The uneasiness a man finds in himself upon the absence of anything whose present enjoyment carries the idea of delight with it, is that we call desire, which is greater or less as that uneasiness is more or less.
Joy is a delight of the mind from the consideration of the present or future assured possession of a good. Thus a man almost starved has joy at the arrival of relief even before he tastes it; and we are then possessed of any good when we have it so in our power, that we can use it when we please; a father, in whom the very well being of his children causes delight, is in the possession of that good always as long as his children are in such an estate; for he needs but to reflect on it to have that pleasure.
Fear is an uneasiness of the mind upon the thought of future evil likely to befall us.
I will not go over all the passions; they are not my business; these are enough, I think, to show us how the ideas we have of them are derived from sensation and reflection.
Chap. 21. I shall only mention one more simple idea, and show how we come by it, and give some instances of some modifications of it, and then put an end to this part of simple ideas and their modes. Every man experiences in himself that he can move his hand or tongue, which before was at rest; that he can apply his mind to other thoughts, and lay by those that he has at present; hence he gets the idea of power.
All power regarding action, we have, as I think, the ideas but of two sorts of action: viz. motion and thinking.
The power we find in ourselves to prefer this or that peculiar thought to its absence, this or that peculiar motion to rest, is that we call will. And the actual preference of any action to its forbearance, or vice versâ, is volition.
The power we find in ourselves to act, or not to act, conformable to such preference of our minds, gives us the idea we call liberty.
Chap. 22. Having thus, in short, given an account of the original of all our simple ideas, and in the instances of some of them showed how, from certain modifications of them, the mind arrives at those that seem at first sight to be very far from having their original in any ideas received from sensation, or from any operation of our minds about them, I shall now proceed to those that are more complex, and show that all the ideas we have (whether of natural or moral things, bodies or spirits) are only certain combinations of these simple ideas got from sensation or reflection, beyond which our thoughts, even when they ascend up into the highest heavens, cannot extend themselves.
The complex ideas we have may, I think, be all reduced to these three sorts, viz.—
- Substances,
- Modes, and
- Relations.
- Modes, and
Chap. 23. That there are a great variety of substances in this world is past doubt to every one; let us then see what ideas we have of those particular substances about which our thoughts are at any time employed. Let us begin with those more general ideas of body and spirit. I ask, what other idea a man has of body, but of solidity, extension, and mobility, joined together, which are all simple ideas received from sense. Perhaps some one here will be ready to say, that to have a complete idea of body, the idea of substance must be added to solidity and extension. But of him that makes that objection, I shall demand what his idea of substance is? So likewise our idea of spirit is of a substance that has the power to think and to move body, from which, by the way, I conclude that we have as clear an idea of spirit as we have of body; for in one we have the clear ideas of solidity, extension, and mobility, or a power of being moved, with an ignorance of its substance, and in the other we have two as clear ideas, viz. of thinking and motivity, if I may so say, or a power of moving, with a like ignorance of its substance. For substance in both is but a supposed but unknown substratum of those qualities, something, we know not what, that supports their existence; so that all the ideas we have of the substance of anything is an obscure idea of what it does, and not any idea of what it is. This further I have to add, that our idea of substance, whether spiritual or corporeal, being equally obscure, and our ideas of mobility and motivity (If I may for shortness' sake coin that new word) being equally clear in both, there remains only to compare extension and thinking. These ideas are both very clear, but the difficulty that some have raised against the notion of a spirit, has been, that they said they could not conceive an unextended thinking thing, and I, on the contrary, affirm that they can as easily conceive an unextended thinking thing as an extended solid. To make an extended solid there must be an idea of a cohesion of parts, and I say it is as easy to conceive how a spirit thinks, as how solid parts cohere; that is, how a body is extended; for where there are no cohering parts, there are no parts extra partes, and consequently no extension; for if body be divisible, it must have united parts, and if there were no cohesion of the parts of body, body would quite be lost, and cease to be. He that can tell me what holds together the parts of steel or a diamond, will explain a fundamental difficulty in natural philosophy. Bernouli, who has endeavoured to explain the coherence of the parts of all bodies by the pressure of the other, hath made two great oversights: 1st, That he takes no notice that let the pressure of any ambient fluid be as great as it will, yet that if there be nothing else to hold the parts of any body together, though they cannot be pulled asunder perpendicularly, yet it is demonstrable they may be slid off from one another as easily as if there were no such pressure; and the experiment of two polished marbles held together by the pressure of the atmosphere makes it evident to sense, since they can so easily by a side motion be separated, though they cannot by a perpendicular.
That he takes no care of the particles of the ether itself, for they too being bodies, and consisting of parts, must have something to hold them together, which cannot be themselves; for it is as hard to conceive how the parts of the least atom of matter are fastened together, as how the greatest masses, and yet, without this, we have as great a difficulty to conceive body as spirit, an extended as a thinking thing.
But whether the notion of a spirit be more obscure, or less obscure, than that of body, this is certain, that we get it no other way than we do that of the body; for as, by our senses, receiving the ideas of solidity, extension, motion, and rest, and supposing them inherent in an unknown substance, we have the idea of body; so by collecting together the simple ideas we have got by reflecting on those operations of our own minds which we experience daily in ourselves, as thinking, understanding, willing, knowing, and the power of moving bodies, and by supposing those, and the rest of the operations of our minds, to be coëxisting in some substance which also we know not, we come to have the idea of those beings we call spirits.
