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 LIBRARY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY OF THE 
 
 LIBRARY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY OF THE 
 
OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 fY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 
Series of dDofcern pbilosopbers 
 
 Edited by . Hershey Sneath, Ph.D. 
 
 THE 
 
 PHILOSOPHY OF LOCKE 
 
 IN EXTRACTS FROM 
 
 THE ESSAY 
 CONCERNING HUMAN UNDERSTANDING 
 
 ARRANGED, WITH INTRODUCTORY NOTES, 
 BY 
 
 JOHN E. RUSSELL, A.M. 
 
 Mark Hopkins Professor of Philosophy in Williams College 
 
 NEW YORK 
 HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY 
 
 1891 
 
3; 
 
 129 / 
 
 COPYRIGHT, 1891% 
 
 BY 
 HENRY HOLT & CO. 
 
EDITOR'S PROSPECTUS. 
 
 THIS book, containing extracts from the Philosophy 
 of Locke, is the first of a series to be published under 
 my editorial supervision, for the purpose of presenting 
 the substance of the representative systems of modern 
 philosophy in selections from the original works. Each 
 volume is to be prefaced by a short biographical sketch 
 of the author, a statement of the historical position of 
 the system, a brief exposition of the system, and a 
 bibliography. 
 
 Eight volumes have been arranged for, as follows : 
 Des Cartes, by Professor Torrey, of the University 
 of Vermont ; Spinoza, by Professor Fullerton, of the 
 University of Pennsylvania ; Locke, by Professor 
 Russell, of Williams College ; Berkeley, by ex-Presi- 
 dent Porter, of Yale University ; Hume, by Professor 
 Aikins, of Trinity College, N. C. ; Reid, by the editor 
 of the series ; Kant, by Professor Watson, of Queen's 
 University, Canada ;* Hegel, by Professor Royce, of 
 Harvard University. If sufficient encouragement is 
 given, volumes representing Leibnitz, Jacobi, Fichte, 
 Herbart, Schelling, Schopenhauer, Hartmann, and 
 Spencer will probably follow. 
 
 * The publishers have purchased an edition of Professor Wat- 
 son's excellent book, entitled " Extracts from the Philosophy of 
 Kant," and include it in this series, 
 
 m 
 
IV EDITOR S PROSPECTUS. 
 
 The object of the series is primarily to facilitate the 
 study of the history of philosophy in our colleges. . In 
 many colleges that course is gradually being enlarged, 
 and a mere text-book on the subject is inadequate to 
 meet the wants of the department. One simply fur- 
 nishes a brief exposition of the various systems, which, 
 it must be remembered, is merely an interpretation. It 
 is especially desirable, however, to put the student in 
 direct contact with the text of the author, permitting him 
 to make his own interpretation. This cannot be done 
 by resorting to the complete works of the various au- 
 thors, because, if a number of systems is to be studied, 
 in the majority of cases the books are too elaborate, 
 and, in German Philosophy, too expensive. This series 
 provides for this difficulty by giving the substance of 
 each system in selections from the author's works, and 
 in a form involving little expense on the part of the 
 student. 
 
 A secondary object of the series is to meet the wants 
 of a large number of professional men, especially cler- 
 gymen, who are desirous of a wider acquaintance with 
 philosophy ; but, not having time to read the complete 
 works, still desire something more than a brief inter- 
 pretation such as may be found in works on the 
 History of Philosophy. 
 
 E. HERSHEY SNEATH. 
 
 YALE UNIVERSITY, October ; 1891. 
 
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 
 
 JOHN LOCKE was born at Wrington, a village in Som- 
 ersetshire, August 29, i6jf2 ; and he died at Gates, in u 
 Essex, a town about twenty miles from London, 
 October 28, 1704. His life period, seventy-two years, 
 coincided with one of the stormiest and most event- 
 ful epochs in the political and religious history of 
 England, and in the most important movements of 
 this epoch Locke had an influential part. 
 
 Of Locke's ancestors we have little certain informa- 
 tion. His father claimed a sort of cousinship with one 
 John Locke, who was mayor of Bristol in 1642, and who | % 
 was descended from an earlier John Locke, a sheriff of 
 London in 1460. Our John Locke's great-grandfather 
 was Edward Locke, a younger member of a branch that 
 had settled in Dorsetshire in the sixteenth century. 
 
 Locke's mother, it is probable, died when he was 
 very young. The only positive information we have 
 about her from Locke himself is a single sentence of 
 Lady Masham's, ** What I remember him to have said 
 of his mother expressed her to be a very pious woman 
 and affectionate mother." Of his father Locke has 
 given quite explicit information ; and it was doubtless 
 to him that Locke was most indebted for the favoring 
 circumstances of his early life, and Locke speaks of 
 him with the warmest appreciation and respect. Lady 
 Masham says, " From Mr. Locke I have often heard 
 
 
BIo6tfAi>HtCAL SKETCH. 
 
 of his f ather that- He was a man of parts. Mr. Locke 
 never mentioned him but with great respect and affec- 
 tion." Locke's father was an attorney, and appears 
 to have had a successful practice until the breaking 
 out of the civil war terminated his peaceful career. 
 He joined the cause of the Parliament, and served as 
 captain under his friend and legal associate, Alexander 
 Popham, who held the rank of colonel. The civil 
 war nearly ruined Locke's father financially, though 
 he retrieved his fortunes in a considerable degree, and 
 at his death in 1661 he left a comfortable estate to 
 his two sons. The older son, Thomas, dying shortly 
 after his father, John Locke was left in sole posses- 
 sion of the family estate. 
 
 Locke's student life began at Westminster School, 
 then under the charge of the famous Dr. Busby. 
 Locke was admitted to this school as a king's scholar, 
 through the influence of Colonel Popham, in 1646, 
 and here he remained probably six years, when he 
 entered Christ's College, Oxford, as Westminster stu- 
 dent. His matriculation bears the date of November 
 27, 1652, and he began his residence in the Michael- 
 mas term, December 22 of the same year. 
 
 Locke's connection with Oxford continued for 
 thirty-two years, though his residence there was con- 
 fined for the most part to the ten years following his 
 matriculation. He received his Bachelor's degree in 
 1656, his Master's degree in 1658. In 1660 he was 
 made Greek Lecturer; Rhetorical Reader in 1663; 
 and Censor of Moral Science in 1664. These, with 
 the senior studentship at Christ's College, were the 
 only academic positions that Locke held. 
 
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 3 
 
 In 1666 Locke appears to have made his final de- 
 cision not to take orders, as his father had designed ; 
 he chose medicine, and, though he should properly 
 have forfeited his studentship, that being an eccle- 
 siastical one, by a royal dispensation, which is still 
 preserved and bears the date" of November 14, 1666, 
 he was permitted to retain the senior studentship in 
 Christ's College, and this fellowship he continued to 
 hold until his expulsion from Oxford by the mandate 
 of Charles II. in 1684. 
 
 Oxford, when Locke entered it, was under Puritan 
 control. Cromwell was chancellor ; Dr. John Owen, 
 the most distinguished Independent, was vice-chan- 
 cellor and dean of Christ Church. During the civil 
 wars the university had suffered greatly ; its discipline 
 had been greatly relaxed, and general disorder pre- 
 vailed, but at the time when Locke was a student 
 there the discipline of the university had been much 
 improved, the university was suffering, in fact, from 
 the opposite extreme, the closest religious censorship 
 was exercised over the students ; to quote from the 
 records of the time " frequent preaching in every 
 house was the chief matter aimed at. In June, 1653, 
 it was ordered that all Bachelors of Arts and under- 
 graduates in colleges and in halls be required, every 
 Lord's Day, to give an account, to some person of 
 known ability and piety, of the sermons they had 
 heard, and their attendance on other religious exer- 
 cises on that day." Nor were such exercises limited 
 to Sundays ; in most, if not all the colleges, two or 
 more such services were held during the week, at 
 which all members of the university were required to 
 
4 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 
 
 be present. Such rigorous and narrow discipline was 
 doubtless irksome to such a nature as Locke's, but he 
 nowhere speaks of it with dissatisfaction. The influ- 
 ence, however, which he did deprecate, and from which 
 his mind reacted strongly, was the scholastic form of 
 teaching then prevalent at Oxford. 
 
 Lady Masham says: "I have often heard him say, 
 in reference to his first years spent in the university, 
 that he had so small satisfaction there from his 
 studies, as finding very little light there brought to his 
 understanding that he became discontented with his 
 manner of life, and wished his father had rather 
 designed him for anything else that what he was des- 
 tined to. This discouragement kept him from being 
 a very hard student." 
 
 It would hardly be correct to conclude, even from 
 Locke's own statements, that he derived from these 
 earlier years at Oxford no really important benefit; 
 even the scholastic training was not without a strong 
 and permanent influence upon Locke's mental de- 
 velopment, as is evinced in his chief work, the " Essay 
 Concerning Human Understanding" a book that 
 would hardly have been written if he had not passed 
 such years at Oxford. 
 
 . There were two influences which later in Locke's 
 student-life at Oxford contributed powerfully to mould 
 the development of his mind and to determine the 
 direction of his life; (one of these influences was that 
 of the new philosophy of free inquiry determined by 
 experience. This influence sprung both from Des 
 Cartes and Bacon, and reached Locke indirectly, but 
 which, according to his testimony, awakened him to 
 
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 5 
 
 new life. It was, however, to Des Cartes rather thantif I 
 to his English predecessors, Bacon and Hobbes, that 
 Locke was the more indebted for this early quicken- 
 ing and direction of his mind. " He often told me," 
 says Lady Masham, " that the first books that gave 
 him a relish for philosophical reading were those of 
 Des Cartes." 
 
 ^ The other strong influence upon Locke at this time A" 
 was a religious one, and came from his intimate asso- 
 ciation with the dean of his college, Dr. John Owen. 
 Locke's debt to this large and liberal mind is a large 
 one; he learned from him to take liberal and tolerant 
 views of religious differences; the doctrine of tolera- 
 tion, which Locke so profoundly taught and illustrated, 
 had its inception in no slight degree from the influ- 
 ence of John Owen. 
 
 The year 1666 marks a turning-point in the career 
 of Locke. In the autumn of the previous year he 
 had, as secretary, accompanied Sir Walter Vane, who 
 had been sent on an embassy to the Elector of Bran- 
 denburg. On his return, in the spring of 1666, Locke 
 was tendered the post of secretary to the Earl of 
 Sandwich, then about to set out for Spain as embassa- 
 dor. This offer, after considerable hesitation, he 
 declined, remarking that he may "have let slip the 
 minute that they say every man has once in his life to 
 make himself." 
 
 In the same year Locke met for the first time, and 
 became the friend of, Lord Ashley, afterwards the 
 Earl of Shaftesbury, and the most powerful nobleman 
 of his time. This acquaintance with Lord Ashley, 
 due to the most casual circumstance, was of decisive 
 
6 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 
 
 import to Locke's subsequent life; almost with the 
 beginning of this connection, Locke entered upon a 
 new career, and began to participate in and to influ- 
 ence public affairs. In the following year he became 
 a member of Lord Ashley's family, and from that 
 time he shared the varying fortunes of his patron. In 
 the household of Lord Ashley, Locke appears to have 
 discharged miscellaneous duties ; he was medical 
 adviser, tutor to Ashley's son, and secretary and con- 
 fidential adviser to Lord Ashley. 
 
 Locke's circumstances at this time were happy and 
 favorable to his chosen pursuits. Outside of Ashley's 
 family he practised medicine but little, but he had 
 leisure for study, and opportunities for acquaintance 
 with the most distinguished men in learning and in 
 public life. In 1668 Locke was elected a Fellow of 
 the Royal Society, which had been founded not long 
 before by Boyle. In 1669 and in 1672 he was a mem- 
 ber of a council belonging to this society, but he 
 never took an active part in the proceedings of the 
 society. 
 
 In 1672 Lord Ashley was created Earl of Shaftes- 
 bury, and a little later he was appointed Lord Chan- 
 cellor of England. Locke was then made Secretary 
 of Presentations, with a salary of three hundred 
 li , pounds. He had previously, in 1667, been made, in 
 an informal way, chief secretary and manager of the 
 Company known as Lords Proprietors of Carolina. 
 This informal but onerous office he held till the 
 autumn of 1672, and in the discharge of his multi- 
 farious duties he evinced those talents and versatility 
 of powers that so distinguished him in later years. 
 
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 7 
 
 In November, 1673, Shaftesbury incurred the king's 
 displeasure and was dismissed from office, and Locke 
 lost his secretaryship. He had, however, been ap- 
 pointed secretary for the Council of Trade, with a 3. 
 salary of five hundred pounds, and this office he con- 
 tinued to hold until the dissolution of the council in 
 March, 1674, though in fact the salary was never paid. 
 
 In 1674-5 Locke received the degree of Bachelor 
 of Medicine, and in the January following he was ap- 
 pointed to one of the two medical studentships in 
 Christ's College. The income from this studentship, 
 together with an annuity of one hundred pounds 
 granted him by Shaftesbury, and the revenue from his 
 small estates in Somersetshire, secured to him a com- 
 fortable maintenance. 
 
 One circumstance belonging to this period, from its 
 connection with Locke's philosophical career, should 
 not be passed over ; it was the historical occasion of 
 the " Essay Concerning Human Understanding," 
 spoken of by him in the Epistle to the Reader. This 
 memorable meeting occurred probably in 1670-71. 
 
 In 1675 Locke's health, which had been precarious 
 for some time, was now so seriously impaired that he 
 resolved to make a sojourn in France. He left Eng- 
 land the same year, and on Christmas Day he reached 
 Montpellier, the place he had selected for his resi- 
 dence, and there he remained for the most of the time 
 till the spring of 1677. 
 
 The chief occupation of Locke during the period 
 of his residence in France was the Essay, the few 
 scattered notes for which he had prepared in England. 
 It is probable that before he returned to England, in 
 
8 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 
 
 1679, he had advanced the work upon the Essay well 
 toward its completion. In a letter to Thonyard, in 
 1679, he speaks of the work as "completed," adding 
 that " he thought too well of it to let it go from his 
 hands." 
 
 Locke returned to London on April 30, 1679, to 
 J7 find Shaftesbury again in royal favor and president of 
 the newly formed council. Shaftesbury had need of 
 Locke's services only for a short time ; he was soon 
 in opposition again, and his tenure of office quickly 
 came to an end. 
 
 Shaftesbury's political career was soon terminated. 
 In July, 1681, he was arrested on a charge of high 
 treason and confined in the Tower ; he was indicted 
 by a special commission, November 24th, but on De- 
 > cember ist the Grand Jury threw out the bill, and 
 Shaftesbury was acquitted, but only to enjoy a brief 
 triumph. In the spring of 1682-3 he was implicated 
 in a scheme to effect a general uprising against the 
 king ; the scheme failed, and Shaftesbury for safety 
 took refuge in Holland, where he died in January, 
 1683. Shaftesbury's fall rendered Locke's situation 
 unpleasant and somewhat dangerous ; and, though 
 there was no evidence to implicate him in Shaftes- 
 bury's designs, he was suspected and watched. Partly 
 for this reason and partly on account of his disgust at 
 the turn affairs were taking in England, he determined 
 upon what he regarded as voluntary exile. He left 
 England some time in 1683, and arrived in Holland 
 late in the same year. 
 
 v The five years Locke passed in Holland, though 
 not the happiest, were probably the most favorable to 
 
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 9 
 
 his aims and the most fruitful of results of any period 
 in his lifetime. In these years he matured the prep- 
 aration of his most important works, and it was in 
 Holland that he began to give to the world the fruit 
 of his many years of profound study and wide experi- 
 ence ; it was in Holland that he formed some of the 
 friendships he valued most highly, with Limborch, 
 the distinguished theologian of the Remonstrants, and 
 with whom he maintained the closest and most affec- 
 tionate intercourse during the remainder of his life ; 
 and also with Le Clerc, whose acquaintance he formed 
 in 1685-6, and to whom Locke was indebted for the 
 first distinctive impulse to authorship. Le Clerc was 
 just projecting the " Bibliotheque Universelle," and by 
 his instigation Locke published in this periodical the 
 epitome of the " Essay Concerning Human Under- 
 standing" in 1688. 
 
 During his stay in Holland Locke had no perma- 
 nent residence ; he resided principally in Amsterdam, 
 Utrecht, and Rotterdam. The winter of 1683-4 he 
 probably passed in Amsterdam. In 1684 he made a 
 tour through Holland, and he appears to have re- 
 turned to Amsterdam the following winter. 
 
 After the death of Charles II. in February, 1684-5, 
 Locke, being suspected of complicity in the attempt 
 to set the Duke of Monmouth on the English throne, 
 was included among those persons deemed dangerous 
 and whom the government of Holland was requested 
 to deliver up. Locke was compelled for a time to be 
 in hiding and to assume a fictitious name. He stayed 
 for some time in the house of Dr. Veen, in Amster- 
 dam, and as Dr. Van der Linden he made a brief 
 
10 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 
 
 sojourn in Cleves. This political danger, however, 
 passed away in 1686. 
 
 The winter of 1686-7 was spent in Amsterdam, and 
 after a brief sojourn at Utrecht in the following sum- 
 mer, Locke took up his residence with Mr. Benjamin 
 Furly in Rotterdam, at whose house he continued to 
 reside till the winter of 1687-8, and for whom he 
 formed a strong personal attachment. 
 y In November, 1688, William of Orange set out on 
 his expedition to England. Locke followed in Feb- 
 ruary of the next year, and on the i2th of February 
 he was back in London, and at once he entered upon 
 the most active and laborious periods of his life. Two 
 positions were offered him by King William, the 
 post of ambassador to Frederick, the first Elector of 
 Brandenburg, and a like position at the Court of 
 Vienna. Locke declined both honors on the ground 
 of poor health and unfitness for such responsibilities ; 
 rbiit at his own suggestion he was made Commissioner 
 of Appeals, an office which he retained during the 
 remainder of his life. 
 
 The years that followed immediately upon Locke's 
 return to England were crowded with arduous and 
 responsible labors. It was the period of the publica- 
 tion of all his more important writings, and during 
 these six years he took a most active interest in politi- 
 cal affairs, and, directly or indirectly, did more, it is 
 probable, to shape the policy of the new government 
 than any single mind of his generation. His hand is 
 traceable in the most important measures of William's 
 government ; his direct assistance or counsel was 
 sought by the king himself or by his advisers on all 
 
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. II 
 
 matters of importance. The Toleration Bill, which 
 effected important religious changes ; the measure 
 for reorganizing the currency and restoring a proper 
 standard of value perhaps the most important meas- 
 ure of William's reign were largely Locke's work; 
 and of the Board of Trade, which had in charge the 
 economic and industrial interests of the country, 
 Locke was for years the " presiding genius." 
 
 Locke's authorship during these years was pro- /. 
 digious. " The Essay Concerning Human Under- 
 standing" was published in 1690. "The Epistola 
 Tolerantia " preceded it by a few months. The two 
 treatises on Government appeared the same year. 
 Two subsequent Letters on Toleration. A second 
 and third edition of the Essay, and a number of lesser 
 publications on economic subjects, and an " Essay on <t 
 the Reasonableness of Christianity" were published 
 during these years. 
 
 In 1700 Locke was compelled by feeble health to 
 abandon all political service. He had some years be- 
 fore made his home in the family of Sir Francis and 
 Lady Masham at their country seat at Gates, in 
 Essex. Here Locke passed the closing years of his 
 life, and these years were most happy and tranquil. 
 The last important literary work of his was the pub- 
 lication of the fourth edition of the Essay, which 
 appeared in 1700. Four years later, on October 28, 
 Locke passed away, and his body was buried in the 
 churchyard at High Laver. 
 
THE PHILOSOPHY OF LOCKE, AND THE POSITION 
 
 IT OCCUPIES IN THE HISTORY OF 
 
 MODERN PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 The position which Locke occupies in the develop- 
 ment of modern philosophy can be best determined by 
 an examination of his chief philosophical work, " The 
 Essay Concerning Human Understanding." 
 
 The design of the Essay, as Locke states it, is " To 
 inquire into the original, certainty, and extent of 
 human knowledge, together with the grounds and 
 degrees of belief, opinion and assent," and the method 
 Locke proposes is^^ist, to inquire into the original 
 of these 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; 2d, 
 to show what knowledge the understanding hath by 
 those ideas, and the certainty, evidence and extent of 
 it." 
 
 Accordingly the Essay falls into two natural di- 
 visions, the first three books making the first divi- 
 sion, and Book IV. constituting the second division. 
 Locke's theory of knowledge is contained essentially 
 in Books II. and IV., Book I. being hardly more than 
 a negative answer to the fundamental question of 
 Book II.; and Book III., in relation to the main 
 design of the Essay, is an explanation of Book II. 
 
LOCKE S POSITION IN MODERN PHILOSOPHY. 13 
 
 Locke's theory of knowledge may be comprehended 
 in the answer to two questions: ist. How does the 
 individual mind come to have knowledge ? and 2d. 
 What certain and real knowledge is possible to the 
 individual mind ? or, put more simply, What is it that 
 the mind does in knowing, and consequently, What is 
 it that the mind can certainly know ? 
 
 Following now Locke's method, namely, " looking 
 into one's own understanding to see how it works," 
 we may epitomize Locke's account of human knowl- 
 edge in this way: If I look into my mind to see what 
 it is that I do in knowing, or how my knowledge 
 comes to me, I find, first, that all knowledge consists 
 in the perception of the agreement or disagreement of 
 ideas, ideas being whatever object the mind has 
 immediately before it when it thinks or feels or wills; 
 when, therefore, I analyze any act of knowledge, or 
 any knowledge I am supposed to possess, I reach 
 those simple elements of meaning which are not capa- 
 ble of further analysis ; these are what I mean by 
 simple ideas as the beginnings and materials of 
 knowledge. 
 
 My first inquiry is, therefore, How do we come by 
 these ideas ; that is, How does there come to be 
 meaning for my understanding ? I answer : These 
 elements of all possible knowledge come from experi- 
 ence and from experience only; they are not innate ; 
 by which I mean the mind is not in actual possession 
 of any of them at our birth, but acquires them subse- 
 quently. 
 
 I do not deny that the mind has certain powers 
 proper to it, and that it exerts them in the formation 
 
14 LOCKE'S POSITION IN MODERN PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 of knowledge nay, in the having of its simple ideas; I 
 mean only that, prior to the awakening of the mind by 
 the action of things upon the senses, there are no 
 ideas in the understanding. Knowledge in a temporal 
 respect begins with sensation. This experience, 
 which is the source and beginning of knowledge, is of 
 two kinds, external and internal; external experience 
 is sensation, by which I mean " such an impression or 
 motion made in some part of- the body as produces 
 some perception in the understanding;" internal ex- 
 perience is reflection, by which term I mean "that 
 notice the mind takes of its own states and operations, 
 by which it has ideas of the same." 
 
 Now since in the order of time external experience 
 comes first, the proposition is true that ideas are 
 coeval with sensation. But experience is not only 
 the origin in time of knowledge ; I find I am abso- 
 lutely dependent upon experience for the kind of 
 ideas I can have and the manner in which I have 
 them. Simple ideas are the data^ for knowledge ; in 
 respect to these data my mind is passive and recep- 
 tive rather than spontaneous and originative ; I can- 
 not create these single ideas at will ; I am bound to 
 have them, and to have them as they are determined 
 by my experience ; and r in relation to that experience 
 my mind is a tabuta raira^Tlpon which there can be no 
 characters until there is the action of something upon 
 it, or like a cabinet that remains dark until, through 
 the openings in it, light is admitted and the reflection 
 of objects is made within it. On the other hand, in 
 the formation of complex ideas they being those 
 ideas that are made by modifying or compounding 
 
LOCKE S POSITION IN MODERN PHILOSOPHY. 15 
 
 simple ideas in various ways my mind is relatively 
 free and originative ; it can even proceed arbitrarily, 
 since there need be no conformity of such ideas to 
 the nature of objects extrinsic to the mind ; but with 
 -&H*gfr~ideas such conformity or correspondence exists 
 necessarily ; and hence all simple ideas are true and 
 adequate, while complex ideas may be, but are not 
 necessarily, true or adequate. 
 
