciences,
afford propositions which are sure to meet with assent as soon as they
are understood. That "two bodies cannot be in the same place" is a
truth that nobody any more sticks at than at these maxims, that "it is
impossible for the same thing to be and not to be," that "white is not
black," that "a square is not a circle," that "bitterness is not
sweetness." These and a million of such other propositions, as many at
least as we have distinct ideas of, every man in his wits, at first
hearing, and knowing what the names stand for, must necessarily assent
to. If these men will be true to their own rule, and have assent at
first hearing and understanding the terms to be a mark of innate, they
must allow not only as many innate propositions as men have distinct
ideas, but as many as men can make propositions wherein different
ideas are denied one of another. Since every proposition wherein one
different idea is denied of another, will as certainly find assent
at first hearing and understanding the terms as this general one,
"It is impossible for the same thing to be and not to be," or that
which is the foundation of it, and is the easier understood of the
two, "The same is not different"; by which account they will have
legions of innate propositions of this one sort, without mentioning
any other. But, since no proposition can be innate unless the ideas
about which it is be innate, this will be to suppose all our ideas
of colours, sounds, tastes, figure, &c., innate, than which there
cannot be anything more opposite to reason and experience. Universal
and ready assent upon hearing and understanding the terms is, I grant,
a mark of self-evidence; but self-evidence, depending not on innate
impressions, but on something else, (as we shall show hereafter,)
belongs to several propositions which nobody was yet so extravagant as
to pretend to be innate.
19. Such less general propositions known before these universal
maxims. Nor let it be said, that those more particular self-evident
propositions, which are assented to at first hearing, as that "one and
two are equal to three," that "green is not red," &c., are received as
the consequences of those more universal propositions which are looked
on as innate principles; since any one, who will but take the pains to
observe what passes in the understanding, will certainly find that
these, and the like less general propositions, are certainly known,
and firmly assented to by those who are utterly ignorant of those more
general maxims; and so, being earlier in the mind than those (as
they are called) first principles, cannot owe to them the assent
wherewith they are received at first hearing.
20. "One and one equal to Two, &c., not general nor useful,"
answered. If it be said, that these propositions, viz. "two and two
are equal to four," "red is not blue," &c., are not general maxims,
nor of any great use, I answer, that makes nothing to the argument
of universal assent upon hearing and understanding. For, if that be
the certain mark of innate, whatever proposition can be found that
receives general assent as soon as heard and understood, that must
be admitted for an innate proposition, as well as this maxim, "That it
is impossible for the same thing to be and not to be," they being upon
this ground equal. And as to the difference of being more general,
that makes this maxim more remote from being innate; those general and
abstract ideas being more strangers to our first apprehensions than
those of more particular self-evident propositions; and therefore it
is longer before they are admitted and assented to by the growing
understanding. And as to the usefulness of these magnified maxims,
that perhaps will not be found so great as is generally conceived,
when it comes in its due place to be more fully considered.
21. These maxims not being known sometimes till proposed, proves
them not innate. But we have not yet done with "assenting to
propositions at first hearing and understanding their terms." It is
fit we first take notice that this, instead of being a mark that
they are innate, is a proof of the contrary; since it supposes that
several, who understand and know other things, are ignorant of these
principles till they are proposed to them; and that one may be
unacquainted with these truths till he hears them from others. For, if
they were innate, what need they be proposed in order to gaining
assent, when, by being in the understanding, by a natural and original
impression, (if there were any such,) they could not but be known
before? Or doth the proposing them print them clearer in the mind than
nature did? If so, then the consequence will be, that a man knows them
better after he has been thus taught them than he did before. Whence
it will follow that these principles may be made more evident to us by
others' teaching than nature has made them by impression: which will
ill agree with the opinion of innate principles, and give but little
authority to them; but, on the contrary, makes them unfit to be the
foundations of all our other knowledge; as they are pretended to be.
This cannot be denied, that men grow first acquainted with many of
these self-evident truths upon their being proposed: but it is clear
that whosoever does so, finds in himself that he then begins to know a
proposition, which he knew not before, and which from thenceforth he
never questions; not because it was innate, but because the
consideration of the nature of the things contained in those words
would not suffer him to think otherwise, how, or whensoever he is
brought to reflect on them. And if whatever is assented to at first
hearing and understanding the terms must pass for an innate principle,
every well-grounded observation, drawn from particulars into a general
rule, must be innate. When yet it is certain that not all, but only
sagacious heads, light at first on these observations, and reduce them
into general propositions: not innate, but collected from a
preceding acquaintance and reflection on particular instances.
These, when observing men have made them, unobserving men, when they
are proposed to them, cannot refuse their assent to.
22. Implicitly known before proposing, signifies that the mind is
capable of understanding them, or else signifies nothing. If it be
said, the understanding hath an implicit knowledge of these
principles, but not an explicit, before this first hearing (as they
must who will say "that they are in the understanding before they
are known,") it will be hard to conceive what is meant by a
principle imprinted on the understanding implicitly, unless it be
this,- that the mind is capable of understanding and assenting
firmly to such propositions. And thus all mathematical demonstrations,
as well as first principles, must be received as native impressions on
the mind; which I fear they will scarce allow them to be, who find
it harder to demonstrate a proposition than assent to it when
demonstrated. And few mathematicians will be forward to believe,
that all the diagrams they have drawn were but copies of those
innate characters which nature had engraven upon their minds.
23. The argument of assenting on first hearing, is upon a false
supposition of no precedent teaching. There is, I fear, this further
weakness in the foregoing argument, which would persuade us that
therefore those maxims are to be thought innate, which men admit at
first hearing; because they assent to propositions which they are
not taught, nor do receive from the force of any argument or
demonstration, but a bare explication or understanding of the terms.
Under which there seems to me to lie this fallacy, that men are
supposed not to be taught nor to learn anything de novo; when, in
truth, they are taught, and do learn something they were ignorant of
before. For, first, it is evident that they have learned the terms,
and their signification; neither of which was born with them. But this
is not all the acquired knowledge in the case: the ideas themselves,
about which the proposition is, are not born with them, no more than
their names, but got afterwards. So that in all propositions that
are assented to at first hearing, the terms of the proposition,
their standing for such ideas, and the ideas themselves that they
stand for, being neither of them innate, I would fain know what
there is remaining in such propositions that is innate. For I would
gladly have any one name that proposition whose terms or ideas were
either of them innate. We by degrees get ideas and names, and learn
their appropriated connexion one with another; and then to
propositions made in such terms, whose signification we have learnt,
and wherein the agreement or disagreement we can perceive in our ideas
when put together is expressed, we at first hearing assent; though
to other propositions, in themselves as certain and evident, but which
are concerning ideas not so soon or so easily got, we are at the
same time no way capable of assenting. For, though a child quickly
assents to this proposition, "That an apple is not fire," when by
familiar acquaintance he has got the ideas of those two different
things distinctly imprinted on his mind, and has learnt that the names
apple and fire stand for them; yet it will be some years after,
perhaps, before the same child will assent to this proposition,
"That it is impossible for the same thing to be and not to be";
because that, though perhaps the words are as easy to be learnt, yet
the signification of them being more large, comprehensive, and
abstract than of the names annexed to those sensible things the
child hath to do with, it is longer before he learns their precise
meaning, and it requires more time plainly to form in his mind those
general ideas they stand for. Till that be done, you will in vain
endeavour to make any child assent to a proposition made up of such
general terms; but as soon as ever he has got those ideas, and learned
their names, he forwardly closes with the one as well as the other
of the forementioned propositions: and with both for the same
reason; viz. because he finds the ideas he has in his mind to agree or
disagree, according as the words standing for them are affirmed or
denied one of another in the proposition. But if propositions be
brought to him in words which stand for ideas he has not yet in his
mind, to such propositions, however evidently true or false in
themselves, he affords neither assent nor dissent, but is ignorant.
For words being but empty sounds, any further than they are signs of
our ideas, we cannot but assent to them as they correspond to those
ideas we have, but no further than that. But the showing by what steps
and ways knowledge comes into our minds; and the grounds of several
degrees of assent, being the business of the following Discourse, it
may suffice to have only touched on it here, as one reason that made
me doubt of those innate principles.
24. Not innate, because not universally assented to. To conclude
this argument of universal consent, I agree with these defenders of
innate principles,- that if they are innate, they must needs have
universal assent. For that a truth should be innate and yet not
assented to, is to me as unintelligible as for a man to know a truth
and be ignorant of it at the same time. But then, by these men's own
confession, they cannot be innate; since they are not assented to by
those who understand not the terms; nor by a great part of those who
do understand them, but have yet never heard nor thought of those
propositions; which, I think, is at least one half of mankind. But
were the number far less, it would be enough to destroy universal
assent, and thereby show these propositions not to be innate, if
children alone were ignorant of them.
25. These maxims not the first known. But that I may not be
accused to argue from the thoughts of infants, which are unknown to
us, and to conclude from what passes in their understandings before
they express it; I say next, that these two general propositions are
not the truths that first possess the minds of children, nor are
antecedent to all acquired and adventitious notions: which, if they
were innate, they must needs be. Whether we can determine it or no, it
matters not, there is certainly a time when children begin to think,
and their words and actions do assure us that they do so. When
therefore they are capable of thought, of knowledge, of assent, can it
rationally be supposed they can be ignorant of those notions that
nature has imprinted, were there any such? Can it be imagined, with
any appearance of reason, that they perceive the impressions from
things without, and be at the same time ignorant of those characters
which nature itself has taken care to stamp within? Can they receive
and assent to adventitious notions, and be ignorant of those which are
supposed woven into the very principles of their being, and
imprinted there in indelible characters, to be the foundation and
guide of all their acquired knowledge and future reasonings? This
would be to make nature take pains to no purpose; or at least to write
very ill; since its characters could not be read by those eyes which
saw other things very well: and those are very ill supposed the
clearest parts of truth, and the foundations of all our knowledge,
which are not first known, and without which the undoubted knowledge
of several other things may be had. The child certainly knows, that
the nurse that feeds it is neither the cat it plays with, nor the
blackmoor it is afraid of: that the wormseed or mustard it refuses, is
not the apple or sugar it cries for: this it is certainly and
undoubtedly assured of: but will any one say, it is by virtue of
this principle, "That it is impossible for the same thing to be and
not to be," that it so firmly assents to these and other parts of
its knowledge? Or that the child has any notion or apprehension of
that proposition at an age, wherein yet, it is plain, it knows a great
many other truths? He that will say, children join in these general
abstract speculations with their sucking-bottles and their rattles,
may perhaps, with justice, be thought to have more passion and zeal
for his opinion, but less sincerity and truth, than one of that age.
26. And so not innate. Though therefore there be several general
propositions that meet with constant and ready assent, as soon as
proposed to men grown up, who have attained the use of more general
and abstract ideas, and names standing for them; yet they not being to
be found in those of tender years, who nevertheless know other things,
they cannot pretend to universal assent of intelligent persons, and so
by no means can be supposed innate;- it being impossible that any
truth which is innate (if there were any such) should be unknown, at
least to any one who knows anything else. Since, if they are innate
truths, they must be innate thoughts: there being nothing a truth in
the mind that it has never thought on. Whereby it is evident, if there
by any innate truths, they must necessarily be the first of any
thought on; the first that appear.
27. Not innate, because they appear least where what is innate shows
itself clearest. That the general maxims we are discoursing of are not
known to children, idiots, and a great part of mankind, we have
already sufficiently proved: whereby it is evident they have not an
universal assent, nor are general impressions. But there is this
further argument in it against their being innate: that these
characters, if they were native and original impressions, should
appear fairest and clearest in those persons in whom yet we find no
footsteps of them; and it is, in my opinion, a strong presumption that
they are not innate, since they are least known to those in whom, if
they were innate, they must needs exert themselves with most force and
vigour. For children, idiots, savages, and illiterate people, being of
all others the least corrupted by custom, or borrowed opinions;
learning and education having not cast their native thoughts into
new moulds; nor by super-inducing foreign and studied doctrines,
confounded those fair characters nature had written there; one might
reasonably imagine that in their minds these innate notions should lie
open fairly to every one's view, as it is certain the thoughts of
children do. It might very well be expected that these principles
should be perfectly known to naturals; which being stamped immediately
on the soul, (as these men suppose,) can have no dependence on the
constitution or organs of the body, the only confessed difference
between them and others. One would think, according to these men's
principles, that all these native beams of light (were there any such)
should, in those who have no reserves, no arts of concealment, shine
out in their full lustre, and leave us in no more doubt of their being
there, than we are of their love of pleasure and abhorrence of pain.
But alas, amongst children, idiots, savages, and the grossly
illiterate, what general maxims are to be found? What universal
principles of knowledge? Their notions are few and narrow, borrowed
only from those objects they have had most to do with, and which
have made upon their senses the frequentest and strongest impressions.
A child knows his nurse and his cradle, and by degrees the
playthings of a little more advanced age; and a young savage has,
perhaps, his head filled with love and hunting, according to the
fashion of his tribe. But he that from a child untaught, or a wild
inhabitant of the woods, will expect these abstract maxims and reputed
principles of science, will, I fear, find himself mistaken. Such
kind of general propositions are seldom mentioned in the huts of
Indians: much less are they to be found in the thoughts of children,
or any impressions of them on the minds of naturals. They are the
language and business of the schools and academies of learned nations,
accustomed to that sort of conversation or learning, where disputes
are frequent; these maxims being suited to artificial argumentation
and useful for conviction, but not much conducing to the discovery
of truth or advancement of knowledge. But of their small use for the
improvement of knowledge I shall have occasion to speak more at large,
1. 4, c. 7.
28. Recapitulation. I know not how absurd this may seem to the
masters of demonstration. And probably it will hardly go down with
anybody at first hearing. I must therefore beg a little truce with
prejudice, and the forbearance of censure, till I have been heard
out in the sequel of this Discourse, being very willing to submit to
better judgments. And since I impartially search after truth, I
shall not be sorry to be convinced, that I have been too fond of my
own notions; which I confess we are all apt to be, when application
and study have warmed our heads with them.
Upon the whole matter, I cannot see any ground to think these two
speculative Maxims innate: since they are not universally assented to;
and the assent they so generally find is no other than what several
propositions, not allowed to be innate, equally partake in with
them: and since the assent that is given them is produced another way,
and comes not from natural inscription, as I doubt not but to make
appear in the following Discourse. And if these "first principles"
of knowledge and science are found not to be innate, no other
speculative maxims can (I suppose), with better right pretend to be
so.
Chapter II
No Innate Practical Principles
1. No moral principles so clear and so generally received as the
forementioned speculative maxims. If those speculative Maxims, whereof
we discoursed in the foregoing chapter, have not an actual universal
assent from all mankind, as we there proved, it is much more visible
concerning practical Principles, that they come short of an
universal reception: and I think it will be hard to instance any one
moral rule which can pretend to so general and ready an assent as,
"What is, is"; or to be so manifest a truth as this, that "It is
impossible for the same thing to be and not to be." Whereby it is
evident that they are further removed from a title to be innate; and
the doubt of their being native impressions on the mind is stronger
against those moral principles than the other. Not that it brings
their truth at all in question. They are equally true, though not
equally evident. Those speculative maxims carry their own evidence
with them: but moral principles require reasoning and discourse, and
some exercise of the mind, to discover the certainty of their truth.
They lie not open as natural characters engraven on the mind; which,
if any such were, they must needs be visible by themselves, and by
their own light be certain and known to everybody. But this is no
derogation to their truth and certainty; no more than it is to the
truth or certainty of the three angles of a triangle being equal to
two right ones: because it is not so evident as "the whole is bigger
than a part," nor so apt to be assented to at first hearing. It may
suffice that these moral rules are capable of demonstration: and
therefore it is our own faults if we come not to a certain knowledge
of them. But the ignorance wherein many men are of them, and the
slowness of assent wherewith others receive them, are manifest
proofs that they are not innate, and such as offer themselves to their
view without searching.
2. Faith and justice not owned as principles by all men. Whether
there be any such moral principles, wherein all men do agree, I appeal
to any who have been but moderately conversant in the history of
mankind, and looked abroad beyond the smoke of their own chimneys.
Where is that practical truth that is universally received, without
doubt or question, as it must be if innate? Justice, and keeping of
contracts, is that which most men seem to agree in. This is a
principle which is thought to extend itself to the dens of thieves,
and the confederacies of the greatest villains; and they who have gone
furthest towards the putting off of humanity itself, keep faith and
rules of justice one with another. I grant that outlaws themselves
do this one amongst another: but it is without receiving these as
the innate laws of nature. They practise them as rules of
convenience within their own communities: but it is impossible to
conceive that he embraces justice as a practical principle, who acts
fairly with his fellow-highwayman, and at the same time plunders or
kills the next honest man he meets with. Justice and truth are the
common ties of society; and therefore even outlaws and robbers, who
break with all the world besides, must keep faith and rules of
equity amongst themselves; or else they cannot hold together. But will
any one say, that those that live by fraud or rapine have innate
principles of truth and justice which they allow and assent to?
3. Objection: "though men deny them in their practice, yet they
admit them in their thoughts," answered. Perhaps it will be urged,
that the tacit assent of their minds agrees to what their practice
contradicts. I answer, first, I have always thought the actions of men
the best interpreters of their thoughts. But, since it is certain that
most men's practices, and some men's open professions, have either
questioned or denied these principles, it is impossible to establish
an universal consent, (though we should look for it only amongst grown
men,) without which it is impossible to conclude them innate.
Secondly, it is very strange and unreasonable to suppose innate
practical principles, that terminate only in contemplation.
Practical principles, derived from nature, are there for operation,
and must produce conformity of action, not barely speculative assent
to their truth, or else they are in vain distinguished from
speculative maxims. Nature, I confess, has put into man a desire of
happiness and an aversion to misery: these indeed are innate practical
principles which (as practical principles ought) do continue
constantly to operate and influence all our actions without ceasing:
these may be observed in all persons and all ages, steady and
universal; but these are inclinations of the appetite to good, not
impressions of truth on the understanding. I deny not that there are
natural tendencies imprinted on the minds of men; and that from the
very first instances of sense and perception, there are some things
that are grateful and others unwelcome to them; some things that
they incline to and others that they fly: but this makes nothing for
innate characters on the mind, which are to be the principles of
knowledge regulating our practice. Such natural impressions on the
understanding are so far from being confirmed hereby, that this is
an argument against them; since, if there were certain characters
imprinted by nature on the understanding, as the principles of
knowledge, we could not but perceive them constantly operate in us and
influence our knowledge, as we do those others on the will and
appetite; which never cease to be the constant springs and motives
of all our actions, to which we perpetually feel them strongly
impelling us.
4. Moral rules need a proof, ergo not innate. Another reason that
makes me doubt of any innate practical principles is, that I think
there cannot any one moral rule be proposed whereof a man may not
justly demand a reason: which would be perfectly ridiculous and absurd
if they were innate; or so much as self-evident, which every innate
principle must needs be, and not need any proof to ascertain its
truth, nor want any reason to gain it approbation. He would be thought
void of common sense who asked on the one side, or on the other side
went to give a reason why "it is impossible for the same thing to be
and not to be." It carries its own light and evidence with it, and
needs no other proof: he that understands the terms assents to it
for its own sake or else nothing will ever be able to prevail with him
to do it. But should that most unshaken rule of morality and
foundation of all social virtue, "That one should do as he would be
done unto," be proposed to one who never heard of it before, but yet
is of capacity to understand its meaning; might he not without any
absurdity ask a reason why? And were not he that proposed it bound
to make out the truth and reasonableness of it to him? Which plainly
shows it not to be innate; for if it were it could neither want nor
receive any proof; but must needs (at least as soon as heard and
understood) be received and assented to as an unquestionable truth,
which a man can by no means doubt of. So that the truth of all these
moral rules plainly depends upon some other antecedent to them, and
from which they must be deduced; which could not be if either they
were innate or so much as self-evident.