The ideas we have of understanding and power, which we have, from reflection on what passes in ourselves, joined to duration, and all these, enlarged by our idea of infinite, gives us the idea of that Supreme Being we call God; and to satisfy us that all our complex ideas contain nothing in them but the simple ideas taken from sensation and reflection, we need but cast our thoughts on the different species of spirits that are or may be; for though it be possible there may be more species of spiritual beings between us and God upwards, than there are of sensible beings between us and nothing downwards, we being at a greater distance from infinite perfection than from the lowest degree of being, yet it is certain we can conceive no other difference between those various ranks of angelic natures, but barely different degrees of understanding and power, which are but different modifications of the two simple ideas we got from reflecting on what passes in ourselves.
Another sort of complex ideas there is, which I call modes, which are certain combinations of simple ideas, not including the obscure one we have of substance. Of these modes there are two sorts: one where the combination is made of simple ideas, of the same kind as a dozen or a score made up of a certain collection of units; the other sort of modes is, when the combination is made up of ideas of several kinds, such are the ideas signified by the words obligation, friendship, a lie. The former sort, whereof I have above given several instances, I call simple modes; the latter I call mixed modes.
These mixed modes, though of an endless variety, yet they are all made up of nothing but simple ideas derived from sensation or reflection, as is easy for any one to observe who will, with ever so little attention, examine them. For example, if a lie be speaking an untruth knowingly, it comprehends the simple ideas—1st, Of articulate sounds: 2nd, The relation of these sounds to ideas, whereof they are the marks: 3rd, The putting those marks together differently from what the ideas they stand for are in the mind of the speaker: 4th, The knowledge of the speaker, that he makes a wrong use of these marks: all which are either simple ideas, or may be resolved into them. In like manner are all other mixed modes made up of simple ideas combined together. It would be endless, as well as needless, to go about to enumerate all the mixed modes that are in the minds of men, they containing almost the whole subject about which Divinity, Morality, Law, and Politics, and several other sciences, are employed. Chap. 24.
Chap. 25—27. 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: this we call relation; which is such a consideration of one thing as intimates or involves in it the consideration of another. Now since any of our ideas may be so considered by us in one thing as to intimate and lead our thoughts to another, therefore all, both simple and complex, may be foundations of relation, which however large it is, yet we
may perceive hereby how it derives itself originally from sensation and reflection, it having no other foundation but ideas derived from thence. I shall not need to go over the several sorts of relations to show it; I shall only remark that to relation it is necessary there should be two ideas or things, which being not both always taken notice of, makes several terms pass for the marks of positive ideas, which are in truth relative: viz. great and old, &c., are ordinarily as relative terms as greater and older, though it be not commonly so thought; for when we say Caïus is older than Sempronius, we compare these two persons in the idea of duration, and signify one to have more than the other; but when we say Caïus is old, or an old man, we compare his duration to that which we look on to be the ordinary duration of men. Hence it is harsh to say a diamond or the sun is old, because we have no idea of any length of duration belonging ordinarily to them, and so have no such idea, to compare their age to as we have of those things we usually call old.
This is, in short, what I think of the several sorts of complex ideas we have, which are only these three, viz. of substances, modes, and relations, which being made up, and containing in them nothing but several combinations of simple ideas received from sensation and reflection, I conclude that in all our thoughts, contemplations, and reasonings, however abstract or enlarged, our minds never go beyond those simple ideas we have received from those two inlets, viz. sensation and reflection. Chap. 28—31.
Lib. III. When I had considered the ideas the mind of man is furnished with, how it comes by them, and of what kind they are, I thought I had no more to do but to proceed to the further examination of our intellectual faculty, and see what use the mind made of those materials or instruments of knowledge which I had collected in the foregoing book; but when I came a little nearer to consider the nature and manner of human knowledge, I found it had so much to do with propositions, and that words, either by custom or necessity, were so mixed with it, that it was impossible to discourse of knowledge with that clearness one should, without saying something first of words and language.
Chap. 1 The ideas in men's minds are so wholly out of sight to others, that men could have had no communication of thoughts without some sign of their ideas.
The most convenient signs, both for their variety and quickness, that men are capable of, are articulate sounds, which we call words. Words then are signs of ideas; but no articulate sound having any natural connection with any idea, but barely of the sound itself, words are only signs (chap. 2) by voluntary imposition, and can be properly and immediately signs of nothing but the ideas in the mind of him that uses them; for being employed to express what he thinks, he cannot make them signs of ideas he has not, for that would be to make them signs of nothing. It is true, words are frequently used with two other suppositions—1st. It is commonly supposed that they are signs of the ideas in the mind of him with whom we communicate: this is reasonably supposed, because, unless this be so, the speaker cannot be understood; but it not always happening that the ideas in the mind of the hearer always exactly answer those to which the speaker applies his words, this supposition is not always true. 2nd. It is commonly supposed that words stand not only for ideas, but for things themselves; but that they should stand immediately for things is impossible, for since they can be signs immediately of nothing but what is in the mind of the speaker, and there being nothing there but ideas, they stand for things no otherwise than as the ideas in the mind agree to them.