 Knowledge, as we have seen, consisting in the con- 
 nection of ideas, depends for its certainty and extent 
 upon the clearness, truth, and adequacy of our ideas. 
 Knowledge can extend no further than we have ideas, 
 and no further than we can perceive the relations be- 
 tween ideas.y'Knowledge is certain when that connec- 
 tion of -ideas is clearly and certainly perceived, and 
 knowledge is both certain and real when, as in the 
 case of material objects, there is both the idea in our 
 mind and the assurance or certainty that something , 
 doth exist to which the idea in some way corresponds. 
 /This assurance or conviction, though it is not knowl- 
 edge in the strict sense of the .definition, as it is more 
 than belief or probability, may be included in knowl- 
 edge. We have accordingly three degrees of knowl- 
 edge : i. Intuitive, knowledge, where the connection 
 between ideas is immediately and necessarily per- 
 ceived. 2. DejnojisJxatWe knowledge, where the con- 
 nection of ideas is certain, but is perceived indirectly 
 by means of an intermediate idea. And 3. Sensitive t 
 knowledge, being the assurance or perfect conviction 
 we have that some object extrinsic to the mind 
 actually exists when we have the idea of such an ob- 
 
1 6 LOCKE'S POSITION IN MODERN PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 ject as has existed at those times when we had such 
 ideas in the past. 
 
 Again, knowledge in respect to its possible objects 
 is of three sorts : i, of identity or diversity : 2, of co- 
 existence and of other relations ; 3, of real existence. 
 But these objects of knowledge reduce to two classes 
 abstract ideas and matters of fact. 
 
 To the knowledge relating to ideas merely belong 
 all abstract thinking and such sciences as logic and 
 mathematics, since mathematics concerns things only 
 so far as they conform to our ideas. To the knowl- 
 edge of matters of fact belong, i, the knowledge of 
 existences, our own existence, which we know by in- 
 tuition, and the existence of God, which we know by 
 demonstration, and the existence of external .objects, 
 which we know by the testimony of our senses and 
 by our memory. To this class of knowable objects 
 belong, 2, the knowledge of the co-existence of quali- 
 ties in objects perceived by our senses, and some few 
 other connections between objects and between quali- 
 ties of the same object. But all knowledge relating 
 to matters of fact is particular, not general ; hence 
 there is no science of matters of fact, no " science of 
 bodies ;" or, to put the matter in another way, we 
 can make certain and universal propositions only 
 where the connection of the ideas asserted by the 
 proposition is clearly and infallibly perceived ; but it 
 is only in the case of such ideas as the mind forms 
 itself in abstraction from existences that such certain 
 and universal connection can be perceived ; with 
 matters of fact, on the other hand, we have no certain 
 knowledge going beyond existences, and we can make 
 
LOCKE'S POSITION IN MODERN PHILOSOPHY. 17 
 
 only particular propositions ; and, since there can be 
 scientific knowledge only where we can make uni- 
 versal propositions, there is no science of nature. 
 
 The reason for this limited extent of our Knmvledge 
 relating to matters of fact is the empirical origin and 
 conditions of human knowledge. Since simple ideas 
 are the ultimate elements and beginning of our knowl- ' 
 edge, and we are absolutely dependent upon experi- 
 ence in having these ideas, knowledge itself is de- 
 pendent very largely upon experience for its validity 
 and extent. Take, for example, our knowledge of 
 substance. What knowledge do we actually possess, 
 either of material substance, or immaterial or think-' 
 ing substance ? The true account of our idea of 
 material substance appears to be this : the mind takes 
 notice that a certain number of those simple ideas 
 it has by sensation go constantly together, " and, not 
 imagining how these simple ideas can subsist of them- 
 selves, we accustom ourselves to suppose some sub- 
 stratum wherein they do subsist, and from which they 
 result ;" but now of this substratum what idea have 
 we but the confused idea of a something, we know 
 not what support of qualities ? and though to that 
 complex of ideas, or to those co-existing qualities of 
 which we have ideas, we do and must add this sup- 
 position of a substratum or support, our actual knowl- 
 edge reaches no farther than the qualities themselves,, 
 and the relations we have learned by experience as 
 existing between them. 
 
 Again, what is our knowledge of cause, or of the 
 connection of things as cause and effect ? I know 
 with intuitive certainty that whatever comes to be % 
 
i8 LOCKE'S POSITION IN MODERN PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 must have a cause. I may know from internal expe- 
 rience that a cause is power or efficiency, but beyond 
 the particular connections of cause and effect which 
 I have observed and now perceive, what knowledge 
 of causation do I possess that is certain and universal ? 
 And of objects themselves, is not our certain knowl- 
 edge limited to experience ? Since I do not know on 
 what those qualities which make my idea of a thing 
 say a piece of gold depend, and since the existence 
 of those qualities now does not necessarily follow 
 from their existence in the past, nor does it make 
 necessary their continued existence ; and further, 
 since the qualities whose co-existence constitute the 
 piece of gold as known, have, so far as I can perceive, 
 no necessary connection with each other, nor do I 
 know that other qualities may not co-exist with them, 
 my actual knowledge of the particular substance is 
 narrowly limited : all that I certainly know is, that 
 this particular group of qualities has existed at such 
 times in the past as I or others can remember, and 
 exists now while I or others are having perceptions 
 of it. 
 
 Once more, let me instance our idea of God. Of 
 the existence of such a being I am certain ; it is de- 
 monstrable that God exists from the fact that I exist. 
 But what is our possible knowledge of God, unaided 
 by revelation ? What do we know of the nature and 
 mode of existence of such a being ? " If we examine 
 the idea we have of this incomprehensible Supreme 
 Being, we shall find that the complex idea we have of 
 God is made of simple ideas we receive from reflec- 
 tion ; namely, having from what we experience in our- 
 
LOCKE'S POSITION IN MODERN PHILOSOPHY, it) 
 
 selves got the ideas of existence and duration, of 
 knowledge and power, of pleasure and happiness, and 
 of several other qualities and powers, when we would 
 frame an idea the most suitable we can to the Supreme 
 Being, we enlarge every one of these with our idea of 
 infinity, and so make our complex idea of God." 
 
 If we have succeeded in exhibiting in its essential 
 features Locke's theory of knowledge, we are in a/ 
 position to form a judgment respecting the influence 
 Locke has exerted upon subsequent philosophy, and 
 to determine the direction in which Locke's philoso- 
 phy legitimately leads. It is obvious that this theory 
 of knowledge holds in solution elements not readily 
 adjusted, if they are indeed not radically opposed. 
 
 The only question is, whether Locke's explanation 
 of human knowledge, if made consistent, does not 
 issue in the philosophical skepticism of Hume, and 
 perhaps, as consistently, in the sensualistic doctrine 
 of Condillac and his followers. The prevailing judg- 
 ment is, no doubt, that Hume is the true successor of 
 Locke, Berkeley's immaterialism forming a transition 
 stage. 
 
 We cannot share this view of Locke's position in 
 the development of modern philosophy. We by no 
 means wish to deny Locke's profound influence upon 
 the philosophers who trace their lineage to him ; but 
 we do not think the only consistent interpretation of 
 Locke's teaching leads to the philosophy of Hume or 
 to that of the French materialistic school. Hume's 
 reduction of mind to the series of fleeting states and 
 their fading copies as ideas, with a denial of all 
 
20 /LOCKE'S POSITION IN MODERN PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 knowledge of the existence of a self, and of an exter- 
 
 ^r(al world, and of an Absolute Being, is no legitimate 
 outcome of Locke's empiricism ; such a nihilism is 
 reached only by ignoring or distorting the psycholog- 
 ical basis of Locke's system. I Locke at the outset 
 
 . clearly presupposes and recogmzes the reality of mind 
 as something which is not the product of experience. 
 Of the existence of the self as a thinking being, we 
 have, according to Locke, intuitive arid necessary 
 knowledge. Locke could well assent to Des Cartes' 
 " cogito, ergo sum." And likewise, in- respect to the 
 reality of an external world or a not-self, despite his 
 naive and indefensible realism, Locke remains true to 
 the psychological fact that we do not and cannot rest 
 satisfied with our merely suggestive states the sense 
 
 , data ; but we postulate a reality that4& independent 
 of our ideas, and to which our ideas must correspond 
 if they are to be anything more than fictions of the 
 imagination. Locke teaches that the existence of an 
 
 . external world is inseparable from thejdeas we have 
 of it, and therein he is true to a fundamental dliver,- 
 ance of consciousness. \fa6Qw83 ^M^T^Ji 
 
 It is this basis of psychological fact thatHume 
 does not accept in its integrity, but takes merely the 
 conscious state or feeling without its implicate of a 
 subject and a something not the psychical state as 
 the object. Now Locke, notwithstanding his limita- 
 tion of knowledge respecting the self and external 
 objects, teaches plainly that both subject and object 
 are implicated as real existences in the simplest act 
 of knowledge. It cannot, we think, be opposed to 
 this interpretation of Locke, that he reduces the work 
 
 I 
 
LOCKE S POSITION IN MODERN PHILOSOPHY. 21 
 
 of mind to the passive reception of impressions and 
 the mere uniting of ideas to form knowledge. Such 
 an interpretation of Locke's doctrine of ideas is pos- 
 sible only by converting Locke's metaphors into facts. 1 
 What Locke teaches in this direction is the fact that 
 the individual mind is absolutely dependent upon 
 sense experience for its earliest ideas as the beginning 
 and elements of knowledge. If in this part of the 
 Essay Locke represents the mind as passive and re- 
 ceptive only, such language should be taken in con- 
 nection with the abundant and explicit statement 
 elsewhere, that the mind exercises powers peculiar t 
 itself and is in all actual knowledge original an 
 creative. 
 
 Should it be urged that such functions of mind are 
 not possible if Locke's empirical explanation of knowl- 
 edge is to be taken in earnest and carried to its con- 
 sistent issue, it may with more justice to him be re- 
 plied, we are bound to make Locke's empiricism con- 
 sistent with his explicit recognition of essentially a 
 priori or non-empirical factors in knowledge ; and, if 
 so, Locke's theory of knowledge may lead us in quite / 
 a different direction from that taken by Hume. We 
 suggest that the direction in which we may seek a 
 more consequent issue of Locke's philosophy, when 
 interpreted from its aim and prevailing spirit, is the 
 critical philosophy of Kant. 
 
 The problem of Kant's philosophy was really an- 
 ticipated by Locke. Kant's more special problem, to! 
 determine the possibility, the conditions, and the ex-| 
 tent of knowledge that is independent of exp^r'*"^ 
 becomes, in Kant's solution of it, the more general 
 
22 LOCKE S POSITION IN MODERN PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 problem of Locke, viz., to determine the certainty 
 and the_ extent of human knowledge. And however 
 widely Kant's method departs from the method of 
 Locke, and however profound the differences are that 
 separate in some respects the critical idealism of 
 Kant from the nai've and hardly consistent realism of 
 Locke, the two philosophers reach conclusions so 
 much in agreement respecting the empirical condi- 
 tions and limits of human knowledge, as to justify 
 the assertion that it is toward Kant and critical phil- 
 osophy, rather than toward Hurne and his successors, 
 that Locke's theory of knowledge legitimately tends. 
 
BIBLIOGRAPHY. 
 
 We present the bibliography relating to Locke's life 
 and his writings in the following scheme : 
 
 A. LOCKE'S WRITINGS. 
 
 /. Philosophical Writings. 
 
 1. "An Epitome of the Essay Concerning Human Un- 
 derstanding," prepared at the request of Le Clerc, in the 
 autumn of 1687, and published in the " Bibliotheque Uni- 
 verselle " for June, 1688. The original manuscript of 
 this " Epitome " is still in existence. A number of copies 
 of the " Epitome " were printed separately for friends of 
 Locke, but only one of these is extant. 
 
 2. " The Essay Concerning Human Understanding. 
 Locke's manuscript of the first edition was sent to the 
 press in May, 1689, and the work was issued from the 
 press probably in March of the following year. Three 
 subsequent editions were published during the lifetime 
 of Locke ; the second edition, containing a number of 
 changes, was issued in 1694 ; the third edition in 1695, 
 and the fourth in the autumn of 1699. This last edition 
 contained two additional chapters: the chapter upon 
 Enthusiasm and the one upon Association of Ideas ; and 
 besides these additions the chapter upon Power had been 
 rewritten. A F~~nch version of the Essay was executed 
 by Pierre Costa, a friend of Le Clerc and of Locke, and 
 published at Amsterdam in 1700, with the title, "Essai 
 Philosophique concernant 1'Entendement, ou Ton mon- 
 tre quelle est 1'Entendue de nos Connaissances certaines 
 et la Maniere dont nous y parvenons." In 1701 a Latin 
 version of the Essay, which had been begun by Bur- 
 
 23 
 
24 BIBLIOGRAPHY. 
 
 bridge in 1695, was published in London under the title, 
 " De Intellectu Humano." 
 
 Subsequent editions of the Essay appeared in 1723, 
 1729, 1742, 1750, 1755, 1758, 1774. Up to the present time 
 upwards of forty editions of the Essay have been pub- 
 lished, besides numerous translations in French, German, 
 and Dutch. 
 
 3. " Essay on the Conduct of the Understanding." A 
 writing intended by Locke to form a chapter in the fourth 
 edition of the Essay, but left by him incomplete, and pub- 
 lished probably by his cousin, Peter King, in 1706. 
 
 4. " Letters in Reply to Stillingfleet, the Bishop of 
 Worcester." There were three of these letters, and they 
 were a vindication of Locke's doctrine of knowledge 
 against the criticisms that the Bishop of Worcester had 
 directed against the Essay ; these letters were published 
 between the years 1692 and 1699, and two of them have 
 been incorporated in some editions of the Essay. 
 
 II. Ethical and Theological Writings. 
 
 1. Small essay in Latin, written in 1661. 
 
 2. An unpublished essay on Toleration, 1666. 
 
 3. " Epistola de Tolerantia," written in Holland, 1685, 
 addressed to Locke's friend Limborch, and published at 
 London in 1689. 
 
 4. Three writings, under the same English title, were 
 published in 1690, 1692, and 1706; the last is only a frag- 
 ment. 
 
 5. " The Reasonableness of Christianity as delivered in 
 the Scriptures," published in 1695. Two vindications of 
 this treatise were published in the years 1695 and 1697. 
 
 6. " A discourse on Miracles," 1706. 
 
 7. " Paraphrases and Notes on the Epistles of St. Paul 
 to the Galatians, First and Second Corinthians, Romans, 
 and Ephesians," 1705-7. 
 
 \JlIL Political Writings. 
 
 1. Two Treatises on Government, 1690. 
 
 2. "The Fundamental Constitutions of Carolina," 1720. 
 
 3. " Some Considerations on the Economy of Lowering 
 
BIBLIOGRAPHY. 25 
 
 the Rate of Interest and Raising the Value of Money," 
 1691. 
 
 4. " For Encouraging the Coining of Silver Money," 
 1695. 
 
 3. " Further Considerations Concerning Raising the 
 Value of Money," 1695. 
 
 IV. Miscellaneous Writings. 
 
 1. "Some Thoughts Concerning Education," 1693. 
 
 2. " Memoirs Relating to the Life of Anthony, first 
 Earl of Shaftesbury," 1720. 
 
 3. " Some Thoughts Concerning Reading," 1720. 
 
 V. Correspondence. 
 
 1. "Some Familiar Letters between Mr. Locke and 
 Several of his Friends ; Containing Forty-three Letters 
 from Locke to Limborch." 
 
 2. " Letters from Locke ; " in Remonstrants' Library, 
 Amsterdam, nearly all written in Latin. 
 
 3. " Original Letters of Locke, Algernon Sidney, and 
 Anthony. Earl of Shaftesbury." A second edition of 
 these Letters was published in 1847, but they are not 
 known to be extant. 
 
 4. " Letters from Relations and Friends." Containing 
 letters of Locke to Estha Masham. Letters now in pos- 
 session of Miss Palmer. 
 
 5. " Letters to Lord King." 
 
 6. "Collection Letters." In possession of Mr. Sanford 
 Nynehead. 
 
 7. " Correspondence." In possession of Lord Lovelace. 
 
 B. ON THE LIFE AND WRITINGS OF LOCKE. 
 /. Biographical. 
 
 i. Earliest account of Locke's life, " Eloge de Monsieur 
 Locke." Published by his friend, Jean Le Clerc, in the 
 Biblioth&que Choisie, in 1705. This Eloge was little 
 more than a translation of two letters that had been, sent 
 to Le Clerc, one written by the third Earl of Shaftesbury, 
 
26 BIBLIOGRAPHY. 
 
 the other by Lady Masham. A version of the Eloge was 
 published in London in 1706. This brief account of 
 Locke's life was re-written by Bishop Low, with some ad- 
 ditions, for the edition of " Locke's Works," edited and 
 published by him in 1777. 
 
 2. " The Life of John Locke, with Extracts from His 
 Correspondence, Journals, and Commonplace Books," by 
 Lord King, in 1830. This work contains hardly any bio- 
 graphical matter not contained in Le Clerc's Eloge. 
 
 3. "The Life of John Locke," by Fox Bourne, in two 
 volumes. New York: Harper & Brothers, 1876. This 
 work is the first attempt at a full and systematic biog- 
 raphy of Locke. 
 
 4. " Locke," by Thomas Fowler. English Men of Let- 
 ters Series. New York: Macmillan & Co., 1883; an ad- 
 mirable account of Locke's life and his principal writings. 
 
 5. " Locke," by Alexander Campbell Fraser, Black- 
 wood's Philosophical Classics. Philadelphia: J. B. Lip- 
 pincott Company. 1890. Article by the same author in 
 "Encyclopaedia Britannica," vol. XIV. 
 
 //. Lacke's Collected Writings. 
 
 There is as yet no adequate edition of Locke's works. 
 The edition published by Bishop Low in 1771 is still the 
 best. 
 
 Upon the Essay the following references are given : 
 T. H. Green's " Philosophical Works," Vol. I. " Intro- 
 duction to Hume's Philosophical Works," by the same 
 author. The two volumes already referred to upon 
 " Locke," the one by Thomas Fowler, and the other by 
 Campbell Fraser. A chapter in Cousin's " Histoire de la 
 Philosophic, au XVIII. siecle, Ecole sensualiste, systeme 
 de Locke." Webb's " Intellectualism of Locke." Leib- 
 nitz's " Nouveaux Essais sur 1'Entendement Humain." 
 Sections relating to Locke in the following Histories of 
 Philosophy: Ueberweg, "Geschichte der Philosophic;" 
 Erdmann, "Geschichte der Philosophic;" Falconberg, 
 " Geschichte der Neuen Philosophic ; " Kuno Fischer, 
 " Bacon und seine Nachfolger,'' 
 
THE PHILOSOPHY OF LOCKE AS CONTAINED 
 
 IN THE "ESSAY CONCERNING 
 
 HUMAN UNDERSTANDING." 
 
THE PHILOSOPHY OF LOCKE. 
 
 EPISTLE TO THE READER AND INTRODUCTION. 
 
 Occasion, Purpose, and Plan of the Essay. 
 
 WERE it fit to trouble thee with the history of this 
 Essay, I should tell thee, that five or six friends, meet- 
 ing 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 thatj before we set ourselves upon in- 
 quiries 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 there- 
 upon it was agreed, that this should be our first in- 
 quiry. 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 entreaty ; written by inco- 
 herent parcels ; and, after long intervals of neglect, 
 resumed again, as my humor or occasions permitted ; 
 and at last, in a retirement, where an attendance on 
 
 29 
 
30 THE PHILOSOPHY OF LOCKE. 
 
 my health gave me leisure, it was brought into that 
 order thou now seest it. 
 
 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. 
 
 2. Design. This, therefore, being my purpose, to 
 inquire into the original, certainty, and extent of 
 human knowledge, together with the grounds and de- 
 grees of belief, opinion and assent, I shall not at pres- 
 ent 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 altera- 
 tions 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 no ; these are spec- 
 ulations 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. In order whereunto, I shall pursue this following 
 method : 
 
 i 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 under- 
 standing comes to be furnished with them. 
 
 Secondly, I shall endeavor to show what knowledge 
 
THE PHILOSOPHY OF LOCKE. 31 
 
 the understanding hath by those ideas, and the cer- 
 L \ tainty, 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 rea- 
 sons and degrees of assent. 
 
 'UNI7ERSIT7, 
 
 &4f'Tmlri\V 
 
32 THE PHILOSOPHY OF LOCKE. [BK. I. 
 
 THE ORIGIN OF IDEAS AS THE ELEMENTS OR 
 MATERIALS OF OUR KNOWLEDGE. 
 
 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 what- 
 soever 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. 
 
 Our Ideas not Innate. 
 
 It is an established opinion among some men, that 
 there are in the understanding certain innate princi- 
 ples ; some primary notions, KOivai evvoiai, charac- 
 ters, 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 
 
CH. I., II.] THE PHILOSOPHY OF LOCKE. 33 
 
 unprejudiced readers of the falseness of this supposi- 
 tion, if I should only show (as I hope I shall in the 
 following parts of this discourse) how men, X^irely by 
 the use of their natural faculties, may attain to alj the 
 knowledge they have, without- the help of any innate 
 impressions, and may arrive at certainty without any 
 such original notions or principles. 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 
 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. 
 
 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 man- 
 kind agreed, it would not prove them innate, if there 
 can be any other way shown, how men may come t 
 that universal agreement in the things they do consent 
 in; which I presume may be done. 
 
 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. 
 
 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 pro- 
 positions that are true, and the mind is capable ever 
 of assenting to, may be said to be in the mind, and to 
 be imprinted. 
 
34 THE PHILOSOPHY OF LOCKE. [BK. I. 
 
 To avoid this, it is usually answered, that all men 
 know and assent to them, when they come to the use 
 of reason ; I answer, If reason discovered them, that 
 would not prove them innate. 
 
 But how can men think the use of reason necessary 
 to discover principles that are supposed to be 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. There is this farther 
 argument in it against these ideas being innate that 
 these characters, if they were native and original im- 
 pressions, 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 vigor. For chil- 
 dren, 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 be open fairly to every one's 
 view, as it is certain the thoughts of children do. 
 
BK. II. CH. I.] THE PHILOSOPHY OF LOCKE. 35 
 
 THE SOURCE OF OUR IDEAS. 
 
 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 knowl- 
 ledge ? To this I answer, in one word, From experi- 
 ence: 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. 
 
 First. Our senses, conversant about particular sen- 
 sible 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 ob- 
 jects convey into the mind what produces there those 
 perceptions. This great source of most of the ideas 
 
36 THE PHILOSOPHY OF LOCKE. [BK. II. 
 
 we have, depending wholly upon our senses, and de- 
 rived by them to the understanding, I call " sensation." 
 / Secondly. The other fountain, from which experi- 
 ence furnisheth the understanding with ideas, is the 
 perception of the operations of our own minds within 
 us, as it is employed about the ideas it has grt; which 
 operations, when the soul comes to reflect on and con- 
 sider, 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 others, do from these receive into 
 our understandings as distinct ideas, as we do from 
 bodies affecting our senses. This source of ideas 
 tvery man has wholly in himself; and though it be 
 not sense as having nothing to do with external ob- 
 jects, 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 mrncTgets 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 sensa- 
 tion, 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 
 
CH. I., II.] THE PHILOSOPHY OF LOCKE. 37 
 
 comprehending not barely the actions of the mind 
 about its ideas, but some sort of passions arising some- 
 times from them, such as is the satisfaction or uneasi- 
 ness arising from any thought. 
 
 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 after- 
 wards, 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. 
 
 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 
 any thing, and the ground-work 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 
 seern to be elevated with, it stirs not one jot beyond 
 those ideas which sense or reflection have offered for 
 its contemplation. 
 
 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 
 
38 THE PHILOSOPHY OF LOCKE. [BK. II. 
 
 them obtrude their particular ideas upon our minds 
 whether we will or no, and the operations of our 
 minds will not let us be without at least some obscure, 
 notions of them. 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 com- 
 plex ideas. But it is not in the power of the most 
 exalted wit or enlarged understanding, by any quick- 
 ness or variety of thoughts, 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 under- 
 standing destroy those that are there, 
 
CH. II., XII.] THE PHILOSOPHY OF LOCKE. 39 
 
 CLASSIFICATION OF IDEAS. 
 
 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 mo- 
 tion and color, 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 white- 
 ness 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 uncom- 
 pounded, contains in it nothing but one uniform ap- 
 pearance or conception in the mind, and is not distin- 
 guishable into different ideas. 
 