5. Instance in keeping compacts. That men should keep their compacts
is certainly a great and undeniable rule in morality. But yet, if a
Christian, who has the view of happiness and misery in another life,
be asked why a man must keep his word, he will give this as a reason:-
Because God, who has the power of eternal life and death, requires
it of us. But if a Hobbist be asked why? he will answer:- Because
the public requires it, and the Leviathan will punish you if you do
not. And if one of the old philosophers had been asked, he would
have answered:- Because it was dishonest, below the dignity of a
man, and opposite to virtue, the highest perfection of human nature,
to do otherwise.
6. Virtue generally approved, not because innate, but because
profitable. Hence naturally flows the great variety of opinions
concerning moral rules which are to be found among men, according to
the different sorts of happiness they have a prospect of, or propose
to themselves; which could not be if practical principles were innate,
and imprinted in our minds immediately by the hand of God. I grant the
existence of God is so many ways manifest, and the obedience we owe
him so congruous to the light of reason, that a great part of
mankind give testimony to the law of nature: but yet I think it must
be allowed that several moral rules may receive from mankind a very
general approbation, without either knowing or admitting the true
ground of morality; which can only be the will and law of a God, who
sees men in the dark, has in his hand rewards and punishments and
power enough to call to account the proudest offender. For, God
having, by an inseparable connexion, joined virtue and public
happiness together, and made the practice thereof necessary to the
preservation of society, and visibly beneficial to all with whom the
virtuous man has to do; it is no wonder that every one should not only
allow, but recommend and magnify those rules to others, from whose
observance of them he is sure to reap advantage to himself He may, out
of interest as well as conviction, cry up that for sacred, which, if
once trampled on and profaned, he himself cannot be safe nor secure.
This, though it takes nothing from the moral and eternal obligation
which these rules evidently have, yet it shows that the outward
acknowledgment men pay to them in their words proves not that they are
innate principles: nay, it proves not so much as that men assent to
them inwardly in their own minds, as the inviolable rules of their own
practice; since we find that self-interest, and the conveniences of
this life, make many men own an outward profession and approbation
of them, whose actions sufficiently prove that they very little
consider the Lawgiver that prescribed these rules; nor the hell that
he has ordained for the punishment of those that transgress them.
7. Men's actions convince us that the rule of virtue is not their
internal principle. For, if we will not in civility allow too much
sincerity to the professions of most men, but think their actions to
be the interpreters of their thoughts, we shall find that they have no
such internal veneration for these rules, nor so full a persuasion
of their certainty and obligation. The great principle of morality,
"To do as one would be done to," is more commended than practised. But
the breach of this rule cannot be a greater vice, than to teach
others, that it is no moral rule, nor obligatory, would be thought
madness, and contrary to that interest men sacrifice to, when they
break it themselves. Perhaps conscience will be urged as checking us
for such breaches, and so the internal obligation and establishment of
the rule be preserved.
8. Conscience no proof of any innate moral rule. To which I
answer, that I doubt not but, without being written on their hearts,
many men may, by the same way that they come to the knowledge of other
things, come to assent to several moral rules, and be convinced of
their obligation. Others also may come to be of the same mind, from
their education, company, and customs of their country; which
persuasion, however got, will serve to set conscience on work; which
is nothing else but our own opinion or judgment of the moral rectitude
or pravity of our own actions; and if conscience be a proof of
innate principles, contraries may be innate principles; since some men
with the same bent of conscience prosecute what others avoid.
9. Instances of enormities practised without remorse. But I cannot
see how any men should ever transgress those moral rules, with
confidence and serenity, were they innate, and stamped upon their
minds. View but an army at the sacking of a town, and see what
observation or sense of moral principles, or what touch of
conscience for all the outrages they do. Robberies, murders, rapes,
are the sports of men set at liberty from punishment and censure. Have
there not been whole nations, and those of the most civilized
people, amongst whom the exposing their children, and leaving them
in the fields to perish by want or wild beasts has been the
practice; as little condemned or scrupled as the begetting them? Do
they not still, in some countries, put them into the same graves
with their mothers, if they die in childbirth; or despatch them, if
a pretended astrologer declares them to have unhappy stars? And are
there not places where, at a certain age, they kill or expose their
parents, without any remorse at all? In a part of Asia, the sick, when
their case comes to be thought desperate, are carried out and laid
on the earth before they are dead; and left there, exposed to wind and
weather, to perish without assistance or pity. It is familiar among
the Mingrelians, a people professing Christianity, to bury their
children alive without scruple. There are places where they eat
their own children. The Caribbees were wont to geld their children, on
purpose to fat and eat them. And Garcilasso de la Vega tells us of a
people in Peru which were wont to fat and eat the children they got on
their female captives, whom they kept as concubines for that
purpose, and when they were past breeding, the mothers themselves were
killed too and eaten. The virtues whereby the Tououpinambos believed
they merited paradise, were revenge, and eating abundance of their
enemies. They have not so much as a name for God, and have no
religion, no worship. The saints who are canonized amongst the
Turks, lead lives which one cannot with modesty relate. A remarkable
passage to this purpose, out of the voyage of Baumgarten, which is a
book not every day to be met with, I shall set down at large, in the
language it is published in. Ibi (sc. prope Belbes in AEgypto) vidimus
sanctum unum Saracenicum inter arenarum cumulos, ita ut ex utero
matris prodiit nudum sedentem. Mos est, ut didicimus, Mahometistis, ut
eos, qui amentes et sine ratione sunt, prosanctis colant et
venerentur. Insuper et eos, qui cum diu vitam egerint inquinatissimam,
voluntariam demum poenitentiam et paupertatem, sanctitate venerandos
deputant. Ejusmodi vero genus hominum libertatem quandam effrenem
habent, domos quos volunt intrandi, edendi, bibendi, et quod majus
est, concumbendi; ex quo concubitu, si proles secuta fuerit, sancta
similiter habetur. His ergo hominibus dum vivunt, magnos exhibent
honores; mortuis vero vel templa vel monumenta extruunt amplissima,
eosque contingere ac sepelire maximae fortunae ducunt loco.
Audivimus haec dicta et dicenda per interpretem a Mucrelo nostro.
Insuper sanctum illum, quem eo loco vidimus, publicitus apprime
commendari, eum esse hominem sanctum, divinum ac integritate
praecipuum; eo quod, nec foeminarum unquam esset, nec puerorum, sed
tantummodo asellarum concubitor atque mularum. (Peregr. Baumgarten, 1.
ii. c. I. p. 73.) More of the same kind concerning these precious
saints amongst the Turks may be seen in Pietro della Valle, in his
letter of the 25th of January, 1616.
Where then are those innate principles of justice, piety, gratitude,
equity, chastity? Or where is that universal consent that assures us
there are such inbred rules? Murders in duels, when fashion has made
them honourable, are committed without remorse of conscience: nay,
in many places innocence in this case is the greatest ignominy. And if
we look abroad to take a view of men as they are, we shall find that
they have remorse, in one place, for doing or omitting that which
others, in another place, think they merit by.
10. Men have contrary practical principles. He that will carefully
peruse the history of mankind, and look abroad into the several tribes
of men, and with indifferency survey their actions, will be able to
satisfy himself, that there is scarce that principle of morality to be
named, or rule of virtue to be thought on, (those only excepted that
are absolutely necessary to hold society together, which commonly
too are neglected betwixt distinct societies,) which is not, somewhere
or other, slighted and condemned by the general fashion of whole
societies of men, governed by practical opinions and rules of living
quite opposite to others.
11. Whole nations reject several moral rules. Here perhaps it will
be objected, that it is no argument that the rule is not known,
because it is broken. I grant the objection good where men, though
they transgress, yet disown not the law; where fear of shame, censure,
or punishment carries the mark of some awe it has upon them. But it is
impossible to conceive that a whole nation of men should all
publicly reject and renounce what every one of them certainly and
infallibly knew to be a law; for so they must who have it naturally
imprinted on their minds. It is possible men may sometimes own rules
of morality which in their private thoughts they do not believe to
be true, only to keep themselves in reputation and esteem amongst
those who are persuaded of their obligation. But it is not to be
imagined that a whole society of men should publicly and professedly
disown and cast off a rule which they could not in their own minds but
be infallibly certain was a law; nor be ignorant that all men they
should have to do with knew it to be such: and therefore must every
one of them apprehend from others all the contempt and abhorrence
due to one who professes himself void of humanity: and one who,
confounding the known and natural measures of right and wrong,
cannot but be looked on as the professed enemy of their peace and
happiness. Whatever practical principle is innate, cannot but be known
to every one to be just and good. It is therefore little less than a
contradiction to suppose, that whole nations of men should, both in
their professions and practice, unanimously and universally give the
lie to what, by the most invincible evidence, every one of them knew
to be true, right, and good. This is enough to satisfy us that no
practical rule which is anywhere universally, and with public
approbation or allowance, transgressed, can be supposed innate.- But I
have something further to add in answer to this objection.
12. The generally allowed breach of a rule, proof that it is not
innate. The breaking of a rule, say you, is no argument that it is
unknown. I grant it: but the generally allowed breach of it
anywhere, I say, is a proof that it is not innate. For example: let us
take any of these rules, which, being the most obvious deductions of
human reason, and comformable to the natural inclination of the
greatest part of men, fewest people have had the impudence to deny
or inconsideration to doubt of. If any can be thought to be
naturally imprinted, none, I think, can have a fairer pretence to be
innate than this: "Parents, preserve and cherish your children." When,
therefore, you say that this is an innate rule, what do you mean?
Either that it is an innate principle which upon all occasions excites
and directs the actions of all men; or else, that it is a truth
which all men have imprinted on their minds, and which therefore
they know and assent to. But in neither of these senses is it
innate. First, that it is not a principle which influences all men's
actions, is what I have proved by the examples before cited: nor
need we seek so far as Mingrelia or Peru to find instances of such
as neglect, abuse, nay, and destroy their children; or look on it only
as the more than brutality of some savage and barbarous nations,
when we remember that it was a familiar and uncondemned practice
amongst the Greeks and Romans to expose, without pity or remorse,
their innocent infants. Secondly, that it is an innate truth, known to
all men, is also false. For, "Parents preserve your children," is so
far from an innate truth, that it is no truth at all: it being a
command, and not a proposition, and so not capable of truth or
falsehood. To make it capable of being assented to as true, it must be
reduced to some such proposition as this: "It is the duty of parents
to preserve their children." But what duty is, cannot be understood
without a law; nor a law be known or supposed without a lawmaker, or
without reward and punishment; so that it is impossible that this,
or any other, practical principle should be innate, i.e. be
imprinted on the mind as a duty, without supposing the ideas of God,
of law, of obligation, of punishment, of a life after this, innate:
for that punishment follows not in this life the breach of this
rule, and consequently that it has not the force of a law in countries
where the generally allowed practice runs counter to it, is in
itself evident. But these ideas (which must be all of them innate,
if anything as a duty be so) are so far from being innate, that it
is not every studious or thinking man, much less every one that is
born, in whom they are to be found clear and distinct; and that one of
them, which of all others seems most likely to be innate, is not so,
(I mean the idea of God,) I think, in the next chapter, will appear
very evident to any considering man.
13. If men can be ignorant of what is innate, certainty is not
described by innate principles. From what has been said, I think we
may safely conclude, that whatever practical rule is in any place
generally and with allowance broken, cannot be supposed innate; it
being impossible that men should, without shame or fear, confidently
and serenely, break a rule which they could not but evidently know
that God had set up, and would certainly punish the breach of,
(which they must, if it were innate,) to a degree to make it a very
ill bargain to the transgressor. Without such a knowledge as this, a
man can never be certain that anything is his duty. Ignorance or doubt
of the law, hopes to escape the knowledge or power of the law-maker,
or the like, may make men give way to a present appetite; but let
any one see the fault, and the rod by it, and with the
transgression, a fire ready to punish it; a pleasure tempting, and the
hand of the Almighty visibly held up and prepared to take vengeance,
(for this must be the case where any duty is imprinted on the mind,)
and then tell me whether it be possible for people with such a
prospect, such a certain knowledge as this, wantonly, and without
scruple, to offend against a law which they carry about them in
indelible characters, and that stares them in the face whilst they are
breaking it? Whether men, at the same time that they feel in
themselves the imprinted edicts of an Omnipotent Law-maker, can,
with assurance and gaiety, slight and trample underfoot his most
sacred injunctions? And lastly, whether it be possible that whilst a
man thus openly bids defiance to this innate law and supreme Lawgiver,
all the bystanders, yea, even the governors and rulers of the
people, full of the same sense both of the law and Law-maker, should
silently connive, without testifying their dislike or laying the least
blame on it? Principles of actions indeed there are lodged in men's
appetites; but these are so far from being innate moral principles,
that if they were left to their full swing they would carry men to the
overturning of all morality. Moral laws are set as a curb and
restraint to these exorbitant desires, which they cannot be but by
rewards and punishments that will overbalance the satisfaction any one
shall propose to himself in the breach of the law. If, therefore,
anything be imprinted on the minds of all men as a law, all men must
have a certain and unavoidable knowledge that certain and
unavoidable punishment will attend the breach of it. For if men can be
ignorant or doubtful of what is innate, innate principles are insisted
on, and urged to no purpose; truth and certainty (the things
pretended) are not at all secured by them; but men are in the same
uncertain floating estate with as without them. An evident indubitable
knowledge of unavoidable punishment, great enough to make the
transgression very uneligible, must accompany an innate law; unless
with an innate law they can suppose an innate Gospel too. I would
not here be mistaken, as if, because I deny an innate law, I thought
there were none but positive laws. There is a great deal of difference
between an innate law, and a law of nature; between something
imprinted on our minds in their very original, and something that
we, being ignorant of, may attain to the knowledge of, by the use
and due application of our natural faculties. And I think they equally
forsake the truth who, running into contrary extremes, either affirm
an innate law, or deny that there is a law knowable by the light of
nature, i.e. without the help of positive revelation.
14. Those who maintain innate practical principles tell us not
what they are. The difference there is amongst men in their
practical principles is so evident that I think I need say no more
to evince, that it will be impossible to find any innate moral rules
by this mark of general assent; and it is enough to make one suspect
that the supposition of such innate principles is but an opinion taken
up at pleasure; since those who talk so confidently of them are so
sparing to tell us which they are. This might with justice be expected
from those men who lay stress upon this opinion; and it gives occasion
to distrust either their knowledge or charity, who, declaring that God
has imprinted on the minds of men the foundations of knowledge and the
rules of living, are yet so little favourable to the information of
their neighbours, or the quiet of mankind, as not to point out to them
which they are, in the variety men are distracted with. But, in truth,
were there any such innate principles there would be no need to
teach them. Did men find such innate propositions stamped on their
minds, they would easily be able to distinguish them from other truths
that they afterwards learned and deduced from them; and there would be
nothing more easy than to know what, and how many, they were. There
could be no more doubt about their number than there is about the
number of our fingers; and it is like then every system would be ready
to give them us by tale. But since nobody, that I know, has ventured
yet to give a catalogue of them, they cannot blame those who doubt
of these innate principles; since even they who require men to believe
that there are such innate propositions, do not tell us what they are.
It is easy to foresee, that if different men of different sects should
go about to give us a list of those innate practical principles,
they would set down only such as suited their distinct hypotheses, and
were fit to support the doctrines of their particular schools or
churches; a plain evidence that there are no such innate truths.
Nay, a great part of men are so far from finding any such innate moral
principles in themselves, that, by denying freedom to mankind, and
thereby making men no other than bare machines, they take away not
only innate, but all moral rules whatsoever, and leave not a
possibility to believe any such, to those who cannot conceive how
anything can be capable of a law that is not a free agent. And upon
that ground they must necessarily reject all principles of virtue, who
cannot put morality and mechanism together, which are not very easy to
be reconciled or made consistent.
15. Lord Herbert's innate principles examined. When I had written
this, being informed that my Lord Herbert had, in his book De
Veritate, assigned these innate principles, I presently consulted him,
hoping to find in a man of so great parts, something that might
satisfy me in this point, and put an end to my inquiry. In his chapter
De Instinctu Naturali, p. 72, ed. 1656, I met with these six marks
of his Notitiae, Communes:- 1. Prioritas. 2. Independentia. 3.
Universalitas. 4. Certitudo. 5. Necessitas, i.e. as he explains it,
faciunt ad hominis conservationem. 6. Modus conformationis, i.e.
Assensus mulla interposita mora. And at the latter end of his little
treatise De Religione Laici, he says this of these innate
principles: Adeo ut non uniuscujusvis religionis confinio arctentur
quae ubique vigent veritates. Sunt enim in ipsa mente caelitus
descriptae, nullisque traditionibus, sive scriptis, sive non scriptis,
obnoxiae, p. 3. And Veritates nostrae catholicae, quae tanquam indubia
Dei emata inforo interiori descriptae.
Thus, having given the marks of the innate principles or common
notions, and asserted their being imprinted on the minds of men by the
hand of God, he proceeds to set them down, and they are these: 1. Esse
aliquod supremum numen. 2. Numen illud coli debere. 3. Virtutem cum
pietate conjunctam optimam esse rationem cultus divini. 4.
Resipiscendum esse a peccatis. 5. Dari praemium vel paenam post hanc
vitam transactam. Though I allow these to be clear truths, and such
as, if rightly explained, a rational creature can hardly avoid
giving his assent to, yet I think he is far from proving them innate
impressions in foro interiori descriptae. For I must take leave to
observe:-
16. These five either not all, or more than all, if there are any.
First, that these five propositions are either not all, or more than
all, those common notions written on our minds by the finger of God;
if it were reasonable to believe any at all to be so written. Since
there are other propositions which, even by his own rules, have as
just a pretence to such an original, and may be as well admitted for
innate principles, as at least some of these five he enumerates,
viz. "Do as thou wouldst be done unto." And perhaps some hundreds of
others, when well considered.
17. The supposed marks wanting. Secondly, that all his marks are not
to be found in each of his five propositions, viz. his first,
second, and third marks agree perfectly to neither of them; and the
first, second, third, fourth, and sixth marks agree but ill to his
third, fourth, and fifth propositions. For, besides that we are
assured from history of many men, nay whole nations, who doubt or
disbelieve some or all of them, I cannot see how the third, viz. "That
virtue joined with piety is the best worship of God," can be an innate
principle, when the name or sound virtue, is so hard to be understood;
liable to so much uncertainty in its signification; and the thing it
stands for so much contended about and difficult to be known. And
therefore this cannot be but a very uncertain rule of human
practice, and serve but very little to the conduct of our lives, and
is therefore very unfit to be assigned as an innate practical
principle.