Chap. 3. Words are of two sorts, general terms, or names of particular things: all things that exist being particular, what need of general terms? and what are those general natures they stand for, since the greatest part of words in common use are general terms? As to the first; particular things are so many, that the mind could not retain names for them, and in the next place, could the memory retain them, they would be useless, because the particular beings known to one would be utterly unknown to another, and so their names would not serve for communication where they stood not for an idea common to both speaker and hearer: besides, our progress to knowledge being by generals, we have need of general terms. As to the second, the general natures general terms stand for, are only general ideas, and
ideas become general only by being abstracted from time and place and other particularities, that make them the representatives only of individuals, by which separation of some ideas which annexed to them make them particular, they are made capable of agreeing to several particulars: thus ideas come to represent not one particular existence, but a sort of things as their names, to stand for sorts, which sorts are usually called by the Latin terms of art, genus and species, of which each is supposed to have its particular essence; and though there be much dispute and stir about genus and species, and their essences, yet in truth the essence of each genus and species, or, to speak English, of each sort of things, is nothing else but the abstract idea in the mind which the speaker makes the general term the sign of. It is true, every particular thing has a real constitution by which it is what it is; and this, by the genuine notion of the word, is called its essence or being; but the word essence having been transferred from its original signification, and applied to the artificial species and genera of the schools, men commonly look on essences to belong to the sorts of things, as they are ranked under different general denominations, and in this sense essences are truly nothing but the abstract ideas which those general terms are by any one made to stand for. The first of these may be called the real, the second the nominal essence, which sometimes are the same, sometimes quite different one from another.
Chap. 4. The nature and signification of words will be made a little more clear if we consider them with relation to those three several sorts of ideas I have formerly mentioned, viz. simple ideas, substances, and modes, under which also I comprehend relations. 1st. The names of simple ideas and substances intimate some real existence from whence they are taken, as from their patterns; but the names of mixed modes terminate in the mind, and therefore I think it is they have the peculiar names of notions. 2nd. The names of simple ideas and modes signify always the real as well as nominal essences; the names of substances seldom, if ever, anything but the nominal essence. 3rd. The names of simple ideas are of all other the least doubtful and uncertain. 4th. But that which I think of great use to remark, and which I do not find anybody has taken notice of, is, that the
names of simple ideas are not definable, but those of all complex ideas are; for a definition being nothing but the making known the idea that one word stands for by several others not synonymous words, it cannot have place in any but complex ideas. It is very manifest how both the Peripatetics, and even modern philosophers, for want of observing this, have trifled or talked jargon in endeavouring to define the names of some few of the simple ideas, for, as to the greatest part of them, they found it best to let them alone; for though they have attempted the definitions of motion and light, yet they have forborne to offer any definitions of the greatest part of simple ideas; and those definitions of light and motion they have ventured at, when strictly examined, will be found to be as insignificant as anything can be said to explain what the term red or sweet signifies; when a man can be found that can by words make a blind man understand what idea the word blue stands for, then also may he be able by a definition to make a man have the true signification of the word motion or light who never had it any other way. 5th. The names of simple ideas have but few assents in linea prædicamentali, as they call it, because these ideas, not being compounded, nothing can be left out of any of them to make it more general and comprehensive, and therefore the name colour, which comprehends red and blue, &c, denotes only the simple ideas that come in by the sight.
Chap. 5. As to the names of mixed modes and relations, which are all of them general terms—1st. The essences of their several sorts are all of them made by the understanding. 2nd. They are made arbitrarily and with great liberty, wherein the mind confines not itself to the real existence of any patterns. 3rd. But though the essences or species of mixed modes are made without patterns, yet they are not made at random without reason. Not only signification, but shortness also, and despatch, is one of the great conveniences of language; and hence it is suitable to the end of speech not only that we should make use of sounds for signs of ideas, but also that one short sound should be the sign of many distinct ideas combined into one complex one. Suitable to this end, men unite into one complex idea many scattered and independent ones, and give a name to it where they have
occasion often to think on such combinations and express them to others, and thus several species of mixed modes are made arbitrarily by men giving names to certain combinations of ideas, which have in themselves no more connection that others which are not by any denomination so united. This is evident in the diversity of languages, there being nothing more ordinary than to find many words in one language which have none that answer them in another.
Chap. 6. The names of substances signify only their nominal essences, and not their real essences, which two essences in substances are far different things, v.g. the colour, weight, malleability, fusibility, fixedness, and perhaps some other sensible qualities, make up the complex idea men have in their minds, to which they give the name gold; but the texture of the insensible parts, or whatever else it be, on which these sensible qualities depend, which is its real constitution or essence, is quite a different thing, and would give us quite another idea of gold if we knew it; but since we have no idea of that constitution, and can signify nothing by our words but the ideas we have, our name gold cannot signify that real essence. It is therefore by their nominal essences that substances are ranked into sorts under several denominations, which nominal essences being nothing but abstract, complex ideas, made up in various men of various collections of simple ideas which they have observed or imagined to co-exist together, it is plain the essences of the species of substances, and consequently the species themselves as ranked under distinct denominations, are of men's making. I do not say the substances themselves are made by men, nor the likeness and agreement that is to be found in them, but the boundaries of the species, as marked by distinct names, are made by men.