 As simple ideas are observed to exist in several 
 combinations united together, so the mind has a 
 
4O THE PHILOSOPHY OF LOCKE. [BK. II. 
 
 power to consider several of them united together as 
 One idea ; and that not only as they are united in 
 
 ^. 
 
 external object, but as itself has joined them. 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 sim- 
 ple ones, yet are, when the mind pleases, considered 
 each by itself as one entire thing, and signified by one 
 name. 
 
 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, 
 
CH. III., IV.] THE PHILOSOPHY OF LOCKE. 41 
 
 SOME OF OUR SIMPLE IDEAS CONSIDERED, 
 i. Idea of Solidity. 
 
 I think it will be needless to enumerate all the par- 
 ticular 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. 
 
 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. 
 
 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 supports us, and hinders our 
 farther 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.^ 
 
 This, of all others, seems the idea most intimately 
 connected with and essential to body, so as nowhere 
 else to be found or imagined but only in matter. 
 
 This is the idea belongs to body, whereby we con- 
 ceive it to fill space. The idea of which filling of 
 
42 THE PHILOSOPHY OF LOCKE. [BK. IT. 
 
 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 two other 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 ordinary 
 handle sufficiently furnish us with. 
 
 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, as soft as it is, to their approach- 
 ing one ano'her, till it be removed out of. their way : 
 whereby our idea of solidity is distinguished both 
 from pure space, whkhjs_c^pablejQjiihej .of resistance 
 nor motion, and from the ordinary idea of 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. 
 
 2. Ideas of Perception and Willing. 
 
 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 : 
 
CH. VI ,VII.] THE PHILOSOPHY OF LOCKE. 43 
 
 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 
 " f acjiliifis. " Of some of the modes of these simple 
 ideas of reflection, such as are remembrance, discern- 
 ing, reasoning, judging, knowledge, faith, etc., I shall 
 have occasion to speak hereafter. 
 
 3. Ideas of Pleasure and Pain. 
 
 There be other simple ideas which convey them- 
 selves into the mind by all the ways of sensation ai,d 
 reflection ; viz., pleasure or delight, and its opposite, 
 pain or uneasiness ; power, existence, unity. 
 
 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 any thing 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. 
 
44 THE PHILOSOPHY OF LOCKE. [BK. II. 
 
 4. Ideas of Existence and Unity. 
 
 Existence and unity are two other ideas that are 
 suggested to the understanding by every object with- 
 out, 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. 
 
 5. Idea of Power. 
 
 Power also is another of those simple ideas which 
 we receive from sensation and reflection. For, ob- 
 serving in ourselves 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. 
 
 6. Idea of Succession. 
 
 Besides these there is another idea, which though 
 suggested by our senses, yet is more constantly offered 
 us by what passes in our own 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. 
 
 More Particular Examination of Some of the Simple J 
 Ideas from Sensation. 
 
 Concerning the simple ideas of sensation it is to be 
 considered, that whatsoever is so constituted in nature 
 
CH. VIII.] THE PHILOSOPHY OF LOCKE. 45 
 
 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 in 
 the subject. 
 
 Thus the ideas of heat and cold, light and dark- 
 ness, 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 
 thing existing without us. These are two very differ- 
 ent 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 super- 
 ficies, to make any object appear white or black. 
 
 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 ourjninds, and as they are modifications of matter <y 
 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 some- 
 
46 THE PHILOSOPHY OF LOCKE. [BK. II. 
 
 thing inherent in the subject ; most of those of sen- 
 sation 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. 
 
 Thus a snowball having the power to produce in us 
 the ideas of white, cold, and round, the powers to 
 produce those ideas in us as they are in the snowball, 
 I call " qualities ;" and as they are sensations or per- 
 ceptions in our understandings, I call them " ideas ;" 
 which ideas, if I speak of them sometimes as in the 
 things themselves, I would be understood to mean 
 those qualities in the objects which produce them 
 in us. 
 
 Qualities thus considered in bodies are, First, such 
 as are utterly inseparable from the body, in what 
 es^te soever it be ; 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 Ikilk 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. y 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 
 
CH. VIII.] THE PHILOSOPHY OF LOCKE. 47 
 
 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 orig- 
 inal or primary qualities of body, which I think we 
 may observe to produce simple ideas in us, viz., solid- 
 ity, extension, figure, motion or rest, and number. 
 
 Secondary qualities. Secondly. Such qualities, 
 which in truth are nothing in the objects themselves, 
 but powers to produce various sensations in us by 
 their primary qualities, /. e., by colors, 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 color or consistence in wax or clay by its pri- 
 mary qualities, is as much a quality in fire as the 
 power it has to produce in me a new idea or sensa- 
 tion of warmth or burning, which I felt not before, by 
 the same primary qualities, viz., the bulk, texture, 
 and motion of its insensible parts. 
 
 The next thing to be considered is how bodies pro- 
 duce ideas in us ; and that is manifestly by impulse, 
 the only way which we can conceive bodies operate in. 
 
 If, then, external objects be not united to our 
 minds when they produce ideas in it, and yet we per- 
 ceive 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 brain or 
 the seat of sensation, there to produce in our minds 
 the particular ideas we have of them. 
 
48 THE PHILOSOPHY OF LOCKE. [BK. II. 
 
 After the same manner that the ideas of these 
 original qualities are produced in us, we may con- 
 ceive that the ideas of secondary qualities are also 
 producedjjvi^by the operation of insensible particles 
 on our senses! Let us suppose at present trTaT 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 colors and smells of bodies, v. g., 
 that a violet, by the impulse of such insensible par- 
 ticles of matter of peculiar figures and bulks, and in 
 different degrees and modifications of their motions, 
 causes the ideas of the blue color and sweet scent of r* 
 that flower to be produced in our minds. From 
 whence I think it is easy to draw this observation, 
 that the ideas of primary qualities of bodies are re- 
 semblances 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 exist- 
 ing 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 mo- 
 tion of the insensible parts in the bodies themselves, 
 which we call so. fj 
 
 &\,s The particular bulk, number, figure, and motion of 
 w 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 
 oC coldness, are no more really in them than sickness or 
 pain is in manna. Take away the sensation of them ; 
 
CH. VIII. ] THE PHILOSOPHY OF LOCKE. 49 
 
 let not the eyes see light or colors, nor the ears hear 
 sounds ; let the palate not taste, nor the nose smell ; 
 and all colors, tastes, odors, and sounds, as they are 
 such particular ideas, vanish and cease, and are re- 
 duced to their_causes, /. e., bulk, figure, and motion 
 of parts. 
 
 Let us consider the red and white colors in por- 
 phyry : hinder light but from striking on it, and its 
 colors vanish ; it no longer produces any such ideas 
 in us. Upon the return of light, it produces these 
 appearances on us again. 
 
 The qualities then that are in bodies, rightly con- 
 sidered, 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 no ; 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 rea- 
 son 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 colors, d^ 
 sounds, smells, tastes, etc. 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 PHILOSOPHY OF LOCKE. [BK. II. 
 
 SOME FUNCTIONS OF MIND INVOLVED IN 
 HAVING SIMPLE IDEAS. 
 
 /. Perception. 
 
 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. 
 
 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. 
 
 We are farther 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 color, v. g., gold, alabas- 
 ter, or jet, it is certain that the idea thereby imprinted 
 in 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 
 
CH. IX.] THE PHILOSOPHY OF LOCKE. 5 1 
 
 are wont to make in us, what alterations are made in 
 the reflections of light by the difference of the sensi- 
 ble figures of bodies, the judgment presently, by an 
 habitual custom, alters the appearances into their 
 causes : so that, from that which truly is variety of 
 shadow or color collecting the figure, it makes it pass 
 for a mark of figure, and frames to itself the percep- 
 tion of a convex figure and an uniform color ; when 
 the idea we receive from thence is only a plane 
 variously colored, as is evident in painting. 
 
 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. 
 
 Nor need we wonder that this is done with so little 
 notice, if we consider how very 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 compari- 
 son 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. 
 
 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 
 
52 THE PHILOSOPHY OF LOCKE. [BK. II. 
 
 creature hath, and the fewer and duller the impressions 
 are that are made by them, and the duller the facul- 
 ties are that are employed about them, the more re- 
 mote 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. 
 
 2. Retention and Memory. 
 
 The next faculty of the mind, whereby it makes a 
 farther 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. 
 
 The other, way of retention is the power to revive 
 again in our minds those ideas which after imprint- 
 ing have disappeared, or have been as it were laid 
 aside out of sight ; and thus we do, when we con- 
 ceive 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 an- 
 other 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 
 
CH. X.] THE PHILOSOPHY OF LOCKE. 53 
 
 the memory signifies no more but this, that the 
 mind has a power, in many cases, to revive percep- 
 tions which it has once had, with this additional per- 
 ception annexed to them, that it has had them be- 
 fore. 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. 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 impression, are those which are ac- 
 companied with pleasure or pain. 
 
 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 em- 
 ployed as in men, intent only on one thing, not set- 
 ting the stamp deep into itself ; and in some, where 
 they are set to with care and repeated impressions,, 
 either through the temper of the body or some other 
 default, the memory is very weak. 
 
 This farther 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 " re- 
 vive " imports) none of them new ones, but also that 
 
54 THE PHILOSOPHY OF LOCKE. [BK. II. 
 
 the mind takes notice of them as of a former impres- 
 sion, 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, /'. e., in view, and 
 taken notice of before by the understanding, 
 
 3. Discerning. 
 
 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 con- 
 fused 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 de- 
 pends upon this clear discerning faculty of the mind, 
 whereby it perceives two ideas to be the same or 
 different. 
 
 4. Comparing. 
 
 The comparing them one with another, in respect 
 of extent, degrees, time, place, or any other circum- 
 stances, is another operation of the mind about its 
 
CH. XI.] THE PHILOSOPHY OF LOCKE. 55 
 
 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. 
 
 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 preroga- 
 tive 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 farther than some 
 sensible circumstances annexed to the objects them- 
 selves. 
 
 5. Compounding. 
 
 The next operation we may observe in the mind 
 about its ideas is composition ; whereby it puts to- 
 gether 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 as 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. 
 
56 THE PHILOSOPHY OF LOCKE. [BK. II. 
 
 Conclusion. 
 
 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 object, and by what 
 steps it makes its progress to the laying in and stor- 
 ing up those ideas out of which is to be framed all 
 the knowledge it is capable of ; wherein I must ap- 
 peal to experience and observation whether I am in 
 the right. 
 
 These are my guesses concerning the means where 
 by the understanding comes to have and retain simple 
 ideas and the modes of them, with some other opera- 
 tions about them. I proceed now to examine some 
 of these simple ideas and their modes a little more 
 particularly. 
 
CH. XII.] THE PHILOSOPHY OF LOCKE. 
 
 COMPLEX IDEAS GENERAL ACCOUNT. 
 
 We have hitherto considered those ideas, in the re- 
 ception whereof the mind is only passive, which are 
 those simple ones received from sensation and reflec- 
 tion 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 other are framed. The acts of the mind wherein 
 it exerts its power over its simple ideas are chiefly 
 these three : (i.) 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 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 way of operation to be much- 
 what 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 
 
(|[g> THE PHILOSOPHY OF LOCKE. [BK. II. 
 
 here begin with the first of these in the consideration 
 of complex ideas, and come to the other two in their 
 due places. 
 
 Complex ideas, however compounded and decom- 
 pounded, 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 : i. Modes. 2. Substances. 
 3. Relations. 
 
 First. " Modes" I call such complex ideas which, 
 however compounded, contain not in them the sup- 
 position of subsisting by themselves, but are consid- 
 ered as dependences on or affections of substances ; 
 such are the ideas signified by the words, " triangle, 
 gratitude, murder," etc. 
 
 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 color and fig- 
 ure, causing delight in the beholder ; theft, which, 
 being the concealed change of the possession of any 
 thing, without the consent of the proprietor, contains, 
 as is visible, a combination of several ideas of several 
 kinds : and these I call "mixed modes." 
 
 Secondly. The ideas of substances are such com- 
 
CH. XII.] THE PHILOSOPHY OF LOCKE. 
 
 binations 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 color with certain degrees of weight, 
 hardness, ductility, and fusibility, we have the idea of 
 lead ; and the 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 sub- 
 stances thus put together, are as much each of them 
 one single idea as that of a man or an unit. 
 
 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 sev- 
 eral kinds we shall treat in their order. 
 
60 THE PHILOSOPHY OF LOCKE. [BK. II. 
 
 A MORE PARTICULAR ACCOUNT OF SOME OF 
 OUR COMPLEX IDEAS. 
 
 I. The Idea of Space. 
 
 I shall begin with the simple idea of space. I have 
 showed above (chap, iv.), 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 colors, or between the parts of the 
 same body, as that they see colors themselves ; nor is 
 it less obvious that they can do so in the dark by 
 feeling and touch. 
 
 This space considered barely in length between any 
 two beings, without considering any thing else between 
 them, is called " distance ; " if considered in length, 
 breadth, and thickness, I think it may be called " ca- 
 pacity ;" the term " extension " is usually applied to 
 it, in what manner soever considered. 
 
 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. 
 
 There is another modification of this idea, which is 
 nothing but the relation which the parts of the ter- 
 mination 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 colors, 
 
CH. XIII.] THE PHILOSOPHY OF LOCKE. 6l 
 
 whose boundaries are within its view : where, observ- 
 ing how the extremities terminate either in straight 
 lines which meet at discernible angles, or in crooked 
 lines wherein no angles can be perceived, by consider- 
 ing 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." 
 
 Another idea coming under this head and belong- 
 ing to this tribe, is that we call " place." As in sim- 
 ple 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 any thing 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 any thing 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 precise points, but from large portions of sensible 
 objects to which we consider the thing place to bear 
 relation, and its distance from which we have some 
 reason to observe. 
 
 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 phi- 
 losophy of others because it hath been too much placed 
 
62 THE PHILOSOPHY OF LOCKE. [BK. II. 
 
 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 these 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 color? It is true, solidity 
 cannot exist without extension, neither can scarlet 
 cplor 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. 
 
 Body, then, and extension, it is evident, are two 
 distinct ideas. For, 
 
 First. Extension includes no solidity nor resist- 
 ance to the motion of body, as body does. 
 
 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. 
 
 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 in- 
 separable ; which therefore must needs be at perpetual 
 rest one amongst another. 
 
CH. XIII. -XIV.] THE PHILOSOPHY OF LOCKE. 63 
 
 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. 
 
 2. 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 exist- 
 ence of ourselves or any thing else commensurate to 
 
64 THE PHILOSOPHY OF LOCKE. [BK. it. 
 
 the succession of any ideas in our minds, the duration 
 of ourselves, or any such other thing co-existing with 
 our thinking. 
 
 That we have our notions of succession and dura- 
 tion 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 under- 
 standings. 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, or a month, or a 
 year ; of which duration of things whilst 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, by which it is to me very 
 clear that men derive their ideas of duration from 
 their reflection 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. 
 
 Thus, by reflecting on the appearance 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 mo- 
 tion 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, and we have as clear an idea of succession and 
 
CH. XIV.] THE PHILOSOPHY OF LOCKE. 65 
 
 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. 
 
 But the distinction of days and years having de- 
 pended on the motion of the sun, it has brought this 
 mistake with it, that it has been thought that mo- 
 tion and duration were the measure one of another. 
 
 \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 com- 
 mon duration, whereby it might judge of its different 
 lengths, and consider the distinct order wherein sev- 
 eral 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." 
 
 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 dis- 
 tinguished 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." Whereas any con- 
 stant periodical appearance or alteration of ideas in 
 
66 THE PHILOSOPHY OF LOCKE. [BK. II. 
 
 seemingly equidistant spaces of duration, if constant 
 and universally observable, would have as well distin- 
 guished the intervals of time as those that have been 
 made use of. 
 
 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 con- 
 sidered 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 demon- 
 strated to be equal. All that we can do for a meas- 
 ure of time, is to take such as have continual succes- 
 sive 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. 
 
 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 succes- 
 sively affecting our senses ; and having from the revo- 
 lutions 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 
 
CH. XIV., XV.] THE PHILOSOPHY OF LOCKE. 67 
 
 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. 
 
 And thus I think it is plain, that from those two 
 fountains of all knowledge before mentioned, viz., 
 reflection and sensation, we get 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 appear- 
 ances, at certain regular and seeming equidistant 
 periods, we get the ideas of certain lengths or meas- 
 ures of duration, as minutes, hours, days, years, etc. 
 
 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 any such idea of 
 any length of time, as of a minute, a year, or an age, 
 as often as we will in our own thoughts, and add 
 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 
 
68 THE PHILOSOPHY OF LOCKE. [BK. II. 
 
 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 dura- 
 tion, as set out by periodical measures, we come by 
 the idea of what we call "time " in general. 
 
 Time in general is to duration as place to expan- 
 sion. They are so much of those boundjess oceans 
 of eternity and immensity, as is set out and distin- 
 guished from the rest as it were by land-marks ; 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. 
 
 There is one thing more wherein space and dura- 
 tion 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 hav- 
 ing 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. 
 
 Expansion and duration have this farther agree- 
 ment, that though they are both considered by us as 
 
THE PHILOSOPHY OF LOCKE. 69 
 
 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 suc- 
 cession 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. 
 
 But yet there is this manifest difference between 
 them, that the ideas of length which we have of ex- 
 pansion 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. 
 
 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 com- 
 bination of two distinct ideas is, I suppose, scarce to 
 be found in all that great variety we do or can con- 
 ceive, and may afford matter to farther speculation. 
 
 3. The Idea of Number. 
 
 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. 
 
 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 
 
70 THE PHILOSOPHY OF LOCKE. [BK. II. 
 
 units together we have the complex idea of a dozen ; 
 and a score, or a million, or any other number. 
 
 This is not so in other sfmple 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 differ- 
 ence between the white of this paper and that of the 
 next degree to it ? or can form distinct ideas of even 
 the least excess in extension ? 
 
 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. Be- 
 cause the ideas of numbers are more precise and 
 distinguishable than in extension, where every equal- 
 ity and excess are not. so easy to be observed or 
 measured. 
 
 4. The Idea of Infinity. 
 
 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 in- 
 crease 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 
 
CH. XVII.] THE PHILOSOPHY OF LOCKE. 71 
 
 the foregoing chapters. 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 of his duration and ubiquity ; and, I think, 
 more figuratively to his power, wisdom, and goodness, 
 and other attributes, which are properly inexhaust- 
 ible and incomprehensible, etc. For when we call 
 them infinite, we have no other idea of this infinity 
 but what carries with it some reflection on and inti- 
 mation 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. 
 
 As for the idea of finite, there is no great diffi- 
 culty. The obvious portions of extension that affect 
 our senses carry with them into the mind the idea 
 of finite. The difficulty is, how we come by those 
 boundless ideas of eternity and immensity, since the 
 objects which we converse with come so much short 
 of any approach or proportion to that largeness. 
 
 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 whichsoever of these he takes, and how 
 often soever he doubles or any otherwise multiplies 
 jt, he finds that, after he has continued this doubling 
 
72 THfc PHILOSOPHY OF LOCKE. [BK. II. 
 
 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 farther additions remaining still the same, he hence 
 takes the idea of infinite space. 
 
 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 ; for of any space, duration, or number, 
 let them be never 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. 
 
 Though it be hard, I think, to find any one so ab- 
 surd as to say he has the positive idea of an actual 
 infinite number, 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 posi- 
 
CH. XVII. ] THE PHILOSOPHY OF LOCKE. 73 
 
 tive 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 idea 
 in our minds, and whereby we judge of the greatness 
 of these sort of quantities. And therefore, since an 
 idea of infinite space or duration must needs be made 
 up of infinite parts, it can have no other infinity than 
 that of number, capable still of farther addition ; but 
 not an actual positive idea of a number infinite. 
 
 The idea of infinite has, I confess, something of 
 positive in all those things we apply it to. 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 assem- 
 blage 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 that 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. 
 
74 THE PHILOSOPHY OF LOCKE. [BK II 
 
 SOME OTHER SIMPLE MODES CONSIDERED. 
 
 i. 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 which actually accom- 
 panies 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 endeavor 
 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 re'verie ; 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, at it were, registered in the memory, 
 it is "attention." 
 
CH. XIX., XXI.] THE PHILOSOPHY OF LOCKE. 75 
 
 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 pur- 
 pose 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 here- 
 after 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. 
 
 2. The Idea of Power. 
 
 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, ard in another the possibility of making 
 that change ; and so comes by that idea which we 
 call " power." 
 
76 THE PHILOSOPHY OF LOCKE. [BK. II. 
 
 Power thus considered is twofold ; viz., as able to 
 make, or able to receive, any change : the one may 
 be called " active," and the other " passive," power. 
 
 I confess power includes in it some kind of rela- 
 tion, a relation to action or change ; as, indeed, 
 which of our ideas, of what kind soever, when atten- 
 tively considered, does not ? For our ideas of exten- 
 sion, 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 colors and smells, 
 etc., what are they but the powers of different bodies 
 in relation to our perception, etc. ? 
 
 3. Mixed Modes. 
 
 That the mind, in respect of its simple ideas, is 
 wholly passive, and receives them all from the exist- 
 ence and operations of things, such as sensation or 
 reflection offers them, without being able to make any 
 one idea, experience shows us. But if we attentively 
 consider these ideas I call " mixed modes " we are 
 now speaking of, we shall find their original quite 
 different. The mind often exercises an active power 
 in making these several combinations : for, it being 
 once furnished with simple ideas, it can put them 
 together in several compositions, and so make variety 
 of complex ideas, without examining whether they 
 exist so together in nature. And hence, I think, it 
 is that these ideas are called " notions ; " as if they 
 had their original and constant existence more in the 
 thoughts of men, than in the reality of things ; and to 
 form such ideas it sufficed that the mind puts the 
 
CH. XXII.] THE PHILOSOPHY OF LOCKE. 77 
 
 parts of them together, and that they were consistent 
 in the understanding, without considering whether 
 they had any real being : though I do not deny but 
 several of them might be taken from observation, and 
 the existence of several simple ideas so combined as 
 they are put together in the understanding. 
 
78 THE PHILOSOPHY OF LOCKE. [BK. II. 
 
 THE IDEA OF SUBSTANCE. 
 
 The mind being, as I have declared, furnished with 
 a great number of the simple ideas conveyed in by 
 the senses, as they are found in exterior things, or by 
 reflection on its own operations, takes notice, also, 
 that a certain number of these simple ideas go con- 
 stantly together ; which being presumed to belong to 
 one thing, and words being suited to common appre- 
 hensions, and made use of for quick dispatch, are 
 called, so united in one subject, by one name ; which, 
 by inadvertency, we are apt afterward to talk of and 
 consider as one simple idea, which indeed is a com- 
 plication of many ideas together : because, as I have 
 said, not imagining how these simple ideas can sub- 
 sist by themselves, we accustom ourselves to suppose 
 some substratum wherein they do subsist, and from 
 which they do result ; which therefore we call "sub- 
 stance." 
 
 f But if any one will examine himself concerning his 
 notion of pure substance in general, he will find he 
 has no other idea of it at all, but only a supposition 
 of he knows not what support of such qualities which 
 are capable of producing simple ideas in us ; which 
 qualities are commonly called "accidents^ If any 
 one should be asked, " What is the subject wherein 
 color or weight inheres ? " he would have nothing to 
 say but, " The solid extended parts." And if he were 
 demanded, "What is it that solidity and extension 
 inhere in/' he would not be in a much better case 
 
CH. XXIII.] THE PHILOSOPHY OF LOCKE. 
 
 than the Indian before mentioned, who, saying that 
 the world was supported by a great elephant, was 
 asked, what the elephant rested on ? to which his 
 answer was, " A great tortoise : " but being again 
 pressed to know what gave support to the broad- 
 backed tortoise, replied, something, he knew not 
 what. 
 
 An obscure and relative idea of substance in gen- 
 eral being thus made, we come to have the ideas of 
 particular sorts of substances, by collecting such com- 
 binations of simple ideas as are by experience and 
 observation of men's senses taken notice of to exist 
 together, and are therefore supposed to flow from the 
 particular internal constitution or unknown essence 
 of that substance. Thus we come to have the ideas 
 of a man, horse, gold, water, etc., of which substances, 
 whether any one has any other clear idea, farther 
 than of certain simple ideas co-existing together, I 
 appeal to every one's own experience. It is the ordi- 
 nary qualities observable, in iron or a diamond, put 
 together, that make the true complex idea of those 
 substances, which a smith or a jeweller commonly 
 knows better than a philosopher ; who, whatever sub- 
 stantial forms he may talk of, has no other idea of 
 those substances than what is framed by a collection 
 of those simple ideas which are to be found in them. 
 Only we must take notice, that our complex ideas of 
 substances, besides all these simple ideas they are 
 made up of, have always the confused idea of some- 
 thing to which they belong and in which they subsist. 
 
