BOOK II

Of Ideas

Chapter I

Of Ideas in general, and their Original

1. Idea is the object of thinking. Every man being conscious to

himself that he thinks; and that which his mind is applied about

whilst thinking being the ideas that are there, it is past doubt

that men have in their minds several ideas,- such as are those

expressed by the words whiteness, hardness, sweetness, thinking,

motion, man, elephant, army, drunkenness, and others: it is in the

first place then to be inquired, How he comes by them?

I know it is a received doctrine, that men have native ideas, and

original characters, stamped upon their minds in their very first

being. This opinion I have at large examined already; and, I suppose

what I have said in the foregoing Book will be much more easily

admitted, when I have shown whence the understanding may get all the

ideas it has; and by what ways and degrees they may come into the

mind;- for which I shall appeal to every one's own observation and

experience.

2. All ideas come from sensation or reflection. 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 knowledge? To this I answer, in one

word, from EXPERIENCE. 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.

3. The objects of sensation one source of ideas. First, our Senses, conversant about particular sensible 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

objects convey into the mind what produces there those perceptions.

This great source of most of the ideas we have, depending wholly

upon our senses, and derived by them to the understanding, I call

SENSATION.

4. The operations of our minds, the other source of them.

Secondly, the other fountain from which experience furnisheth the

understanding with ideas is,- the perception of the operations of

our own mind within us, as it is employed about the ideas it has got;-

which operations, when the soul comes to reflect on and consider, 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 ourselves, do from these receive into our

understandings as distinct ideas as we do from bodies affecting our

senses. This source of ideas every man has wholly in himself; and

though it be not sense, as having nothing to do with external objects,

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 mind gets 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 SENSATION, 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 comprehending not barely the actions of the mind

about its ideas, but some sort of passions arising sometimes from

them, such as is the satisfaction or uneasiness arising from any

thought.

5. All our ideas are of the one or the other of these. The

understanding seems to me not to have the least glimmering of any

ideas which it doth not receive from one of these two. External

objects furnish the mind with the ideas of sensible qualities, which

are all those different perceptions they produce in us; and the mind

furnishes the understanding with ideas of its own operations.

These, when we have taken a full survey of them, and their several

modes, combinations, and relations, we shall find to contain all our

whole stock of ideas; and that we have nothing in our minds which

did not come in one of these two ways. Let any one examine his own

thoughts, and thoroughly search into his understanding; and then let

him tell me, whether all the original ideas he has there, are any

other than of the objects of his senses, or of the operations of his

mind, considered as objects of his reflection. And how great a mass of

knowledge soever he imagines to be lodged there, he will, upon

taking a strict view, see that he has not any idea in his mind but

what one of these two have imprinted;- though perhaps, with infinite

variety compounded and enlarged by the understanding, as we shall

see hereafter.

6. Observable in children. He that attentively considers the state

of a child, at his first coming into the world, will have little

reason to think him stored with plenty of ideas, that are to be the

matter of his future knowledge. It is by degrees he comes to be

furnished with them. And though the ideas of obvious and familiar

qualities imprint themselves before the memory begins to keep a

register of time or order, yet it is often so late before some unusual

qualities come in the way, that there are few men that cannot

recollect the beginning of their acquaintance with them. And if it

were worth while, no doubt a child might be so ordered as to have

but a very few, even of the ordinary ideas, till he were grown up to a

man. But all that are born into the world, being surrounded with

bodies that perpetually and diversely affect them, variety of ideas,

whether care be taken of it or not, are imprinted on the minds of

children. Light and colours are busy at hand everywhere, when the

eye is but open; sounds and some tangible qualities fail not to

solicit their proper senses, and force an entrance to the mind;- but

yet, I think, it will be granted easily, that if a child were kept

in a place where he never saw any other but black and white till he

were a man, he would have no more ideas of scarlet or green, than he

that from his childhood never tasted an oyster, or a pine-apple, has

of those particular relishes.

7. Men are differently furnished with these, according to the

different objects they converse with. Men then come to be furnished

with fewer or more simple ideas from without, according as the objects

they converse with afford greater or less variety; and from the

operations of their minds within, according as they more or less

reflect on them. For, though he that contemplates the operations of

his mind, cannot but have plain and clear ideas of them; yet, unless

he turn his thoughts that way, and considers them attentively, he will

no more have clear and distinct ideas of all the operations of his

mind, and all that may be observed therein, than he will have all

the particular ideas of any landscape, or of the parts and motions

of a clock, who will not turn his eyes to it, and with attention

heed all the parts of it. The picture, or clock may be so placed, that

they may come in his way every day; but yet he will have but a

confused idea of all the parts they are made up of, till he applies

himself with attention, to consider them each in particular.

8. Ideas of reflection later, because they need attention. And hence

we see the reason why it is pretty late before most children get ideas

of the operations of their own minds; and some have not any very clear

or perfect ideas of the greatest part of them all their lives. Because, though they pass there continually, yet, like floating visions, they make not deep impressions enough to leave in their mind clear, distinct, lasting ideas, till the understanding turns inward upon itself, reflects on its own operations, and makes them the objects of its own contemplation. Children when they come first into it, are surrounded with a world of new things, which, by a constant solicitation of their senses, draw the mind constantly to them;

forward to take notice of new, and apt to be delighted with the

variety of changing objects. Thus the first years are usually employed

and diverted in looking abroad. Men's business in them is to

acquaint themselves with what is to be found without; and so growing

up in a constant attention to outward sensations, seldom make any

considerable reflection on what passes within them, till they come

to be of riper years; and some scarce ever at all.