But though men make the essences whereby the species of substances are limited and distinguished, yet they make them not so arbitrarily as they do in modes; for in substances they propose to themselves the real existence of things as the patterns they would follow, yet through their variety of skill or attention, their complex idea, made up of a collection of sensible qualities, signified by the same specific name, is in various men very different, the one putting in simple ideas that the other has omitted; but the real essences supposed of
the species of things must be, if there were any such, invariably the same. If the first sorting of individuals into their lowest species depend on the mind of man, as has been shown, it is much more evident that the more comprehensive classes, called genera by the masters of logic, are so, which are complex ideas designedly imperfect, out of which are purposely left several of those qualities that are to be found constantly in the things themselves as they exist; for as the mind, to make general ideas comprehending several particular beings, leaves out those of time and place, and others that make them incommunicable to more than one individual, so, to make others yet more general that may comprehend different sorts, it leaves out these qualities that distinguish them, and puts into its new collection only such ideas as are common to several sorts; so that in this whole business of genus and species, the genus, or more comprehensive, is but a partial conception of what is in the species, and the species but a partial idea of what is to be found in each individual. This is suited to the true end of speech, which is to denote by one short sound a great many particulars as they agree in one common conception genera; and species, then, seem to me to be nothing but sorting of things in order to denomination, and the essence of each sort is nothing but the abstract idea to which the denomination is annexed; for a little attention will teach us that to particular things nothing is essential, but as soon as they come to be ranked under any general name, which is the same as to be reckoned of any species, then presently something is essential to them, viz. all that is comprehended in the complex idea that the name stands for.
This further is to be observed concerning substances, that they alone, of all the several sorts of ideas, have proper names; to which we may add, that though the specific names of substances can signify nothing but the abstract ideas in the mind of the speaker, and so consequently the substances that agree to that idea, yet men, in their use of them, often substitute them in the room of, and would suppose them to stand for, things having the real essence of that species, which breeds great confusion and uncertainty in their use of words.
Chap. 7. Words have a double use: 1st, to record our own thoughts; and for this any words will serve, so they be kept constantly to the same ideas. 2nd. To communicate our
thought with others, and for this use they must be common signs standing for the same ideas in those who have communication together. In communication they have also a double use:
1st. Civil.
2nd. Philosophical.
The first of these is that which serves for the upholding of common conversation and commerce. The philosophical use is to convey the precise notions of things, and to express in general propositions certain and undoubted truths, which the mind may rest upon, and be satisfied with in its search after true knowledge.
In this last use of words they are especially liable to great imperfections of uncertainty and obscurity in their signification.
Words naturally signifying nothing, it is necessary that their signification, i. e. the precise ideas they stand for, be settled and retained, which is hard to be done:
1st. Where the ideas they stand for are very complex, and made up of a great number of ideas put together.
2nd. Where the ideas that make up the complex one they stand for have no connection in nature, and so there is no settled standard anywhere existing in nature to rectify and adjust them by.
3rd. Where the signification of the word is referred to a standard existing, which yet is not easy to be known.
4th. Where the signification of the word and the real essence of the thing are not exactly the same. The names of mixed modes are very much liable to doubtfulness, for the two first of these reasons; and the names of substances chiefly for the two latter.
According to these rules, as well as experience, we shall find, First, That the names of simple ideas are the least liable to uncertainty, 1st, because they are simple, and so easily got and retained; 2nd, because they are referred to nothing but that very perception which things in nature are fitted to produce in us.
Second. That names of mixed modes are very uncertain, because the complex ideas they are the signs of have no standing patterns existing in nature whereby to be regulated and adjusted; their archetypes are only in the minds of men,
and therefore uncertain to be known, and being very much compounded and often decompounded, are very hardly to be exactly agreed on and retained. Where shall one find an assemblage of all the ideas the word Glory stands for, existing together? And the precise complex idea the name Justice is the sign of, is seldom, I imagine, settled and retained.
Third, The names of substances are very uncertain, because their complex ideas not being voluntary compositions, but referred to patterns that exist, are yet referred to patterns that cannot at all be known, or at least can be known but very imperfectly. 1st. As has been showed, sometimes the names of substances are supposed to stand for their supposed real essences. Everything having a real constitution, whereby it is what it is, this is apt to be called its essence, as if it were the essence of a species; but whether it be or no, this is certain, that, it being utterly unknown, it is impossible to know in such a supposition or reference, of the name which any word stands for. 2nd. Sometimes the ideas the names of substances stand for are copied from the sensible qualities to be observed in bodies existing; but in this, which is their proper use, it is not easy to adjust their significations, because the qualities that are to be found in substances out of which we make their complex ideas, being for the most part powers, they are almost infinite, and one of them having no more right than another to be put into our complex ideas, which are to be copies of these originals, it is very hard by these patterns to adjust the signification of their names, and therefore it is very seldom that the same name of any substance stands in two men for the same complex idea.