 Hence, when we talk or think of any particular sort 
 of corporeal substances, as 
 
So THE PHILOSOPHY OF LOCKE. [BK. II. 
 
 the idea we have of either of them be but the compli- 
 cation or collection of those several simple ideas of 
 sensible qualities which we used to find united in the 
 thing called " horse " or " stone ; " yet because we can- 
 not conceive how they should subsist alone, nor one 
 in another, we suppose them existing in, and sup- 
 ported by, some common subject ; which support we 
 denote by the name " substance," though it be certain 
 we have no clear or distinct idea of that thing we 
 suppose a support. 
 
 The same happens concerning the operations of the 
 mind ; viz., thinking, reasoning, fearing, etc., which we 
 concluding not to subsist of themselves, nor appre- 
 hending how they can belong to body, or be produced 
 by it, we are apt to think these the actions of some 
 other substance, which we call " spirit ; " whereby yet 
 it is evident, that having no other idea or notion of 
 matter, but something wherein those many sensible 
 qualities which affect our senses do subsist ; by sup- 
 posing a substance wherein thinking, knowing, doubt- 
 ing, and a power of moving, etc., do subsist ; we have 
 as clear a notion of the substance of spirit as we have 
 of body : the one being supposed to be (without 
 knowing what it is) the substratum to those simple 
 ideas we have from without ; and the other supposed 
 (with a like ignorance of what it is) to be the sub- 
 stratum to those operations which we experiment in 
 ourselves within. 
 
 For our idea of substance is equally obscure, or 
 none at all, in both ; it is but a supposed I know-not- 
 what, to support those ideas we call " accidents." It 
 is for want of reflection that we are apt to think that 
 our senses show us nothing but material things. 
 
CH. XXIII.] THE PHILOSOPHY OF LOCKE. 8l 
 
 Every act of sensation, when duly considered, gives 
 us an equal view of both parts of nature, the corporeal 
 and spiritual. For, whilst I know, by seeing or hear- 
 ing, etc., that there is some corporeal being without 
 me, the object of that sensation, I can more certainly 
 know that there is some spiritual being within me 
 that sees and hears. This I must be convinced can- 
 not be the action of bare insensible matter, nor even 
 could be without an immaterial thinking being. 
 
 The ideas that make our complex ones of corporeal 
 substances are of these three sorts. First, The ideas 
 of the primary qualities of things which are discovered I 
 by our senses, and are in them even when we perceive 
 them not : such are the bulk, figure, number, situa- 
 tion, and motion of the parts of bodies, which are 
 really in them, whether we take notice of them or no. 
 Secondly, The sensible secondary qualities which, i 
 depending on these, are nothing but the powers those 
 substances have to produce several ideas in us by our 
 senses ; which ideas are not in the things themselves 
 otherwise than as anything is in its cause. Thirdly,! 
 The aptness we consider in any substance to give or 
 receive such alterations of primary qualities as that 
 the substance so altered should produce in us different 
 ideas from what it did before ; these are called 
 " active and passive powers : " all which powers, as far 
 as we have any notice or notion of them, terminate 
 only in sensible simple ideas. 
 
 And thus we have seen what kind of ideas we have 
 of substances of all kinds, wherein they consist, and 
 how we come by them. From whence, I think, it is 
 very evident : 
 
 First. That all our ideas of the several sorts of 
 
8, 
 
 THE PHILOSOPHY OF LOCKE. [BK. II. 
 
 substances are nothing but collections of simple ideas, 
 with a supposition of something to which they belong, 
 and in which they subsist; though of this supposed 
 something we have no clear distinct idea at all. 
 
 Secondly. That all the simple ideas that, thus 
 united in one common substratum, make up our com- 
 plex ideas of several sorts of substances, are no other 
 but such as we have received from sensation or re- 
 flection. So that even in those which we think are 
 most intimately acquainted with, and come nearest 
 the comprehension of our most enlarged conceptions, 
 we cannot reach beyond those simple ideas. And 
 even in those which seem most remote from all we 
 have to do with, and do infinitely surpass anything 
 we can perceive in ourselves by reflection, or discover 
 by sensation in other things, we can attain to nothing 
 but those simple ideas which we originally received 
 from sensation or reflection ; as is evident in the com- 
 plex ideas we have of angels, and particularly of God 
 himself. 
 
 ^ Thirdly. That most of the simple ideas that make 
 up our complex ideas of substances, when truly con- 
 sidered, are only powers, however we are apt to take 
 them for positive qualities : v. g., the greatest part of 
 the ideas that make our complex idea of gold are 
 yellowness, great weight, ductility, fusibility, and 
 solubility in aqua regia, etc., all united together in 
 an unknown substratum ; all which ideas are noth- 
 ing else but so many relations to other substances, 
 and are not really in the gold considered barely in 
 itself, though they depend on those real and primary 
 qualities of its internal constitution, whereby it has a 
 
CH. XXIV., XXV.] THE PHILOSOPHY OF LOCKE. 83 
 
 fitness differently to operate and be operated on by 
 several other substances. 
 
 Besides these complex ideas of several single sub- 
 stances, as of man, horse, gold, violet, apple, etc., the 
 mind hath also " complex collective ideas " of sub- 
 stances ; which I so call, because such ideas are made 
 up of many particular substances considered together, 
 as united into one idea, and which so joined are 
 looked on as one ; v. g., the idea of such a collection 
 of men as make an army, though consisting of a great 
 number of distinct substances, is as much one idea as 
 the idea of a man : and the great collective idea of 
 all bodies whatsoever, signified by the name " world," 
 is as much one idea as the idea of any the least particle 
 of matter in it ; it sufficing to the unity of any idea, 
 that it be considered as one representation or picture, 
 though made up of ever so many particulars. 
 
 These collective ideas of substances the mind makes 
 by its power of composition, and uniting, severally, 
 either simple or complex ideas into one, as it does by 
 the same faculty make the complex ideas of particular 
 substances, consisting of an aggregate of divers simple 
 ideas united in one substance : and as the mind, by 
 putting together the repeated ideas of unity, makes the 
 collective mode or complex idea of any number, as a 
 score, or a gross, etc., so by putting together several 
 particular substances, it makes collective ideas of sub- 
 stances, as a troop, an army, a swarm, a city, a fleet : 
 each of which every one finds that he represents to his 
 own mind by one idea, in one view ; and so under 
 that notion considers those several things as perfectly 
 one, as one ship, or one atom. 
 
84 THE PHILOSOPHY OF LOCKE. [BK. II. 
 
 The Idea of Relation. 
 
 Besides the ideas, whether simple or complex, that 
 the mind has of things, as they are in themselves, 
 there are others it gets from their comparison one \ 
 with another. The understanding, in the considera- 
 tion of any thing, is not confined to that precise ob- 
 ject : it can carry any idea, as it were, beyond itself, 
 or, at least, look beyond it to see how it stands in 
 conformity to any other. When the mind so consid- 
 ers one thing, that it does, as it were, bring it to and 
 set it by another, and carry its view from one to the 
 other : this is, as the words import, " relation" and 
 " respect ; " and the denominations given to positive 
 things, intimating that respect, and serving as marks 
 to lead the thoughts beyond the subject itself denom- 
 inated to something distinct from it, are what we call 
 " relatives ; " and the things so brought together, " re- 
 lated." 
 
 The Idea of Relation How Formed. 
 
 This farther may be observed, that the ideas of re- 
 lation may be the same in men who have far different 
 ideas of the things that are related, or that are thus 
 compared : v. g., those who have far different ideas 
 of a man, may yet agree in the notion of a father : 
 which is a notion superinduced to the substance, or 
 man, and refers only to an act of that thing called 
 " man," whereby he contributed to the generation of 
 one of his own kind, let man be what it will. 
 
 Relation and Things Related. 
 
 The nature therefore of relation consists in the re-j 
 ferring or comparing two things one to another ; from' 
 which comparison one or both comes to be denomi- 
 
CH. XXV. -XXVI.] THE PHILOSOPHY OF LOCKE. 85 
 
 nated. And if either of those things be removed or 
 cease to be, the relation ceases, and the denomination 
 consequent to it, though the other receive in itself no 
 alteration at all : v.g., Caius, whom I consider to-day 
 as a father, ceases to be so to-morrow, only by the 
 death of his son, without any alteration made in him- 
 self. Nay, barely by the mind's changing the object, 
 to which it compares any thing, the same thing is 
 capable of having contrary denominations at the same 
 time : v. g., Caius, compared to several persons, may 
 truly be said to be older and younger, stronger and 
 weaker, etc. 
 
 i. The Idea of Cause and Effect. 
 
 Having laid down these premises concerning rela- 
 tion in general, I shall now proceed to show in some 
 instances, how all the ideas we have of relation are 
 made up, as the others are, only of simple ideas ; and 
 that they all, how refined or remote from sense soever 
 they seem, terminate at last in simple ideas. I shall 
 begin with the most comprehensive relation, wherein 
 all things that do or can exist are concerned ; and 
 that is the relation of cause and effect. The idea 
 whereof, how derived from the two fountains of all 
 our knowledge, sensation and reflection, I shall in the 
 next place consider. 
 
 In the notice that our senses take of the constant 
 vicissitude of things, we cannot but observe that 
 several particular qualities and substances begin to 
 exist ; and that they receive this their existence from 
 the due application and operation of some other be- 
 ing. From this observation we get our ideas of cause 
 and effect. LThat which produces any simple or com- 
 
86 THE PHILOSOPHY OF LOCKE. [BK. II. 
 
 plex idea, we denote by the general name " cause ; " 
 and that which is produced, " effect.! Thus finding 
 that in that substance which we call ' wax" fluidity, 
 which is a simple idea that was not in it before, is 
 constantly produced by the application of a certain 
 degree of heat, we call the simple idea of heat, in re- 
 lation to fluidity in wax, the cause of it, and fluidity 
 the effect. 
 
 2. The Ideas of Identity and Diversity. 
 
 Another occasion the mind often takes of compar- 
 ing, is, the very being of things, when, considering 
 any thing as existing at any determined time and 
 place, we compare it with itself existing at another 
 time, and thereon form the ideas of identity and 
 diversity. When we see any thing to be in any place 
 in any instant of time, we are sure (be it what it will) 
 that it is that very thing, and not another, which at 
 that same time exists in another place, how like and 
 undistinguishable soever it may be in all other re- 
 spects : and in this consists identity, when the ideas 
 it is attributed to, vary not at all from what they 
 were that moment wherein we consider their former 
 existence, and to which we compare the present. For 
 we never finding, nor conceiving it possible, that two 
 things of the same kind should exist in the same place 
 at the same time, we rightly conclude that whatever 
 exists any where at any time, excludes all of the same 
 kind, and is there itself alone. When therefore we 
 demand whether any thing be the same or no, it re- 
 fers always to something that existed such a time in 
 such a place, which it was certain at that instant was| 
 the same with itself and no oth^r : from whence it 
 
CH. XXVII. ] THE PHILOSOPHY OF LOCKE. 87 
 
 follows, that one thing cannot have two beginnings of 
 existence, nor two things one beginning, it being im- 
 possible for two things of the same kind to be or 
 exist in the same instant, in the very same place, or 
 one and the same thing in different places. For ex- 
 ample : Could two bodies be in the same place at the 
 same time, then those two parcels of matter must be 
 one and the same, take them great or little ; nay, all J 
 bodies must be one and the same. For by the same 
 reason that two particles of matter may be in one 
 place, all bodies may be in one place : which, when 
 it can be supposed, takes away the distinction of 
 identity and diversity, of one and more, and renders 
 it ridiculous. 
 
 This, though it seems easier to conceive in simple 
 substances or modes, yet, when reflected on, is not 
 more difficult in compounded ones, if care be taken 
 to what it is applied; v. ,*f.,let us suppose an atom, 
 /. e., a continued body under one immutable super- 
 ficies, existing in a determined time and place ; it is 
 evident, that, considered in any instant of its exist- 
 ence, it is, in that instant, the same with itself. For, 
 being at that instant what it is and nothing else, it is 
 the same, and so must continue as long as its exist- 
 ence is continued ; for so long it will be the same 
 and no other. In like manner, if two or more atoms 
 be joined together into the same mass, every one of 
 those atoms will be the same, by the foregoing rule : 
 and whilst they exist united together, the mass, con- 
 sisting of the same atoms, must be the same mass, 
 or the same body, let the parts be ever so differ- 
 ently jumbled : but if one of these atoms be taken 
 away, or one new one added, it is no longer the 
 
"I 
 
 I 
 
 88 THE PHILOSOPHY OF LOCKE. [BK. II. 
 
 same mass, or the same body. In the state of living 
 creatures, their identity depends not on a mass of the 
 same particles, but on something else. For in them 
 the variation of great parcels of matter alters not the 
 identity ; an oak, growing from a plant to a great tree, 
 and then lopped, is still the same oak : and a colt 
 grown up to a horse, sometimes fat, sometimes lean 
 is all the while the same horse : though, in both these 
 cases, there may be a manifest change of the parts ; 
 so that truly they are not either of them the same 
 masses of matter, though there be truly one of them 
 the same oak, and the other the same horse. The 
 reason whereof is, that, in these two cases of a mass 
 of matter and a living body, identity is not applied to 
 the same thing. 
 
 We must therefore consider wherein an oak differs 
 from a mass of matter ; and that seems to me to be 
 in this : That the one is only the cohesion of particles^ 
 of matter any how united : the other such a disposi- 
 tion of them as constitutes the parts of an oak, and 
 such an organization of those parts as is fit to receive 
 and distribute nourishment, so as to continue and 
 frame the wood, bark, and leaves, etc., of an oak, in 
 which consists the vegetable life. That being then 
 one plant which has such an organization of parts in 
 one coherent body, partaking of one common life, it 
 continues to be the same plant as long as it partakes 
 of the same life, though that life be communicated to 
 new particles of matter vitally united to the living 
 plant in a like continued organization, comformable 
 to that sort of plants. 
 
 This also shows wherein the identity of the same 
 
CH. XXVIL] THE PHILOSOPHY OF LOCKE. 89 
 
 man consists ; viz., in nothing but a participation of f 
 the same continued life, by constantly fleeting particles * 
 of matter, in succession vitally united to the same 
 organized body. He that shall place the identity of 
 man in anything else, but, like that of other animals, 
 in one fitly organized body, taken in any one instant, 
 and from thence continued under one organization 
 of life in several successively fleeting particles of 
 matter united to it, will find it hard to make an 
 embryo one of years, mad, and sober, the same man, 
 by any supposition that will not make it possible for 
 Seth, Ishmael, Socrates, Pilate, St. Austin, and Caesar 
 Borgia, to be the same man. 
 
 It is not therefore unity of substance that compre- 
 hends all sorts of identity, or will determine it in 
 every case : but, to conceive and judge of it aright, 
 we must consider what idea the word it is applied to 
 tands for : it being one thing to be the same sub- 
 stance, another the same man, and a third the same 
 person, if "person, man, and substance," are three 
 names standing for three different ideas ; for such as 
 is the idea belonging to that name, such must be the 
 identity : which, if it had been a little more carefully 
 attended to, would possibly have prevented a great 
 deal of that confusion which often occurs about this 
 matter, with no small seeming difficulties, especially 
 concerning personal identity, which therefore we shall 
 in the next place a little consider. 
 
 This being premised, to fine wherein personal 
 identity consists, we must consider what " person " 
 stands for ; which, I think, is a thinking intelligent I 
 being, that has reason and reflection, and can consider ' 
 
90 THE PHILOSOPHY OF LOCKE. [BK. II. 
 
 itself as itself, the same thinking thing, in different 
 times and places ; which it does only by that con- 
 sciousness which is inseparable from thinking, and it 
 seems to me essential to it : it being impossible for 
 any one to perceive, without perceiving that he does 
 perceive. When we see, hear, smell, taste, feel, 
 meditate, or will any thing, we know that we do so. 
 Thus it is always as to our present sensations and 
 perceptions : and by this every one is to himself that 
 which he calls " self ; " it not being considered, in this 
 case, whether the same self be continued in the same 
 or diverse substances. For since consciousness always 
 accompanies thinking, and it is that that makes every | 
 one to be what he calls " self," and thereby dis- I 
 tinguishes himself from all other thinking things ; in 
 this alone consists personal identity, /. ^., the same- 1 
 ness of a rational being : and as far as this conscious- 
 ness can be extended backwards to any past action 
 or thought, so far reaches the identity of that person ; 
 it is the same self now it was then ; and it is by the 
 same self with this present one that now reflects on 
 it, that that action was done.. 
 
 But it is farther inquired, whether it be the same 
 identical substance ? This, few would think they had 
 reason to doubt of, if these perceptions, with their 
 consciousness, always remained present in the mind, 
 whereby the same thinking thing would be always 
 consciously present, and, as would be thought, evi- 
 dently the same to itself. But that which seems to 
 make the difficulty is this, that this consciousness 
 being interrupted always by forgetfulness, there being 
 no moment of our lives wherein we have the whole 
 
CH. XXVII. J THE PHILOSOPHY OF LOCKE. 9! 
 
 train of all our past actions before our eyes in one 
 view ; but even the best memories losing the sight 
 of one part whilst they are viewing another ; and we 
 sometimes, and that the greatest part of our lives, 
 not reflecting on our past selves, being intent on our 
 present thoughts, and, in sound sleep, having no 
 thoughts at all, or, at least, none with that conscious- 
 ness which remarks our waking thoughts : I say, in 
 all these cases, our consciousness being interrupted, 
 and we losing the sight of our past selves, doubts are 
 raised whether we are the same thinking thing, /'. e., 
 the same substance, or no ? For it being the same 
 consciousness that makes a man be himself to him- 
 self, personal identity depends on that only, whether it 
 be annexed only to one individual substance, or can 
 be continued in a succession of several substances. 
 For as far as any intelligent being can repeat the idea 
 of any past action with the same consciousness it had 
 of it at first, and with the same consciousness it has 
 of any present action ; so far it is the same personal 
 self. For it is by the consciousness it has of its 
 present thoughts and actions that it is self to itself 
 now, and so will be the same self, as far as the same 
 consciousness can extend to actions past or to come ; 
 and would be by distance of time, or change of sub- 
 stance, no more two persons than a man be two men, 
 by wearing other clothes to-day than he did yester- 
 day, with a long or short sleep between : the same 
 consciousness uniting those distant actions into the" 
 same person, whatever substances contributed to their 
 production. 
 
 But the question is, Whether, if the same substance. 
 
92 THE PHILOSOPHY OF LOCKE. [BK. II. 
 
 which thinks be changed, it can be the same person, 
 or remaining the same, it can be different persons ? 
 
 And to this I answer, First, This can be no ques- 
 tion at all to those who place thought in a purely 
 material, animal constitution, void of an immaterial 
 substance. For, whether their supposition be true or 
 no, it is plain they conceive personal identity pre- 
 served in something else than identity of substance ; 
 as animal identity is preserved in identity of life, and 
 not of substance. And therefore those who place 
 thinking in an immaterial substance only, before they 
 can come to deal with these men, must show why 
 personal identity cannot be preserved in the change 
 of immaterial substances, or variety of particular im- 
 material substances, as well as animal identity is pre- 
 served in the change of material substances, or variety 
 of particular bodies : unless they will say, it is one 
 immaterial spirit that makes the same life in brutes, 
 as it is one immaterial spirit that makes the same per- 
 son in men, which the Cartesians at least will not 
 admit, for fear of making brutes thinking things too. 
 
 But next, as to the first part of the question, 
 Whether, if the same thinking substance (supposing 
 immaterial substances only to think) be changed, it 
 can be the same person ? I answer, That cannot be 
 resolved but by those who know what kind of sub- 
 stances they are that do think, and whether the con- 
 sciousness of past actions can be transferred from one 
 thinking substance to another. I grant, were the 
 same consciousness the same individual action, it 
 could not ; but it being but a present representation of 
 a past action, why it may not be possible that that may 
 
CH. XXVII.] THE PHILOSOPHY OF LOCKE. 93 
 
 be represented to the mind to have been which really 
 never was, will remain to be shown. But that which 
 we call " the same consciousness" not being the same 
 individual act, why one intellectual substance may 
 not have represented to it as done by itself what it 
 never did, and was perhaps done by some other 
 agent ; why, I say, such a representation may not 
 possibly be without reality of matter of fact, as well 
 as several representations in dreams are, which yet, 
 whilst dreaming, we take for true, will be difficult to 
 conclude from the nature of things. But yet, to re- 
 turn to the question before us, it must be allowed, 
 that if the same consciousness (which, as has been 
 shown, is quite a different thing from the same nu- 
 merical figure or motion in body) can be transferred 
 from one thinking substance to another, it will be 
 possible that two thinking substances may make but 
 one person. For the same consciousness being pre- 
 served, whether in the same or different substances, 
 the personal identity is preserved. 
 
 Self is that conscious thinking thing (whatever sub- 
 stance made up of, whether spiritual or material, sim-j 
 pie or compounded, it matters not) which is sensibl< 
 or conscious of pleasure and pain, capable of happi- 
 ness or misery, and so is concerned for itself, as 
 as that consciousness extends. That with which the 
 consciousness of this present thinking thing can join 
 itself makes the same person, and is one self with it, 
 and with nothing else ; and so attributes to itself and 
 owns all the actions of that thing as its own, as far as 
 that consciousness reaches, and no farther ; as every 
 one who reflects will perceive. 
 
94 THE PHILOSOPHY OF LOCKE. [BK. II. 
 
 SOME FURTHER OBSERVATIONS UPON OUR IDEAS. 
 
 i. Clear and Obscure Ideas. 
 
 Our simple ideas are clear, when they are such as 
 the objects themselves, from whence they were taken, 
 did or might, in a well-ordered sensation or percep- 
 tion, present them. Whilst the memory retains them 
 thus, and can produce them to the mind whenever it 
 has occasion to consider them, they are clear ideas. 
 So far as they either want any thing of that original 
 exactness, or have lost any of their first freshness, and 
 are, as it were, faded or tarnished by time, so far are 
 they obscure. Complex ideas, as they are made up 
 of simple ones, so they are clear when the ideas that 
 go to their composition are clear : and the number 
 and order of those simple ideas, that are the ingredi- 
 ents of any complex one, is determinate and certain. 
 
 The cause of obscurity in simple ideas seems to be 
 either dull organs or very slight and transient impres- 
 sions made by the objects, or else a weakness in the 
 memory, not able to retain them as received. If the 
 organs or faculties of perception, like wax over-hard- 
 ened with cold, will not receive the impression of the 
 seal, from the usual impulse wont to imprint it ; or, 
 like wax of a temper too soft, will not hold it well 
 when well imprinted ; or else supposing the wax of a 
 
CH. XXIX., XXX.] THE PHILOSOPHY OF LOCKE. 95 
 
 temper fit, but the seal not applied with a sufficient 
 force to make a clear impression : in any of these 
 cases, the print left by the seal will be obscure. 
 
 2. Real and Fantastical Ideas. 
 
 Besides what we have already mentioned concern- 
 ing ideas, other considerations belong to them, in 
 reference to things from whence they are taken, or 
 which they may be supposed to represent ; and thus, 
 I think, they may come under a threefold distinction. 
 
 First, Our simple ideas are all real, all agree to the 
 reality of things ; not that they are all of them the 
 images or representations of what does exist ; but 
 being in us the effects of powers in things without us, 
 ordained by our Maker to produce in us such sensa- 
 tions, they are real ideas in us whereby we distinguish 
 the qualities that are really in things themselves. 
 
