bare machines, (as some would have them,) we cannot deny them to have
some reason. It seems as evident to me, that they do 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 il , 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 al 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 al .
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
principal y 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 al 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 wil 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 whol y shut
from light, with only some little openings left, to let in external
visible resemblances, or ideas of things without: which, would they 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 an 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.
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,
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
al this still confined to those simple ideas which it received from
those two sources, and which are the ultimate materials of al its
compositions. For simple ideas are al 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 [*dropped word] 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 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 colective.
Secondly, the ideas of SUBSTANCES are such combinations of simple ideas
as are taken to represent distinct PARTICULAR things subsisting by
themselves; in which 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, make 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 wil lead us further than at first perhaps
we should have imagined. And, I believe, we shal 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 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 wil 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. Simple
Modes of Idea of Space.
2. Idea of Space.
I shall begin with the simple idea of SPACE. I have showed above, chap.
4, 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 cal ed DISTANCE: if
considered in length, breadth, and thickness, I think it may be called
CAPACITY. When considered between the extremities of matter, which fills
the capacity of space with something solid, tangible, and moveable, it
is properly called EXTENSION. And so extension is an idea belonging to
body only; but space may, as is evident, be considered without it. At
lest I think it most intelligible, and the best way to avoid confusion,
if we use the word extension for an affection of matter or the distance
of the extremities of particular solid bodies; and space in the more
general signification, for distance, with or without solid matter
possessing it.
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 having, by accustoming themselves to stated lengths of space, which
they use for measuring other distances--as a foot, a yard or a fathom, a
league, or diameter of the earth--made those ideas familiar to their
thoughts, 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 al 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 wil , 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 al 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 cal 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 chessboard 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 chess-men; 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 chessboard;
there being another use of designing the place it is now in, than when
in play it was on the chessboard, 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 wil 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 wil be able to tell us whether it moves or stands
still in the u