Chap. 8. To this natural imperfection of words it is not unusual for men to add voluntary abuses, some whereof I take notice of; as, 1st, the using of words without any clear and determinate signification: this whole sects in philosophy and religion are frequently guilty of, there being very few of them who, either out of affectation of singularity, or to cover some weak part of their system, do not make use of some terms which it is plain have no clear and determinate ideas annexed to them. Besides these appropriated terms of parties, which never had any distinct meaning, there are others who use ordinary words of common language, without having in their minds any precise ideas they stand for; it is enough that
they have learned the words that are common in the language of their country, which serving well enough to be produced in talk, they dispense with themselves from being solicitous about any clear notions to be signified by them; and if men who have them often in their mouths should be examined what they mean by Reason or Grace, &c., they would often be found to have in their minds no distinct ideas which these and the like words were the signs of. 2nd. Another abuse is inconstancy, or putting the same word as the sign sometimes of one idea, sometimes of another, in the same discourse. There is nothing more ordinary in all controversies, where one can seldom miss to find the same sound often put for different significations, and that not only in the incidental parts of the discourse, but in those terms which are the most material in the debate, and on which the question turns. 3rd. To this may be added an affected obscurity, either in the use of old words, or the coining of new ones. To this nothing has so much contributed as the method and learning of the schools, where all has been adapted to and measured by dispute. This way of proceeding unavoidably runs all into multiplication and perplexity of terms. This perverse abuse of language, having under the esteemed name of subtility gained the reputation and rewards of true knowledge, how much it has hindered real improvements the world is now satisfied. 4th. The next abuse of language is the taking words for things: this most concerns the names of substances, for men having feigned to themselves peculiar and groundless ideas, proportionably as they have thought fit to contrive or espouse some certain system of natural philosophy, have suited names to them, which, growing into familiar use, came afterwards among their followers to carry with them the opinion of reality, as if they were the necessary and unavoidable marks of things themselves. Thus, substantial forms and intentional species, and abundance of such other terms, have by their common and unquestioned use carried men into the persuasion that there were such things, it being hard for them to believe that their fathers and masters, learned men and divines, should make use of names that stood for fancies only, that never had any real being in the world. The supposing words to stand for the real essences of substances is an abuse which I have already mentioned. 5th. Another
more general, though less observed, abuse of words is, to suppose their signification so clear and settled that a man cannot be mistaken what ideas they stand for; and hence men think it strange to ask or be asked the meaning of their words, when yet it is plain that many times the certain signification of a man's words cannot be any otherwise known but by his telling what precise idea he makes any word the sign of. 6th. Figurative speeches and all the artificial ornaments of rhetoric are truly an abuse of language also; but this, like the fair sex, has too prevailing beauties in it to suffer itself ever to be spoken against, and it is in vain to find fault with those arts of deceiving wherein men find a pleasure to be deceived.
Chap. 9. That which has nourished disputes and spread errors in the world being chiefly the imperfection or abuse of words before mentioned, it would be of no small advantage to truth and quiet, if men would apply themselves seriously to a more careful and candid use of language, wherein I shall offer some easy and obvious cautions to those who have a mind to be ingenuous; for I am not so vain as to think of reforming so prevailing an abuse, wherein so many men imagine they find their account. Though I think nobody will deny, 1st, That every one should take care to use no word without a signification,—no vocal sign without some idea he had in his mind, and would express by it. 2nd. That the idea he uses a sign for should be clear and distinct; all the simple ideas it is made up of, if it be complex, should be settled. This, as it is necessary in all our names of complex ideas, so is most carefully to be observed in moral names, which being compounded and decompounded of several simple ones, our ideas are not right as they should be, and consequently our words are full of uncertainty and obscurity, and neither others nor we ourselves know what we mean by them till we have so settled in our minds the complex idea we would have each word stand for, that we can readily enumerate all the particulars that make it up, and resolve it into all its component simple ones. 3rd. These ideas must be accommodated as near as we can to the common signification of the word in its ordinary use. It is this propriety of speech which gives the stamp under which words are current, and it is not for every private man to alter their value at pleasure.
But because common use has left many if not most words very loose in their signification, and because a man is often under a necessity of using a known word in some with a peculiar sense, therefore it is often his duty to show the meaning of this or that term, especially where it concerns the main subject of discourse or question. This showing the meaning of our terms, to do it well must be suited to the several sorts of ideas they stand for. The best, and in many cases the only, way to make known the meaning of the name of a simple idea is by producing it by the senses. The only way of making known the meaning of the names of mixed modes, at least moral words, is by definition; and the best way of making known the meaning of the names of most bodies is both by showing and by definition together; many of their distinguishing qualities being not so easily made known by words, and many of them not without much pains and preparation discoverable by our senses.
Chap. 10. What words signify, and how much we are to beware that they impose not on us, I have shown, it being necessary to be premised to our consideration of knowledge, the business of the next book; only, before I conclude this, I take notice of one ordinary distinction of words, because I think it gives us some light into our ideas; vix. Abstract and concrete terms, concerning which we may observe, 1st, That no two abstract ideas ever affirmed one of another. 2nd. That simple ideas and modes have all of them abstract as well as concrete names; but substances only concrete, except some few abstract names of substances in vain affected by the schools, which could never get into common use of corporietas and animalitas, &c. The first of these seems to me to show us that two distinct ideas are two distinct essences that cannot be affirmed one of another. The latter carries with it a plain confession that men have no ideas of the real essences of the sorts of substances, since they have put into their languages no names for them.
Lib. IV. The two foregoing books were of ideas and words, this is of knowledge.
Chap. 1. The first chapter shows that knowledge is nothing but the perception of the agreement or disagreement of any two ideas.
This agreement or disagreement, for the clearer explaining of this matter, is reduced to these four sorts:
1st. It is the first and fundamental act of our understanding to perceive the ideas it has, to know each what it is, and perceive wherein it differs from any others; without this, the mind could neither have variety of thoughts nor discourse, judge or reason about them. By this faculty the mind perceives what idea it has when it sees a violet, and knows blue is not yellow.