 Secondly, Mixed modes and relations having no 
 other reality but what they have in the minds of men, 
 there is nothing more required to those kinds of ideas 
 to make them real but that they be so framed that 
 there be a possibility of existing conformable to 
 them. These ideas, being themselves archetypes, 
 cannot differ from their archetypes, and so cannot be 
 chimerical, unless any one will jumble together in 
 them inconsistent ideas. Indeed, as any of them 
 have the names of a known language assigned to 
 them, by which he that has them in his mind would 
 signify them to others, so bare possibility of existing 
 is not enough ; they must have a conformity to the 
 ordinary signification of the name that is given them, 
 that they may not be thought fantastical : as if a man 
 
96 THE PHILOSOPHY OF LOCKE. [BK. II. 
 
 would give the name of "justice" to that idea which 
 common use calls " liberality." But this fantastical- 
 ness relates more to propriety of speech, than reality 
 of ideas. For a man to be undisturbed in danger, 
 sedately to consider what is fittest to be done, and to 
 execute it steadily, is a mixed mode or a complex 
 idea of an action which may exist. But to be undis- 
 turbed in danger, without using one's reason or in- 
 dustry, is what is also possible to be ; and so is as real 
 an idea as the other. Though the first of these, hav- 
 ing the name " courage " given to it, may, in respect 
 of that name, be a right or wrong idea : but the other, 
 whilst it has not a common received name of any 
 known language assigned to it, is not capable of any 
 deformity, being made with no reference to anything 
 but itself. 
 
 Thirdly, Our complex ideas of substances, being 
 made all of them in reference to things existing with- 
 out us, and intended to be representations of sub- 
 stances as they really are, are no farther real than as 
 they are such combinations of simple ideas as are 
 really united, and co-exist in things without us. 
 
 3. Adequate and Inadequate Ideas. 
 
 Of our real ideas, some are adequate, and some are 
 inadequate. Those I call " adequate " which per- 
 fectly represent those archetypes which the mind sup- 
 poses them taken from ; which it intends them to 
 stand for, and to which it refers them. Inadequate 
 ideas are such which are but a partial or incomplete 
 representation of those archetypes to which they are 
 referred. Upon which account it is plain, 
 
CH. XXXL] THE PHILOSOPHY OF LOCKE. 97 
 
 First, That all our simple ideas are adequate. Be- 
 cause being nothing but the effects of certain powers 
 in things, fitted and ordained by God to produce such 
 sensations in us, they cannot but be correspondent 
 and adequate to those powers : and we are sure they 
 agree to the reality of things. 
 
 Secondly, Our complex ideas of modes, being vol- 
 untary collections of simple ideas which the mind 
 puts together, without reference to any real arche- 
 types or standing patterns existing any where, are and 
 cannot but be adequate ideas. 
 
 Therefore these complex ideas of modes, when they 
 are referred by the mind, and intended to correspond, 
 to the ideas in the mind of some other intelligent be- 
 ing, expressed by the names we apply to them, they 
 may be very deficient, wrong, and inadequate ; be- 
 cause they agree not to that which the mind designs 
 to be their archetype and pattern ; in which respect 
 only an idea of modes can be wrong, imperfect, or 
 inadequate. And on this account, our ideas of mixed 
 modes are the most liable to be faulty of any other ; 
 but this refers more to proper speaking, than knowing 
 right. 
 
 Thirdly, What ideas we have of substances, I have 
 above showed. Now, those ideas have in the mind a 
 double reference : (i.) Sometimes they are referred 
 to a supposed real essence of each species of things. 
 (2.) Sometimes they are only designed to be pictures 
 and representations in the mind of things that do 
 exist by ideas of those qualities that are discoverable 
 in them. In both which ways, these copies of those 
 originals and archetypes are imperfect and inadequate. 
 
98 THE PHILOSOPHY OF LOCKE. [BK. II. 
 
 For since the powers or qualities that are observ- 
 able by us are not the real essence of that substance, 
 but depend on it, and flow from it, any collection 
 whatsoever of these qualities cannot be the real es- 
 sence of that thing. Whereby it is plain that our 
 ideas of substances are not adequate ; are not what 
 the mind intends them to be. Besides, a man has no 
 idea of substance in general, nor knows what sub- 
 stance is in itself. 
 
CH. XXXIII.] THE PHILOSOPHY OF LOCKE. 99 
 
 THE ASSOCIATION OF IDEAS. 
 
 Some of our ideas have a natural correspondence 
 and connection one with another ; it is the office and 
 excellency of our reason to trace these, and hold them 
 together in that union and correspondence which is 
 founded in their peculiar beings. Besides these, there 
 is another connection of ideas wholly owing to chance 
 or custom : ideas that in themselves are not at all of 
 kin, come to be so united in some men's minds that 
 it is very hard to separate them ; they always keep in 
 company, and the one no sooner at any time comes 
 into the understanding but its associate appears with 
 it ; and if they are more than two which are thus 
 united, the whole gang, always inseparable, show 
 themselves together. 
 
 This strong combination of ideas, not allied by 
 nature, the mind makes in itself either voluntarily or 
 by chance ; and hence it comes in different men to be 
 very different, according to their different inclina- 
 tions, educations, interests, etc. Custom settles habits 
 of thinking in the understanding, as well as of deter- 
 mining in the will, and of motions in the body ; all 
 which seem to be but trains of motion in the animal 
 spirits, which, once set a-going, continue in the same 
 steps they have been used to, which, by often tread- 
 ing, are worn into a smooth path, and the motion in 
 
100 THE PHILOSOPHY OF LOCKE. [CH. XXXIII. 
 
 it becomes easy, and as it were natural. As far as we 
 can comprehend thinking, thus ideas seem to be pro- 
 duced in our minds ; or if they are not, this may serve 
 to explain their following one another in an habitual 
 train, when once they are put into that track, as well 
 as it does to explain such motions of the body. 
 
 This wrong connection in our minds of ideas, in 
 themselves loose and independent one of another, has 
 such an influence, and is of so great force, to set us 
 awry in our actions, as well moral as natural, passions, 
 reasonings, and notions themselves, that perhaps there 
 is not any one thing that deserves more to be looked 
 after. 
 
 A man receives a sensible injury from another, 
 thinks on the man and that action over and over, and, 
 by ruminating on them strongly or much in his mind, 
 so cements those two ideas together, that he makes 
 them almost one ; never thinks on the man, but the 
 pain and displeasure he suffered conies into his mind 
 with it, so that he scarce distinguishes them, but has 
 as much an aversion for the one as the other. Thus 
 hatreds are often begotten from slight and almost 
 innocent occasions, and quarrels propagated and con- 
 tinued in the world. 
 
 Ideas in our minds, when they are there, will oper- 
 ate according to their natures and circumstances : and 
 here we see the cause why time cures certain affec- 
 tions, which reason, though in the right and allowed 
 to be so, has not power over, nor is able against them 
 to prevail with those who are apt to hearken to it in 
 other cases. 
 
BK. III. CH. II.] THE PHILOSOPHY OF'L0C'ks. V Ifct 
 
 UPON WORDS. 
 
 Having thus given an account of the original sorts 
 and extent of our ideas, with several other considera- 
 tions about these (I know not whether I may say) in- 
 struments, or materials, of our knowledge; the method 
 I at first proposed to myself, would now require that 
 I should immediately proceed to show what use the 
 understanding makes of them, and what knowledge 
 we have by them. This was that which, in the first 
 general view I had of this subject, was all that I 
 thought I should have to do : but upon a nearer 
 approach, I find that there is so close a connection 
 between ideas and words, and our abstract ideas and 
 general words have so constant a relation one to 
 another, that it is impossible to speak clearly and dis- 
 tinctly of our knowledge, which all consists in propo- 
 sitions, without considering first the nature, use, and 
 signification of language ; which therefore must be the 
 business of the next book. 
 
 i. The Use of Language. 
 
 Man, though he have great variety of thoughts, and 
 such from which others as well as himself might 
 receive profit and delight, yet they are all within his 
 own breast, invisible, and hidden from others, nor can 
 of themselves be made appear. The comfort and 
 advantage of society not being to be had without 
 
102 THte PHILOSOPHY OF LOCKE. [BK. III. 
 
 communication; of thoughts, it was necessary that man 
 should find out some external sensible signs, whereby 
 those invisible ideas which his thoughts are made up 
 of might be made known to others. For this purpose 
 nothing was so fit, either for plenty or quickness, as 
 those articulate sounds which, with so much ease and 
 variety, he found himself able to make. Thus we 
 may conceive how words, which were by nature so 
 well adapted to ihat purpose, come to be made use of 
 by men as the signs of their ideas ; not by any natural 
 connection that there is between particular articulate 
 sounds and certain ideas, for then there would be but 
 one language amongst all men ; but by a voluntary 
 imposition, whereby such a word is made arbitrarily 
 the mark of such an idea. The use, then, of words is 
 to be sensible marks of ideas, and the ideas they stand 
 for are their proper and immediate signification. 
 
 The use men have of these marks being either to 
 record their own thoughts for the assistance of their 
 own memory, or, as it were, to bring out their ideas, 
 and lay them before the view of others : words in 
 their primary or immediate signification stand for 
 nothing but the ideas in the mind of him that uses 
 them, how imperfectly soever or carelessly those ideas 
 are collected from the things which they are supposed 
 to represent. When a man speaks to another, it is 
 that he may be understood ; and the end of speech is, 
 that those sounds, as marks, may make known his 
 ideas to the hearer. That, then, which words are the 
 marks of are the ideas of the speaker : nor can any 
 one apply them, as marks, immediately to any thing 
 else but the ideas that he himself hath. 
 
CHS, II.-IV.] THE PHILOSOPHY OF LOCKE. 103 
 
 2. The Signification of Names. 
 
 Though all words, as I have shown, signify nothing 
 immediately but the ideas in the mind of the speaker, 
 yet, upon a nearer survey, we shall find that the 
 names of simple ideas, mixed modes (under which I 
 comprise relations too), and natural substances, have- 
 each of them something peculiar, and different from 
 the other. 
 
 First, The names of simple ideas and substances, 
 with the abstract ideas in the mind which they imme- 
 diately signify, intimate also some real existence, 
 from which was derived their original pattern. But 
 the names of mixed modes terminate in the idea that 
 is in the mind, and lead not the thoughts any further, 
 as we shall see more at large in the following chapter. 
 
 Secondly, The names of simple ideas and modes 
 signify always the real as well as nominal essence of 
 their species. But the names of natural substances 
 signify rarely, if ever, any thing but barely the nom- 
 inal essences of those species, as we shall show in the 
 chapter that treats of the names of substances in par- 
 ticular. 
 
 Thirdly, The names of simple ideas are not capa- 
 ble of any definitions; the names of all complex ideas 
 are. It has not, that I know, hitherto been taken 
 notice of by any body, what words are, and what are 
 not, capable of being defined : the want whereof is 
 (as I am apt to think) not seldom the occasion of 
 great wrangling and obscurity of men's discourses, 
 whilst some demand definitions of terms that cannot 
 be defined ; and others think they ought to rest 
 
104 THE PHILOSOPHY OF LOCKE. [BK. III. 
 
 satisfied in an explication made by a more general 
 word and its restriction (or, to speak in terms of art, 
 by a genus and difference), when even after such 
 definition made according to rule, those who hear it 
 have often no more a clear conception of the mean- 
 ing of the word than they had before. 
 
 This being premised, I say, that " the names of 
 simple ideas," and those only, " are incapable of 
 being defined." The reason whereof is this, that the 
 several terms of a definition signifying several ideas, 
 they can all together by no means represent an idea 
 which has no composition at all : and therefore a defi- 
 nition (which is properly nothing but the showing the 
 meaning of one word by several others. not signifying 
 each the same thing) can in the names of simple ideas 
 have no place. 
 
 And therefore he that has not before received into 
 his mind, by the proper inlet, the simple idea which 
 any word stands for, can never come to know the sig- 
 nification of that word by any other words or sounds 
 whatsoever, put together according to any rules of 
 definition. The only way is by applying to his senses 
 the proper object ; and so producing that idea in him 
 for which he has learned the name already. But 
 though the names of simple ideas have not the help 
 or definition to determine their signification, yet that 
 hinders not but that they are generally less doubtful 
 and uncertain than those of mixed modes and sub- 
 stances ; because they standing only for one simple 
 perception, men, for the most part, easily and per- 
 fectly agree in their signification, and there is little 
 room for mistake and wrangling about their meaning. 
 There is neither a multiplicity of simple ideas to be 
 
CH. IV., III.] THE PHILOSPOHY OF LOCKE. 105 
 
 put together, which makes the doubtfulness in the 
 names of mixed modes ; nor a supposed, but an un- 
 known, real essence, with properties depending 
 thereon, the precise number whereof are also un- 
 known, which makes the difficulty in the names of 
 substances. But, on the contrary, in simple ideas the 
 whole signification of the name is known at once, and 
 consists not of parts, whereof more or less being put 
 in, the idea may be varied, and so the signification of 
 its name be obscure or uncertain. 
 
 The names of simple ideas, substances, and mixed 
 modes have also this difference, that those of mixed 
 modes stand for ideas perfectly arbitrary : those of 
 substances are not perfectly so, but refer to a pattern, 
 though with some latitude : and those of simple ideas 
 are perfectly taken from the existence of things, and 
 are not arbitrary at all. 
 
 All things that exist being particulars, it may per- 
 haps be thought reasonable that words, which ought 
 to be conformed to things, should be so too, I mean 
 in their signification : but yet we find the quite con- 
 trary. The far greatest part of words, that make all 
 languages, are general terms : which has not been the 
 effect of neglect or chance, but of reason and neces- 
 sity. 
 
 First, It is impossible that every particular thing 
 should have a distinct peculiar name. For the signi- 
 fication and use of words depending on that connec- 
 tion which the mind makes between its ideas and the 
 sounds it uses as signs of them, it is necessary, in the 
 application of names to things, that the mind should 
 have distinct ideas of the things, and retain also the 
 particular name that belongs to every one, with its 
 
106 THE PHILOSOPHY OF LOCKE. [BK. III. 
 
 peculiar appropriation to that idea. But it is beyond 
 the power of human capacity to frame and retain dis- 
 tinct ideas of all the particular things we meet with : 
 every bird and beast men saw, every tree and plant 
 that affected the senses, could not find a place in the 
 most capacious understanding. If it be looked on as 
 an instance of a prodigious memory, that some gen- 
 erals have been able to call every soldier in their 
 army by his proper name, we may easily find a reason 
 why men have never attempted to give names to 
 each sheep in their flock, or crow that flies over their 
 heads ; much less to call every leaf of plants or grain 
 of sand that came in their way by a peculiar name. 
 
 Secondly, If it were possible, it would yet be useless, 
 because it would not serve to the chief end of language. 
 Men would in vain heap up names of particular things, 
 that would not serve them to communicate their 
 thoughts. 
 
 Thirdly, But yet granting this also feasible (which 
 I think is not), yet a distinct name for every particular 
 thing would not be of any great use for the improve- 
 ment of knowledge : which, though founded in particu- 
 lar things, enlarges itself by general views : to which 
 things reduced into sorts under general names, are 
 properly subservient. 
 
 The next thing to be considered is, how general 
 words come to be made. For, since all things that 
 exist are only particulars, how come we by general 
 terms, or where find we those general natures they are 
 supposed to stand for? Words become general by 
 being made the signs of general ideas : and ideas be- 
 come general by separating from them the circum- 
 stances of time, and place, and any other ideas that 
 
CH. III.] THE PHILOSOPHY OF LOCKE. 107 
 
 may determine them to this or that particular exist- 
 ence. By this way of abstraction they are made capa- 
 ble of representing more individuals than one ; each 
 of which, having in it a conformity to that abstract 
 idea, is (as we call it) of that sort. 
 
 But, to deduce this a little more distinctly, it will 
 not perhaps be amiss to trace our notions and names 
 from their beginning, and observe by what degrees we 
 proceed, and by what steps we enlarge our ideas from 
 our first infancy. There is nothing more evident than 
 that the ideas of the persons children converse with 
 (to instance in them alone), are, like the persons them- 
 selves, only particular. The ideas of the nurse and 
 the mother are well framed in their minds ; and, like 
 pictures of them there, represent only those individ- 
 uals. The names they first gave to them are confined 
 to these individuals ; and the names of " nurse" and 
 " mamma" the child uses, determine themselves to 
 those persons. Afterwards, when time and a larger 
 acquaintance has made them observe that there are a 
 great many other things in the world, that, in some 
 common agreements of shape and several other quali- 
 ties, resemble their father and mother, and those per- 
 sons they have been used to, they frame an idea which 
 they find those many particulars do partake in ; and 
 to that they give, with others, the name " man," for 
 example. And thus they come to have a general 
 name, and a general idea. Wherein they make noth- 
 ing new, but only leave out of the complex idea they 
 had of Peter and James, Mary and Jane, that which 
 is peculiar to each, and retain only what is common 
 to them all. 
 
 For, let any one reflect, and then tell me wherein 
 
108 THE PHILOSOPHY OF LOCKE. [BK. III. 
 
 does his idea of " man" differ from that of " Peter " 
 and " Paul," or his idea of " horse" from that of 
 " Bucephalus," but in the leaving out something that 
 is peculiar to each individual, and retaining so much 
 of those particular complex ideas of several particular 
 existences as they are found to agree in ? Of the com- 
 plex ideas signified by the names " man" and " horse," 
 leaving out but those particulars wherein they differ, 
 and retaining only those wherein they agree, and of 
 those making a new distinct complex idea, and giving 
 the name " animal " to it, one has a more general term, 
 that comprehends with man several other creatures. 
 
 The next thing therefore to be considered, is, what 
 kind of signification it is that general words have. 
 For as it is evident that they do not signify barely 
 one particular thing, for then they would not be gen- 
 eral terms, but proper names ; so on the other side it 
 is as evident they do not signify a plurality ; for, 
 " man" and " men" would then signify the same and 
 the distinction of " numbers" (as grammarians call 
 them) would be superfluous and useless. That then 
 which general words signify, is a sort of things ; and 
 each of them does that by being a sign of an abstract 
 idea in the mind ; to which idea as things existing are 
 found to agree, so they come to be ranked under 
 that name ; or which is all one, be of that sort. 
 Whereby it is evident, that the essences of the sorts, 
 or (if the Latin word pleases better) species of things, 
 are nothing else but these abstract ideas. For the 
 having the essence of any species, being that which 
 makes anything to be of that species, and the con- 
 formity to the idea to which the name is annexed be- 
 
CHS. III. AND VI.] THE PHILOSOPHY OF LOCKE. IOQ 
 
 ing that which gives a right to that name, the having 
 the essence, and the having that conformity, must 
 needs be the same thing : since to be of any species, 
 and to have a right to the name of that species, is all 
 one. As, for example : to be a man or of the species 
 man, and to have right to the name " man" is the 
 same thing. Again : to be a man, or of the species 
 man, and have the essence of a man, is the same thing. 
 Now, since nothing can be a man, or have a right to 
 the name " man" but what has a conformity to the 
 abstract idea the name " man" stands for ; nor any 
 thing be a man, or have a right to the species man, 
 but what has the essence of that species ; it follows, 
 that the abstract idea for which the name stands, and 
 the essence of the species, is one and the same. 
 From whence it is easy to observe, that the essences 
 of the sorts of things, and consequently the sorting of 
 this, is the workmanship of the understanding that 
 abstracts and makes those general ideas. 
 
 The common names of substances, as well as other 
 general terms, stand for sorts : which is nothing else 
 but the being made signs of such complex ideas, 
 wherein several particular substances do or might 
 agree, by virtue of which they are capable of being 
 comprehended in one common conception, and be 
 signified by one name. 
 
 The measure and boundary of each sort or species 
 whereby it is constituted that particular sort and dis- 
 tinguished from others, is that we call its " essence," 
 which is nothing but that abstract idea to which the 
 name is annexed : so that everything contained in 
 that idea is essential to that sort. 
 
110 THE PHILOSOPHY OF LOCKE. [BK. III. 
 
 That " essence," in the ordinary use of the word, 
 relates to sorts, and that it is considered in particular 
 beings no farther than they are ranked into sorts, 
 appears from hence : that take but away the abstract 
 ideas by which we sort individuals, and rank them 
 under common names, and then the thought of any 
 thing essential to any of them instantly vanishes : we 
 have no notion of the one without the other : which 
 plainly shows their relation. 
 
 It is impossible therefore that any thing should 
 determine the sorts of things which we rank under 
 general names, but that idea which that name is de- 
 signed as a mark for ; which is that, as has been 
 shown, which we call the ''nominal essence." Why 
 do we say, " This is a horse, and that a mule ; this is 
 an animal, that an herb ?" How comes any particular 
 thing to be of this or that sort, but because it has 
 that nominal essence, or, which is all one, agrees to 
 that abstract idea that name is annexed to ? That 
 our ranking and distinguishing natural substances into 
 species, consists in the nominal essences the mind 
 makes, and not in the real essences to be found in 
 the things themselves, is farther evident from our 
 ideas of spirits. For, the mind getting, only by re- 
 flecting on its own operations, those simple ideas 
 which it attributes to spirits, it hath or can have no 
 other notion of spirit but by attributing all those 
 operations it finds in itself to a sort of beings, without 
 consideration of matter. 
 
 Since, then, it is evident that we sort and name 
 substances by their nominal, and not by their real, 
 essences ; the next thing to be considered is, how and 
 
CH. VI.] THE PHILOSOPHY OF LOCKE. Ill 
 
 by whom these essences come to be made. As to 
 the latter, it is evident they are made by the mind, 
 and not by nature : for were they nature's workman- 
 ship, they could not be so various and different in 
 several men, as experience tells us they are. For if 
 we will examine it, we shall not find the nominal 
 essence of any one species of substance in all men 
 the same ; no, not of that which of all others we are 
 the most intimately acquainted with. 
 
 But though these nominal essences of substances 
 are made by the mind, they are not yet made so 
 arbitrarily as those of mixed modes. To the making 
 of any nominal essence, it is necessary, First, That 
 the ideas whereof it consists, have such an union as 
 to make but one idea, how compounded soever. 
 Secondly, That the particular ideas so united be 
 exactly the same, neither more nor less. 
 
 This, then, in short, is the case : nature makes 
 many particular things which do agree one with an- 
 other in many sensible qualities, and probably, too, 
 in their internal frame and constitution ; but it is not 
 this real essence that distinguishes them into species ; 
 it is men, who taking occasion from the qualities they 
 find united in them, and wherein they observe often 
 several individuals to agree, range them into sorts in 
 order to their naming, for the convenience of compre- 
 hensive signs ; under which, individuals, according to 
 their conformity to this or that abstract idea, come to 
 be ranked as under ensigns ; so that this is of the blue, 
 that the red, regiment ; this is a man, that a drill : 
 and in this, I think, consists the whole business of 
 genus and species. 
 
112 / THE PHILOSOPHY OF LOCKE. [BK. IV. 
 
 ON KNOWLEDGE AND BELIEF. 
 
 Since the mind, in all its thoughts and reasonings, 
 hath no other immediate object but its own ideas, 
 which it alone does or can contemplate, it is evident 
 that our knowledge is only conversant about them. 
 
 Knowledge then seems to me to be nothing but 
 the perception of the connection and agreement, or 
 disagreement and repugnancy, of any of our ideas. 
 In this alone it consists. Where this perception is, 
 there is knowledge ; and where it is not, there, though 
 we may fancy, guess, or believe, yet we always come 
 short of knowledge. 
 
 But, to understand a little more distinctly wherein 
 this agreement or disagreement consists, I think we 
 may reduce it all to these four sorts : (i.) Identity, 
 or diversity. (2.) Relation. (3.) Co-existence, or 
 necessary connection. (4.) Real existence. 
 
 First, As to the first sort of agreement or disagree- 
 ment, viz., identity or diversity. It is the first act of 
 the mind, when it has any sentiments or ideas at all, 
 to perceive its ideas, and, so far as it perceives them, 
 to know each what it is, and thereby also to perceive 
 their difference, and that one is not another. This is 
 so absolutely necessary, that without it there could 
 be no knowledge, no reasoning, no imagination, no 
 distinct thoughts at all. This, then, is the first agree- 
 ment or disagreement which the mind perceives in 
 its ideas, which it always perceives at first sight ; and 
 if there ever happen any doubt about it, it will always 
 be found to be about the names, and not the ideas 
 themselves, whose identity and diversity will always 
 
CH. I.] THE PHILOSOPHY OF LOCKE. 113 
 
 be perceived as soon and as clearly as the ideas them- 
 selves are, nor can it possibly be otherwise. 
 
 Secondly, The next sort of agreement or disagree- 
 ment the mind perceives in any of its ideas may, I 
 think, be called "relative," and is nothing but the 
 perception of the relation between any two ideas, of 
 what kind soever, whether substances, modes, or any 
 other. For, since all distinct ideas must eternally be 
 known not to be the same, and so be universally and 
 constantly denied one of another : there could be no 
 room for any positive knowledge at all, if we could 
 not perceive any relation between our ideas, and find 
 out the agreement or disagreement they have one with 
 another, in several ways the mind takes of comparing 
 them. 
 
