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, etc., 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 al 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 al
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.