2nd. Our ideas of substances, as I have showed, consist in certain collections of single ideas which the specific name stands for; and our inquiry, for the most part, concerning substances, is what other qualities they have; which is no more but this, what other ideas coëxist and are to be found united with those of our complex ideas. Thus, whether gold be fixed, is to inquire whether the power of abiding in the fire without wasting be an idea which coëxists in the same subject with those ideas of yellowness, weight, malleability, and fusibility, whereof my idea of gold is made up.
The 3rd sort of agreement is, whether a real existence out of my mind agrees to any idea I have there.
4th. The last sort of agreement or disagreement of any ideas is in any other sort of relation between them. Thus, sweetness is not bitterness, is of identity. Iron is susceptible of magnetical impressions, is of coëxistence. God is, is of existence. Two triangles upon equal basis between two parallels are equal, is of relation.
Chap. 2. According to the different way of perceiving the agreement or disagreement of any of our ideas, so is the evidence of our knowledge different. Sometimes the mind perceives the agreement or disagreement of two ideas immediately; thus it perceives that red is not yellow, that a circle is not a triangle, that three is more than two, and equal to one and two; and this we may call intuitive knowledge. When the agreement or disagreement of any two ideas cannot be immediately perceived, but the mind makes use of the intervention of other ideas to show it, then (as the word imports) it is demonstration.
Thus the mind not being able to bring the three angles of a triangle and two right ones so together as to be able immediately to perceive their equality, it makes use of some other angles to measure them by.
To produce knowledge this way, there must be an intuitive knowledge of the agreement or disagreement of the intermediate ideas in each step of the deduction, for without that there can be no demonstration, the agreement or disagreement of the two ideas under consideration is not shown; for where any agreement or disagreement of any two ideas is not self-evident, i. e. cannot be immediately perceived, there it will always need a proof to show it. This sort, which may be called rational or demonstrative knowledge, however certain, is not so clear and evident as intuitive, because here the memory must intervene to retain the connection of all the parts of the demonstration one with another, and be sure that none is omitted in the account, which in long deductions requires great attention to avoid mistake. Why demonstration is generally thought to belong only to ideas of quantity, I shall not in this short epitome mention.
These two sorts are all the knowledge we have of general truths. Of the existence of some particular finite beings we have knowledge by our senses, which we may call sensitive knowledge.
Chap. 3. From what has been said, it follows:
1st. That we can have no knowledge where we have no ideas.
2nd. That our intuitive knowledge reaches not so far as our ideas, because the greatest part of them cannot be so immediately compared as to discover the agreement or disagreement we seek.
3rd. Neither can rational and demonstrative knowledge make out the agreement or disagreement of all those of our ideas wherein we fail of intuitive knowledge, because we cannot always find mediums to connect them intuitively together.
4th. Sensitive knowledge reaching no further than the actual presence of particular things to our senses, is much narrower than either of the former.
That which I would infer from this is, that our knowledge is not only infinitely short of the whole extent of beings, if
we compare this little spot of earth we are confined to, to that part of the universe which we have some knowledge of, which probably is, all of it, but a point in respect to what is utterly beyond our discovery, and consider the vegetables, animals, rational corporeal creatures (not to mention the ranks and orders of spirits), and other things with different qualities suited to senses different from ours, whereof we have no notion at all, which may be in them, we shall have reason to conclude that the things whereof we have ideas are very few in respect of those whereof we have none at all.
In the next place, if we consider how few, how imperfect, and how superficial, those ideas are which we have of the things that lie nearest our examination, and are best known to us; and lastly, if we consider how few they are of those few ideas we have, whose agreement or disagreement we are able to discover, we shall have reason to conclude that our understandings were not proportioned to the whole extent of being, nor men made capable of knowing all things, but that it fails us in the greatest part of the inquiry concerning those ideas we have.
1st. As to identity and diversity, it is true our intuitive knowledge is as large as our ideas themselves; but, 2nd, on the other side, we have scarce any general knowledge at all or the coëxistence of any ideas, because not being able to discover the causes whereon the secondary qualities of substances depend, nor any connection between such causes and our ideas, there are very few cases wherein we can know the coëxistence of any other idea with that complex one we have of any sort of substances, whereby our knowledge of substances comes to be almost none at all. 3rd. As to other relations of our ideas, how far our knowledge may reach is yet uncertain; this I think, morality, if rightly studied, is capable of demonstration as well as mathematics. 4th. As to existence, we have an intuitive knowledge of our own, a demonstrative one of a God, and a sensible one of some few other things.
I shall not here, in this short compendium I am giving of my thoughts, mention those particulars which I have set down to show up the narrowness of our knowledge; that which I have here said may, I suppose suffice to convince
men, what we know bears no proportion to that which we are invincibly ignorant of.
Besides the extent of our knowledge in respect of the sorts of things, we may consider another kind of its extent, which is in respect of its universality. When the ideas are abstract, our knowledge about them is general: abstract ideas are the essences of species, howsoever named, and are the foundations of universal and eternal verities.
Chap. 4. It will perhaps be said, that knowledge placed thus in the consideration of our ideas may be chimerical, and leave us ignorant of things as they really are in themselves, since we see men may often have very extravagant ideas; to which I answer, that our knowledge is real so far as our ideas are conformable to things, and no further. To be able to know what ideas are conformable to the realities of things, we must consider the different sorts of ideas I have above mentioned.