18. Of little use if they were innate. For let us consider this
proposition as to its meaning, (for it is the sense, and not sound,
that is and must be the principle or common notion,) viz. "Virtue is
the best worship of God," i.e. is most acceptable to him; which, if
virtue be taken, as most commonly it is, for those actions which,
according to the different opinions of several countries, are
accounted laudable, will be a proposition so far from being certain,
that it will not be true. If virtue be taken for actions conformable
to God's will, or to the rule prescribed by God- which is the true and
only measure of virtue when virtue is used to signify what is in its
own nature right and good- then this proposition, "That virtue is
the best worship of God," will be most true and certain, but of very
little use in human life: since it will amount to no more but this,
viz. "That God is pleased with the doing of what he commands;"-
which a man may certainly know to be true, without knowing what it
is that God doth command; and so be as far from any rule or
principle of his actions as he was before. And I think very few will
take a proposition which amounts to no more than this, viz. "That
God is pleased with the doing of what he himself commands," for an
innate moral principle written on the minds of all men, (however
true and certain it may be,) since it teaches so little. Whosoever
does so will have reason to think hundreds of propositions innate
principles; since there are many which have as good a title as this to
be received for such, which nobody yet ever put into that rank of
innate principles.
19. Scarce possible that God should engrave principles in words of
uncertain meaning. Nor is the fourth proposition (viz."Men must repent
of their sins") much more instructive, till what those actions are
that are meant by sins be set down. For the word peccata, or sins,
being put, as it usually is, to signify in general ill actions that
will draw punishment upon the doers, what great principle of
morality can that be to tell us we should be sorry, and cease to do
that which will bring mischief upon us; without knowing what those
particular actions are that will do so? Indeed this is a very true
proposition, and fit to be incated on and received by those who are
supposed to have been taught what actions in all kinds are sins: but
neither this nor the former can be imagined to be innate principles;
nor to be of any use if they were innate, unless the particular
measures and bounds of all virtues and vices were engraven in men's
minds, and were innate principles also, which I think is very much
to be doubted. And, therefore, I imagine, it will scarcely seem
possible that God should engrave principles in men's minds, in words
of uncertain signification, such as virtues and sins, which amongst
different men stand for different things: nay, it cannot be supposed
to be in words at all, which, being in most of these principles very
general, names, cannot be understood but by knowing the particulars
comprehended under them. And in the practical instances, the
measures must be taken from the knowledge of the actions themselves,
and the rules of them,- abstracted from words, and antecedent to the
knowledge of names; which rules a man must know, what language
soever he chance to learn, whether English or Japan, or if he should
learn no language at all, or never should understand the use of words,
as happens in the case of dumb and deaf men. When it shall be made out
that men ignorant of words, or untaught by the laws and customs of
their country, know that it is part of the worship of God, not to kill
another man; not to know more women than one; not to procure abortion;
not to expose their children; not to take from another what is his,
though we want it ourselves, but on the contrary, relieve and supply
his wants; and whenever we have done the contrary we ought to
repent, be sorry, and resolve to do so no more;- when I say, all men
shall be proved actually to know and allow all these and a thousand
other such rules, all of which come under these two general words made
use of above, viz. virtutes et peccata, virtues and sins, there will
be more reason for admitting these and the like, for common notions
and practical principles. Yet, after all, universal consent (were
there any in moral principles) to truths, the knowledge whereof may be
attained otherwise, would scarce prove them to be innate; which is all
I contend for.
20. Objection, "innate principles may be corrupted," answered. Nor
will it be of much moment here to offer that very ready but not very
material answer, viz. that the innate principles of morality may, by
education, and custom, and the general opinion of those amongst whom
we converse, be darkened, and at last quite worn out of the minds of
men. Which assertion of theirs, if true, quite takes away the argument
of universal consent, by which this opinion of innate principles is
endeavoured to be proved; unless those men will think it reasonable
that their private persuasions, or that of their party, should pass
for universal consent;- a thing not unfrequently done, when men,
presuming themselves to be the only masters of right reason, cast by
the votes and opinions of the rest of mankind as not worthy the
reckoning. And then their argument stands thus:- "The principles which
all mankind allow for true, are innate; those that men of right reason
admit, are the principles allowed by all mankind; we, and those of our
mind, are men of reason; therefore, we agreeing, our principles are
innate;"- which is a very pretty way of arguing, and a short cut to
infallibility. For otherwise it will be very hard to understand how
there be some principles which all men do acknowledge and agree in;
and yet there are none of those principles which are not, by
depraved custom and ill education, blotted out of the minds of many
men: which is to say, that all men admit, but yet many men do deny and
dissent from them. And indeed the supposition of such first principles
will serve us to very little purpose; and we shall be as much at a
loss with as without them, if they may, by any human power- such as
the will of our teachers, or opinions of our companions- be altered or
lost in us: and notwithstanding all this boast of first principles and
innate light, we shall be as much in the dark and uncertainty as if
there were no such thing at all: it being all one to have no rule, and
one that will warp any way; or amongst various and contrary rules, not
to know which is the right. But concerning innate principles, I desire
these men to say, whether they can or cannot, by education and custom,
be blurred and blotted out; if they cannot, we must find them in all
mankind alike, and they must be clear in everybody; and if they may
suffer variation from adventitious notions, we must then find them
clearest and most perspicuous nearest the fountain, in children and
illiterate people, who have received least impression from foreign
opinions. Let them take which side they please, they will certainly
find it inconsistent with visible matter of fact and daily
observation.
21. Contrary principles in the world. I easily grant that there
are great numbers of opinions which, by men of different countries,
educations, and tempers, are received and embraced as first and
unquestionable principles; many whereof, both for their absurdity as
well as oppositions to one another, it is impossible should be true.
But yet all those propositions, how remote soever from reason, are
so sacred somewhere or other, that men even of good understanding in
other matters, will sooner part with their lives, and whatever is
dearest to them, than suffer themselves to doubt, or others to
question, the truth of them.
22. How men commonly come by their principles. This, however strange
it may seem, is that which every day's experience confirms; and will
not, perhaps, appear so wonderful, if we consider the ways and steps
by which it is brought about; and how really it may come to pass, that
doctrines that have been derived from no better original than the
superstition of a nurse, or the authority of an old woman, may, by
length of time and consent of neighbours, grow up to the dignity of
principles in religion or morality. For such, who are careful (as they
call it) to principle children well, (and few there be who have not
a set of those principles for them, which they believe in,) instil
into the unwary, and as yet unprejudiced, understanding, (for white
paper receives any characters,) those doctrines they would have them
retain and profess. These being taught them as soon as they have any
apprehension; and still as they grow up confirmed to them, either by
the open profession or tacit consent of all they have to do with; or
at least by those of whose wisdom, knowledge, and piety they have an
opinion, who never suffer those propositions to be otherwise mentioned
but as the basis and foundation on which they build their religion and
manners, come, by these means, to have the reputation of
unquestionable, self-evident, and innate truths.
23. Principles supposed innate because we do not remember when we
began to hold them. To which we may add, that when men so instructed
are grown up, and reflect on their own minds, they cannot find
anything more ancient there than those opinions, which were taught
them before their memory began to keep a register of their actions, or
date the time when any new thing appeared to them; and therefore
make no scruple to conclude, that those propositions of whose
knowledge they can find in themselves no original, were certainly
the impress of God and nature upon their minds, and not taught them by
any one else. These they entertain and submit to, as many do to
their parents with veneration; not because it is natural; nor do
children do it where they are not so taught; but because, having
been always so educated, and having no remembrance of the beginning of
this respect, they think it is natural.
24. How such principles come to be held. This will appear very
likely, and almost unavoidable to come to pass, if we consider the
nature of mankind and the constitution of human affairs; wherein
most men cannot live without employing their time in the daily labours
of their callings; nor be at quiet in their minds without some
foundation or principle to rest their thoughts on. There is scarcely
any one so floating and superficial in his understanding, who hath not
some reverenced propositions, which are to him the principles on which
he bottoms his reasonings, and by which he judgeth of truth and
falsehood, right and wrong; which some, wanting skill and leisure, and
others the inclination, and some being taught that they ought not to
examine, there are few to be found who are not exposed by their
ignorance, laziness, education, or precipitancy, to take them upon
trust.
25. Further explained. This is evidently the case of all children
and young folk; and custom, a greater power than nature, seldom
failing to make them worship for divine what she hath inured them to
bow their minds and submit their understandings to, it is no wonder
that grown men, either perplexed in the necessary affairs of life,
or hot in the pursuit of pleasures, should not seriously sit down to
examine their own tenets; especially when one of their principles
is, that principles ought not to be questioned. And had men leisure,
parts, and will, who is there almost that dare shake the foundations
of all his past thoughts and actions, and endure to bring upon himself
the shame of having been a long time wholly in mistake and error?
Who is there hardy enough to contend with the reproach which is
everywhere prepared for those who dare venture to dissent from the
received opinions of their country or party? And where is the man to
be found that can patiently prepare himself to bear the name of
whimsical, sceptical, or atheist; which he is sure to meet with, who
does in the least scruple any of the common opinions? And he will be
much more afraid to question those principles, when he shall think
them, as most men do, the standards set up by God in his mind, to be
the rule and touchstone of all other opinions. And what can hinder him
from thinking them sacred, when he finds them the earliest of all
his own thoughts, and the most reverenced by others?
26. A worship of idols. It is easy to imagine how, by these means,
it comes to pass than men worship the idols that have been set up in
their minds; grow fond of the notions they have been long acquainted
with there; and stamp the characters of divinity upon absurdities
and errors; become zealous votaries to bulls and monkeys, and
contend too, fight, and die in defence of their opinions. Dum solos
credit habendos esse deos, quos ipse colit. For, since the reasoning
faculties of the soul, which are almost constantly, though not
always warily nor wisely employed, would not know how to move, for
want of a foundation and footing, in most men, who through laziness or
avocation do not, or for want of time, or true helps, or for other
causes, cannot penetrate into the principles of knowledge, and trace
truth to its fountain and original, it is natural for them, and almost
unavoidable, to take up with some borrowed principles; which being
reputed and presumed to be the evident proofs of other things, are
thought not to need any other proof themselves. Whoever shall
receive any of these into his mind, and entertain them there with
the reverence usually paid to principles, never venturing to examine
them, but accustoming himself to believe them, because they are to
be believed, may take up, from his education and the fashions of his
country, any absurdity for innate principles; and by long poring on
the same objects, so dim his sight as to take monsters lodged in his
own brain for the images of the Deity, and the workmanship of his
hands.
27. Principles must be examined. By this progress, how many there
are who arrive at principles which they believe innate may be easily
observed, in the variety of opposite principles held and contended for
by all sorts and degrees of men. And he that shall deny this to be the
method wherein most men proceed to the assurance they have of the
truth and evidence of their principles, will perhaps find it a hard
matter any other way to account for the contrary tenets, which are
firmly believed, confidently asserted, and which great numbers are
ready at any time to seal with their blood. And, indeed, if it be
the privilege of innate principles to be received upon their own
authority, without examination, I know not what may not be believed,
or how any one's principles can be questioned. If they may and ought
to be examined and tried, I desire to know how first and innate
principles can be tried; or at least it is reasonable to demand the
marks and characters whereby the genuine innate principles may be
distinguished from others: that so, amidst the great variety of
pretenders, I may be kept from mistakes in so material a point as
this. When this is done, I shall be ready to embrace such welcome
and useful propositions; and till then I may with modesty doubt; since
I fear universal consent, which is the only one produced, will
scarcely prove a sufficient mark to direct my choice, and assure me of
any innate principles.
From what has been said, I think it past doubt, that there are no
practical principles wherein all men agree; and therefore none innate.
Chapter III
Other considerations concerning Innate Principles,
both Speculative and Practical
1. Principles not innate, unless their ideas be innate. Had those
who would persuade us that there are innate principles not taken
them together in gross, but considered separately the parts out of
which those propositions are made, they would not, perhaps, have
been so forward to believe they were innate. Since, if the ideas which
made up those truths were not, it was impossible that the propositions
made up of them should be innate, or our knowledge of them be born
with us. For, if the ideas be not innate, there was a time when the
mind was without those principles; and then they will not be innate,
but be derived from some other original. For, where the ideas
themselves are not, there can be no knowledge, no assent, no mental or
verbal propositions about them.
2. Ideas, especially those belonging to principles, not born with
children. If we will attentively consider new-born children, we
shall have little reason to think that they bring many ideas into
the world with them. For, bating perhaps some faint ideas of hunger,
and thirst, and warmth, and some pains, which they may have felt in
the womb, there is not the least appearance of any settled ideas at
all in them; especially of ideas answering the terms which make up
those universal propositions that are esteemed innate principles.
One may perceive how, by degrees, afterwards, ideas come into their
minds; and that they get no more, nor other, than what experience, and
the observation of things that come in their way, furnish them with;
which might be enough to satisfy us that they are not original
characters stamped on the mind.
3. "Impossibility" and "identity" not innate ideas. "It is
impossible for the same thing to be, and not to be," is certainly
(if there be any such) an innate principle. But can any one think,
or will any one say, that "impossibility" and "identity" are two
innate ideas? Are they such as all mankind have, and bring into the
world with them? And are they those which are the first in children,
and antecedent to all acquired ones? If they are innate, they must
needs be so. Hath a child an idea of impossibility and identity,
before it has of white or black, sweet or bitter? And is it from the
knowledge of this principle that it concludes, that wormwood rubbed on
the nipple hath not the same taste that it used to receive from
thence? Is it the actual knowledge of impossible est idem esse, et non
esse, that makes a child distinguish between its mother and a
stranger; or that makes it fond of the one and flee the other? Or does
the mind regulate itself and its assent by ideas that it never yet
had? Or the understanding draw conclusions from principles which it
never yet knew or understood? The names impossibility and identity
stand for two ideas, so far from being innate, or born with us, that I
think it requires great care and attention to form them right in our
understandings. They are so far from being brought into the world with
us, so remote from the thoughts of infancy and childhood, that I
believe, upon examination it will be found that many grown men want
them.
4. "Identity," an idea not innate. If identity (to instance that
alone) be a native impression, and consequently so clear and obvious
to us that we must needs know it even from our cradles, I would gladly
be resolved by any one of seven, or seventy years old, whether a
man, being a creature consisting of soul and body, be the same man
when his body is changed? Whether Euphorbus and Pythagoras, having had
the same soul, were the same men, though they lived several ages
asunder? Nay, whether the cock too, which had the same soul, were
not the same with both of them? Whereby, perhaps, it will appear
that our idea of sameness is not so settled and clear as to deserve to
be thought innate in us. For if those innate ideas are not clear and
distinct, so as to be universally known and naturally agreed on,
they cannot be subjects of universal and undoubted truths, but will be
the unavoidable occasion of perpetual uncertainty. For, I suppose
every one's idea of identity will not be the same that Pythagoras
and thousands of his followers have. And which then shall be true?
Which innate? Or are there two different ideas of identity, both
innate?
5. What makes the same man? Nor let any one think that the questions
I have here proposed about the identity of man are bare empty
speculations; which, if they were, would be enough to show, that there
was in the understandings of men no innate idea of identity. He that
shall with a little attention reflect on the resurrection, and
consider that divine justice will bring to judgment, at the last
day, the very same persons, to be happy or miserable in the other, who
did well or ill in this life, will find it perhaps not easy to resolve
with himself, what makes the same man, or wherein identity consists;
and will not be forward to think he, and every one, even children
themselves, have naturally a clear idea of it.
6. Whole and part, not innate ideas. Let us examine that principle
of mathematics, viz. that the whole is bigger than a part. This, I
take it, is reckoned amongst innate principles. I am sure it has as
good a title as any to be thought so; which yet nobody can think it to
be, when he considers [that] the ideas it comprehends in it, whole and
part, are perfectly relative; but the positive ideas to which they
properly and immediately belong are extension and number, of which
alone whole and part are relations. So that if whole and part are
innate ideas, extension and number must be so too; it being impossible
to have an idea of a relation, without having any at all of the
thing to which it belongs, and in which it is founded. Now, whether
the minds of men have naturally imprinted on them the ideas of
extension and number, I leave to be considered by these who are the
patrons of innate principles.
7. Idea of worship not innate. That God is to be worshipped, is,
without doubt, as great a truth as any that can enter into the mind of
man, and deserves the first place amongst all practical principles.
But yet it can by no means be thought innate, unless the ideas of
God and worship are innate. That the idea the term worship stands
for is not in the understanding of children, and a character stamped
on the mind in its first original, I think will be easily granted,
by any one that considers how few there be amongst grown men who
have a clear and distinct notion of it. And, I suppose, there cannot
be anything more ridiculous than to say, that children have this
practical principle innate, "That God is to be worshipped," and yet
that they know not what that worship of God is, which is their duty.
But to pass by this.
8. Idea of God not innate. If any idea can be imagined innate, the
idea of God may, of all others, for many reasons, be thought so; since
it is hard to conceive how there should be innate moral principles,
without an innate idea of a Deity. Without a notion of a law-maker, it
is impossible to have a notion of a law, and an obligation to
observe it. Besides the atheists taken notice of amongst the ancients,
and left branded upon the records of history, hath not navigation
discovered, in these later ages, whole nations, at the bay of
Soldania, in Brazil, [in Boranday,] and in the Caribbee islands,
&c., amongst whom there was to be found no notion of a God, no
religion? Nicholaus del Techo, in Literis ex Paraquaria, de
Caiguarum Conversione, has these words: Reperi eam gentem nullum nomen
habere quod Deum, et hominis animam significet; nulla sacra habet,
nulla idola. These are instances of nations where uncultivated
nature has been left to itself, without the help of letters and
discipline, and the improvements of arts and sciences. But there are
others to be found who have enjoyed these in a very great measure, who
yet, for want of a due application of their thoughts this way, want
the idea and knowledge of God. It will, I doubt not, be a surprise
to others, as it was to me, to find the Siamites of this number. But
for this, let them consult the King of France's late envoy thither,
who gives no better account of the Chinese themselves. And if we
will not believe La Loubere, the missionaries of China, even the
Jesuits themselves, the great encomiasts of the Chinese, do all to a
man agree, and will convince us, that the sect of the literari, or
learned, keeping to the old religion of China, and the ruling party
there, are all of them atheists. Vid. Navarette, in the Collection
of Voyages, vol. i., and Historia Cultus Sinensium. And perhaps, if we
should with attention mind the lives and discourses of people not so
far off, we should have too much reason to fear, that many, in more
civilized countries, have no very strong and clear impressions of a
Deity upon their minds, and that the complaints of atheism made from
the pulpit are not without reason. And though only some profligate
wretches own it too barefacedly now; yet perhaps we should hear more
than we do of it from others, did not the fear of the magistrate's
sword, or their neighbour's censure, tie up people's tongues; which,
were the apprehensions of punishment or shame taken away, would as
openly proclaim their atheism as their lives do.