 Thirdly, The third sort of agreement or disagree- 
 ment to be found in our ideas, which the percep- 
 tion of the mind is employed about, is co-existence, 
 or non-co-existence in the same subject ; and this 
 belongs particularly to substances. Thus when we 
 pronounce concerning "gold" that it is fixed, our 
 knowledge of this truth amounts to no more but this, 
 that fixedness, or a power to remain in the fire un- 
 consumed, is an idea that always accompanies and is 
 joined with that particular sort of yellowness, weight, 
 fusibility, malleableness and solubility in aqua regia, 
 which makes our complex idea, signified by the word 
 "gold." 
 
 Fourthly, The fourth and last sort is that of actual 
 real existence agreeing to any idea. Within these 
 four sorts of agreement or disagreement is, I suppose, 
 contained all the knowledge we have or are capable 
 of ; for, all the inquiries that we can make concern- 
 
114 THE PHILOSOPHY OF LOCKE. [BK. IV. 
 
 ing any of our ideas, all that we know or can affirm 
 concerning any of them, is, that it is or is not the 
 same with some other ; that it does or does not always - 
 co-exist with some other idea in the same subject ; 
 that it has this or that relation to some other idea ; 
 or that it has a real existence without the mind. 
 
 " What is truth ? " was an inquiry many ages since ; 
 and it being that which all mankind either do or pre- 
 tend to search after, it cannot but be worth our while 
 carefully to examine wherein it consists ; and so 
 acquaint ourselves with the nature of it, as to observe 
 how the mind distinguishes it from falsehood. 
 
 Truth then seems to me, in the proper import of 
 the word, to signify nothing but the joining or separat- 
 ing of signs, as the things signified by them do agree 
 or disagree one with another. The joining or separat- 
 ing of signs here meant, is what by another name we 
 call " proposition." 
 
 When ideas are so put together or separated in the 
 mind, as they or the things they stand for do agree 
 or not, that is, as I may call it "mental truth." But 
 truth of words is something more, and that is the 
 affirming or denying of words one of another, as the 
 ideas they stand for agree or disagree : and this again 
 is twofold ; either purely verbal or trifling, which I 
 shall speak of (chap, x.) or real and instructive, which 
 is the object of that real knowledge which we have 
 spoken of already. 
 
 i. The Degrees of Our Knowledge. 
 
 All our knowledge consisting, as I have said, in the 
 view the mind has of its own ideas, which is the 
 
CH. II.] THE PHILOSOPHY OF LOCKE. H5 
 
 utmost light and greatest certainty we, with our facul- 
 ties and in our way of knowledge, are capable of, it 
 %nay not be amiss to consider a little the degrees of its 
 evidence. The different clearness of our knowledge 
 seems to me to lie in the different way of perception 
 the mind has of the agreement or disagreement of any 
 of its ideas. For if we will reflect on our own ways 
 of thinking, we shall find that sometimes the mind 
 perceives the agreement or disagreement of two ideas 
 immediately by themselves, without the intervention 
 of any other : and this, I think, we may call " intuitive 
 knowledge." For in this the mind is at no pains of 
 proving or examining, but perceives the truth, as the 
 eye doth light, only by being directed towards it. 
 Thus the mind perceives that white is not black, that 
 a circle is not a triangle ; that three are more than 
 two, and equal to one and two. Such kind of truths 
 the mind perceives at the first sight of the ideas to- 
 gether, by bare intuition, without the intervention of 
 any other idea ; and this kind of knowledge is the 
 clearest and most certain that human frailty is capa- 
 ble of. This part of knowledge is irresistible, and, 
 like bright sunshine, forces itself immediately to be 
 perceived as soon as ever the mind turns its view that 
 way ; and leaves no room for hesitation, doubt, or 
 examination, but the mind is presently filled with the 
 clear light of it. It is on this intuition that depends 
 all the certainty and evidence of all our knowledge ; 
 which certainty every one finds to be so great, that he 
 cannot imagine, and therefore not require, a greater : 
 for a man cannot conceive himself capable of a 
 greater certainty, than to know that any idea in his 
 
Il6 THE PHILOSOPHY OF LOCKE. [BK. VI. 
 
 mind is such as he perceives it to be : and that two 
 ideas, wherein he perceives a difference, are different, 
 and not precisely the same. He that demands 
 greater certainty than this demands he knows not 
 what, and shows only that he has a mind to be a 
 sceptic without being able to be so. Certainty de- 
 pends so wholly on this intuition, that in the next de- 
 gree of knowledge, which I call " demonstrative," this 
 intuition is necessary in all the connections of the 
 intermediate ideas, without which we cannot attain 
 knowledge and certainty. 
 
 The next degree of knowledge is, where the mind 
 perceives the agreement or disagreement of any ideas, 
 but not immediately. Though wherever the mind 
 perceives the agreement or disagreement of any of its 
 ideas, there be certain knowledge ; yet it does not 
 always happen that the mind sees that agreement or 
 disagreement which there is between them, even 
 where it is discoverable ; and in that case remains in 
 ignorance, and at most gets no farther than a probable 
 conjecture. The reason why the mind cannot always 
 perceive presently the agreement or disagreement of 
 two ideas, is, because those ideas concerning whose 
 agreement or disagreement the inquiry is made, cannot 
 by the mind be so put together as to show it. In this 
 case then, when the mind cannot so bring its ideas 
 together as, by their immediate comparison and, as it 
 were, juxtaposition or application one to another, to 
 perceive their agreement or disagreement, it is fain, 
 by the intervention of other ideas (one or more, as it 
 happens), to discover the agreement or disagreement 
 which it searches ; and this is that which we call 
 " reasoning." 
 
CH. II.] THE PHILOSOPHY OF LOCKE. I 17 
 
 Thus the mind, being willing to know the agreement 
 or disagreement in bigness between the three angles of 
 a triangle and two right ones, cannot, by an immediate 
 view and comparing them, do it : because the three 
 angles of a triangle cannot be brought at once, and be 
 compared with any one or two angles ; and so of this 
 the mind has no immediate, no intuitive knowledge. 
 In this case the mind is fain to find out some other 
 angles, to which the three angles of a triangle have 
 an equality ; and finding those equal to two right 
 ones, comes to know their equality to two right ones. 
 
 Those intervening ideas which serve to show the 
 agreement of any two others, are called " proofs " ;| 
 and where the agreement or disagreement is by this 
 means plainly and clearly perceived, it is called] 
 " demonstration," it being shown to the understand- 
 ing^ami the mind made to see that it is so. 
 
 This knowledge by intervening proofs, though it be 
 certain, yet the evidence of it is not altogether so 
 clear and bright, nor the assent so ready, as in intu- 
 itive knowledge. For though in demonstration the 
 mind does at last perceive the agreement or disagree- 
 ment of the ideas it considers, yet it is not without 
 pains and attention : there must be more than one 
 transient view to find it. 
 
 Another difference between intuitive and demon- 
 strative knowledge, is, that though in the latter all 
 doubt be removed, when by the intervention of the 
 intermediate ideas the agreement or disagreement is 
 perceived ; yet before the demonstration there was a 
 doubt ; which in intuitive knowledge cannot happen 
 to the mind that has its faculty of perception left to a 
 degree capable of distinct ideas, no more than it can 
 
Il8 THE PHILOSOPHY OP LOCKE. [BK. IV. 
 
 be a doubt to the eye (that can distinctly see white 
 and black), whether this ink and this paper be all of a 
 color. If there be sight in the eyes, it will at first 
 glimpse, without hesitation, perceive the words printed 
 on this paper, different from the color of the paper. 
 
 Now, in every step reason makes in demonstrative 
 knowledge, there is an intuitive knowledge of that 
 agreement or disagreement it seeks with the next in- 
 termediate idea, which it uses as a proof : for if it 
 were not so, that yet would need a proof ; since with- 
 out the perception of such agreement or disagreement 
 there is no knowledge produced. If it be perceived 
 by itself, it is intuitive knowledge : if it cannot be 
 perceived by itself, there is need of some intervening 
 idea, as a common measure, to show their agreement 
 or disagreement. 
 
 2, The Extent of Human Knowledge. 
 
 Knowledge, as has been said, lying in the percep- 
 tion of the agreement or disagreement of any of our 
 ideas, it follows from hence, that, 
 
 First, We can have knowledge no farther than we 
 have ideas. 
 
 Secondly, That we can have no knowledge farther 
 than we can have perception of that agreement or 
 disagreement : which perception being, (i.) Either by 
 intuition, or the immediate comparing any two ideas ; 
 o , (2.) By reason, examining the agreement or dis- 
 agreement of two ideas by the intervention of some 
 others ; or, (3.) By sensation, perceiving the exist- 
 ence of particular things : hence it also follows, 
 
 ^ Thirdly, That we cannot have an intuitive knowl- 
 
CH. III.] THE PHILOSOPHY OF LOCKE. IIQ 
 
 edge that shall extend itself to all our ideas, and all 
 that we would know about them ; because we cannot 
 examine and perceive all the relations they have one 
 to another by juxtaposition, or an immediate com- 
 parison one with another. Thus having the ideas of 
 
 ' an obtuse and an acute angled triangle, both drawn 
 from equal bases, and between parallels, I can by in- 
 tuitive knowledge perceive the one not to be the 
 other ; but cannot that way know whether they be 
 equal or no : because their agreement or disagree- 
 ment in equality can never be perceived by an imme- 
 diate comparing them ; the difference of figure makes 
 their parts uncapable of an exact immediate applica- 
 tion ; and therefore there is need of some intervening 
 quantities to measure them by, which is demonstra- 
 tion or rational knowledge. 
 
 Fourthly, It follows also, from what is above ob- 
 served, that our rational knowledge cannot reach to 
 the whole extent of our ideas : because between two 
 different ideas we would examine, we cannot always 
 find such mediums as we can connect one to another 
 with an intuitive knowledge, in all the parts of the 
 deduction ; and wherever that fails, we come short of 
 knowledge and demonstration. 
 
 Fifthly, Sensitive knowledge, reaching no farther 
 than the existence of things actually present to our 
 senses, is yet much narrower than either of the 
 former. 
 
 We have the ideas of matter and thinking, but pos- 
 sibly shall never be able to know whether any mere 
 material being thinks or no ; it being impossible for 
 us, by the contemplation of our own ideas without 
 
120 THE PHILOSOPHY OF LOCKE. [BK. IV. 
 
 revelation, to discover whether Omnipotency has not 
 given to some systems of matter, fitly disposed, a 
 power to perceive and think, or else joined and fixed 
 to matter, so disposed, a thinking immaterial sub- 
 stance : it being, in respect of our notions, not much 
 more remote from our comprehension to conceive 
 that God can, if he pleases, superadd to matter a 
 faculty of thinking, than that he should superadd to it 
 another substance with a faculty of thinking ; since we 
 know not wherein thinking consists, nor to what sort 
 of substances the Almighty has been pleased to give 
 that power which cannot be in any created being but 
 merely by the good pleasure and bounty of the 
 Creator. For I see no contradiction in it, that the 
 first eternal thinking Being should, if he pleased, give 
 to certain systems of created senseless matter, put to- 
 gether as he thinks fit, some degrees of sense, percep- 
 tion, and thought : though, as I think I have proved, 
 (lib. iv. chap, x.), it is no less than a contradiction to 
 suppose matter (which is evidently in its own nature 
 void of sense and thought) should be that eternal 
 first thinking being. It is a point which seems to me 
 to be put out of the reach of our knowledge : and he 
 who will give himself leave to consider freely, and 
 look into the dark and intricate part of each hypoth- 
 esis, will scarce find his reason able to determine 
 him fixedly for or against the soul's materiality ; since 
 on which side soever he views it, either as an unex- 
 tended substance, or as a thinking extended matter, 
 the difficulty to conceive either will, whilst either 
 alone is in his thoughts, still drive him to the contrary 
 side : an unfair way which some men take with 
 
CH. III.] THE PHILOSOPHY OF LOCKE. 121 
 
 themselves ; who, because of the unconceivableness 
 of something they find in one, throw themselves vio- 
 lently into the contrary hypothesis, though altogether 
 as unintelligible to an unbiassed understanding. 
 
 Secondly, As to the second sort, which is the agree- 
 ment or disagreement of our ideas of co-existence, in 
 this our knowledge is very short, though in this con- 
 sists the greatest and most material part of our knowl- 
 edge concerning substances. For our ideas of the 
 species of substances being, as I have showed, nothing 
 but certain collections of simple ideas united in one 
 subject, and so co-existing together ; v. g., our idea 
 of "flame" is a body hot, luminous, and moving 
 upward ; of " gold," a body heavy to a certain degree, 
 yellow, malleable, and fusible. These, or some such 
 complex ideas as these in men's minds, do these two 
 names of the different substances, " flame " and 
 " gold," stand for. When we would know any thing 
 farther concerning these, or any other sort of sub- 
 stances, what do we inquire but what other qualities 
 or powers these substances have or have not ? which 
 is nothing else but to know what other simple ideas 
 do or do not co-exist with those that make up that 
 complex idea. 
 
 Our knowledge in all these inquiries reaches very 
 little farther than our experience. Indeed some 
 few of the primary qualities have a necessary depend- 
 ence and visible connection one with another, as 
 figure necessarily supposes extension, receiving or 
 communicating motion by impulse supposes solidity. 
 But though these and perhaps some others of our 
 ideas have, yet there are so few of them that have, a 
 
122 THE PHILOSOPHY OF LOCKE. [BK. IV. 
 
 visible connection one with another, that we can by 
 intuition or demonstration discover the co-existence 
 of very few of the qualities are to be found united in 
 substances : and we are left only to the assistance of 
 our senses to make known to us what qualities they 
 contain. For, of all the qualities that are co-existent 
 in any subject, without this dependence and evident 
 connection of their ideas one with another, we cannot 
 know certainly any two to co-exist any farther than 
 experience, by our senses, informs us. Thus though 
 we see the yellow color, and upon trial find the weight, 
 malleableness, fusibility, and fixedness that are united 
 in a piece of gold ; yet, because no one of these ideas 
 has any evident dependence or necessary connection 
 with the other, we cannot certainly know that where 
 any four of these are the fifth will be there also, how 
 highly probable soever it may be : because the highest 
 probability amounts not to certainty ; without which 
 there can be no true knowledge. For this co-exist- 
 ence can be no farther known than it is perceived : 
 and it cannot be perceived but either in particular 
 subjects by the observation of our senses, or in general 
 by the necessary connection of the ideas themselves. 
 
 The names of substances, then, whenever made to 
 stand for species which are supposed to be constituted 
 by real essences which we know not, are not capable 
 to convey certainty to the understanding : of the 
 truth of general propositions made up of such terms 
 we cannot be sure. The reason whereof is plain. 
 For, how can we be sure that this or that quality is in 
 gold, when we know not what is or is not gold ? since 
 in this way of speaking nothing is gold but what par- 
 takes of an essence, which we not knowing cannot know 
 
CH. VI.] THE PHILOSOPHY OF LOCKE. 123 
 
 where it is or is not, and so cannot be sure that any 
 parcel of matter in the world is or is not in this sense 
 gold ; being incurably ignorant whether it has or has 
 not that which makes any thing to be called " gold," 
 /. e., that real essence of gold whereof we have no idea 
 at all : this being as impossible for us to know, as it is 
 for a blind man to tell in what flower the color of a 
 pansy is or is not to be found, whilst he has no idea 
 of the color of a pansy at all. Or if we could (which 
 is impossible) certainly know where a real essence 
 which we know not, is, v. g., in what parcels of mat- 
 ter the real essence of gold is, yet could we not be 
 sure that this or that quality could with truth be 
 affirmed of gold : since it is impossible for us to know 
 that this or that quality of idea has a necessary con- 
 nection with a real essence, of which we have no idea 
 at all, whatever species that supposed real essence 
 may be imagined to constitute. 
 
 The complex ideas that our names of the species of 
 substances properly stand for, are collections of such 
 qualities as have been observed to co-exist in an un- 
 known substratum which we call " substance ; " but 
 what other qualities necessarily co-exist with such 
 combinations, we cannot certainly know, unless we 
 can discover their natural dependence ; which in their 
 primary qualities we can go but a very little way in ; 
 and in all their secondary qualities we can discover 
 no connection at all, for the reasons mentioned, 
 (chap, iii.) viz., (i.) Because we know not the real 
 constitutions of substances, on which each secondary 
 quality particularly depends. (2.) Did we know that 
 it would serve us only for experimental (not universal) 
 knowledge ; and reach with certainty no farther than 
 
124 THE PHILOSOPHY OF LOCKE. [BK. IV. 
 
 that bare instance : because our understandings can 
 discover no conceivable connection between any sec- 
 ondary quality, and any modification whatsoever of 
 any of the primary ones. And therefore there are 
 very few general propositions to be made concerning 
 substances which can carry with them undoubted 
 certainty. 
 
 And therefore I am apt to doubt, that how far 
 soever human industry may advance useful and ex- 
 perimental philosophy in physical things, scientifical 
 will still be out of our reach ; because we want perfect 
 and adequate ideas of those very bodies which are 
 nearest to us, and most under our command. Those 
 which we have ranked into classes under names, and 
 we think ourselves best acquainted with, we have but 
 very imperfect and incomplete ideas of. Distinct 
 ideas of the several sorts of bodies that fall under the 
 examination of our senses perhaps we may have ; but 
 adequate ideas, I suspect, we have not of any one 
 amongst them. 
 
 " All gold is fixed," is a proposition whose truth we 
 cannot be certain of, how universally soever it be be- 
 lieved. For if, according to the useless imagination 
 of the Schools, any one supposes the term "gold " to 
 stand for a species of things set out by nature by a 
 real essence belonging to it, it is evident he knows not 
 what particular substances are of that species ; and 
 so cannot, with certainty, affirm any thing universally 
 of gold. For the chief part of our knowledge con- 
 cerning substances is not, as in other things, barely of 
 the relation of two ideas that may exist separately ; 
 but is of the necessary connection and co-existence of 
 
CH. VI.] THE PHILOSOPHY OF LOCKE. 125 
 
 several distinct ideas in the same subject, or of their 
 repugnances so to co-exist. Could we begin at the 
 other end, and discover what it was therein that color 
 consisted, what made a body lighter or heavier, what 
 texture of parts made it malleable, fusible, and fixed, 
 and fit to be dissolved in this sort of liquor, and not 
 in another ; if (I say) we had such an idea as this of 
 bodies, and could perceive wherein all sensible quali- 
 ties originally consist, and how they are produced, we 
 might frame such abstract ideas of them as would 
 furnish us with matter of more general knowledge, 
 and enable us to make universal propositions that 
 should carry general truth and certainty with them. 
 
 We are not therefore to wonder if certainty be to 
 be found in very few general propositions made con- 
 cerning substances ; our knowledge of their qualities 
 and properties go very seldom farther than our senses 
 reach and inform us. Possibly inquisitive and ob- 
 serving men may, by strength of judgment, penetrate 
 farther ; and on probabilities taken from wary obser- 
 vation, and hints well laid together, often guess right 
 at what experience has not yet discovered to them. 
 But this is but guessing still ; it amounts only to 
 opinion, and has not that certainty which is requisite 
 to knowledge. For all general knowledge lies only in 
 our own thoughts, and consists barely in the contem- 
 plation of our own abstract ideas. 
 
 To conclude : general propositions, of what kind 
 soever, are then only capable of certainty, when the 
 terms used in them stand for such ideas whose agree- 
 ment or disagreement as there expressed is capable to 
 be discovered by us. And we are then certain of 
 
 /V Of THB ^^ 
 
126 THE PHILOSOPHY OF LOCKE. [BK. IV. 
 
 their truth or falsehood, when we perceive the ideas 
 the terms stand for to agree or not agree, according as 
 they are affirmed or denied one of another. Whence 
 we may take notice, that general certainty is never to 
 be found but in our ideas. Whenever we go to seek 
 it elsewhere in experiment or observations without 
 us, our knowledge goes not beyond particulars. It is 
 the contemplation of our own abstract ideas that 
 alone is able to afford us general knowledge. 
 
 If we are at a loss in respect of the powers and 
 operations of bodies, I think it is easy to conclude 
 we are much more in the dark in reference to spirits, 
 whereof we naturally have no ideas but what we draw 
 from that of our own, by reflecting on the operations 
 of our own souls within us, as far as they can come 
 within our observation. But how inconsiderable 
 rank the spirits that inhabit our bodies hold amongst 
 those various, and possibly innumerable, kinds of 
 nobler beings ; and how far short they come of the 
 endowments and perfections of cherubims and sera- 
 phims, and infinite sorts of spirits above us, is what 
 by a transient hint, in another place, I have offered to 
 my reader's consideration. 
 
 As to the fourth sort of our knowledge, viz., of the 
 real actual existence of things, we have an intuitive 
 knowledge of our own existence ; a demonstrative 
 knowledge of the existence of a God ; of the exist- 
 ence of any thing else, we have no other but a sensi- 
 tive knowledge, which extends not beyond the objects 
 present to our senses. 
 
 Our knowledge being so narrow, as I have showed, 
 it will, perhaps, give us some light into the present 
 
CHS. III. -VI.] THE PHILOSOPHY OF LOCKE. 127 
 
 state of our minds, if we look a little into the dark 
 side, and take a view of our ignorance : which, being 
 infinitely larger than our knowledge, may serve much 
 to the quieting of disputes and improvement of useful 
 knowledge, if, discovering how far we have clear and 
 distinct ideas, we confine out thoughts within the 
 contemplation of those things that are within the 
 reach of our understandings, and launch not out into 
 that abyss of darkness (where we have not eyes to 
 see, nor faculties to perceive any thing), out of a pre- 
 sumption that nothing is beyond our comprehension. 
 
 We shall the less wonder to find it so when we con- 
 sider the causes of our ignorance, which, from what 
 has been said, I suppose, will be found to be chiefly 
 these three : 
 
 FIRST, Want of ideas. 
 
 SECONDLY, Want of a discoverable connection 
 between the ideas we have. 
 
 THIRDLY, Want of tracing and examining our 
 ideas. 
 
 FIRST. There are some things, and those not a 
 few, that we are ignorant of for want of ideas. 
 
 First. All the simple ideas we have are confined 
 (as I have shown) to those we receive from corporeal 
 objects by sensation, and from the operations of our 
 own minds as the objects of reflection. But how 
 much these few and narrow inlets are disproportionate 
 to the vast whole extent of all beings, will not be hard 
 to persuade those who are not so foolish as to think 
 their span the measure of all things. What other 
 simple ideas it is possible the creatures in other parts 
 of the universe may have by the assistance of senses 
 
128 THE PHILOSOPHY OF LOCKE. [BK. IV. 
 
 and faculties more or perfecter than we have, or dif- 
 ferent from ours, it is not for us to determine ; but to 
 say or think there are no such because we conceive 
 nothing of them, is no better an argument than if a 
 blind man should be positive in it, that there was no 
 such thing as sight and colors because he had no 
 manner of idea of any such thing, nor could by any 
 means frame to himself any notions about seeing. 
 
 Secondly, Another great cause of ignorance is the 
 want of ideas we are capable of. As the want of 
 ideas which our faculties are not able to give us shuts 
 us wholly from those views of things which it is rea- 
 sonable to think other beings, perfecter than we, have, 
 of which we know nothing ; so the want of ideas I 
 now speak of keeps us in ignorance of things we con- 
 ceive capable of being known to us. Bulk, figure, 
 and motion, we have ideas of. But though we are not 
 without ideas of these primary qualities of bodies in 
 general, yet not knowing what is the particular bulk, 
 figure, and motion of the greatest part of the bodies 
 of the universe, we are ignorant of the several powers, 
 efficacies, and ways of operation, whereby the effects 
 which we daily see are produced. These are hid from 
 us in some things by being too remote ; and, in others, 
 by being too minute. 
 
 I doubt not but if we could discover the figure, 
 size, texture, and motion of the minute constituent 
 parts of any two bodies, we should know without trial 
 several of their operations one upon another, as we do 
 now the properties of a square or a triangle. Did we 
 know the mechanical affections of the particles of 
 rhubarb, hemlock, opium, and a man, as a watch- 
 
CH. III., IV.] THE PHILOSOPHY OF LOCKE. 129 
 
 maker does those of a watch, whereby it performs its 
 operations, and of a file, which, by rubbing on them, 
 will alter the figure of any of the wheels, we should 
 be able to tell beforehand that rhubarb will purge, 
 hemlock kill, and opium make a man sleep, as well as 
 a watchmaker can, that a little piece of paper laid on 
 the balance will keep the watch from going till it be 
 removed ; or that some small part of it being rubbed 
 by a file, the machine would quite lose its motion, and 
 the watch go no more. 
 