1st. Simple ideas we cannot but know to be conformable to things, because the mind not being able to make any simple ideas to itself, those it has must needs be conformable to that power which is in things to produce them, which conformity is sufficient for real knowledge.
2nd. All our complex ideas, but those of substances, are conformable to the reality of things; and this we may certainly know, because they being archetypes made by the mind, and not designed to be copies of anything existing, things are intended in our discourses and reasonings about these ideas no further than as they are conformable to these ideas.
3rd. Our complex ideas of substances being designed to be copies of archetypes existing without us, we can be no further sure that our knowledge concerning any of them is real, than the real existence of things has made it evident that such a collection of simple ideas, as our complex one is made up of, can coëxist together; the reason whereof is, because not knowing the real constitution on which these qualities depend, we cannot but by experience know which of them are, and which are not, capable to exist together in the same subject; and if we put other than such that are capable to exist together into any complex idea, our knowledge concerning such an idea of substance will be only concerning a chimera of our own, and not of any real being.
Chap. 5. According to this account of knowledge, we may come to discover what truth is, which appears to be nothing else but the joining or separating of signs according as things themselves agree or disagree. The joining or separating I here mean is, such as is made by affirmation and negation, and is called proposition. Now the signs we use being of two sorts, viz. ideas and words; propositions also are of two sorts, viz. mental or verbal; truth also is twofold, either real or barely verbal. Real truth in any proposition is when the terms are affirmed or denied as the ideas they stand for agree or disagree, and as the ideas also themselves agree to their archetypes. Verbal truth is when the affirmation or negation is made according to the agreement or disagreement of our ideas, but the ideas themselves have no conformity with their archetypes.
Chap. 6. Truth being for the most part conveyed to our understandings, or considered by us in propositions, it will be of moment to examine what propositions are capable to convey to our understandings the certain knowledge of general truths.
1st. Then I say, that in all general propositions, where the terms are supposed to stand for species constituted and determined by real essences distinct from the nominal, we are not capable of any certain knowledge, because not knowing that real essence, we cannot know what particular things have it, and so can never know what particular things are of that species. This frequently happens in propositions concerning substances in other things, not because in the species of other things there is no supposed real essence different from the nominal.
2nd. In all general propositions where the terms are substituted only in the place of the nominal essence or abstract idea, and so the species determined by that alone, there we are capable of certainty as far as the agreement or disagreement of such abstract ideas can be perceived; but this also reaches but a very little way in substances, because the necessary coëxistence or inconsistency of any other ideas with any of those that make up one complex one of any sort of substances, is in very few cases discoverable.
Chap. 7. There are a sort of propositions which, passing under the title of maxims, are by some men received as innates, and by most esteemed as the foundations of knowledge; but if what we have said concerning self-evident or intuitive knowledge be well considered, we shall find that these dignified axioms are neither innate nor have any other self-evidence than a thousand other propositions, some whereof are known before them, and others altogether as clearly, and therefore they are neither innate, nor be the foundations of all our knowledge or reasonings as they are thought to be.
Whatsoever is, is, and It is impossible for the same to be and not to be, it is granted are self-evident propositions; but he that considers the nature of the understanding and the ideas in it, and that it is unavoidable for the understanding to know its own ideas, and to know those to be distinct that are so, must needs observe that these supposed fundamental principles of knowledge and reasoning are no more self-evident than that one is one, and red red, and that it is impossible one should be two, or red blue: of these and the like propositions, we have as certain a knowledge as of those other called maxims, and a much earlier; and can anybody imagine that a child knows not that wormwood is not sugar, but by virtue of this axiom? That it is impossible for the same thing to be and not to be. Intuitive knowledge extends itself to all our ideas in respect of identical agreeement or disagreement, therefore all propositions made concerning this sort of agreement or disagreement, whether in more or less general terms, so the ideas they stand for be but known, are all equally self-evident. As to the agreement or disagreement of coëxistence, we have very little intuitive knowledge, and therefore concerning that there are very few self-evident propositions and little talk of axioms. In the third sort of agreement, viz. relation, the mathematicians have dignified several general propositions concerning equality with the title of axioms, though these have no other sort of certainty than all other self-evident propositions; and though, when they are once made familiar to the mind, they are often made use of to show the absurdity of wrong reasoning and erroneous opinions in particular instances; yet the way wherein the mind attains knowledge, is not by beginning and setting out from these general propositions, but in the quite contrary method; it
begins its knowledge in particulars, and thence gradually enlarges it to more general ideas.
Chap. 8. Besides these there are other propositions, which are many of them certain, but convey no real truth to our knowledge, being barely about the signification of words.
1st. Where any part of any complex idea is predicated of the name of that complex idea, such a proposition is only about the signification of the terms, and such are all propositions wherein more comprehensive terms are predicated of less comprehensive, as genera of species or individuals.
2nd. Wherever two abstract terms are predicated one of another, there the proposition carries no real knowledge in it, but is barely about the import of names. Were such trifling propositions as these shut out of discourses, the way to knowledge would be less perplexed with disputes than it is.
Chap. 9. Universal propositions, that have certain truth or falsehood in them, concern essences only. The knowledge of existence goes no further than particulars of our own existences; it is plain we have such an intuitive knowledge, that nothing can be more evident.
Chap. 10. Of the existence of God there is demonstration, for which we need go no further than ourselves for a proof, though God has given * * * * *.