9. The name of God not universal or obscure in meaning. But had
all mankind everywhere a notion of a God, (whereof yet history tells
us the contrary,) it would not from thence follow, that the idea of
him was innate. For, though no nation were to be found without a name,
and some few dark notions of him, yet that would not prove them to
be natural impressions on the mind; no more than the names of fire, or
the sun, heat, or number, do prove the ideas they stand for to be
innate; because the names of those things, and the ideas of them,
are so universally received and known amongst mankind. Nor, on the
contrary, is the want of such a name, or the absence of such a
notion out of men's minds, any argument against the being of a God;
any more than it would be a proof that there was no loadstone in the
world, because a great part of mankind had neither a notion of any
such thing nor a name for it; or be any show of argument to prove that
there are no distinct and various species of angels, or intelligent
beings above us, because we have no ideas of such distinct species, or
names for them. For, men being furnished with words, by the common
language of their own countries, can scarce avoid having some kind
of ideas of those things whose names those they converse with have
occasion frequently to mention to them. And if they carry with it
the notion of excellency, greatness, or something extraordinary; if
apprehension and concernment accompany it; if the fear of absolute and
irresistible power set it on upon the mind,- the idea is likely to
sink the deeper, and spread the further; especially if it be such an
idea as is agreeable to the common light of reason, and naturally
deducible from every part of our knowledge, as that of a God is. For
the visible marks of extraordinary wisdom and power appear so
plainly in all the works of the creation, that a rational creature,
who will but seriously reflect on them, cannot miss the discovery of a
Deity. And the influence that the discovery of such a Being must
necessarily have on the minds of all that have but once heard of it is
so great, and carries such a weight of thought and communication
with it, that it seems stranger to me that a whole nation of men
should be anywhere found so brutish as to want the notion of a God,
than that they should be without any notion of numbers, or fire.
10. Ideas of God and idea of fire. The name of God being once
mentioned in any part of the world, to express a superior, powerful,
wise, invisible Being, the suitableness of such a notion to the
principles of common reason, and the interest men will always have
to mention it often, must necessarily spread it far and wide; and
continue it down to all generations: though yet the general
reception of this name, and some imperfect and unsteady notions
conveyed thereby to the unthinking part of mankind, prove not the idea
to be innate; but only that they who made the discovery had made a
right use of their reason, thought maturely of the causes of things,
and traced them to their original; from whom other less considering
people having once received so important a notion, it could not easily
be lost again.
11. Idea of God not innate. This is all could be inferred from the
notion of a God, were it to be found universally in all the tribes
of mankind, and generally acknowledged, by men grown to maturity in
all countries. For the generality of the acknowledging of a God, as
I imagine, is extended no further than that; which, if it be
sufficient to prove the idea of God innate, will as well prove the
idea of fire innate; since I think it may be truly said, that there is
not a person in the world who has a notion of a God, who has not
also the idea of fire. I doubt not but if a colony of young children
should be placed in an island where no fire was, they would
certainly neither have any notion of such a thing, nor name for it,
how generally soever it were received and known in all the world
besides; and perhaps too their apprehensions would be as far removed
from any name, or notion, of a God, till some one amongst them had
employed his thoughts to inquire into the constitution and causes of
things, which would easily lead him to the notion of a God; which
having once taught to others, reason, and the natural propensity of
their own thoughts, would afterwards propagate, and continue amongst
them.
12. Suitable to God's goodness, that all men should have an idea
of Him, therefore naturally imprinted by Him, answered. Indeed it is
urged, that it is suitable to the goodness of God, to imprint upon the
minds of men characters and notions of himself, and not to leave
them in the dark and doubt in so grand a concernment; and also, by
that means, to secure to himself the homage and veneration due from so
intelligent a creature as man; and therefore he has done it.
This argument, if it be of any force, will prove much more than
those who use it in this case expect from it. For, if we may
conclude that God hath done for men all that men shall judge is best
for them, because it is suitable to his goodness so to do, it will
prove, not only that God has imprinted on the minds of men an idea
of himself, but that he hath plainly stamped there, in fair
characters, all that men ought to know or believe of him; all that
they ought to do in obedience to his will; and that he hath given them
a will and affections conformable to it. This, no doubt, every one
will think better for men, than that they should, in the dark, grope
after knowledge, as St. Paul tells us all nations did after God
(Acts 17. 27); than that their wills should clash with their
understandings, and their appetites cross their duty. The Romanists
say it is best for men, and so suitable to the goodness of God, that
there should be an infallible judge of controversies on earth; and
therefore there is one. And I, by the same reason, say it is better
for men that every man himself should be infallible. I leave them to
consider, whether, by the force of this argument, they shall think
that every man is so. I think it a very good argument to say,- the
infinitely wise God hath made it so; and therefore it is best. But
it seems to me a little too much confidence of our own wisdom to say,-
"I think it best; and therefore God hath made it so." And in the
matter in hand, it will be in vain to argue from such a topic, that
God hath done so, when certain experience shows us that he hath not.
But the goodness of God hath not been wanting to men, without such
original impressions of knowledge or ideas stamped on the mind;
since he hath furnished man with those faculties which will serve
for the sufficient discovery of all things requisite to the end of
such a being; and I doubt not but to show, that a man, by the right
use of his natural abilities, may, without any innate principles,
attain a knowledge of a God, and other things that concern him. God
having endued man with those faculties of knowledge which he hath, was
no more obliged by his goodness to plant those innate notions in his
mind, than that, having given him reason, hands, and materials, he
should build him bridges or houses,- which some people in the world,
however of good parts, do either totally want, or are but ill provided
of, as well as others are wholly without ideas of God and principles
of morality, or at least have but very ill ones; the reason in both
cases, being, that they never employed their parts, faculties, and
powers industriously that way, but contented themselves with the
opinions, fashions, and things of their country, as they found them,
without looking any further. Had you or I been born at the Bay of
Soldania, possibly our thoughts and notions had not exceeded those
brutish ones of the Hottentots that inhabit there. And had the
Virginia king Apochancana been educated in England, he had been
perhaps as knowing a divine, and as good a mathematician as any in it;
the difference between him and a more improved Englishman lying barely
in this, that the exercise of his faculties was bounded within the
ways, modes, and notions of his own country, and never directed to any
other or further inquiries. And if he had not any idea of a God, it
was only because he pursued not those thoughts that would have led him
to it.
13. Ideas of God various in different men. I grant that if there
were any ideas to be found imprinted on the minds of men, we have
reason to expect it should be the notion of his Maker, as a mark God
set on his own workmanship, to mind man of his dependence and duty;
and that herein should appear the first instances of human
knowledge. But how late is it before any such notion is discoverable
in children? And when we find it there, how much more does it resemble
the opinion and notion of the teacher, than represent the true God? He
that shall observe in children the progress whereby their minds attain
the knowledge they have, will think that the objects they do first and
most familiarly converse with are those that make the first
impressions on their understandings; nor will he find the least
footsteps of any other. It is easy to take notice how their thoughts
enlarge themselves, only as they come to be acquainted with a
greater variety of sensible objects; to retain the ideas of them in
their memories; and to get the skill to compound and enlarge them, and
several ways put them together. How, by these means, they come to
frame in their minds an idea men have of a Deity, I shall hereafter
show.
14. Contrary and inconsistent ideas of God under the same name.
Can it be thought that the ideas men have of God are the characters
and marks of himself, engraven in their minds by his own finger,
when we see that, in the same country, under one and the same name,
men have far different, nay often contrary and inconsistent ideas
and conceptions of him? Their agreeing in a name, or sound, will
scarce prove an innate notion of him.
15. Gross ideas of God. What true or tolerable notion of a Deity
could they have, who acknowledged and worshipped hundreds? Every deity
that they owned above one was an infallible evidence of their
ignorance of Him, and a proof that they had no true notion of God,
where unity, infinity, and eternity were excluded. To which, if we add
their gross conceptions of corporeity, expressed in their images and
representations of their deities; the amours, marriages,
copulations, lusts, quarrels, and other mean qualities attributed by
them to their gods; we shall have little reason to think that the
heathen world, i.e. the greatest part of mankind, had such ideas of
God in their minds as he himself, out of care that they should not
be mistaken about him, was author of. And this universality of
consent, so much argued, if it prove any native impressions, it will
be only this:- that God imprinted on the minds of all men speaking the
same language, a name for himself, but not any idea; since those
people who agreed in the name, had, at the same time, far different
apprehensions about the thing signified. If they say that the
variety of deities worshipped by the heathen world were but figurative
ways of expressing the several attributes of that incomprehensible
Being, or several parts of his providence, I answer: what they might
be in the original I will not here inquire; but that they were so in
the thoughts of the vulgar I think nobody will affirm. And he that
will consult the voyage of the Bishop of Beryte, c. 13, (not to
mention other testimonies,) will find that the theology of the
Siamites professedly owns a plurality of gods: or, as the Abbe de
Choisy more judiciously remarks in his Journal du Voyage de Siam,
107/177, it consists properly in acknowledging no God at all.
16. Idea of God not innate although wise men of all nations come
to have it. If it be said, that wise men of all nations came to have
true conceptions of the unity and infinity of the Deity, I grant it.
But then this,
First, excludes universality of consent in anything but the name;
for those wise men being very few, perhaps one of a thousand, this
universality is very narrow.
Secondly, it seems to me plainly to prove, that the truest and
best notions men have of God were not imprinted, but acquired by
thought and meditation, and a right use of their faculties: since
the wise and considerate men of the world, by a right and careful
employment of their thoughts and reason, attained true notions in this
as well as other things; whilst the lazy and inconsiderate part of
men, making far the greater number, took up their notions by chance,
from common tradition and vulgar conceptions, without much beating
their heads about them. And if it be a reason to think the notion of
God innate, because all wise men had it, virtue too must be thought
innate; for that also wise men have always had.
17. Odd, low, and pitiful ideas of God common among men. This was
evidently the case of all Gentilism. Nor hath even amongst Jews,
Christians, and Mahometans, who acknowledged but one God, this
doctrine, and the care taken in those nations to teach men to have
true notions of a God, prevailed so far as to make men to have the
same and the true ideas of him. How many even amongst us, will be
found upon inquiry to fancy him in the shape of a man sitting in
heaven; and to have many other absurd and unfit conceptions of him?
Christians as well as Turks have had whole sects owning and contending
earnestly for it,- that the Deity was corporeal, and of human shape:
and though we find few now amongst us who profess themselves
Anthropomorphites, (though some I have met with that own it,) yet I
believe he that will make it his business may find amongst the
ignorant and uninstructed Christians many of that opinion. Talk but
with country people, almost of any age, or young people almost of
any condition, and you shall find that, though the name of God be
frequently in their mouths, yet the notions they apply this name to
are so odd, low, and pitiful, that nobody can imagine they were taught
by a rational man; much less that they were characters written by
the finger of God himself. Nor do I see how it derogates more from the
goodness of God, that he has given us minds unfurnished with these
ideas of himself, than that he hath sent us into the world with bodies
unclothed; and that there is no art or skill born with us. For,
being fitted with faculties to attain these, it is want of industry
and consideration in us, and not of bounty in him, if we have them
not. It is as certain that there is a God, as that the opposite angles
made by the intersection of two straight lines are equal. There was
never any rational creature that set himself sincerely to examine
the truth of these propositions that could fail to assent to them;
though yet it be past doubt that there are many men, who, having not
applied their thoughts that way, are ignorant both of the one and
the other. If any one think fit to call this (which is the utmost of
its extent) universal consent, such an one I easily allow; but such an
universal consent as this proves not the idea of God, any more than it
does the idea of such angles, innate.
18. If the idea of God be not innate, no other can be supposed
innate. Since then though the knowledge of a God be the most natural
discovery of human reason, yet the idea of him is not innate, as I
think is evident from what has been said; I imagine there will be
scarce any other idea found that can pretend to it. Since if God
hath set any impression, any character, on the understanding of men,
it is most reasonable to expect it should have been some clear and
uniform idea of Himself; as far as our weak capacities were capable to
receive so incomprehensible and infinite an object. But our minds
being at first void of that idea which we are most concerned to
have, it is a strong presumption against all other innate
characters. I must own, as far as I can observe, I can find none,
and would be glad to be informed by any other.
19. Idea of substance not innate. I confess there is another idea
which would be of general use for mankind to have, as it is of general
talk as if they had it; and that is the idea of substance; which we
neither have nor can have by sensation or reflection. If nature took
care to provide us any ideas, we might well expect they should be such
as by our own faculties we cannot procure to ourselves; but we see, on
the contrary, that since, by those ways whereby other ideas are
brought into our minds, this is not, we have no such clear idea at
all; and therefore signify nothing by the word substance but only an
uncertain supposition of we know not what, i.e. of something whereof
we have no [particular distinct positive] idea, which we take to be
the substratum, or support, of those ideas we do know.
20. No propositions can be innate, since no ideas are innate.
Whatever then we talk of innate, either speculative or practical,
principles, it may with as much probability be said, that a man hath
L100 sterling in his pocket, and yet denied that he hath there
either penny, shilling, crown, or other coin out of which the sum is
to be made up; as to think that certain propositions are innate when
the ideas about which they are can by no means be supposed to be so.
The general reception and assent that is given doth not at all
prove, that the ideas expressed in them are innate; for in many cases,
however the ideas came there, the assent to words expressing the
agreement or disagreement of such ideas, will necessarily follow.
Every one that hath a true idea of God and worship, will assent to
this proposition, "That God is to be worshipped," when expressed in
a language he understands; and every rational man that hath not
thought on it to-day, may be ready to assent to this proposition
to-morrow; and yet millions of men may be well supposed to want one or
both those ideas to-day. For, if we will allow savages, and most
country people, to have ideas of God and worship, (which
conversation with them will not make one forward to believe,) yet I
think few children can be supposed to have those ideas, which
therefore they must begin to have some time or other; and then they
will also begin to assent to that proposition, and make very little
question of it ever after. But such an assent upon hearing, no more
proves the ideas to be innate, than it does that one born blind
(with cataracts which will be couched to-morrow) had the innate
ideas of the sun, or light, or saffron, or yellow; because, when his
sight is cleared, he will certainly assent to this proposition,
"That the sun is lucid, or that saffron is yellow." And therefore,
if such an assent upon hearing cannot prove the ideas innate, it can
much less the propositions made up of those ideas. If they have any
innate ideas, I would be glad to be told what, and how many, they are.
21. No innate ideas in the memory. To which let me add: if there
be any innate ideas, any ideas in the mind which the mind does not
actually think on, they must be lodged in the memory; and from
thence must be brought into view by remembrance; i.e. must be known,
when they are remembered, to have been perceptions in the mind before;
unless remembrance can be without remembrance. For, to remember is
to perceive anything with memory, or with a consciousness that it
was perceived or known before. Without this, whatever idea comes
into the mind is new, and not remembered; this consciousness of its
having been in the mind before, being that which distinguishes
remembering from all other ways of thinking. Whatever idea was never
perceived by the mind was never in the mind. Whatever idea is in the
mind, is, either an actual perception, or else, having been an
actual perception, is so in the mind that, by the memory, it can be
made an actual perception again. Whenever there is the actual
perception of any idea without memory, the idea appears perfectly
new and unknown before to the understanding. Whenever the memory
brings any idea into actual view, it is with a consciousness that it
had been there before, and was not wholly a stranger to the mind.
Whether this be not so, I appeal to every one's observation. And
then I desire an instance of an idea, pretended to be innate, which
(before any impression of it by ways hereafter to be mentioned) any
one could revive and remember, as an idea he had formerly known;
without which consciousness of a former perception there is no
remembrance; and whatever idea comes into the mind without that
consciousness is not remembered, or comes not out of the memory, nor
can be said to be in the mind before that appearance. For what is
not either actually in view or in the memory, is in the mind no way at
all, and is all one as if it had never been there. Suppose a child had
the use of his eyes till he knows and distinguishes colours; but
then cataracts shut the windows, and he is forty or fifty years
perfectly in the dark; and in that time perfectly loses all memory
of the ideas of colours he once had. This was the case of a blind
man I once talked with, who lost his sight by the small-pox when he
was a child, and had no more notion of colours than one born blind.
I ask whether any one can say this man had then any ideas of colours
in his mind, any more than one born blind? And I think nobody will say
that either of them had in his mind any ideas of colours at all. His
cataracts are couched, and then he has the ideas (which he remembers
not) of colours, de novo, by his restored sight, conveyed to his mind,
and that without any consciousness of a former acquaintance. And these
now he can revive and call to mind in the dark. In this case all these
ideas of colours, which, when out of view, can be revived with a
consciousness of a former acquaintance, being thus in the memory,
are said to be in the mind. The use I make of this is,- that
whatever idea, being not actually in view, is in the mind, is there
only by being in the memory; and if it be not in the memory, it is not
in the mind; and if it be in the memory, it cannot by the memory be
brought into actual view without a perception that it comes out of the
memory; which is this, that it had been known before, and is now
remembered. If therefore there be any innate ideas, they must be in
the memory, or else nowhere in the mind; and if they be in the memory,
they can be revived without any impression from without; and
whenever they are brought into the mind they are remembered, i.e. they
bring with them a perception of their not being wholly new to it. This
being a constant and distinguishing difference between what is, and
what is not in the memory, or in the mind;- that what is not in the
memory, whenever it appears there, appears perfectly new and unknown
before; and what is in the memory, or in the mind, whenever it is
suggested by the memory, appears not to be new, but the mind finds
it in itself, and knows it was there before. By this it may be tried
whether there be any innate ideas in the mind before impression from
sensation or reflection. I would fain meet with the man who, when he
came to the use of reason, or at any other time, remembered any of
them; and to whom, after he was born, they were never new. If any
one will say, there are ideas in the mind that are not in the
memory, I desire him to explain himself, and make what he says
intelligible.
22. Principles not innate, because of little use or little
certainty. Besides what I have already said, there is another reason
why I doubt that neither these nor any other principles are innate.
I that am fully persuaded that the infinitely wise God made all things
in perfect wisdom, cannot satisfy myself why he should be supposed
to print upon the minds of men some universal principles; whereof
those that are pretended innate, and concern speculation, are of no
great use; and those that concern practice, not self-evident; and
neither of them distinguishable from some other truths not allowed
to be innate. For, to what purpose should characters be graven on
the mind by the finger of God, which are not clearer there than
those which are afterwards introduced, or cannot be distinguished from
them? If any one thinks there are such innate ideas and
propositions, which by their clearness and usefulness are
distinguishable from all that is adventitious in the mind and
acquired, it will not be a hard matter for him to tell us which they
are; and then every one will be a fit judge whether they be so or
no. Since if there be such innate ideas and impressions, plainly
different from all other perceptions and knowledge, every one will
find it true in himself of the evidence of these supposed innate
maxims, I have spoken already: of their usefulness I shall have
occasion to speak more hereafter.