 SECONDLY, What a small part of the substantial 
 beings that are in the universe the want of ideas 
 leaves open to our knowledge, we have seen. In the 
 next place, another cause of ignorance of no less mo- 
 ment is a want of a discoverable connection between 
 those ideas which we have. For wherever we want 
 that, we are utterly uncapable of universal and certain 
 knowledge ; and are, as in the former case, left only 
 to observation and experiment ; which how narrow 
 and confined it is, how far from general knowledge, 
 we need not be told. I shall give some few instances 
 of this cause of our ignorance, and so leave it. It is 
 evident that the bulk, figure, and motion of several 
 bodies about us, produce in us several sensations, as 
 of colors, sounds, taste, smell, pleasure, and pain, etc. 
 These mechanical affections of bodies having no affin- 
 ity at all with those ideas they produce in us (there 
 being no conceivable connexion between any impulse 
 of any sort of body, and any perception of a color or 
 smell which we find in our minds), we can have no dis- 
 tinct knowledge of such operations beyond our expe- 
 rience ; and can reason no otherwise about them than 
 
130 THE PHILOSOPHY OF LOCKE. [BK. IV. 
 
 as effects produced by the appointment of an infi- 
 nitely wise Agent, which perfectly surpass our com- 
 prehensions. 
 
 3. The Reality of Our Knowledge. 
 
 Wherever we perceive the agreement or disagree- 
 ment of any of our ideas, there is certain knowledge : 
 and wherever we are sure those ideas agree with the 
 reality of things, there is certain real knowledge. 
 
 It is evident the mind knows not things immedi- 
 ately, but only by the intervention of the ideas it has 
 of them. Our knowledge therefore is real only so far 
 as there is a conformity between our ideas and the 
 reality of things. But what shall be here the crite- 
 rion ? How shall the mind, when it perceives nothing 
 but its own ideas, know that they agree with things 
 themselves ? This, though it seems not to want diffi- 
 culty, yet I think there be two sorts of ideas that we 
 may be assured agree with things : 
 
 First. The first are simple ideas, which since the 
 mind, as has been shown, can by no means make to 
 itself, must necessarily be the product of things oper- 
 ating on the mind in the natural way, and producing 
 therein those perceptions which by the wisdom and 
 will of our Maker they are ordained and adapted to. 
 From whence it follows, that simple ideas are not 
 fictions of our fancies, but the natural and regular 
 productions of things without us really operating upon 
 us ; and so carry with them all the conformity which 
 is intended, or which our state requires ; for they 
 represent to us things under those appearances which 
 they are fitted to produce in us, whereby we are 
 
CHS. VIII. AND IV.] THE PHILOSOPHY OF LOCKE. 131 
 
 enabled to distinguish the sorts of particular sub- 
 stances,' to discern the states they are in, and so to 
 take them for our necessities, and apply them to 
 our uses. Thus the idea of whiteness or bitterness, 
 as it is in the mind, exactly answering that power 
 which is in any body to produce it there, has all the 
 real conformity it can or ought to have with things 
 without us. And this conformity between our simple 
 ideas and the existence of things is sufficient for real 
 knowledge. 
 
 Secondly. All our complex ideas except those of 
 substances being archetypes of the mind's own mak- 
 ing, not intended to be the copies of any thing, nor 
 referred to the existence of any thing, as to their 
 originals, cannot want any conformity necessary to 
 real knowledge. 
 
 We can know then the truth of two sorts of propo- 
 sitions with perfect certainty ; the one is, of those 
 trifling propositions which have a certainty in them, 
 but it is only a verbal certainty, but not instructive. 
 And, secondly, we can know the truth, and so may 
 be certain in propositions which affirm something of 
 another, which is a necessary consequence of its pre- 
 cise complex idea, but not contained in it : as that 
 "the external angle of all triangles is bigger than 
 either of the opposite internal angles ; " which rela- 
 . tion of the outward angle to either of the opposite 
 internal angles, making no part of the complex idea 
 signified by the name " triangle," this is a real truth, 
 and conveys with it instructive real knowledge. 
 
 I doubt not but it will be easily granted that the 
 knowledge we have of mathematical truths, is not 
 
132 THE PHILOSOPHY OF LOCKE. [BK. IV. 
 
 only certain, but real knowledge ; and not the bare 
 empty vision of vain, insignificant chimeras of the 
 brain : and yet, if we will consider, we shall find that 
 it is only of our own ideas. The mathematician con- 
 siders the truth and properties belonging to a rect- 
 angle or circle, only as they are in idea in his own 
 mind. For it is possible he never found either 
 of them existing mathematically, /'. e., precisely true 
 in his life. But yet the knowledge he has of any 
 truths or properties belonging to a circle, or any other 
 mathematical figure, are nevertheless true and certain 
 even of real things existing : because real things 
 are no farther concerned, nor intended to be meant 
 by any such propositions, than as things really agree 
 to those archetypes in his mind. 
 
 And hence it follows that moral knowledge is as 
 capable of real certainty as mathematics. For, cer- 
 tainty being but the perception of the agreement or 
 disagreement of our ideas, and demonstration nothing 
 but the perception of such agreement by the inter- 
 vention of other ideas or mediums, our moral ideas 
 as well as mathematical being archetypes themselves, 
 and so adequate and complete ideas, all. the agree- 
 ment or disagreement which we shall find in them 
 will produce real knowledge, as well as in mathemati- 
 cal figures. 
 
 Let us proceed now to inquire concerning our 
 knowledge of the -existence of things, and how we 
 come by it. I say then, that we have the knowledge 
 of our own existence by intuition ; of the existence 
 of God by demonstration ; and of other things by 
 sensation. 
 
CH. X.] THE PHILOSOPHY OF LOCKE. 133 
 
 As for our own existence, we perceive it so plainly 
 and so certainly that it neither needs nor is capable 
 of any proof. For nothing can be more evident to 
 us than our own existence. I think, I reason, I feel 
 pleasure and pain : can any of these be more evident 
 to me than my own existence ? If I doubt of all 
 things, that very doubt makes me perceive my own 
 existence, and will not suffer me to doubt of that. 
 For, if I know I feel pain, it is evident I have as cer- 
 tain perception of my own existence, as of the exist- 
 ence of the pain I feel : or if I know I doubt, I have 
 as certain perception of the existence of the thing 
 doubting, as of that thought which I call " doubt." 
 Experience, then, convinces us that we have an intui- 
 tive knowledge of our own existence, and an internal 
 infallible perception that we are. In every act of 
 sensation, reasoning, or thinking, we are conscious to 
 ourselves of our own being ; and, in this matter, come 
 not short of the highest degree of certainty. 
 
 Though God has given us no innate ideas of him- 
 self ; though he has stamped no original characters 
 on our minds, wherein we may read his being ; yet, 
 having furnished us with those faculties our minds are 
 endowed with, he hath not left himself without wit- 
 ness ; since we have sense, perception, and reason, 
 and cannot want a clear proof of him as long as we 
 carry ourselves about us. To show, therefore, that we 
 are capable of knowing, /". e. y being certain, that there 
 is a God, and how we may come by this certainty, I 
 think we may go no farther than ourselves, and that 
 undoubted knowledge we have of our own existence. 
 
 I think it is beyond question, that man has a clear 
 
IJ4 THE PHILOSOPHY OF LOCKE. [BK. IV. 
 
 perception of his own being ; he knows certainly that 
 he exists, and that he is something. This, then, I 
 think I may take for a truth, which every one's certain 
 knowledge assures him of beyond the liberty of 
 doubting, viz., that he is something that actually 
 exists. 
 
 In the next place, man knows by an intuitive cer- 
 tainty that bare nothing can no more produce any real 
 being, than it can be equal to two right angles. If a 
 man knows not that nonentity, or the absence of all 
 being, cannot be equal to two right angles, it is impos- 
 sible he should know any demonstration in Euclid. 
 If therefore we know there is some real being, and 
 that nonentity cannot produce any real being, it is an 
 evident demonstration, that from eternity there has 
 been something ; since what was not from eternity 
 had a beginning ; and what had a beginning must be 
 produced by something else. 
 
 Next, it is evident, that what had its being and be- 
 ginning from another, must also have all that which is 
 in and belongs to its being from another too. All the 
 powers it has, must be owing to and received from the 
 same source. This eternal source, then, of all being, 
 must also be the source and original of all power : 
 and so this Eternal Being must be also the most pow- 
 erful. 
 
 Again : a man finds in himself perception and 
 knowledge. We have then got one step farther ; and 
 we are certain now that there is not only some being, 
 but some knowing, intelligent being in the world. 
 
 There was a time, then, when there was no knowing 
 being, and when knowledge began to be ; or else there 
 
CH. X.] THE PHILOSOPHY OF LOCKE. 135 
 
 has been also a knowing Being from eternity. If it 
 be said, "There was a time when no being had any 
 knowledge, when that Eternal Being was void of all 
 understanding ; " I reply, that then it was impossible 
 there should ever have been any knowledge ; it being 
 as impossible that things wholly void of knowledge, 
 and operating blindly and without any perception, 
 should produce a knowing being, as it is impossible 
 that a triangle should make itself three angles bigger 
 than two right ones. For it is as repugnant to the 
 idea of senseless matter that it should put into itself 
 sense-perception, and knowledge, as it is repugnant to 
 the idea of a triangle that it should put into itself 
 greater angles than two right ones. 
 
 Thus from the consideration of ourselves, and what 
 we infallibly find in our own constitutions, our reason 
 leads us to the knowledge of this certain and evident 
 truth, that there is an eternal, most powerful, and 
 most knowing Being, which whether any one will 
 please to call " God," it matters not. The thing is 
 evident ; and from this idea duly considered, will 
 easily be deducted all those other attributes which we 
 ought to ascribe to this Eternal Being. Though our 
 own being furnishes us, as I have shown, with an 
 evident and incontestable proof of a Deity ; and I 
 believe nobody can avoid the cogency of it who will 
 but as carefully attend to it as to any other dem- 
 onstration of so many parts ; yet this being so fun- 
 damental a truth, and of that consequence that all 
 religion and genuine morality depend thereon, I doubt 
 not but I shall be forgiven by my reader if I go over 
 some parts of this argument again, and enlarge a 
 little more upon them. 
 
136 THE PHILOSOPHY OF LOCKE. [BK. IV. 
 
 There is no truth more evident than that something 
 must be from eternity. 
 
 It being then unavoidable for all rational creatures 
 to conclude that something has existed from eternity, 
 let its next see what kind of thing that must be. 
 
 There are but two sorts of beings in the world that 
 man knows or conceives : 
 
 First, Such as are purely material, without sense, 
 perception, or thought, as the clippings of our beards 
 and parings of our nails. 
 
 Secondly, Sejisi^le, thinking, perceiving beings, 
 such as we find ourselves to be ; which, if you please, 
 we will hereafter call " cogitative and incogitative 
 beings ; " which to our present purpose, if for nothing 
 else, are perhaps better terms than "material and 
 immaterial." 
 
 If then there must be something sternal, let us see 
 what sort of being it must be. And to that it is very 
 obvious to reason, that it must necessarily be a c_Qgi= 
 tative being. For it is as impossible to conceive that 
 ever bare incogitative matter should produce a think- 
 ing intelligent being, as that nothing should of itself 
 produce matter. 
 
 I appeal to every one's own thoughts, whether he 
 cannot as easily conceive matter produced by noth- 
 ing, as thought to be produced by pure matter, when 
 before there was no such thing as thought or an in- 
 telligent being existing. If matter were the eternal 
 first cogitative being, there would not be one eternal 
 infinite cogitative being, but an infinite number of 
 eternal finite cogitative beings independent one of 
 another, of limited force and distinct thoughts, which 
 
CH. XL] THE PHILOSOPHY OF LOCKE. 137 
 
 could never produce that order, harmony, and beauty, 
 which is to be found in nature. Since, therefore, 
 whatsoever is the first eternal being must necessarily 
 be cogitative ; and whatsoever is first of all things 
 must necessarily contain in it, and actually have, at 
 least, all the perfections that can ever after exist ; nor 
 can it ever give to another any perfection that it hath 
 not, either actually in itself or at least in a higher de- 
 gree : it necessarily follows, that the first eternal being 
 cannot be matter. 
 
 If, therefore, it be evident that something neces- 
 sarily must exist from eternity, it is also as evident 
 that that something must necessarily be a cogitative 
 Jbging : for it is as impossible that incogitative matter 
 should produce a cogitative being, as that nothing, or 
 the negation of all being, should produce a positive 
 being or matter. 
 
 The knowledge of our own being we have by intui- 
 tion. The existence of a God reason clearly makes 
 known to us, as has been shown. 
 
 The knowledge of the existence of any other thing, 
 we can have only by sensation : for, there being no 
 necessary connection of real existence with any idea 
 a man hath in his memory, nor of any other existence 
 but that of God with the existence of any particular 
 man, no particular man can know the existence of any 
 other being, but only when by actual operating upon 
 him it makes itself perceived by him. For, the hav- 
 ing the idea of any thing in our mind no more proves 
 the existence of that thing than the picture of a man 
 evidences his being in the world, or the visions of a 
 dream make thereby a true history. 
 
138 THE PHILOSOPHY OF LOCKE. [BK. IV. 
 
 It is therefore the actual receiving of ideas from 
 without that gives us notice of the existence of other 
 things, and makes us know that something doth exist 
 at that time without us which causes that idea in us, 
 though perhaps we neither know nor consider how it 
 does it : for it takes not from the certainty of our 
 senses, and the ideas we receive by them, that we 
 know not the manner wherein they are produced ; 
 v. g., whilst I write this, I have, by the paper affecting 
 my eyes, that idea produced in my mind which what- 
 ever object causes, I call " white ; " by which I know 
 that that quality or accident (/. ^., whose appearance 
 before my eyes always causes that idea) doth really 
 exist and hath a being without me. 
 
 The notice we have by our senses of the existing of 
 things without us, though it be not altogether so cer- 
 tain as our intuitive knowledge, or the deductions of 
 our reason employed about the clear abstract ideas of 
 our own minds ; yet it is an assurance that deserves 
 the name of knowledge. If we persuade ourselves 
 that our faculties act and inform us right concerning 
 the existence of those objects that affect them, it 
 cannot pass for an ill-grounded confidence : for I 
 think nobody can, in earnest, be so sceptical as to be 
 uncertain of the existence of those things which he 
 sees and feels. 
 
 This is certain, the confidence that our faculties 
 do not herein deceive us is the greatest assurance we 
 are capable of concerning the existence of material 
 beings. For we cannot act any thing but by our fac- 
 ulties, nor talk of knowledge itself but by the help 
 of those faculties which are fitted to apprehend even 
 
CH. XI.] THE PHILOSOPHY OF LOCKE. 139 
 
 what knowledge is. But, besides the assurance we 
 have from our senses themselves, that they do not err 
 in the information they give us of the existence of 
 things without us, when they are affected by them, we 
 are farther confirmed in this assurance by other coix- 
 current reasons. 
 
 First, It is plain those perceptions are produced 
 in us by exterior causes affecting our senses, because 
 those that want the organs of any sense never can 
 have the ideas belonging to that sense produced in 
 their minds. 
 
 Secondly, Because sometimes I find that I cannot 
 avoid the having those ideas produced in my mind ; 
 for though when my eyes are shut, or windows fast, I 
 can at pleasure recall to my mind the ideas of light or 
 the sun, which former sensations had lodged in my 
 memory ; so I can at pleasure lay by that idea, and 
 take into my view that of the smell of a rose, or taste 
 of sugar. But if I turn my eyes at noon towards the 
 sun, I cannot avoid the ideas which the light or sun 
 then produces in me. So that there is a manifest 
 difference between the ideas laid up in my memory 
 (over which, if they were there only, I should have 
 constantly the same power to dispose of them, and 
 lay them by at pleasure), and those which force them- 
 selves upon me and I cannot avoid having. And 
 therefore it must needs be some exterior cause, and 
 the brisk acting of some objects without me, whose 
 efficacy I cannot resist, that produces those ideas in 
 my mind, whether I will or no. 
 
 Fourthly, Our senses, in many cases, bear witness to 
 the truth of each other's report concerning the exist- 
 
140 THE PHILOSOPHY OF LOCKE. [BK. IV. 
 
 ence of sensible things without us. He that sees a 
 fire may, if he doubt whether it be any thing more 
 than a bare fancy, feel it too, and be convinced by 
 putting his hand in it ; which certainly could never be 
 put into such exquisite pain by a bare idea or phan- 
 tom, unless that the pain be a fancy too : which yet 
 he cannot, when the burn is well, by raising the idea 
 of it, bring upon himself again. 
 
 So that this evidence is as great as we can desire, 
 being as certain to us as our pleasure or pain, i.e., 
 happiness or misery ; beyond which we have no con- 
 cernment either of knowing or being. Such an assur- 
 ance of the existence of things without us, is sufficient 
 to direct us in the attaining the good and avoiding 
 the evil which is caused by them, which is the impor- 
 tant concernment we have of being made acquainted 
 with them. 
 
 In fine, then, when our senses do actually convey 
 into our understandings any idea, we cannot but be 
 satisfied that there doth something at that time really 
 exist without us which doth affect our senses, and by 
 them give notice of itself to our apprehensive facul- 
 ties, and actually produce that idea which we then 
 perceive : and we cannot so far distrust their testi- 
 mony as to doubt that such collections of simple ideas 
 as we have observed by our senses to be united 
 together, do really exist together. But this knowledge 
 extends as far as the present testimony of our senses, 
 employed about particular objects that do then affect 
 them, and no farther. For if I saw such a collection 
 of simple ideas as is wont to be called " man " existing 
 together one minute since, and am now alone ; I can- 
 
CHS.XIV.ANDXV.] THE PHILOSOPHY OF LOCKE. 141 
 
 not be certain that the same man exists now, since 
 there is no necessary connection of his existence a 
 minute since, with his existence now : by a thousand 
 ways he may cease to be, since I had the testimony of 
 my senses for his existence. 
 
 As, when our senses are actually employed about 
 any object, we do not know that it does exist, so by 
 our memory we may be assured that heretofore things 
 that affected our senses have existed. And thus we 
 have knowledge of the past existence of several things, 
 whereof our senses having informed us, our memories 
 still retain the ideas ; and of this we are past all doubt 
 so long as we remember well. But this knowledge 
 also reaches no farther than our senses have formerly 
 assured us. 
 
 Of Judgment and Probability. 
 
 The understanding faculties being given to man, 
 not barely for speculation, but also for the conduct of 
 his life, man would be at a great loss if he had noth- 
 ing to direct him but what has the certainty of true 
 knowledge. For, that being very short and scanty, as 
 we have seen, he would be often utterly in the dark, 
 and in most of the actions of his life perfectly at a 
 stand, had he nothing to guide him in the absence of 
 clear and certain knowledge. He that will not eat till 
 he has demonstration that it will nourish him, he that 
 will not stir till he infallibly knows the business he 
 goes about will succeed, will have little else to do but 
 sit still and perish. 
 
 The faculty which God has given man to supply the 
 want of clear andi certain knowledge, in cases where 
 
142 THE PHILOSOPHY OF LOCKE. [BK. IV. 
 
 that cannot be had, is judgment : whereby the mind 
 takes its ideas to agree or disagree ; or, which is the 
 same, any proposition to be true or false, without per- 
 ceiving a demonstrative evidence in the proofs. 
 
 This faculty of the mind, when it is exercised im- 
 mediately about things, is called "judgment ; " when 
 about truths delivered in words, is most commonly 
 called " assent " or " dissent : " which being the most 
 usual way wherein the mind has occasion to employ 
 this faculty, I shall, under these terms, treat of it as 
 least liable in our language to equivocation. 
 
 Thus the mind has two faculties conversant about 
 truth and falsehood, 
 
 First, Knowledge, whereby it certainly perceives, 
 and is undoubtedly satisfied of the agreement or dis- 
 agreement of any ideas. 
 
 Secondly, Judgment, which is the putting ideas 
 together, or separating them from one another in the 
 mind, when their certain agreement or disagreement is 
 not perceived, but presumed to be so ; which is, as 
 the word imports, taken to be so before it certainly 
 appears. And if it so unites or separates them as in 
 reality things are, it is right judgment. 
 
 As demonstration is the showing the agreement or 
 disagreement of two ideas by the intervention of one 
 or more proofs, which have a constant, immutable, and 
 visible connection one with another ; so probability is 
 nothing but the appearance of such an agreement or 
 disagreement by the intervention of proofs, whose 
 connection is not constant and immutable, or at least 
 is not perceived to be so ; but is, or appears for the 
 most part to be so, and is enough to induce the mind 
 
CH.XV.,XVL] THE PHILOSOPHY OF LOCKE. 143 
 
 to judge the proposition to be true or false, rather 
 than the contrary. 
 
 Probability is likeliness to be true ; the very nota- 
 tion of the word signifying such a proposition for 
 which there be arguments or proofs to make it pass, 
 or be received, for true. The entertainment the mind 
 gives this sort of propositions is called " belief," 
 " assent," or " opinion," which is the admitting or re- 
 ceiving any proposition for true, upon arguments or 
 proofs that are found to persuade us to receive it as 
 true, without certain knowledge that it is so. And 
 herein lies the difference between probability and cer- 
 tainty, faith and knowledge, that in all the parts of 
 knowledge there is intuition ; each immediate idea, 
 each step, has its visible and certain connection : in 
 belief not so. That which makes me believe, is 
 something extraneous to the thing I believe ; some- 
 thing not evidently joined on both sides to, and so 
 not manifestly showing the agreement or disagree- 
 ment of those ideas that are under consideration. 
 
 Probability, then, being to supply the defect of our 
 knowledge, and to guide us where that fails, is always 
 conversant about propositions whereof we have no 
 certainty, but only some inducements to receive them 
 for true. The grounds of it are, in short, these two 
 following : 
 
 First. The conformity of any thing with our own 
 knowledge, observation, and experience. 
 
 Secondly. The testimony of others, vouching their 
 observation and experience. In the testimony of 
 others, is to be considered, (i.) The number. (2.) 
 The integrity. (3.) The skill of the witnesses. (4.) 
 
144 THE PHILOSOPHY OF LOCKE. [BK. IV. 
 
 The design of the author, where it is a testimony out 
 of a book cited. (5.) The consistency of the parts 
 and circumstances of the relation. (6.) Contrary tes- 
 timonies. 
 
 Upon these grounds depends the probability of any 
 proposition : and as the conformity of our knowledge, 
 as the certainty of observations, as the frequency and 
 constancy of experience, and the number and credi- 
 bility of testimonies do more or less agree or disagree 
 with it, so is any proposition in itself more or less 
 probable. 
 
 The grounds of probability we have laid down in 
 the foregoing chapter, as they are the foundations on 
 which our assent is built, so are they also the measure 
 whereby its several degrees are or ought to be regu- 
 lated : only we are to take notice, that whatever 
 grounds of probability there may be, they yet operate 
 no further on the mind, which searches after truth 
 and endeavors to judge right, than they appear at 
 least in the first judgment or search that the mind 
 makes. 
 
 But, to return to the grounds of assent, and the 
 several degrees of it : we are to take notice that the 
 propositions we receive upon inducements of proba- 
 bility are of two sorts ; either concerning some par- 
 ticular existence, or, as it is usually termed, " matter- 
 of-fact," which, falling under observation, is capable 
 of human testimony ; or else concerning things which, 
 being beyond the discovery of our senses, are not 
 capable of any such testimony. 
 
 Concerning the first of these, viz., particular matter- 
 of-fact ; 
 
CH. XVI.] THE PHILOSOPHY OF LOCKE. 145 
 
 First, Where any particular thing, consonant to the 
 constant observation of ourselves and others in the 
 like case, comes attested by the concurrent reports of 
 all that mention it, we receive it as easily and build 
 as firmly upon it as if it were certain knowledge ; and 
 we reason and act thereupon with as little doubt as if 
 it were. 
 