Chap. 11. The existence of all other things can be known only by testimony of our senses; our knowledge reaches in this as far as our senses, and no further. For the existence of any other being having no necessary connection with any of the ideas I have in my memory, I cannot from them infer the necessary existence of any particular being, and can receive the knowledge of it only by the actual perception of my senses.
Chap. 12. For the improvement of our knowledge, we must suit our methods to our ideas: in substances, where our ideas are but imperfect copies, we are capable of very little general knowledge, because few of our abstract ideas have a discoverable agreement or disagreement of coëxistence, and therefore in substances we must enlarge our knowledge by experiment and observation in particulars; but in modes and relations, where our ideas are archetypes, and real as well as nominal essences of species, there we attain general
knowledge only by views of our own abstract ideas; and in them our inquiries not being concerning the agreement or disagreement of coëxistence, but of other relations more discoverable than that of coëxistence, we are capable of greater advances in knowledge: and that which is proposed for the improvement of it, is to settle in our minds clear and steady ideas, with their names or signs, and then to contemplate and pursue their connections, and agreements, and dependencies: whether any method may be found out as useful in other modes as Algebra is in the ideas of quantity, for the discovery of their habitudes and relations, cannot, beforehand, be determined, and therefore not to be despaired of. In the mean time, I doubt not but that Ethics might be improved to a much greater degree of certainty, if men, affixing moral names to clear and settled ideas, could with freedom and indifferency pursue them.
Chap. 13. Knowledge is not born with us, nor does it always force itself upon our understandings; animadversion and application is, in most parts of it, required, and that depends on the will; but when we have thoroughly surveyed, and to our utmost traced our idea, it depends not then on our wills whether we will be knowing or ignorant.
Chap. 14. The shortness of our knowledge, not reaching to all the concernment we have, is supplied by that which we call judgment, whereby the mind takes ideas to agree or not agree; i. e. any proposition to be true or false, without perceiving a demonstrative evidence in the proofs.
Chap. 15. The ground on which such propositions are received for true, is what we call probability, and the entertainment the mind gives such propositions is called assent, belief, or opinion, which is the admitting any proposition to be true without certain knowledge that it is so. The grounds of probability are these two.—1st. The conformity of anything with our own knowledge, observation, or experience. 2nd. The testimony of others, vouching their observation and experience.
Chap. 16. The variety of these in concurring or counter-balancing circumstances, affording matter for assent in several degrees of assurance or doubting, is too great to be set down in an extract.
Chap. 17. Error is not a fault of our knowledge, but a
mistake of judgment, giving assent to what is not true; the causes whereof are these—
First. Want of proofs, whether such as may be or as cannot be had.
Secondly. Want of ability to use them.
Thirdly. Want of will to use them.
Fourthly. Wrong measures of probability, which are these four—
Chap. 18. Reason, that serves us to the discovery of both demonstration and probability, seems to me to have four parts—1st. The finding out of proofs. 2nd. The laying them in their due order for the discovery of truth. 3rd. In the perception of the more or less clear connection of the ideas in each part of the deduction. 4th, and last of all, The drawing a right judgment and conclusion from the whole. By which it will appear that syllogism is not the great instrument of reason, it serving but only to the third of these, and that only, too, to show another's wrong arguing; but it helps not reason at all in the search of new knowledge, nor the discovery of yet unknown truths, and the proofs of them, which is the chief use of that faculty, and not victory in dispute, or the silencing of wranglers.
Chap. 19. Faith is by some men so often made use of in opposition to reason, that he who knows not their distinct bounds will be at a loss in his inquiries concerning matters of religion.
Matters of reason are such propositions as may be known by the natural use of our faculties, and are deducible from ideas received from sensation or reflection. Matters of faith, such as are made known by supernatural revelation. The distinct principles and evidence of these two, being rightly considered, show where faith excludes or overrules reason, and where not.
1. Original revelation cannot be assented to contrary to the clear principles of our natural knowledge, because, though God cannot lie, yet it is impossible that any one, to whom a
revelation is made, should know it to be from God more certainly than he knows such truths.
2. But original revelation may silence reason in any proposition, whereof reason gives but a probable assurance, because the assurance that it is a revelation from God may be more clear than any probable truth can be.
3. If original revelation cannot, much less can traditional revelation be assented to, contrary to our natural clear and evident knowledge; because, though what God reveals cannot be doubted of, yet he to whom the revelation is not originally made, but has only received it by the delivery or tradition of other men, can never so certainly know that it was a revelation made by God, nor that he understands the words aright in which it is delivered to him. Nay, he cannot know that he ever heard or read that proposition which is supposed revealed to another, so certainly as he knows those truths. Though it be a revelation that the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised, yet it not being revealed anywhere that such a proposition, delivered by a certain man, is a revelation, the believing of such a proposition to be a revelation is not a matter of faith, but of reason; and so it is if the question be whether I understand it in the right sense.
According to these principles, I conclude all with a division of the sciences into three sorts—1st. Fysikh, or the knowledge of things, whether bodies or spirits, or of any of their affections in their true natures; the end of this is bare speculation. 2nd. Praktikh, or the rules of operation about things in our power, and principally those which concern our conduct; the end of this is action. 3rd. Shmiwtikh, or the knowledge of signs, i. e. ideas and words, as subservient to the other two, which if well considered, would perhaps produce another kind of logic and critique than has yet been thought on.
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