23. Difference of men's discoveries depends upon the different
application of their faculties. To conclude: some ideas forwardly
offer themselves to all men's understanding; and some sorts of
truths result from any ideas, as soon as the mind puts them into
propositions: other truths require a train of ideas placed in order, a
due comparing of them, and deductions made with attention, before they
can be discovered and assented to. Some of the first sort, because
of their general and easy reception, have been mistaken for innate:
but the truth is, ideas and notions are no more born with us than arts
and sciences; though some of them indeed offer themselves to our
faculties more readily than others; and therefore are more generally
received: though that too be according as the organs of our bodies and
powers of our minds happen to be employed; God having fitted men
with faculties and means to discover, receive, and retain truths,
according as they are employed. The great difference that is to be
found in the notions of mankind is, from the different use they put
their faculties to. Whilst some (and those the most) taking things
upon trust, misemploy their power of assent, by lazily enslaving their
minds to the dictates and dominion of others, in doctrines which it is
their duty carefully to examine, and not blindly, with an implicit
faith, to swallow; others, employing their thoughts only about some
few things, grow acquainted sufficiently with them, attain great
degrees of knowledge in them, and are ignorant of all other, having
never let their thoughts loose in the search of other inquiries. Thus,
that the three angles of a triangle are quite equal to two right
ones is a truth as certain as anything can be, and I think more
evident than many of those propositions that go for principles; and
yet there are millions, however expert in other things, who know not
this at all, because they never set their thoughts on work about
such angles. And he that certainly knows this proposition may yet be
utterly ignorant of the truth of other propositions, in mathematics
itself, which are as clear and evident as this; because, in his search
of those mathematical truths, he stopped his thoughts short and went
not so far. The same may happen concerning the notions we have of
the being of a Deity. For, though there be no truth which a man may
more evidently make out to himself than the existence of a God, yet he
that shall content himself with things as he finds them in this world,
as they minister to his pleasures and passions, and not make inquiry a
little further into their causes, ends, and admirable contrivances,
and pursue the thoughts thereof with diligence and attention, may live
long without any notion of such a Being. And if any person hath by
talk put such a notion into his head, he may perhaps believe it; but
if he hath never examined it, his knowledge of it will be no perfecter
than his, who having been told, that the three angles of a triangle
are equal to two right ones, takes it upon trust, without examining
the demonstration; and may yield his assent as a probable opinion, but
hath no knowledge of the truth of it; which yet his faculties, if
carefully employed, were able to make clear and evident to him. But
this only, by the by, to show how much our knowledge depends upon
the right use of those powers nature hath bestowed upon us, and how
little upon such innate principles as are in vain supposed to be in
all mankind for their direction; which all men could not but know if
they were there, or else they would be there to no purpose. And
which since all men do not know, nor can distinguish from other
adventitious truths, we may well conclude there are no such.
24. Men must think and know for themselves. What censure doubting
thus of innate principles may deserve from men, who will be apt to
call it pulling up the old foundations of knowledge and certainty, I
cannot tell;- I persuade myself at least that the way I have
pursued, being conformable to truth, lays those foundations surer.
This I am certain, I have not made it my business either to quit or
follow any authority in the ensuing Discourse. Truth has been my
only aim; and wherever that has appeared to lead, my thoughts have
impartially followed, without minding whether the footsteps of any
other lay that way or not. Not that I want a due respect to other
men's opinions; but, after all, the greatest reverence is due to
truth: and I hope it will not be thought arrogance to say, that
perhaps we should make greater progress in the discovery of rational
and contemplative knowledge, if we sought it in the fountain, in the
consideration of things themselves; and made use rather of our own
thoughts than other men's to find it. For I think we may as rationally
hope to see with other men's eyes, as to know by other men's
understandings. So much as we ourselves consider and comprehend of
truth and reason, so much we possess of real and true knowledge. The
floating of other men's opinions in our brains, makes us not one jot
the more knowing, though they happen to be true. What in them was
science, is in us but opiniatrety; whilst we give up our assent only
to reverend names, and do not, as they did, employ our own reason to
understand those truths which gave them reputation. Aristotle was
certainly a knowing man, but nobody ever thought him so because he
blindly embraced, and confidently vented the opinions of another.
And if the taking up of another's principles, without examining
them, made not him a philosopher, I suppose it will hardly make
anybody else so. In the sciences, every one has so much as he really
knows and comprehends. What he believes only, and takes upon trust,
are but shreds; which, however well in the whole piece, make no
considerable addition to his stock who gathers them. Such borrowed
wealth, like fairy money, though it were gold in the hand from which
he received it, will be but leaves and dust when it comes to use.
25. Whence the opinion of innate principles. When men have found
some general propositions that could not be doubted of as soon as
understood, it was, I know, a short and easy way to conclude them
innate. This being once received, it eased the lazy from the pains
of search, and stopped the inquiry of the doubtful concerning all that
was once styled innate. And it was of no small advantage to those
who affected to be masters and teachers, to make this the principle of
principles,- that principles must not he questioned. For, having
once established this tenet,- that there are innate principles, it put
their followers upon a necessity of receiving some doctrines as
such; which was to take them off from the use of their own reason
and judgment, and put them on believing and taking them upon trust
without further examination: in which posture of blind credulity, they
might be more easily governed by, and made useful to some sort of men,
who had the skill and office to principle and guide them. Nor is it
a small power it gives one man over another, to have the authority
to be the dictator of principles, and teacher of unquestionable
truths; and to make a man swallow that for an innate principle which
may serve to his purpose who teacheth them. Whereas had they
examined the ways whereby men came to the knowledge of many
universal truths, they would have found them to result in the minds of
men from the being of things themselves, when duly considered; and
that they were discovered by the application of those faculties that
were fitted by nature to receive and judge of them, when duly employed
about them.
26. Conclusion. To show how the understanding proceeds herein is the
design of the following Discourse; which I shall proceed to when I
have first premised, that hitherto,- to clear my way to those
foundations which I conceive are the only true ones, whereon to
establish those notions we can have of our own knowledge,- it hath
been necessary for me to give an account of the reasons I had to doubt
of innate principles. And since the arguments which are against them
do, some of them, rise from common received opinions, I have been
forced to take several things for granted; which is hardly avoidable
to any one, whose task is to show the falsehood or improbability of
any tenet;- it happening in controversial discourses as it does in
assaulting of towns; where, if the ground be but firm whereon the
batteries are erected, there is no further inquiry of whom it is
borrowed, nor whom it belongs to, so it affords but a fit rise for the
present purpose. But in the future part of this Discourse, designing
to raise an edifice uniform and consistent with itself, as far as my
own experience and observation will assist me, I hope to erect it on
such a basis that I shall not need to shore it up with props and
buttresses, leaning on borrowed or begged foundations: or at least, if
mine prove a castle in the air, I will endeavour it shall be all of
a piece and hang together. Wherein I warn the reader not to expect
undeniable cogent demonstrations, unless I may be allowed the
privilege, not seldom assumed by others, to take my principles for
granted; and then, I doubt not, but I can demonstrate too. All that
I shall say for the principles I proceed on is, that I can only appeal
to men's own unprejudiced experience and observation whether they be
true or not; and this is enough for a man who professes no more than
to lay down candidly and freely his own conjectures, concerning a
subject lying somewhat in the dark, without any other design than an
unbiased inquiry after truth.
BOOK II
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.
Chapter XVII
Of Infinity
1. Infinity, in its original intention, attributed to space,
duration, and number. He that would know what kind of idea it is to
which we give the name of infinity, cannot do it better than by
considering to what infinity is by the mind more immediately
attributed; and then how the mind comes to frame it.
Finite and infinite seem to me to be looked upon by the mind as
the modes of quantity, and to be attributed primarily in their first
designation only to those things which have parts, and are capable
of increase or diminution by the addition or subtraction of any the
least part: and such are the ideas of space, duration, and number,
which we have considered in the foregoing chapters. It is true, that
we cannot but be assured, that the great God, of whom and from whom
are all things, is incomprehensibly infinite: but yet, when we apply
to that first and supreme Being our idea of infinite, in our weak
and narrow thoughts, we do it primarily in respect to his duration and
ubiquity; and, I think, more figuratively to his power, wisdom, and
goodness, and other attributes, which are properly inexhaustible and
incomprehensible, &c. For, when we call them infinite, we have no
other idea of this infinity but what carries with it some reflection
on, and imitation of, that number or extent of the acts or objects
of God's power, wisdom, and goodness, which can never be supposed so
great, or so many, which these attributes will not always surmount and
exceed, let us multiply them in our thoughts as far as we can, with
all the infinity of endless number. I do not pretend to say how
these attributes are in God, who is infinitely beyond the reach of our
narrow capacities: they do, without doubt, contain in them all
possible perfection: but this, I say, is our way of conceiving them,
and these our ideas of their infinity.
2. The idea of finite easily got. Finite then, and infinite, being
by the mind looked on as modifications of expansion and duration,
the next thing to be considered, is,- How the mind comes by them. As
for the idea of finite, there is no great difficulty. The obvious
portions of extension that affect our senses, carry with them into the
mind the idea of finite: and the ordinary periods of succession,
whereby we measure time and duration, as hours, days, and years, are
bounded lengths. The difficulty is, how we come by those boundless
ideas of eternity and immensity; since the objects we converse with
come so much short of any approach or proportion to that largeness.
3. How we come by the idea of infinity. Every one that has any
idea of any stated lengths of space, as a foot, finds that he can
repeat that idea; and joining it to the former, make the idea of two
feet; and by the addition of a third, three feet; and so on, without
ever coming to an end of his additions, whether of the same idea of
a foot, or, if he pleases, of doubling it, or any other idea he has of
any length, as a mile, or diameter of the earth, or of the orbis
magnus: for whichever of these he takes, and how often soever he
doubles, or any otherwise multiplies it, he finds, that, after he
has continued his doubling in his thoughts, and enlarged his idea as
much as he pleases, he has no more reason to stop, nor is one jot
nearer the end of such addition, than he was at first setting out: the
power of enlarging his idea of space by further additions remaining
still the same, he hence takes the idea of infinite space.
4. Our idea of space boundless. This, I think, is the way whereby
the mind gets the idea of infinite space. It is a quite different
consideration, to examine whether the mind has the idea of such a
boundless space actually existing; since our ideas are not always
proofs of the existence of things: but yet, since this comes here in
our way, I suppose I may say, that we are apt to think that space in
itself is actually boundless, to which imagination the idea of space
or expansion of itself naturally leads us. For, it being considered by
us, either as the extension of body, or as existing by itself, without
any solid matter taking it up, (for of such a void space we have not
only the idea, but I have proved, as I think, from the motion of body,
its necessary existence), it is impossible the mind should be ever
able to find or suppose any end of it, or be stopped anywhere in its
progress in this space, how far soever it extends its thoughts. Any
bounds made with body, even adamantine walls, are so far from
putting a stop to the mind in its further progress in space and
extension that it rather facilitates and enlarges it. For so far as
that body reaches, so far no one can doubt of extension; and when we
are come to the utmost extremity of body, what is there that can there
put a stop, and satisfy the mind that it is at the end of space,
when it perceives that it is not; nay, when it is satisfied that
body itself can move into it? For, if it be necessary for the motion
of body, that there should be an empty space, though ever so little,
here amongst bodies; and if it be possible for body to move in or
through that empty space;- nay, it is impossible for any particle of
matter to move but into an empty space; the same possibility of a
body's moving into a void space, beyond the utmost bounds of body,
as well as into a void space interspersed amongst bodies, will
always remain clear and evident: the idea of empty pure space, whether
within or beyond the confines of all bodies, being exactly the same,
differing not in nature, though in bulk; and there being nothing to
hinder body from moving into it. So that wherever the mind places
itself by any thought, either amongst, or remote from all bodies, it
can, in this uniform idea of space, nowhere find any bounds, any
end; and so must necessarily conclude it, by the very nature and
idea of each part of it, to be actually infinite.
5. And so of duration. As, by the power we find in ourselves of
repeating, as often as we will, any idea of space, we get the idea
of immensity; so, by being able to repeat the idea of any length of
duration we have in our minds, with all the endless addition of
number, we come by the idea of eternity. For we find in ourselves,
we can no more come to an end of such repeated ideas than we can
come to the end of number; which every one perceives he cannot. But
here again it is another question, quite different from our having
an idea of eternity, to know whether there were any real being,
whose duration has been eternal. And as to this, I say, he that
considers something now existing, must necessarily come to Something
eternal. But having spoke of this in another place, I shall say here
no more of it, but proceed on to some other considerations of our idea
of infinity.
6. Why other ideas are not capable of infinity. If it be so, that
our idea of infinity be got from the power we observe in ourselves
of repeating, without end, our own ideas, it may be demanded,- Why
we do not attribute infinity to other ideas, as well as those of space
and duration; since they may be as easily, and as often, repeated in
our minds as the other: and yet nobody ever thinks of infinite
sweetness, or infinite whiteness, though he can repeat the idea of
sweet or white, as frequently as those of a yard or a day? To which
I answer,- All the ideas that are considered as having parts, and
are capable of increase by the addition of any equal or less parts,
afford us, by their repetition, the idea of infinity; because, with
this endless repetition, there is continued an enlargement of which
there can be no end. But in other ideas it is not so. For to the
largest idea of extension or duration that I at present have, the
addition of any the least part makes an increase; but to the
perfectest idea I have of the whitest whiteness, if I add another of a
less or equal whiteness, (and of a whiter than I have, I cannot add
the idea), it makes no increase, and enlarges not my idea at all;
and therefore the different ideas of whiteness, &c. are called
degrees. For those ideas that consist of parts are capable of being
augmented by every addition of the least part; but if you take the
idea of white, which one parcel of snow yielded yesterday to our
sight, and another idea of white from another parcel of snow you see
to-day, and put them together in your mind, they embody, as it were,
and run into one, and the idea of whiteness is not at all increased;
and if we add a less degree of whiteness to a greater, we are so far
from increasing, that we diminish it. Those ideas that consist not
of parts cannot be augmented to what proportion men please, or be
stretched beyond what they have received by their senses; but space,
duration, and number, being capable of increase by repetition, leave
in the mind an idea of endless room for more; nor can we conceive
anywhere a stop to a further addition or progression: and so those
ideas alone lead our minds towards the thought of infinity.
7. Difference between infinity of space, and space infinite.
Though our idea of infinity arise from the contemplation of
quantity, and the endless increase the mind is able to make in
quantity, by the repeated additions of what portions thereof it
pleases; yet I guess we cause great confusion in our thoughts, when we
join infinity to any supposed idea of quantity the mind can be thought
to have, and so discourse or reason about an infinite quantity, as
an infinite space, or an infinite duration. For, as our idea of
infinity being, as I think, an endless growing idea, but the idea of
any quantity the mind has, being at that time terminated in that idea,
(for be it as great as it will, it can be no greater than it is,)-
to join infinity to it, is to adjust a standing measure to a growing
bulk; and therefore I think it is not an insignificant subtilty, if
I say, that we are carefully to distinguish between the idea of the
infinity of space, and the idea of a space infinite. The first is
nothing but a supposed endless progression of the mind, over what
repeated ideas of space it pleases; but to have actually in the mind
the idea of a space infinite, is to suppose the mind already passed
over, and actually to have a view of all those repeated ideas of space
which an endless repetition can never totally represent to it; which
carries in it a plain contradiction.
8. We have no idea of infinite space. This, perhaps, will be a
little plainer, if we consider it in numbers. The infinity of numbers,
to the end of whose addition every one perceives there is no approach,
easily appears to any one that reflects on it. But, how clear soever
this idea of the infinity of number be, there is nothing yet more
evident than the absurdity of the actual idea of an infinite number.
Whatsoever positive ideas we have in our minds of any space, duration,
or number, let them be ever so great, they are still finite; but
when we suppose an inexhaustible remainder, from which we remove all
bounds, and wherein we allow the mind an endless progression of
thought, without ever completing the idea, there we have our idea of
infinity: which, though it seems to be pretty clear when we consider
nothing else in it but the negation of an end, yet, when we would
frame in our minds the idea of an infinite space or duration, that
idea is very obscure and confused, because it is made up of two parts,
very different, if not inconsistent. For, let a man frame in his
mind an idea of any space or number, as great as he will; it is
plain the mind rests and terminates in that idea, which is contrary to
the idea of infinity, which consists in a supposed endless
progression. And therefore I think it is that we are so easily
confounded, when we come to argue and reason about infinite space or
duration, &c. Because the parts of such an idea not being perceived to
be, as they are, inconsistent, the one side or other always perplexes,
whatever consequences we draw from the other; as an idea of motion not
passing on would perplex any one who should argue from such an idea,
which is not better than an idea of motion at rest. And such another
seems to me to be the idea of a space, or (which is the same thing)
a number infinite, i.e. of a space or number which the mind actually
has, and so views and terminates in; and of a space or number,
which, in a constant and endless enlarging and progression, it can
in thought never attain to. For, how large soever an idea of space I
have in my mind, it is no larger than it is that instant that I have
it, though I be capable the next instant to double it, and so on in
infinitum; for that alone is infinite which has no bounds; and that
the idea of infinity, in which our thoughts can find none.
9. Number affords us the clearest idea of infinity. But of all other
ideas, it is number, as I have said, which I think furnishes us with
the clearest and most distinct idea of infinity we are capable of.
For, even in space and duration, when the mind pursues the idea of
infinity, it there makes use of the ideas and repetitions of
numbers, as of millions and millions of miles, or years, which are
so many distinct ideas,- kept best by number from running into a
confused heap, wherein the mind loses itself; and when it has added
together as many millions, &c., as it pleases, of known lengths of
space or duration, the clearest idea it can get of infinity, is the
confused incomprehensible remainder of endless addible numbers,
which affords no prospect of stop or boundary.
10. Our different conceptions of the infinity of number contrasted
with those of duration and expansion. It will, perhaps, give us a
little further light into the idea we have of infinity, and discover
to us, that it is nothing but the infinity of number applied to
determinate parts, of which we have in our minds the distinct ideas,
if we consider that number is not generally thought by us infinite,
whereas duration and extension are apt to be so; which arises from
hence,- that in number we are at one end, as it were: for there
being in number nothing less than an unit, we there stop, and are at
an end; but in addition, or increase of number, we can set no
bounds: and so it is like a line, whereof one end terminating with us,
the other is extended still forwards, beyond all that we can conceive.
But in space and duration it is otherwise. For in duration we consider
it as if this line of number were extended both ways- to an
unconceivable, undeterminate, and infinite length; which is evident to
any one that will but reflect on what consideration he hath of
Eternity; which, I suppose, will find to be nothing else but the
turning this infinity of number both ways, a parte ante, and a parte
post, as they speak. For, when we would consider eternity, a parte
ante, what do we but, beginning from ourselves and the present time we
are in, repeat in our minds the ideas of years, or ages, or any
other assignable portion of duration past, with a prospect of
proceeding in such addition with all the infinity of number: and
when we would consider eternity, a parte post, we just after the
same rate begin from ourselves, and reckon by multiplied periods yet
to come, still extending that line of number as before. And these
two being put together, are that infinite duration we call Eternity:
which, as we turn our view either way, forwards or backwards,
appears infinite, because we still turn that way the infinite end of
number, i.e. the power still of adding more.
11. How we conceive the infinity of space. The same happens also
in space, wherein, conceiving ourselves to be, as it were, in the
centre, we do on all sides pursue those indeterminable lines of
number; and reckoning any way from ourselves, a yard, mile, diameter
of the earth, or orbis magnus,- by the infinity of number, we add
others to them, as often as we will. And having no more reason to
set bounds to those repeated ideas than we have to set bounds to
number, we have that indeterminable idea of immensity.
12. Infinite divisibility. And since in any bulk of matter our
thoughts can never arrive at the utmost divisibility, therefore
there is an apparent infinity to us also in that, which has the
infinity also of number; but with this difference,- that, in the
former considerations of the infinity of space and duration, we only
use addition of numbers; whereas this is like the division of an
unit into its fractions, wherein the mind also can proceed in
infinitum, as well as in the former additions; it being indeed but the
addition still of new numbers: though in the addition of the one, we
can have no more the positive idea of a space infinitely great,
than, in the division of the other, we can have the [positive] idea of
a body infinitely little;- our idea of infinity being, as I may say, a
growing or fugitive idea, still in a boundless progression, that can
stop nowhere.
13. No positive idea of infinity. Though it be hard, I think, to
find anyone so absurd as to say he has the positive idea of an
actual infinite number;- the infinity whereof lies only in a power
still of adding any combination of units to any former number, and
that as long and as much as one will; the like also being in the
infinity of space and duration, which power leaves always to the
mind room for endless additions;- yet there be those who imagine
they have positive ideas of infinite duration and space. It would, I
think, be enough to destroy any such positive idea of infinite, to ask
him that has it,- whether he could add to it or no; which would easily
show the mistake of such a positive idea. We can, I think, have no
positive idea of any space or duration which is not made up of, and
commensurate to, repeated numbers of feet or yards, or days and years;
which are the common measures, whereof we have the ideas in our minds,
and whereby we judge of the greatness of this sort of quantities.
