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,
etc. 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, etc., 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 tel 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, til 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