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 al 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, etc., on the one side, or
uneasiness, trouble, pain, torment, anguish, misery, etc., 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, etc.; 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; al
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, etc. 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 im