And therefore, since an infinite idea of space or duration must
needs be made up of infinite parts, it can have no other infinity than
that of number capable still of further addition; but not an actual
positive idea of a number infinite. For, I think it is evident, that
the addition of finite things together (as are all lengths whereof
we have the positive ideas) can never otherwise produce the idea of
infinite than as number does; which, consisting of additions of finite
units one to another, suggests the idea of infinite, only by a power
we find we have of still increasing the sum, and adding more of the
same kind; without coming one jot nearer the end of such progression.
14. How we cannot have a positive idea of infinity in quantity. They
who would prove their idea of infinite to be positive, seem to me to
do it by a pleasant argument, taken from the negation of an end; which
being negative, the negation of it is positive. He that considers that
the end is, in body, but the extremity or superficies of that body,
will not perhaps be forward to grant that the end is a bare
negative: and he that perceives the end of his pen is black or
white, will be apt to think that the end is something more than a pure
negation. Nor is it, when applied to duration, the bare negation of
existence, but more properly the last moment of it. But if they will
have the end to be nothing but the bare negation of existence, I am
sure they cannot deny but the beginning is the first instant of being,
and is not by any body conceived to be a bare negation; and therefore,
by their own argument, the idea of eternal, a parte ante, or of a
duration without a beginning, is but a negative idea.
15. What is positive, what negative, in our idea of infinite. The
idea of infinite has, I confess, something of positive in all those
things we apply to it. When we would think of infinite space or
duration, we at first step usually make some very large idea, as
perhaps of millions of ages, or miles, which possibly we double and
multiply several times. All that we thus amass together in our
thoughts is positive, and the assemblage of a great number of positive
ideas of space or duration. But what still remains beyond this we have
no more a positive distinct notion of than a mariner has of the
depth of the sea; where, having let down a large portion of his
sounding-line, he reaches no bottom. Whereby he knows the depth to
be so many fathoms, and more; but how much the more is, he hath no
distinct notion at all: and could he always supply new line, and
find the plummet always sink, without ever stopping, he would be
something in the posture of the mind reaching after a complete and
positive idea of infinity. In which case, let this line be ten, or ten
thousand fathoms long, it equally discovers what is beyond it, and
gives only this confused and comparative idea, that this is not all,
but one may yet go farther. So much as the mind comprehends of any
space, it has a positive idea of: but in endeavouring to make it
infinite,- it being always enlarging, always advancing,- the idea is
still imperfect and incomplete. So much space as the mind takes a view
of in its contemplation of greatness, is a clear picture, and positive
in the understanding: but infinite is still greater. 1. Then the
idea of so much is positive and clear. 2. The idea of greater is
also clear; but it is but a comparative idea, the idea of so much
greater as cannot be comprehended. 3. And this is plainly negative:
not positive. For he has no positive clear idea of the largeness of
any extension, (which is that sought for in the idea of infinite),
that has not a comprehensive idea of the dimensions of it: and such,
nobody, I think, pretends to in what is infinite. For to say a man has
a positive clear idea of any quantity, without knowing how great it
is, is as reasonable as to say, he has the positive clear idea of
the number of the sands on the sea-shore, who knows not how many there
be, but only that they are more than twenty. For just such a perfect
and positive idea has he of an infinite space or duration, who says it
is larger than the extent or duration of ten, one hundred, one
thousand, or any other number of miles, or years, whereof he has or
can have a positive idea; which is all the idea, I think, we have of
infinite. So that what lies beyond our positive idea towards infinity,
lies in obscurity, and has the indeterminate confusion of a negative
idea, wherein I know I neither do nor can comprehend all I would, it
being too large for a finite and narrow capacity. And that cannot
but be very far from a positive complete idea, wherein the greatest
part of what I would comprehend is left out, under the undeterminate
intimation of being still greater. For to say, that, having in any
quantity measured so much, or gone so far, you are not yet at the end,
is only to say that that quantity is greater. So that the negation
of an end in any quantity is, in other words, only to say that it is
bigger; and a total negation of an end is but carrying this bigger
still with you, in all the progressions of your thoughts shall make in
quantity; and adding this idea of still greater to all the ideas you
have, or can be supposed to have, of quantity. Now, whether such an
idea as that be positive, I leave any one to consider.
16. We have no positive idea of an infinite duration. I ask those
who say they have a positive idea of eternity, whether their idea of
duration includes in it succession, or not? If it does not, they ought
to show the difference of their notion of duration, when applied to an
eternal Being, and to a finite; since, perhaps, there may be others as
well as I, who will own to them their weakness of understanding in
this point, and acknowledge that the notion they have of duration
forces them to conceive, that whatever has duration, is of a longer
continuance to-day than it was yesterday. If, to avoid succession in
external existence, they return to the punctum stans of the schools, I
suppose they will thereby very little mend the matter, or help us to a
more clear and positive idea of infinite duration; there being nothing
more inconceivable to me than duration without succession. Besides,
that punctum stans, if it signify anything, being not quantum,
finite or infinite cannot belong to it. But, if our weak apprehensions
cannot separate succession from any duration whatsoever, our idea of
eternity can be nothing but of infinite succession of moments of
duration wherein anything does exist; and whether any one has, or
can have, a positive idea of an actual infinite number, I leave him to
consider, till his infinite number be so great that he himself can add
no more to it; and as long as he can increase it, I doubt he himself
will think the idea he hath of it a little too scanty for positive
infinity.
17. No complete idea of eternal being. I think it unavoidable for
every considering, rational creature, that will but examine his own or
any other existence, to have the notion of an eternal, wise Being, who
had no beginning: and such an idea of infinite duration I am sure I
have. But this negation of a beginning, being but the negation of a
positive thing, scarce gives me a positive idea of infinity; which,
whenever I endeavour to extend my thoughts to, I confess myself at a
loss, and I find I cannot attain any clear comprehension of it.
18. No positive idea of infinite space. He that thinks he has a
positive idea of infinite space, will, when he considers it, find that
he can no more have a positive idea of the greatest, than he has of
the least space. For in this latter, which seems the easier of the
two, and more within our comprehension, we are capable only of a
comparative idea of smallness, which will always be less than any
one whereof we have the positive idea. All our positive ideas of any
quantity, whether great or little, have always bounds, though our
comparative idea, whereby we can always add to the one, and take
from the other, hath no bounds. For that which remains, either great
or little, not being comprehended in that positive idea which we have,
lies in obscurity; and we have no other idea of it, but of the power
of enlarging the one and diminishing the other, without ceasing. A
pestle and mortar will as soon bring any particle of matter to
indivisibility, as the acutest thought of a mathematician; and a
surveyor may as soon with his chain measure out infinite space, as a
philosopher by the quickest flight of mind reach it, or by thinking
comprehend it; which is to have a positive idea of it. He that
thinks on a cube of an inch diameter, has a clear and positive idea of
it in his mind, and so can frame one of 1/2, 1/4, 1/8, and so on, till
he has the idea in his thoughts of something very little; but yet
reaches not the idea of that incomprehensible littleness which
division can produce. What remains of smallness is as far from his
thoughts as when he first began; and therefore he never comes at all
to have a clear and positive idea of that smallness which is
consequent to infinite divisibility.
19. What is positive, what negative, in our idea of infinite.
Every one that looks towards infinity does, as I have said, at first
glance make some very large idea of that which he applies it to, let
it be space or duration; and possibly he wearies his thoughts, by
multiplying in his mind that first large idea: but yet by that he
comes no nearer to the having a positive clear idea of what remains to
make up a positive infinite, than the country fellow had of the
water which was yet to come, and pass the channel of the river where
he stood:
Rusticus expectat dum defluat amnis, at ille
Labitur, et labetur in omne volubilis oevum.
20. Some think they have a positive idea of eternity, and not of
infinite space. There are some I have met that put so much
difference between infinite duration and infinite space, that they
persuade themselves that they have a positive idea of eternity, but
that they have not, nor can have any idea of infinite space. The
reason of which mistake I suppose to be this- that finding, by a due
contemplation of causes and effects, that it is necessary to admit
some Eternal Being, and so to consider the real existence of that
Being as taken up and commensurate to their idea of eternity; but,
on the other side, not finding it necessary, but, on the contrary,
apparently absurd, that body should be infinite, they forwardly
conclude that they can have no idea of infinite space, because they
can have no idea of infinite matter. Which consequence, I conceive, is
very ill collected, because the existence of matter is no ways
necessary to the existence of space, no more than the existence of
motion, or the sun, is necessary to duration, though duration used
to be measured by it. And I doubt not but that a man may have the idea
of ten thousand miles square, without any body so big, as well as
the idea of ten thousand years, without any body so old. It seems as
easy to me to have the idea of space empty of body, as to think of the
capacity of a bushel without corn, or the hollow of a nut-shell
without a kernel in it: it being no more necessary that there should
be existing a solid body, infinitely extended, because we have an idea
of the infinity of space, than it is necessary that the world should
be eternal, because we have an idea of infinite duration. And why
should we think our idea of infinite space requires the real existence
of matter to support it, when we find that we have as clear an idea of
an infinite duration to come, as we have of infinite duration past?
Though I suppose nobody thinks it conceivable that anything does or
has existed in that future duration. Nor is it possible to join our
idea of future duration with present or past existence, any more
than it is possible to make the ideas of yesterday, to-day, and
to-morrow to be the same; or bring ages past and future together,
and make them contemporary. But if these men are of the mind, that
they have clearer ideas of infinite duration than of infinite space,
because it is past doubt that God has existed from all eternity, but
there is no real matter co-extended with infinite space; yet those
philosophers who are of opinion that infinite space is possessed by
God's infinite omnipresence, as well as infinite duration by his
eternal existence, must be allowed to have as clear an idea of
infinite space as of infinite duration; though neither of them, I
think, has any positive idea of infinity in either case. For
whatsoever positive ideas a man has in his mind of any quantity, he
can repeat it, and add it to the former, as easy as he can add
together the ideas of two days, or two paces, which are positive ideas
of lengths he has in his mind, and so on as long as he pleases:
whereby, if a man had a positive idea of infinite, either duration
or space, he could add two infinities together; nay, make one infinite
infinitely bigger than another- absurdities too gross to be confuted.
21. Supposed positive ideas of infinity, cause of mistakes. But
yet if after all this, there be men who persuade themselves that
they have clear positive comprehensive ideas of infinity, it is fit
they enjoy their privilege: and I should be very glad (with some
others that I know, who acknowledge they have none such) to be
better informed by their communication. For I have been hitherto apt
to think that the great and inextricable difficulties which
perpetually involve all discourses concerning infinity,- whether of
space, duration, or divisibility, have been the certain marks of a
defect in our ideas of infinity, and the disproportion the nature
thereof has to the comprehension of our narrow capacities. For, whilst
men talk and dispute of infinite space or duration, as if they had
as complete and positive ideas of them as they have of the names
they use for them, or as they have of a yard, or an hour, or any other
determinate quantity; it is no wonder if the incomprehensible nature
of the thing they discourse of, or reason about, leads them into
perplexities and contradictions, and their minds be overlaid by an
object too large and mighty to be surveyed and managed by them.
22. All these are modes of ideas got from sensation and
reflection. If I have dwelt pretty long on the consideration of
duration, space, and number, and what arises from the contemplation of
them,- Infinity, it is possibly no more than the matter requires;
there being few simple ideas whose modes give more exercise to the
thoughts of men than those do. I pretend not to treat of them in their
full latitude. It suffices to my design to show how the mind
receives them, such as they are, from sensation and reflection; and
how even the idea we have of infinity, how remote soever it may seem
to be from any object of sense, or operation of our mind, has,
nevertheless, as all our other ideas, its original there. Some
mathematicians perhaps, of advanced speculations, may have other
ways to introduce into their minds ideas of infinity. But this hinders
not but that they themselves, as well as all other men, got the
first ideas which they had of infinity from sensation and
reflection, in the method we have here set down.
Chapter XVIII
Other Simple Modes
1. Other simple modes of simple ideas of sensation. Though I have,
in the foregoing chapters, shown how, from simple ideas taken in by
sensation, the mind comes to extend itself even to infinity; which,
however it may of all others seem most remote from any sensible
perception, yet at last hath nothing in it but what is made out of
simple ideas: received into the mind by the senses, and afterwards
there put together, by the faculty the mind has to repeat its own
ideas;- Though, I say, these might be instances enough of simple modes
of the simple ideas of sensation, and suffice to show how the mind
comes by them, yet I shall, for method's sake, though briefly, give an
account of some few more, and then proceed to more complex ideas.
2. Simple modes of motion. To slide, roll, tumble, walk, creep, run,
dance, leap, skip, and abundance of others that might be named, are
words which are no sooner heard but every one who understands
English has presently in his mind distinct ideas, which are all but
the different modifications of motion. Modes of motion answer those of
extension; swift and slow are two different ideas of motion, the
measures whereof are made of the distances of time and space put
together; so they are complex ideas, comprehending time and space with
motion.
3. Modes of sounds. The like variety have we in sounds. Every
articulate word is a different modification of sound; by which we
see that, from the sense of hearing, by such modifications, the mind
may be furnished with distinct ideas, to almost an infinite number.
Sounds also, besides the distinct cries of birds and beasts, are
modified by diversity of notes of different length put together, which
make that complex idea called a tune, which a musician may have in his
mind when he hears or makes no sound at all, by reflecting on the
ideas of those sounds, so put together silently in his own fancy.
4. Modes of colours. Those of colours are also very various: some we
take notice of as the different degrees, or as they were termed
shades, of the same colour. But since we very seldom make
assemblages of colours, either for use or delight, but figure is taken
in also, and has its part in it, as in painting, weaving, needleworks,
&c.; those which are taken notice of do most commonly belong to
mixed modes, as being made up of ideas of divers kinds, viz. figure
and colour, such as beauty, rainbow, &c.
5. Modes of tastes. All compounded tastes and smells are also modes,
made up of the simple ideas of those senses. But they, being such as
generally we have no names for, are less taken notice of, and cannot
be set down in writing; and therefore must be left without enumeration
to the thoughts and experience of my reader.
6. Some simple modes have no names. In general it may be observed,
that those simple modes which are considered but as different
degrees of the same simple idea, though they are in themselves many of
them very distinct ideas, yet have ordinarily no distinct names, nor
are much taken notice of, as distinct ideas, where the difference is
but very small between them. Whether men have neglected these modes,
and given no names to them, as wanting measures nicely to
distinguish them; or because, when they were so distinguished, that
knowledge would not be of general or necessary use, I leave it to
the thoughts of others. It is sufficient to my purpose to show, that
all our simple ideas come to our minds only by sensation and
reflection; and that when the mind has them, it can variously repeat
and compound them, and so make new complex ideas. But, though white,
red, or sweet, &c. have not been modified, or made into complex ideas,
by several combinations, so as to be named, and thereby ranked into
species; yet some others of the simple ideas, viz. those of unity,
duration, and motion, &c., above instanced in, as also power and
thinking, have been thus modified to a great variety of complex ideas,
with names belonging to them.
7. Why some modes have, and others have not, names. The reason
whereof, I suppose, has been this,- That the great concernment of
men being with men one amongst another, the knowledge of men, and
their actions, and the signifying of them to one another, was most
necessary; and therefore they made ideas of actions very nicely
modified, and gave those complex ideas names, that they might the more
easily record and discourse of those things they were daily conversant
in, without long ambages and circumlocutions; and that the things they
were continually to give and receive information about might be the
easier and quicker understood. That this is so, and that men in
framing different complex ideas, and giving them names, have been much
governed by the end of speech in general, (which is a very short and
expedite way of conveying their thoughts one to another), is evident
in the names which in several arts have been found out, and applied to
several complex ideas of modified actions, belonging to their
several trades, for dispatch sake, in their direction or discourses
about them. Which ideas are not generally framed in the minds of men
not conversant about these operations. And thence the words that stand
for them, by the greatest part of men of the same language, are not
understood: v.g. coltshire, drilling, filtration, cohobation, are
words standing for certain complex ideas, which being seldom in the
minds of any but those few whose particular employments do at every
turn suggest them to their thoughts, those names of them are not
generally understood but by smiths and chymists; who, having framed
the complex ideas which these words stand for, and having given
names to them, or received them from others, upon hearing of these
names in communication, readily conceive those ideas in their
minds;- as by cohobation all the simple ideas of distilling, and the
pouring the liquor distilled from anything back upon the remaining
matter, and distilling it again. Thus we see that there are great
varieties of simple ideas, as of tastes and smells, which have no
names; and of modes many more; which either not having been
generally enough observed, or else not being of any great use to be
taken notice of in the affairs and converse of men, they have not
had names given to them, and so pass not for species. This we shall
have occasion hereafter to consider more at large, when we come to
speak of words.
Chapter XIX
Of the Modes of Thinking
1. Sensation, remembrance, contemplation, &c., modes of thinking.
When the mind turns its view inwards upon itself, and contemplates its
own actions, thinking is the first that occurs. In it the mind
observes a great variety of modifications, and from thence receives
distinct ideas. Thus the perception or thought which actually
accompanies, and is annexed to, any impression on the body, made by an
external object, being distinct from all other modifications of
thinking, furnishes the mind with a distinct idea, which we call
sensation;- which is, as it were, the actual entrance of any idea into
the understanding by the senses. The same idea, when it again recurs
without the operation of the like object on the external sensory, is
remembrance: if it be sought after by the mind, and with pain and
endeavour found, and brought again in view, it is recollection: if
it be held there long under attentive consideration, it is
contemplation: when ideas float in our mind, without any reflection or
regard of the understanding, it is that which the French call reverie;
our language has scarce a name for it: when the ideas that offer
themselves (for, as I have observed in another place, whilst we are
awake, there will always be a train of ideas succeeding one another in
our minds) are taken notice of, and, as it were, registered in the
memory, it is attention: when the mind with great earnestness, and
of choice, fixes its view on any idea, considers it on all sides,
and will not be called off by the ordinary solicitation of other
ideas, it is that we call intention or study: sleep, without dreaming,
is rest from all these: and dreaming itself is the having of ideas
(whilst the outward senses are stopped, so that they receive not
outward objects with their usual quickness) in the mind, not suggested
by any external objects, or known occasion; nor under any choice or
conduct of the understanding at all: and whether that which we call
ecstasy be not dreaming with the eyes open, I leave to be examined.
2. Other modes of thinking. These are some few instances of those
various modes of thinking, which the mind may observe in itself, and
so have as distinct ideas of as it hath of white and red, a square
or a circle. I do not pretend to enumerate them all, nor to treat at
large of this set of ideas, which are got from reflection: that
would be to make a volume. It suffices to my present purpose to have
shown here, by some few examples, of what sort these ideas are, and
how the mind comes by them; especially since I shall have occasion
hereafter to treat more at large of reasoning, judging, volition,
and knowledge, which are some of the most considerable operations of
the mind, and modes of thinking.