 The first, therefore, and highest degree of proba- 
 bility is, when the general consent of all men in all 
 ages, as far as it can be known, concurs with a man's 
 constant and never-failing experience in like cases, 
 to confirm the truth of any particular matter-of-fact 
 attested by fair witnesses ; such are all the stated con- 
 stitutions and properties of bodies, and the regular 
 proceedings of causes and effects in the ordinary 
 course of nature. 
 
 Secondly, The next degree of probability is, when 
 I find by my own experience, and the agreement of 
 all orders that mention it, a thing to be for the most 
 part so ; and that the particular instance of it is 
 attested by many and undoubted witnesses ; v. g., 
 history giving us such an account of men in all ages, 
 and my own experience, as far as I had an opportu- 
 nity to observe, confirming it, that most men prefer 
 their private advantage to the public ; if all historians 
 that write of Tiberius say, that Tiberius did so, it is 
 extremely probable. And in this case, our assent has 
 a sufficient foundation to raise itself to a degree which 
 we may call "confidence." 
 
 Thirdly, In things that happen indifferently, as 
 " that a bird should fly this or that way," " that it 
 should thunder on a man's right or left hand," etc., 
 
146 THE PHILOSOPHY OF LOCKE. [BK. IV. 
 
 when any particular matter-of-fact is vouched by the 
 concurrent testimony of unsuspected witnesses, there 
 our assent is also unavoidable. 
 
 The difficulty is, when testimonies contradict com- 
 mon experience, and the reports of history and wit- 
 nesses clash with the ordinary course of nature, or 
 with one another ; there it is where diligence, atten- 
 tion, and exactness is required to form a right judg- 
 ment, and to proportion the assent to the different 
 evidence and probability of the thing, which rises and 
 falls according as those two foundations of credi- 
 bility, viz., common observation in like cases, and par- 
 ticular testimonies in that particular instance, favor 
 or contradict it. 
 
 The probabilities we have hitherto mentioned are 
 only such as concern matter-of-fact, and such things 
 as are capable of observation and testimony. There 
 remains that other sort concerning which men enter- 
 tain opinions with variety of assent, though the things 
 be such that, falling not under the reach of our senses, 
 they are not capable of testimony. Such are, (i.) 
 The existence, nature, and operations of finite imma- 
 terial beings without us, as spirits, angels, devils, etc., 
 or the existence of material beings, which, either from 
 their smallness in themselves or remoteness from us, 
 our senses Cannot take notice of : as whether there be 
 any plants, animals, and intelligent inhabitants in 
 the planets and other mansions of the vast universe. 
 (2) Concerning the manner of operation in most parts 
 of the works of nature ; wherein, though we see the 
 sensible effects, yet their causes are unknown, and we 
 
CH. XVI.] THE PHILOSOPHY OF LOCKE. 147 
 
 perceive not the ways and manner how they are pro- 
 duced. 
 
 Though the common experience and the ordinary 
 course of things have justly a mighty influence on the 
 minds of men to make them give or refuse credit to 
 any thing proposed to their belief ; yet there is one 
 case wherein the strangeness of the fact lessens not 
 the assent to a fair testimony given of it. For, where 
 such supernatural events are suitable to ends aimed 
 at by Him who has the power to change the course 
 of nature, there, under such circumstances, they may 
 be the fitter to procure belief, by how much the more 
 they are beyond or contrary to ordinary observation. 
 This is the proper case of miracles ; which, well at- 
 tested, do not only find credit themselves, but give it 
 also to other truths which need such confirmation. 
 
 Besides those we have hitherto mentioned, there is 
 one sort of propositions that challenge the highest de- 
 gree of our assent, upon bare testimony, whether the 
 thing proposed agree or disagree with common expe- 
 rience and the ordinary course of things or no. The 
 reason whereof is, because the testimony is of such an 
 one as cannot deceive nor be deceived, and that is of 
 God himself. This carries with it assurance beyond 
 doubt, evidence beyond exception. This is called by 
 a peculiar name, " revelation," and our assent to it, 
 " faith ; " which as absolutely determines our minds 
 and as perfectly excludes all wavering, as our knowl- 
 edge itself : and we may as well doubt of our own 
 being as we can whether any revelation from God be 
 true. 
 
148 THF PHILOSOPHY OF LOCKE. [BK. IV. 
 
 REASON AND REASONING. 
 
 If general knowledge, as has been shown, consists 
 in a perception of the agreement or disagreement of 
 our own ideas, and the knowledge of the existence of 
 all things without us (except only of a God, whose 
 existence every man may certainly know and demon- 
 strate to himself from his own existence) be had only 
 by our senses ; what room then is there for the exer- 
 cise of any other faculty but outward sense and in- 
 ward perception ? What need is there of reason ? 
 Very much ; both for the enlargement of our knowl- 
 edge and regulating our assent : forTTrTath to do both 
 in knowledge and opinion, and is necessary and as- 
 sisting to all our other intellectual faculties, and in- 
 deed contains two of them, viz., sagacity and illation. 
 By the one it finds out, and by the other it so orders, 
 the intermediate ideas as to discover what connection 
 there is in each link of the chain, whereby the ex- 
 tremes are held together ; and thereby, as it were, to 
 draw into view the truth sought for, which is that we 
 call " illation" or " inference," and consists in nothing 
 but the perception of the connection there is between 
 the ideas in each step of the deduction, whereby the 
 mind comes to see either the certain agreement or 
 disagreement of any two ideas, as in demonstration, in 
 which it arrives at knowledge ; or their probable con- 
 nection, on which it gives or withholds its assent, as 
 in opinion. Sense and intuition reach but a very little 
 
CH. XVIL] THE PHILOSOPHY OF LOCKE. 149 
 
 way. The greatest part of our knowledge depends 
 upon deductions and intermediate ideas : and in those 
 cases where we are fain to substitute assent instead of 
 knowledge, and take propositions for true without 
 being certain they are so, we have need to find out, 
 examine, and compare the grounds of their probabil- 
 ity. In both these cases the faculty which finds out 
 the means, and rightly applies them to discover cer- 
 tainty in the one and probability in the other, is that 
 which we call " reason." For, as reason perceives the 
 necessary and indubitable connection of all the ideas 
 or proofs one to another in each step of any demon- 
 stration that produces knowledge, so it likewise per- 
 ceives the probable connection of all the ideas or 
 proofs one to another, in every step of a discourse to 
 which it will think assent due. This is the lowest de- 
 gree of that which can be truly called " reason." For, 
 where the mind does not perceive this probable con- 
 nection, where it does not discern whether there be 
 any such connection or no, there men's opinions are 
 not the product of judgment or the consequence of 
 reason, but the effects of chance and hazard, of a 
 mind floating at all adventures, without choice and 
 without direction. 
 
 So that we may in reason consider these fco^ do* . 
 grees : The first_and highest is the discovering and 
 firio r mgjaut of proofs ; the second, the regular and 
 methodical disposition of them, and laying them in a 
 clear and fit order, to make their connection and force 
 be plainly and easily perceived ; the third is the per- 
 ceiving thir_connecdon ; and the fourth, a makin^_a. 
 right conclusion. These several degrees may be ob- 
 
150 THE PHILOSOPHY OF LOCKE. [BK. IV. 
 
 served in any mathematical demonstration : it being 
 one thing, to perceive the connection of each part as 
 the demonstration is made by another ; another, to 
 perceive the dependence of the conclusion on all the 
 parts ; a third, to make out a demonstration clearly 
 and neatly one's self ; and something different from 
 all these, to have first found out those intermediate 
 ideas or proofs by which it is made. 
 
 There is one thing more which I shall desire to be 
 considered concerning reason ; and that is, whether 
 syllogism, as is generally thought, be the proper instru- 
 ment of it, and the usefullest way of exercising this 
 faculty. The causes I have no doubt are these : 
 
 First, Because syllogism serves our reason but in 
 one only of the fore-mentioned parts of it ; and that 
 is, to show the connection of the proofs in any one 
 instance and no more ; but in this it is of no great 
 use, since the mind can perceive such connection, 
 where it really is as easily, nay perhaps better, with- 
 out it. 
 
 If we will observe the actings of our own minds, 
 we shall find that we reason best and clearest when 
 we only observe the connection of the proof, without 
 reducing our thoughts to any rule of syllogism. And 
 therefore we may take notice that there are many 
 men that reason exceeding clear and rightly, who 
 know not how to make a syllogism. 
 
 \But God has not been so sparing to men to make 
 them barely two-legged creatures, and left it to Aris- 
 totle to make them rationa^ ; /. ^., those few of them 
 that he could get so to examine the grounds of syllo- 
 gisms as to see that in above threescore ways that three 
 
CH, XVII.] THE PHILOSOPHY OF LOCKE. 151 
 
 propositions may be laid together, there are but about 
 fourteen wherein one may be sure that the conclusion 
 is right, and upon what ground it is that in these few 
 the conclusion is certain, and in the other not. God 
 has been more bountiful to mankind than so ; he has 
 given them a mind that can reason without being in- 
 structed in methods of syllogism : the understanding 
 is not taught to reason by these rules ; it has a native 
 faculty to perceive the coherence or incoherence of 
 its ideas and can range them right without any such 
 perplexing repetitions. 
 
 Inference is looked on as the great act of the 
 rational faculty ; and so it is when it is rightly made : 
 but the mind, either very desirous to enlarge its 
 knowledge, or very apt to favor the sentiments it has 
 once imbibed, is very forward to make inferences, 
 and therefore often makes too much haste before it 
 perceives the connection of the ideas that must hold 
 the extremes together. 
 
 To infer is nothing but, by virtue of one proposi- 
 tion laid down as true, to draw in another as true ; 
 /. e., to see or suppose such a connection of the two 
 ideas of the inferred proposition. V. g., let this be 
 the proposition laid down, " Men shall be punished 
 in another world," and from thence be inferred this 
 other, " Then men can determine themselves." The 
 question now is to know whether the mind has made 
 this inference right or no ; if it has made it by finding 
 out the intermediate ideas, and taking a view of the 
 connection of them placed in a due order, it has pro- 
 ceeded rationally, and made a right inference. If it 
 has done it without such a view, it has not so much 
 
152 THE PHILOSOPHY OF LOCKE. [BK. IV. 
 
 made an inference that will hold, or an inference of 
 right reason, as shown a willingness to have it be or 
 be taken for such. But in neither case is it syllogism 
 that discovered those ideas, or showed the connection 
 of them ; for they must be both found out, and the 
 connection everywhere perceived, before they can ra- 
 tionally be made use of in syllogism. 
 
 Another reason that makes me doubt whether syllo- 
 gism be the only proper instrument of reason in the 
 discovery of truth, is, that of whatever use mode and 
 figure is pretended to be in the laying open of fallacy 
 (which has been above considered), those scholastic 
 forms of discourse are not less liable to fallacies than 
 the plainer ways of argumentation ; and for this I 
 appeal to common observation, which has always 
 found these artificial methods of reasoning more 
 adapted to catch and entangle the mind than to in- 
 struct and inform the understanding. 
 
 The rules of syllogism serve not to furnish the 
 mind with those intermediate ideas that may show 
 the connection of remote ones. This way of reason- 
 ing discovers no new proofs, but is the art of mar- 
 shalling and ranging the old ones we have already. 
 The forty-seventh proposition of the first book of 
 Euclid is very true ; but the discovery of it, I think, 
 not owing to any rules of common logic. A man 
 knows first, and then he is able to prove syllogis- 
 tically : so that syllogism comes after knowledge ; 
 and then a man has little or no need of it. 
 
 It is fit before I leave this subject, to take notice of 
 one manifest mistake in the rules of syllogism ; viz., 
 " that no syllogistical reasoning can be right and 
 
CH. XVII.] THE PHILOSOPHY OF LOCKE. 153 
 
 conclusive but what has, at least, one general proposi- 
 tion in it ;" as if we could not reason and have knowl- 
 edge about particulars : whereas, in truth, the matter 
 rightly considered, the immediate object of all our 
 reasoning and knowledge is nothing but particulars. 
 Every man's reasoning and knowledge is only about 
 the ideas existing in his own mind, which are truly, 
 every one of them, particular existences ; and our 
 knowledge and reasoning about other things is only as 
 they correspond with those our particular ideas. So 
 that the perception of the agreement or disagreement 
 of our particular ideas, is the whole and utmost of all 
 our knowledge. Universality is but accidental to it, 
 and consists only in this, that the particular ideas 
 about which it is are such as more than one particular 
 thing can correspond with and be represented by. 
 But the perception of the agreement or disagreement 
 of any two ideas, and consequently our knowledge, is 
 equally clear and certain, whether either, or both, or 
 neither of those ideas be capable of representing more 
 real beings than one, or no. 
 
 Faith and Reason. 
 
 It has been above shown, (i.) That we are of neces- 
 sity ignorant, and want knowledge of all sorts where 
 we want ideas. (2.) That we are ignorant, and want 
 rational knowledge where we want proofs. (3.) That 
 we want general knowledge and certainty as far as we 
 want clear and determined specific ideas. (4.) That 
 we want probability to direct our assent in matters 
 where we have neither knowledge of our own nor tes- 
 timony of other men to bottom our reason upon. 
 
154 THE PHILOSOPHY OF LOCKE. [BK. IV. 
 
 From these things thus premised, I think we may 
 come to lay down the measures and boundaries be- 
 tween faith and reason ; the want whereof may possi- 
 bly have been the cause, if not of great disorders, yet 
 at least of great disputes, and perhaps mistakes, in 
 the world. 
 
 I think it may not be amiss to take notice, that, 
 however faith be opposed to reason, faith is nothing 
 but a firm assent of the mind ; which, if it be regu- 
 lated, as is our duty, cannot be afforded to any thing 
 but upon good reason, and so cannot be opposite to 
 it. He that believes without having any reason for 
 believing, may be in love with his own fancies ; but 
 neither seeks truth as he ought, nor pays the obedience 
 due to his Maker, who would have him use those dis- 
 cerning faculties he has given him to keep him out of 
 mistake and error. He that does not this to the best 
 of his power, however he sometimes lights on truth, is 
 in the right but by chance ; and I know not whether 
 the luckiness of the accident will excuse the irregu- 
 larity of his proceeding. 
 
 Reason therefore here, as contradistinguished to 
 faith, I take to be the discovery of the certainty or 
 probability of such propositions or truths which the 
 mind arrives at by deduction made from such ideas 
 which it has got by the use of its natural faculties, viz., 
 by sensation or reflection. 
 
 Faith, on the other side, is the assent to any propo- 
 sition, not thus made out by the deductions of reason, 
 but upon the credit of the proposer, as coming from 
 God in some extraordinary way of communication. 
 
., XVIII.] THE PHILOSOPHY OF LOCKE. 155 
 
 This way of discovering truths to men we call " reve- 
 lation." 
 
 Whatsoever truth we come to the clear discovery 
 of, from the knowledge and contemplation of our own 
 ideas, will always be certainer to us than those which 
 are conveyed to us by traditional revelation : for the 
 knowledge we have that this revelation came at first 
 from God, can never be so sure as the knowledge we 
 have from the clear and distinct perception of the 
 agreement or disagreement of our own ideas : v. g., if 
 it were revealed some ages since, that the three angles 
 of a triangle were equal to two right ones, I might 
 assent to the truth of that proposition upon the credit 
 of the tradition that it was revealed : but that would 
 never amount to so great a certainty as the knowledge 
 of it upon the comparing and measuring my own ideas 
 of two right angles, and the three angles of a triangle. 
 The like holds in matter-of-fact, knowable by our 
 senses : v. g., the history of the deluge is conveyed to 
 us by writings which had their original from revela- 
 tion ; and yet nobody, I think, will say he has as cer- 
 tain and clear a knowledge of the flood as Noah, that 
 saw it, or that he himself would have had, had he 
 then been alive and seen it. For he has no greater 
 an assurance than that of his senses, that it is writ in 
 the book supposed writ by Moses inspired : but he 
 has not so great an assurance that Moses writ that 
 book as if he had seen Moses write it. So that the 
 assurance of its being a revelation is less still than the 
 assurance of his senses. 
 
 In propositions, then, whose certainty is built upon 
 the clear perception of the agreement or disagree- 
 
156 THE PHILOSOPHY OF LOCKE. [BK. IV. 
 
 ment of our ideas, attained either by immediate in- 
 tuition, as in self-evident propositions, or by evident 
 deductions of reason in demonstrations, we need not 
 the assistance of revelation as necessary to gain our 
 assent and introduce them into our minds ; because 
 the natural ways of knowledge could settle them 
 there, or had done it already, which is the greatest 
 assurance we can possibly have of any thing, unless 
 where God immediately reveals it to us ; and thereto 
 our assurance can be no greater than our knowledge 
 is, that it is a revelation from God. But yet nothing, 
 I think, can under that title shake or overrule plain 
 knowledge, or rationally prevail with any man to 
 admit it for true, in a direct contradiction to the 
 clear evidence of his own understanding. 
 
 For since no evidence of our faculties by which 
 we receive such revelations can exceed, if equal, the 
 certainty of our intuitive knowledge, we can never re- 
 ceive for a truth any thing that is directly contrary to 
 our clear and distinct knowledge. And therefore no 
 proposition can be received for divine revelation, or 
 obtain the assent due to all such, if it be contradic- 
 tory to our clear intuitive knowledge, because this 
 would be to subvert the principles and foundations 
 of all knowledge, evidence, and assent whatsoever : 
 and there would be left no difference between truth 
 and falsehood, no measures of credible and incredible 
 in the world, if doubtful propositions shall take place 
 before self-evident, and what we certainly know give 
 way to what we may possibly be mistaken in. 
 
 Whatever God hath revealed is certainly true ; no 
 doubt can be made of it. This is the proper object 
 
CH. XVIII.] THE PHILOSOPHY OF LOCKE. 157 
 
 of faith : but whether it be a divine revelation or no, 
 reason must judge ; which can never permit the mind 
 to reject a greater evidence to embrace what is less 
 evident, nor allow it to entertain probability in oppo- 
 sition to knowledge and certainty. There can be no 
 evidence that any traditional revelation is of divine 
 original, in the words we receive it, and in the sense 
 we understand it, so clear and so certain as that of 
 the principles of reason : and therefore nothing that 
 is contrary to, and inconsistent with, the clear and 
 self-evident dictates of reason has a right to be urged 
 or assented to as a matter of faith, wherein reason 
 hath nothing to do. Whatsoever is divine revelation 
 ought to over-rule all our opinions, prejudices, and 
 interests, and hath a right to be received with full 
 assent : such a submission as this of our reason to 
 faith takes not away the land-marks of knowledge. 
 This shakes not the foundations of reason but leaves 
 us that use of our faculties, for which they were given 
 us. 
 
INDEX. 
 
 Abstraction, abstract ideas, how 
 formed, 106, 107; the mean 
 ing of such ideas, 108. 
 
 Assent, distinguished from 
 knowledge, 141; degrees of, 
 144-147. 
 
 Association, nature of, 99; in- 
 fluence of, upon our judg- 
 ments, 100. 
 
 Being, 136, 138. 
 
 Cause, origin of the idea, 85, 86. 
 
 Certainty, where found, 125; 
 distinguished from probabil- 
 ity, 132. 
 
 Comparison, 54. 
 
 Compounding, 55. 
 
 Duration, idea of, 63, 64; mean- 
 ing of, 65; duration and time 
 and space, 67, 69. 
 
 Essence, meaning of, 108, 109; 
 real and nominal, 1 10 ff . ; our 
 knowledge of, iioff., 122,123. 
 
 Eternity, idea of, how obtained, 
 65; our knowledge of, 72, 73; 
 relation to time, 73. 
 
 Existence, idea of, 44 ; our 
 knowledge of, 132 ff., 140,141. 
 
 Extension, idea of, 60; relation 
 to space, 60; relation to body, 
 61-63; distinguished from 
 solidity, 62. 
 
 External objects, our knowledge 
 of, 133, 140 ff. 
 
 Faith, faith and knowledge, 143; 
 nature of, 153; relation to 
 reason, 155 ff . ; faith and reve- 
 lation, 155 ff. 
 
 God, proofs of his existence, 
 133 ff- 
 
 Ideas, definition of, 32, 52; 
 ideas not innate, 32 ff. ; ideas 
 from experience only, 35; sim- 
 ple ideas, 39 ff . ; ideas of sensa- 
 tion and reflection, 36; ideas 
 and qualities, 45, 46; pri- 
 mary and secondary ideas, 45 
 ff ; complex ideas, 52 ff. ; 
 clear and obscure ideas, 94; 
 real and fantastical ideas, 95; 
 adequate and inadequate ideas, 
 96, 97; ideas and knowledge, 
 112, 113. 
 
 Identity, idea of, how formed, 
 86, 87; material identity, 87; 
 identity of living being, 88 ff. ; 
 personal identity, 90 ff. 
 
 Inference, nature of, 151; infer- 
 ence and syllogism, 151. 
 
 Infinity, idea of, 70; negative 
 and positive idea of, 70 ff. ; in- 
 finity and space, 71, 72. 
 
 Judgment, definition of, 141; 
 relation to knowledge, 142, 
 143; judgment and probabil- 
 ity, 143 ff. 
 
 Knowledge, source of, 32, 35; 
 knowledge and ideas, 112; 
 nature of, 112, 113; degrees 
 of, 115; intuitive knowledge, 
 115 ff. ; demonstrative knowl- 
 edge, 117; extent of knowl- 
 edge. n8ff. ; sensitive knowl- 
 edge, 126, 138; reality of 
 knowledge, 129 ff. ; knowl- 
 edge of self, 134; of God, 
 
i6o 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 133 ff. ; of external object, 
 137 ff. 
 Language, lor, 102. 
 
 Matter, not first cause, 137, 138; 
 
 matter and thought, 139. 
 Memory, nature of, 52, failure 
 
 of, 53: aids to, 53. 
 Miracles, 146. 
 Mocles and bimple ideas, 58; 
 
 Dimple and mixed modes, 58, 
 
 76 ; modes of space, 60 ; 
 
 modes of thinking, 74 ff. 
 
 Names, use of, 103; meaning, 
 103 ff. ; names of substan- 
 ces, 108, 109 ff. ; names and 
 essences, nominal and real, 
 109, no ff. 
 
 Nature, our knowledge of, 123, 
 124. 
 
 Number, 69-71. 
 
 Opinion, 143. 
 
 Perception, nature of, 42: ideas 
 of, 50, 51; original and ac- 
 quired, 50, 51. 
 
 Person, 91, 92; personal iden- 
 tity, 91 ff. ; what makes per- 
 sonal identity, 91, 92. 
 
 Place, 6j. 
 
 Power, our knowledge of, 44, 
 75; power and relition, 76; 
 power and qualities of bodies, 
 76- 
 
 Probability, definition o f , 143; 
 grounds of, 143; degrees of, 
 146, 147. 
 
 Proposition, definition of. 114; 
 verbal, trifling, and significant, 
 114, 131; true and false propo- 
 sitions, 123, 124. 
 
 Qualities and ideas, 45, 46; dis- 
 tinction of qualities, 46 ff. 
 
 Reason, office of, 47; reasoning 
 and the syllogism, 150 fi ; 
 reason and faith, 153, 151; 
 reason and revelation, 155. 
 
 Reflection, reflection a source of 
 ideas, 35; defined, 36; ideas 
 that are derived from reflec- 
 | tion,.42 ff. 
 
 Relation, idea of, how obtained, 
 83, 84; forms of relation, 85, 
 86. 
 
 Retention, 52. 
 
 Revelation, its relation to rea- 
 son, 145; as a source of 
 knowledge. 154, 155; authority 
 of, 156, 157. 
 
 Self, 93. 
 
 Sensation, a source of knowl- 
 edge, 35. 
 
 Solidity, simple idea, 41; its re- 
 lation to space, 42. 
 
 Soul, 35. 
 
 i Space, the idea of, 60; modes 
 of, 61. 
 
 Spirits, 146. 
 
 I Substance, idea of, how formed, 
 58 ff. ; substance in genera^and 
 particular substances, 79, 80; 
 collective ideas of, 83; sub- 
 stance and personal identity, 
 92 fi. ; corporeal and thinking 
 substance, 120; our knowl- 
 edge of substances, 120 ff. 
 
 Succession, idea of, 44; succes- 
 sion and duration, 62. 
 
 Syllogism, relation to reasoning, 
 152 ff.; objects of, 152 ff. 
 
 Thinking, 92, 0,3. 
 
 Time, 61, 62. 
 
 Truth, relation to knowledge, 
 114; kinds of, 114, 115. 
 
 Willing, 42. 
 
 Words, 101, IO2. 
 
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