3. The various degrees of attention in thinking. But perhaps it
may not be an unpardonable digression, nor wholly impertinent to our
present design, if we reflect here upon the different state of the
mind in thinking, which those instances of attention, reverie, and
dreaming, &c., before mentioned, naturally enough suggest. That
there are ideas, some or other, always present in the mind of a waking
man, every one's experience convinces him; though the mind employs
itself about them with several degrees of attention. Sometimes the
mind fixes itself with so much earnestness on the contemplation of
some objects, that it turns their ideas on all sides; marks their
relations and circumstances; and views every part so nicely and with
such intention, that it shuts out all other thoughts, and takes no
notice of the ordinary impressions made then on the senses, which at
another season would produce very sensible perceptions: at other times
it barely observes the train of ideas that succeed in the
understanding, without directing and pursuing any of them: and at
other times it lets them pass almost quite unregarded, as faint
shadows that make no impression.
4. Hence it is probable that thinking is the action, not the essence
of the soul. This difference of intention, and remission of the mind
in thinking, with a great variety of degrees between earnest study and
very near minding nothing at all, every one, I think, has experimented
in himself. Trace it a little further, and you find the mind in
sleep retired as it were from the senses, and out of the reach of
those motions made on the organs of sense, which at other times
produce very vivid and sensible ideas. I need not, for this,
instance in those who sleep out whole stormy nights, without hearing
the thunder, or seeing the lightning, or feeling the shaking of the
house, which are sensible enough to those who are waking. But in
this retirement of the mind from the senses, it often retains a yet
more loose and incoherent manner of thinking, which we call
dreaming. And, last of all, sound sleep closes the scene quite, and
puts an end to all appearances. This, I think almost every one has
experience of in himself, and his own observation without difficulty
leads him thus far. That which I would further conclude from hence is,
that since the mind can sensibly put on, at several times, several
degrees of thinking, and be sometimes, even in a waking man, so
remiss, as to have thoughts dim and obscure to that degree that they
are very little removed from none at all; and at last, in the dark
retirements of sound sleep, loses the sight perfectly of all ideas
whatsoever: since, I say, this is evidently so in matter of fact and
constant experience, I ask whether it be not probable, that thinking
is the action and not the essence of the soul? Since the operations of
agents will easily admit of intention and remission: but the
essences of things are not conceived capable of any such variation.
But this by the by.
Chapter XX
Of Modes of Pleasure and Pain
1. Pleasure and pain, simple ideas. Amongst the simple ideas which
we receive both from sensation and reflection, pain and pleasure are
two very considerable ones. For as in the body there is sensation
barely in itself, or accompanied with pain or pleasure, so the thought
or perception of the mind is simply so, or else accompanied also
with pleasure or pain, delight or trouble, call it how you please.
These, like other simple ideas, cannot be described, nor their names
defined; the way of knowing them is, as of the simple ideas of the
senses, only by experience. For, to define them by the presence of
good or evil, is no otherwise to make them known to us than by
making us reflect on what we feel in ourselves, upon the several and
various operations of good and evil upon our minds, as they are
differently applied to or considered by us.
2. Good and evil, what. Things then are good or evil, only in
reference to pleasure or pain. That we call good, which is apt to
cause or increase pleasure, or diminish pain in us; or else to procure
or preserve us the possession of any other good or absence of any
evil. And, on the contrary, we name that evil which is apt to
produce or increase any pain, or diminish any pleasure in us: or
else to procure us any evil, or deprive us of any good. By pleasure
and pain, I must be understood to mean of body or mind, as they are
commonly distinguished; though in truth they be only different
constitutions of the mind, sometimes occasioned by disorder in the
body, sometimes by thoughts of the mind.
3. Our passions moved by good and evil. Pleasure and pain and that
which causes them,- good and evil, are the hinges on which our
passions turn. And if we reflect on ourselves, and observe how
these, under various considerations, operate in us; what modifications
or tempers of mind, what internal sensations (if I may so call them)
they produce in us we may thence form to ourselves the ideas of our
passions.
4. Love. Thus any one reflecting upon the thought he has of the
delight which any present or absent thing is apt to produce in him,
has the idea we call love. For when a man declares in autumn when he
is eating them, or in spring when there are none, that he loves
grapes, it is no more but that the taste of grapes delights him: let
an alteration of health or constitution destroy the delight of their
taste, and he then can be said to love grapes no longer.
5. Hatred. On the contrary, the thought of the pain which anything
present or absent is apt to produce in us, is what we call hatred.
Were it my business here to inquire any further than into the bare
ideas of our passions, as they depend on different modifications of
pleasure and pain, I should remark, that our love and hatred of
inanimate insensible beings is commonly founded on that pleasure and
pain which we receive from their use and application any way to our
senses, though with their destruction. But hatred or love, to beings
capable of happiness or misery, is often the uneasiness or delight
which we find in ourselves, arising from a consideration of their very
being or happiness. Thus the being and welfare of a man's children
or friends, producing constant delight in him, he is said constantly
to love them. But it suffices to note, that our ideas of love and
hatred are but the dispositions of the mind, in respect of pleasure
and pain in general, however caused in us.
6. Desire. The uneasiness a man finds in himself upon the absence of
anything whose present enjoyment carries the idea of delight with
it, is that we call desire; which is greater or less, as that
uneasiness is more or less vehement. Where, by the by, it may
perhaps be of some use to remark, that the chief, if not only spur
to human industry and action is uneasiness. For whatsoever good is
proposed, if its absence carries no displeasure or pain with it, if
a man be easy and content without it, there is no desire of it, nor
endeavour after it; there is no more but a bare velleity, the term
used to signify the lowest degree of desire, and that which is next to
none at all, when there is so little uneasiness in the absence of
anything, that it carries a man no further than some faint wishes
for it, without any more effectual or vigorous use of the means to
attain it. Desire also is stopped or abated by the opinion of the
impossibility or unattainableness of the good proposed, as far as
the uneasiness is cured or allayed by that consideration. This might
carry our thoughts further, were it seasonable in this place.
7. Joy is a delight of the mind, from the consideration of the
present or assured approaching possession of a good; and we are then
possessed of any good, when we have it so in our power that we can use
it when we please. Thus a man almost starved has joy at the arrival of
relief, even before he has the pleasure of using it: and a father,
in whom the very well-being of his children causes delight, is always,
as long as his children are in such a state, in the possession of that
good; for he needs but to reflect on it, to have that pleasure.
8. Sorrow is uneasiness in the mind, upon the thought of a good
lost, which might have been enjoyed longer; or the sense of a
present evil.
9. Hope is that pleasure in the mind, which every one finds in
himself, upon the thought of a probable future enjoyment of a thing
which is apt to delight him.
10. Fear is an uneasiness of the mind, upon the thought of future
evil likely to befal us.
11. Despair is the thought of the unattainableness of any good,
which works differently in men's minds, sometimes producing uneasiness
or pain, sometimes rest and indolency.
12. Anger is uneasiness or discomposure of the mind, upon the
receipt of any injury, with a present purpose of revenge.
13. Envy is an uneasiness of the mind, caused by the consideration
of a good we desire obtained by one we think should not have had it
before us.
14. What passions all men have. These two last, envy and anger,
not being caused by pain and pleasure simply in themselves, but having
in them some mixed considerations of ourselves and others, are not
therefore to be found in all men, because those other parts, of
valuing their merits, or intending revenge, is wanting in them. But
all the rest, terminating purely in pain and pleasure, are, I think,
to be found in all men. For we love, desire, rejoice, and hope, only
in respect of pleasure; we hate, fear, and grieve, only in respect
of pain ultimately. In fine, all these passions are moved by things,
only as they appear to be the causes of pleasure and pain, or to
have pleasure or pain some way or other annexed to them. Thus we
extend our hatred usually to the subject (at least, if a sensible or
voluntary agent) which has produced pain in us; because the fear it
leaves is a constant pain: but we do not so constantly love what has
done us good; because pleasure operates not so strongly on us as pain,
and because we are not so ready to have hope it will do so again.
But this by the by.
15. Pleasure and pain, what. By pleasure and pain, delight and
uneasiness, I must all along be understood (as I have above intimated)
to mean not only bodily pain and pleasure, but whatsoever delight or
uneasiness is felt by us, whether arising from any grateful or
unacceptable sensation or reflection.
16. Removal or lessening of either. It is further to be
considered, that, in reference to the passions, the removal or
lessening of a pain is considered, and operates, as a pleasure: and
the loss or diminishing of a pleasure, as a pain.
17. Shame. The passions too have most of them, in most persons,
operations on the body, and cause various changes in it; which not
being always sensible, do not make a necessary part of the idea of
each passion. For shame, which is an uneasiness of the mind upon the
thought of having done something which is indecent, or will lessen the
valued esteem which others have for us, has not always blushing
accompanying it.
18. These instances to show how our ideas of the passions are got
from sensation and reflection. I would not be mistaken here, as if I
meant this as a Discourse of the Passions; they are many more than
those I have here named: and those I have taken notice of would each
of them require a much larger and more accurate discourse. I have only
mentioned these here, as so many instances of modes of pleasure and
pain resulting in our minds from various considerations of good and
evil. I might perhaps have instanced in other modes of pleasure and
pain, more simple than these; as the pain of hunger and thirst, and
the pleasure of eating and drinking to remove them: the pain of
teeth set on edge; the pleasure of music; pain from captious
uninstructive wrangling, and the pleasure of rational conversation
with a friend, or of well-directed study in the search and discovery
of truth. But the passions being of much more concernment to us, I
rather made choice to instance in them, and show how the ideas we have
of them are derived from sensation or reflection.
Chapter XXI
Of Power
1. This idea how got. The mind being every day informed, by the
senses, of the alteration of those simple ideas it observes in
things without; and taking notice how one comes to an end, and
ceases to be, and another begins to exist which was not before;
reflecting also on what passes within itself, and observing a constant
change of its ideas, sometimes by the impression of outward objects on
the senses, and sometimes by the determination of its own choice;
and concluding from what it has so constantly observed to have been,
that the like changes will for the future be made in the same
things, by like agents, and by the like ways,- considers in one
thing the possibility of having any of its simple ideas changed, and
in another the possibility of making that change; and so comes by that
idea which we call power. Thus we say, Fire has a power to melt
gold, i.e. to destroy the consistency of its insensible parts, and
consequently its hardness, and make it fluid; and gold has a power
to be melted; that the sun has a power to blanch wax, and wax a
power to be blanched by the sun, whereby the yellowness is
destroyed, and whiteness made to exist in its room. In which, and
the like cases, the power we consider is in reference to the change of
perceivable ideas. For we cannot observe any alteration to be made in,
or operation upon anything, but by the observable change of its
sensible ideas; nor conceive any alteration to be made, but by
conceiving a change of some of its ideas.
2. Power, active and passive. Power thus considered is two-fold,
viz. as able to make, or able to receive any change. The one may be
called active, and the other passive power. Whether matter be not
wholly destitute of active power, as its author, God, is truly above
all passive power; and whether the intermediate state of created
spirits be not that alone which is capable of both active and
passive power, may be worth consideration. I shall not now enter
into that inquiry, my present business being not to search into the
original of power, but how we come by the idea of it. But since active
powers make so great a part of our complex ideas of natural
substances, (as we shall see hereafter,) and I mention them as such,
according to common apprehension; yet they being not, perhaps, so
truly active powers as our hasty thoughts are apt to represent them, I
judge it not amiss, by this intimation, to direct our minds to the
consideration of God and spirits, for the clearest idea of active
power.
3. Power includes relation. I confess power includes in it some kind
of relation, (a relation to action or change,) as indeed which of
our ideas, of what kind soever, when attentively considered, does not?
For, our ideas of extension, duration, and number, do they not all
contain in them a secret relation of the parts? Figure and motion have
something relative in them much more visibly. And sensible
qualities, as colours and smells, &c., what are they but the powers of
different bodies, in relation to our perception, &c.? And, if
considered in the things themselves, do they not depend on the bulk,
figure, texture, and motion of the parts? All which include some
kind of relation in them. Our idea therefore of power, I think, may
well have a place amongst other simple ideas, and be considered as one
of them; being one of those that make a principal ingredient in our
complex ideas of substances, as we shall hereafter have occasion to
observe.
4. The clearest idea of active power had from spirit. We are
abundantly furnished with the idea of passive power by almost all
sorts of sensible things. In most of them we cannot avoid observing
their sensible qualities, nay, their very substances, to be in a
continual flux. And therefore with reason we look on them as liable
still to the same change. Nor have we of active power (which is the
more proper signification of the word power) fewer instances. Since
whatever change is observed, the mind must collect a power somewhere
able to make that change, as well as a possibility in the thing itself
to receive it. But yet, if we will consider it attentively, bodies, by
our senses, do not afford us so clear and distinct an idea of active
power, as we have from reflection on the operations of our minds.
For all power relating to action, and there being but two sorts of
action whereof we have an idea, viz. thinking and motion, let us
consider whence we have the clearest ideas of the powers which produce
these actions. (1) Of thinking, body affords us no idea at all; it
is only from reflection that we have that. (2) Neither have we from
body any idea of the beginning of motion. A body at rest affords us no
idea of any active power to move; and when it is set in motion itself,
that motion is rather a passion than an action in it. For, when the
ball obeys the motion of a billiard-stick, it is not any action of the
ball, but bare passion. Also when by impulse it sets another ball in
motion that lay in its way, it only communicates the motion it had
received from another, and loses in itself so much as the other
received: which gives us but a very obscure idea of an active power of
moving in body, whilst we observe it only to transfer, but not produce
any motion. For it is but a very obscure idea of power which reaches
not the production of the action, but the continuation of the passion.
For so is motion in a body impelled by another; the continuation of
the alteration made in it from rest to motion being little more an
action, than the continuation of the alteration of its figure by the
same blow is an action. The idea of the beginning of motion we have
only from reflection on what passes in ourselves; where we find by
experience, that, barely by willing it, barely by a thought of the
mind, we can move the parts of our bodies, which were before at
rest. So that it seems to me, we have, from the observation of the
operation of bodies by our senses, but a very imperfect obscure idea
of active power; since they afford us not any idea in themselves of
the power to begin any action, either motion or thought. But if,
from the impulse bodies are observed to make one upon another, any one
thinks he has a clear idea of power, it serves as well to my
purpose; sensation being one of those ways whereby the mind comes by
its ideas: only I thought it worth while to consider here, by the way,
whether the mind doth not receive its idea of active power clearer
from reflection on its own operations, than it doth from any
external sensation.
5. Will and understanding two powers in mind or spirit. This, at
least, I think evident,- That we find in ourselves a power to begin or
forbear, continue or end several actions of our minds, and motions
of our bodies, barely by a thought or preference of the mind ordering,
or as it were commanding, the doing or not doing such or such a
particular action. This power which the mind has thus to order the
consideration of any idea, or the forbearing to consider it; or to
prefer the motion of any part of the body to its rest, and vice versa,
in any particular instance, is that which we call the Will. The actual
exercise of that power, by directing any particular action, or its
forbearance, is that which we call volition or willing. The
forbearance of that action, consequent to such order or command of the
mind, is called voluntary. And whatsoever action is performed
without such a thought of the mind, is called involuntary. The power
of perception is that which we call the Understanding. Perception,
which we make the act of the understanding, is of three sorts:- 1. The
perception of ideas in our minds. 2. The perception of the
signification of signs. 3. The perception of the connexion or
repugnancy, agreement or disagreement, that there is between any of
our ideas. All these are attributed to the understanding, or
perceptive power, though it be the two latter only that use allows
us to say we understand.
6. Faculties, not real beings. These powers of the mind, viz. of
perceiving, and of preferring, are usually called by another name. And
the ordinary way of speaking is, that the understanding and will are
two faculties of the mind; a word proper enough, if it be used, as all
words should be, so as not to breed any confusion in men's thoughts,
by being supposed (as I suspect it has been) to stand for some real
beings in the soul that performed those actions of understanding and
volition. For when we say the will is the commanding and superior
faculty of the soul; that it is or is not free; that it determines the
inferior faculties; that it follows the dictates of the understanding,
&c.,- though these and the like expressions, by those that carefully
attend to their own ideas, and conduct their thoughts more by the
evidence of things than the sound of words, may be understood in a
clear and distinct sense- yet I suspect, I say, that this way of
speaking of faculties has misled many into a confused notion of so
many distinct agents in us, which had their several provinces and
authorities, and did command, obey, and perform several actions, as so
many distinct beings; which has been no small occasion of wrangling,
obscurity, and uncertainty, in questions relating to them.
7. Whence the ideas of liberty and necessity. Every one, I think,
finds in himself a power to begin or forbear, continue or put an end
to several actions in himself. From the consideration of the extent of
this power of the mind over the actions of the man, which everyone
finds in himself, arise the ideas of liberty and necessity.
8. Liberty, what. All the actions that we have any idea of
reducing themselves, as has been said, to these two, viz. thinking and
motion; so far as a man has power to think or not to think, to move or
not to move, according to the preference or direction of his own mind,
so far is a man free. Wherever any performance or forbearance are
not equally in a man's power; wherever doing or not doing will not
equally follow upon the preference of his mind directing it, there
he is not free, though perhaps the action may be voluntary. So that
the idea of liberty is, the idea of a power in any agent to do or
forbear any particular action, according to the determination or
thought of the mind, whereby either of them is preferred to the other:
where either of them is not in the power of the agent to be produced
by him according to his volition, there he is not at liberty; that
agent is under necessity. So that liberty cannot be where there is
no thought, no volition, no will; but there may be thought, there
may be will, there may be volition, where there is no liberty. A
little consideration of an obvious instance or two may make this
clear.
9. Supposes understanding and will. A tennis-ball, whether in motion
by the stroke of a racket, or lying still at rest, is not by any one
taken to be a free agent. If we inquire into the reason, we shall find
it is because we conceive not a tennis-ball to think, and consequently
not to have any volition, or preference of motion to rest, or vice
versa; and therefore has not liberty, is not a free agent; but all its
both motion and rest come under our idea of necessary, and are so
called. Likewise a man falling into the water, (a bridge breaking
under him), has not herein liberty, is not a free agent. For though he
has volition, though he prefers his not falling to falling; yet the
forbearance of that motion not being in his power, the stop or
cessation of that motion follows not upon his volition; and
therefore therein he is not free. So a man striking himself, or his
friend, by a convulsive motion of his arm, which it is not in his
power, by volition or the direction of his mind, to stop or forbear,
nobody thinks he has in this liberty; every one pities him, as
acting by necessity and constraint.
10. Belongs not to volition. Again: suppose a man be carried, whilst
fast asleep, into a room where is a person he longs to see and speak
with; and be there locked fast in, beyond his power to get out: he
awakes, and is glad to find himself in so desirable company, which
he stays willingly in, i.e. prefers his stay to going away. I ask,
is not this stay voluntary? I think nobody will doubt it: and yet,
being locked fast in, it is evident he is not at liberty not to
stay, he has not freedom to be gone. So that liberty is not an idea
belonging to volition, or preferring; but to the person having the
power of doing, or forbearing to do, according as the mind shall
choose or direct. Our idea of liberty reaches as far as that power,
and no farther. For wherever restraint comes to check that power, or
compulsion takes away that indifferency of ability to act, or to
forbear acting, there liberty, and our notion of it, presently ceases.
11. Voluntary opposed to involuntary, not to necessary. We have
instances enough, and often more than enough, in our own bodies. A
man's heart beats, and the blood circulates, which it is not in his
power by any thought or volition to stop; and therefore in respect
of these motions, where rest depends not on his choice, nor would
follow the determination of his mind, if it should prefer it, he is
not a free agent. Convulsive motions agitate his legs, so that
though he wills it ever so much, he cannot by any power of his mind
stop their motion, (as in that odd disease called chorea sancti viti),
but he is perpetually dancing; he is not at liberty in this action,
but under as much necessity of moving, as a stone that falls, or a
tennis-ball struck with a racket. On the other side, a palsy or the
stocks hinder his legs from obeying the determination of his mind,
if it would thereby transfer his body to another place. In all these
there is want of freedom; though the sitting still, even of a
paralytic, whilst he prefers it to a removal, is truly voluntary.
Voluntary, then, is not opposed to necessary, but to involuntary.
For a man may prefer what he can do, to what he cannot do; the state
he is in, to its absence or change; though necessity has made it in
itself unalterable.
12. Liberty, what. As it is in the motions of the body, so it is
in the thoughts of our minds: where any one is such, that we have
power to take it up, or lay it by, according to the preference of
the mind, there we are at liberty. A waking man, being under the
necessity of having some ideas constantly in his mind, is not at
liberty to think or not to think; no more than he is at liberty,
whether his body shall touch any other or no: but whether he will
remove his contemplation from one idea to another is many times in his
choice; and then he is, in respect of his ideas, as much at liberty as
he is in respect of bodies he rests on; he can at pleasure remove
himself from one to another. But yet some ideas to the mind, like some
motions to the body, are such as in certain circumstances it cannot
avoid, nor obtain their absence by the utmost effort it can use. A man
on the rack is not at liberty to lay by the idea of pain, and divert
himself with other contemplations: and sometimes a boisterous
passion hurries our thoughts, as a hurricane does our bodies,
without leaving us the liberty of thinking on other things, which we
would rather choose. But as soon as the mind regains the power to stop
or continue, begin or forbear, any of these motions of the body
without, or thoughts within, according as it thinks fit to prefer
either to the other, we then consider the man as a free agent again.
13. Necessity, what. Wherever thought is wholly wanting, or the
power to act or forbear according to the direction of thought, there
necessity takes place. This, in an agent capable of volition, when the
beginning or continuation of any action is contrary to that preference
of his mind, is called compulsion; when the hindering or stopping
any action is contrary to his volition, it is called restraint. Agents
that have no thought, no volition at all, are in everything
necessary agents.
14. Liberty belongs not to the will. If this be so, (as I imagine it
is,) I leave it to be considered, whether it may not help to put an
end to that long agitated, and, I think, unreasonable, because
unintelligible question, viz. Whether man's will be free or no? For if
I mistake not, it follows from what I have said, that the question
itself is altogether improper; and it is as insignificant to ask
whether man's will be free, as to ask whether his sleep be swift, or
his virtue square: liberty being as little applicable to the will,
as swiftness of motion is to sleep, or squareness to virtue. Every one
would laugh at the absurdity of such a question as either of these:
because it is obvious that the modifications of motion belong not to
sleep, nor the difference of figure to virtue; and when one well
considers it, I think he will as plainly perceive that liberty,
which is but a power, belongs only to agents, and cannot be an
attribute or modification of the will, which is also but a power.
15. Volition. Such is the difficulty of explaining and giving
clear notions of internal actions by sounds, that I must here warn
my reader, that ordering, directing, choosing, preferring, &c.,
which I have made use of, will not distinctly enough express volition,
unless he will reflect on what he himself does when he wills. For
example, preferring, which seems perhaps best to express the act of
volition, does it not precisely. For though a man would prefer
flying to walking, yet who can say he ever wills it? Volition, it is
plain, is an act of the mind knowingly exerting that dominion it takes
itself to have over any part of the man, by employing it in, or
withholding it from, any particular action. And what is the will,
but the faculty to do this? And is that faculty anything more in
effect than a power; the power of the mind to determine its thought,
to the producing, continuing, or stopping any action, as far as it
depends on us? For can it be denied that whatever agent has a power to
think on its own actions, and to prefer their doing or omission either
to other, has that faculty called will? Will, then, is nothing but
such a power. Liberty, on the other side, is the power a man has to do
or forbear doing any particular action according as its doing or
forbearance has the actual preference in the mind; which is the same
thing as to say, according as he himself wills it.
16. Powers, belonging to agents. It is plain then that the will is
nothing but one power or ability, and freedom another power or ability
so that, to ask, whether the will has freedom, is to ask whether one
power has another power, one ability another ability; a question at
first sight too grossly absurd to make a dispute, or need an answer.
For, who is it that sees not that powers belong only to agents, and
are attributes only of substances, and not of powers themselves? So
that this way of putting the question (viz. whether the will be
free) is in effect to ask, whether the will be a substance, an
agent, or at least to suppose it, since freedom can properly be
attributed to nothing else. If freedom can with any propriety of
speech be applied to power, it may be attributed to the power that
is in a man to produce, or forbear producing, motion in parts of his
body, by choice or preference; which is that which denominates him
free, and is freedom itself. But if any one should ask, whether
freedom were free, he would be suspected not to understand well what
he said; and he would be thought to deserve Midas's ears, who, knowing
that rich was a denomination for the possession of riches, should
demand whether riches themselves were rich.
17. How the will, instead of the man, is called free. However, the
name faculty, which men have given to this power called the will,
and whereby they have been led into a way of talking of the will as
acting, may, by an appropriation that disguises its true sense,
serve a little to palliate the absurdity; yet the will, in truth,
signifies nothing but a power or ability to prefer or choose: and when
the will, under the name of a faculty, is considered as it is,
barely as an ability to do something, the absurdity in saying it is
free, or not free, will easily discover itself For, if it be
reasonable to suppose and talk of faculties as distinct beings that
can act, (as we do, when we say the will orders, and the will is
free,) it is fit that we should make a speaking faculty, and a walking
faculty, and a dancing faculty, by which these actions are produced,
which are but several modes of motion; as well as we make the will and
understanding to be faculties, by which the actions of choosing and
perceiving are produced, which are but several modes of thinking.
And we may as properly say that it is the singing faculty sings, and
the dancing faculty dances, as that the will chooses, or that the
understanding conceives; or, as is usual, that the will directs the
understanding, or the understanding obeys or obeys not the will: it
being altogether as proper and intelligible to say that the power of
speaking directs the power of singing, or the power of singing obeys
or disobeys the power of speaking.
18. This way of talking causes confusion of thought. This way of
talking, nevertheless, has prevailed, and, as I guess, produced
great confusion. For these being all different powers in the mind,
or in the man, to do several actions, he exerts them as he thinks fit:
but the power to do one action is not operated on by the power of
doing another action. For the power of thinking operates not on the
power of choosing, nor the power of choosing on the power of thinking;
no more than the power of dancing operates on the power of singing, or
the power of singing on the power of dancing, as any one who
reflects on it will easily perceive. And yet this is it which we say
when we thus speak, that the will operates on the understanding, or
the understanding on the will.
19. Powers are relations, not agents. I grant, that this or that
actual thought may be the occasion of volition, or exercising the
power a man has to choose; or the actual choice of the mind, the cause
of actual thinking on this or that thing: as the actual singing of
such a tune may be the cause of dancing such a dance, and the actual
dancing of such a dance the occasion of singing such a tune. But in
all these it is not one power that operates on another: but it is
the mind that operates, and exerts these powers; it is the man that
does the action; it is the agent that has power, or is able to do. For
powers are relations, not agents: and that which has the power or
not the power to operate, is that alone which is or is not free, and
not the power itself For freedom, or not freedom, can belong to
nothing but what has or has not a power to act.
20. Liberty belongs not to the will. The attributing to faculties
that which belonged not to them, has given occasion to this way of
talking: but the introducing into discourses concerning the mind, with
the name of faculties, a notion of their operating, has, I suppose, as
little advanced our knowledge in that part of ourselves, as the
great use and mention of the like invention of faculties, in the
operations of the body, has helped us in the knowledge of physic.
Not that I deny there are faculties, both in the body and mind: they
both of them have their powers of operating, else neither the one
nor the other could operate. For nothing can operate that is not
able to operate; and that is not able to operate that has no power
to operate. Nor do I deny that those words, and the like, are to
have their place in the common use of languages that have made them
current. It looks like too much affectation wholly to lay them by: and
philosophy itself, though it likes not a gaudy dress, yet, when it
appears in public, must have so much complacency as to be clothed in
the ordinary fashion and language of the country, so far as it can
consist with truth and perspicuity. But the fault has been, that
faculties have been spoken of and represented as so many distinct
agents. For, it being asked, what it was that digested the meat in our
stomachs? it was a ready and very satisfactory answer to say, that
it was the digestive faculty. What was it that made anything come
out of the body? the expulsive faculty. What moved? the motive
faculty. And so in the mind, the intellectual faculty, or the
understanding, understood; and the elective faculty, or the will,
willed or commanded. This is, in short, to say, that the ability to
digest, digested; and the ability to move, moved; and the ability to
understand, understood. For faculty, ability, and power, I think,
are but different names of the same things: which ways of speaking,
when put into more intelligible words, will, I think, amount to thus
much;- That digestion is performed by something that is able to
digest, motion by something able to move, and understanding by
something able to understand. And, in truth, it would be very
strange if it should be otherwise; as strange as it would be for a man
to be free without being able to be free.
21. But to the agent, or man. To return, then, to the inquiry
about liberty, I think the question is not proper, whether the will be
free, but whether a man be free. Thus, I think,
First, That so far as any one can, by the direction or choice of his
mind, preferring the existence of any action to the non-existence of
that action, and vice versa, make it to exist or not exist, so far
he is free. For if I can, by a thought directing the motion of my
finger, make it move when it was at rest, or vice versa, it is
evident, that in respect of that I am free: and if I can, by a like
thought of my mind, preferring one to the other, produce either
words or silence, I am at liberty to speak or hold my peace: and as
far as this power reaches, of acting or not acting, by the
determination of his own thought preferring either, so far is a man
free. For how can we think any one freer, than to have the power to do
what he will? And so far as any one can, by preferring any action to
its not being, or rest to any action, produce that action or rest,
so far can he do what he will. For such a preferring of action to
its absence, is the willing of it: and we can scarce tell how to
imagine any being freer, than to be able to do what he wills. So
that in respect of actions within the reach of such a power in him,
a man seems as free as it is possible for freedom to make him.
22. In respect of willing, a man is not free. But the inquisitive
mind of man, willing to shift off from himself, as far as he can,
all thoughts of guilt, though it be by putting himself into a worse
state than that of fatal necessity, is not content with this: freedom,
unless it reaches further than this, will not serve the turn: and it
passes for a good plea, that a man is not free at all, if he be not as
free to will as he is to act what he wills. Concerning a man's
liberty, there yet, therefore, is raised this further question,
Whether a man be free to will? Which I think is what is meant, when it
is disputed whether the will be free. And as to that I imagine.
23. How a man cannot be free to will. Secondly, That willing, or
volition, being an action, and freedom consisting in a power of acting
or not acting, a man in respect of willing or the act of volition,
when any action in his power is once proposed to his thoughts, as
presently to be done, cannot be free. The reason whereof is very
manifest. For, it being unavoidable that the action depending on his
will should exist or not exist, and its existence or not existence
following perfectly the determination and preference of his will, he
cannot avoid willing the existence or non-existence of that action; it
is absolutely necessary that he will the one or the other; i.e. prefer
the one to the other: since one of them must necessarily follow; and
that which does follow follows by the choice and determination of
his mind; that is, by his willing it: for if he did not will it, it
would not be. So that, in respect of the act of willing, a man in such
a case is not free: liberty consisting in a power to act or not to
act; which, in regard of volition, a man, upon such a proposal has
not. For it is unavoidably necessary to prefer the doing or
forbearance of an action in a man's power, which is once so proposed
to his thoughts; a man must necessarily will the one or the other of
them; upon which preference or volition, the action or its forbearance
certainly follows, and is truly voluntary. But the act of volition, or
preferring one of the two, being that which he cannot avoid, a man, in
respect of that act of willing, is under a necessity, and so cannot be
free; unless necessity and freedom can consist together, and a man can
be free and bound at once. Besides to make a man free after this
manner, by making the action of willing to depend on his will, there
must be another antecedent will, to determine the acts of this will,
and another to determine that, and so in infinitum: for wherever one
stops, the actions of the last will cannot be free. Nor is any
being, as far I can comprehend beings above me, capable of such a
freedom of will, that it can forbear to will, i.e. to prefer the being
or not being of anything in its power, which it has once considered as
such.
24. Liberty is freedom to execute what is willed. This, then, is
evident, That a man is not at liberty to will, or not to will,
anything in his power that he once considers of: liberty consisting in
a power to act or to forbear acting, and in that only. For a man
that sits still is said yet to be at liberty; because he can walk if
he wills it. A man that walks is at liberty also, not because he walks
or moves; but because he can stand still if he wills it. But if a
man sitting still has not a power to remove himself, he is not at
liberty; so likewise a man falling down a precipice, though in motion,
is not at liberty, because he cannot stop that motion if he would.
This being so, it is plain that a man that is walking, to whom it is
proposed to give off walking, is not at liberty, whether he will
determine himself to walk, or give off walking or not: he must
necessarily prefer one or the other of them; walking or not walking.
And so it is in regard of all other actions in our power so
proposed, which are the far greater number. For, considering the
vast number of voluntary actions that succeed one another every moment
that we are awake in the course of our lives, there are but few of
them that are thought on or proposed to the will, till the time they
are to be done; and in all such actions, as I have shown, the mind, in
respect of willing, has not a power to act or not to act, wherein
consists liberty. The mind, in that case, has not a power to forbear
willing; it cannot avoid some determination concerning them, let the
consideration be as short, the thought as quick as it will, it
either leaves the man in the state he was before thinking, or
changes it; continues the action, or puts an end to it. Whereby it
is manifest, that it orders and directs one, in preference to, or with
neglect of the other, and thereby either the continuation or change
becomes unavoidably voluntary.
25. The will determined by something without it. Since then it is
plain that, in most cases, a man is not at liberty, whether he will or
no, (for, when an action in his power is proposed to his thoughts,
he cannot forbear volition; he must determine one way or the other);
the next thing demanded is,- Whether a man be at liberty to will which
of the two he pleases, motion or rest? This question carries the
absurdity of it so manifestly in itself, that one might thereby
sufficiently be convinced that liberty concerns not the will. For,
to ask whether a man be at liberty to will either motion or rest,
speaking or silence, which he pleases, is to ask whether a man can
will what he wills, or be pleased with what he is pleased with? A
question which, I think, needs no answer: and they who can make a
question of it must suppose one will to determine the acts of another,
and another to determine that, and so on in infinitum.
26. The ideas of liberty and volition must be defined. To avoid
these and the like absurdities, nothing can be of greater use than
to establish in our minds determined ideas of the things under
consideration. If the ideas of liberty and volition were well fixed in
our understandings, and carried along with us in our minds, as they
ought, through all the questions that are raised about them, I suppose
a great part of the difficulties that perplex men's thoughts, and
entangle their understandings, would be much easier resolved; and we
should perceive where the confused signification of terms, or where
the nature of the thing caused the obscurity.
27. Freedom. First, then, it is carefully to be remembered, That
freedom consists in the dependence of the existence, or not
existence of any action, upon our volition of it; and not in the
dependence of any action, or its contrary, on our preference. A man
standing on a cliff, is at liberty to leap twenty yards downwards into
the sea, not because he has a power to do the contrary action, which
is to leap twenty yards upwards, for that he cannot do; but he is
therefore free, because he has a power to leap or not to leap. But
if a greater force than his, either holds him fast, or tumbles him
down, he is no longer free in that case; because the doing or
forbearance of that particular action is no longer in his power. He
that is a close prisoner in a room twenty feet square, being at the
north side of his chamber, is at liberty to walk twenty feet
southward, because he can walk or not walk it; but is not, at the same
time, at liberty to do the contrary, i.e. to walk twenty feet
northward.
In this, then, consists freedom, viz. in our being able to act or
not to act, according as we shall choose or will.
28. What volition and action mean. Secondly, we must remember,
that volition or willing is an act of the mind directing its thought
to the production of any action, and thereby exerting its power to
produce it. To avoid multiplying of words, I would crave leave here,
under the word action, to comprehend the forbearance too of any action
proposed: sitting still, or holding one's peace, when walking or
speaking are proposed, though mere forbearances, requiring as much the
determination of the will, and being as often weighty in their
consequences, as the contrary actions, may, on that consideration,
well enough pass for actions too: but this I say, that I may not be
mistaken, if (for brevity's sake) I speak thus.
29. What determines the will. Thirdly, the will being nothing but
a power in the mind to direct the operative faculties of a man to
motion or rest, as far as they depend on such direction; to the
question, What is it determines the will? the true and proper answer
is, The mind. For that which determines the general power of
directing, to this or that particular direction, is nothing but the
agent itself exercising the power it has that particular way. If
this answer satisfies not, it is plain the meaning of the question,
What determines the will? is this,- What moves the mind, in every
particular instance, to determine its general power of directing, to
this or that particular motion or rest? And to this I answer,- The
motive for continuing in the same state or action, is only the present
satisfaction in it; the motive to change is always some uneasiness:
nothing setting us upon the change of state, or upon any new action,
but some uneasiness. This is the great motive that works on the mind
to put it upon action, which for shortness' sake we will call
determining of the will, which I shall more at large explain.
30. Will and desire must not be confounded. But, in the way to it,
it will be necessary to premise, that, though I have above endeavoured
to express the act of volition, by choosing, preferring, and the
like terms, that signify desire as well as volition, for want of other
words to mark that act of the mind whose proper name is willing or
volition; yet, it being a very simple act, whosoever desires to
understand what it is, will better find it by reflecting on his own
mind, and observing what it does when it wills, than by any variety of
articulate sounds whatsoever. This caution of being careful not to
be misled by expressions that do not enough keep up the difference
between the will and several acts of the mind that are quite
distinct from it, I think the more necessary, because I find the
will often confounded with several of the affections, especially
desire, and one put for the other; and that by men who would not
willingly be thought not to have had very distinct notions of
things, and not to have writ very clearly about them. This, I imagine,
has been no small occasion of obscurity and mistake in this matter;
and therefore is, as much as may be, to be avoided. For he that
shall turn his thoughts inwards upon what passes in his mind when he
wills, shall see that the will or power of volition is conversant
about nothing but our own actions; terminates there; and reaches no
further; and that volition is nothing but that particular
determination of the mind, whereby, barely by a thought the mind
endeavours to give rise, continuation, or stop, to any action which it
takes to be in its power. This, well considered, plainly shows that
the will is perfectly distinguished from desire; which, in the very
same action, may have a quite contrary tendency from that which our
will sets us upon. A man, whom I cannot deny, may oblige me to use
persuasions to another, which, at the same time I am speaking, I may
wish may not prevail on him. In this case, it is plain the will and
desire run counter. I will the action; that tends one way, whilst my
desire tends another, and that the direct contrary way. A man who,
by a violent fit of the gout in his limbs, finds a doziness in his
head, or a want of appetite in his stomach removed, desires to be
eased too of the pain of his feet or hands, (for wherever there is
pain, there is a desire to be rid of it), though yet, whilst he
apprehends that the removal of the pain may translate the noxious
humour to a more vital part, his will is never determined to any one
action that may serve to remove this pain. Whence it is evident that
desiring and willing are two distinct acts of the mind; and
consequently, that