9. The soul begins to have ideas when it begins to perceive. To ask,

at what time a man has first any ideas, is to ask, when he begins to

perceive;- having ideas, and perception, being the same thing. I

know it is an opinion, that the soul always thinks, and that it has

the actual perception of ideas in itself constantly, as long as it

exists; and that actual thinking is as inseparable from the soul as

actual extension is from the body; which if true, to inquire after the

beginning of a man's ideas is the same as to inquire after the

beginning of his soul. For, by this account, soul and its ideas, as

body and its extension, will begin to exist both at the same time.

…

23. A man begins to have ideas when he first has sensation. What

sensation is. If it shall be demanded then, when a man begins to

have any ideas, I think the true answer is,- when he first has any

sensation. For, since there appear not to be any ideas in the mind

before the senses have conveyed any in, I conceive that ideas in the

understanding are coeval with sensation; which is such an impression

or motion made in some part of the body, as produces some perception

in the understanding. It is about these impressions made on our senses

by outward objects that the mind seems first to employ itself, in such

operations as we call perception, remembering, consideration,

reasoning, &c.

24. The original of all our knowledge. In time the mind comes to

reflect on its own operations about the ideas got by sensation, and

thereby stores itself with a new set of ideas, which I call ideas of

reflection. These are the impressions that are made on our senses by

outward objects that are extrinsical to the mind; and its own

operations, proceeding from powers intrinsical and proper to itself,

which, when reflected on by itself, become also objects of its

contemplation- are, as I have said, the original of all knowledge.

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

anything, and the groundwork 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 seem

to be elevated with, it stirs not one jot beyond those ideas which

sense or reflection have offered for its contemplation.

…

Chapter II

Of Simple Ideas

1. Uncompounded appearances. 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 motion and colour; 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 whiteness 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 uncompounded, contains in it nothing but one

uniform appearance, or conception in the mind, and is not

distinguishable into different ideas.

2. The mind can neither make nor destroy them. These simple ideas,

the materials of all our knowledge, are suggested and furnished to the

mind only by those two ways above mentioned, viz. sensation and

reflection. 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 complex

ideas. But it is not in the power of the most exalted wit, or enlarged

understanding, by any quickness or variety of thought, 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 understanding destroy those that

are there. The dominion of man, in this little world of his own

understanding being muchwhat the same as it is in the great world of

visible things; wherein his power, however managed by art and skill,

reaches no farther than to compound and divide the materials that

are made to his hand; but can do nothing towards the making the

least particle of new matter, or destroying one atom of what is

already in being. The same inability will every one find in himself,

who shall go about to fashion in his understanding one simple idea,

not received in by his senses from external objects, or by

reflection from the operations of his own mind about them. I would

have any one try to fancy any taste which had never affected his

palate; or frame the idea of a scent he had never smelt: and when he

can do this, I will also conclude that a blind man hath ideas of

colours, and a deaf man true distinct notions of sounds.

3. Only the qualities that affect the senses are imaginable. This is

the reason why- though we cannot believe it impossible to God to

make a creature with other organs, and more ways to convey into the

understanding the notice of corporeal things than those five, as

they are usually counted, which he has given to man- yet I think it is

not possible for any man to imagine any other qualities in bodies,

howsoever constituted, whereby they can be taken notice of, besides

sounds, tastes, smells, visible and tangible qualities. And had

mankind been made but with four senses, the qualities then which are

the objects of the fifth sense had been as far from our notice,

imagination, and conception, as now any belonging to a sixth, seventh,

or eighth sense can possibly be;- which, whether yet some other

creatures, in some other parts of this vast and stupendous universe,

may not have, will be a great presumption to deny. He that will not

set himself proudly at the top of all things, but will consider the

immensity of this fabric, and the great variety that is to be found in

this little and inconsiderable part of it which he has to do with, may

be apt to think that, in other mansions of it, there may be other

and different intelligent beings, of whose faculties he has as

little knowledge or apprehension as a worm shut up in one drawer of

a cabinet hath of the senses or understanding of a man; such variety

and excellency being suitable to the wisdom and power of the Maker.

I have here followed the common opinion of man's having but five

senses; though, perhaps, there may be justly counted more;- but either

supposition serves equally to my present purpose.

Chapter III

Of Simple Ideas of Sense

1. Division of simple ideas. 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.

We shall consider them apart under these several heads.

Ideas of one sense. There are some ideas which have admittance

only through one sense, which is peculiarly adapted to receive them.

Thus light and colours, as white, red, yellow, blue; with their

several degrees or shades and mixtures, as green, scarlet, purple,

sea-green, and the rest, come in only by the eyes. All kinds of

noises, sounds, and tones, only by the ears. The several tastes and

smells, by the nose and palate. And if these organs, or the nerves

which are the conduits to convey them from without to their audience

in the brain,- the mind's presence-room (as I may so call it)- are any

of them so disordered as not to perform their functions, they have

no postern to be admitted by; no other way to bring themselves into

view, and be perceived by the understanding.

The most considerable of those belonging to the touch, are heat

and cold, and solidity: all the rest, consisting almost wholly in

the sensible configuration, as smooth and rough; or else, more or less

firm adhesion of the parts, as hard and soft, tough and brittle, are

obvious enough.

2. Few simple ideas have names. I think it will be needless to

enumerate all the particular 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. The

variety of smells, which are as many almost, if not more, than species

of bodies in the world, do most of them want names. Sweet and stinking

commonly serve our turn for these ideas, which in effect is little

more than to call them pleasing or displeasing; though the smell of

a rose and violet, both sweet, are certainly very distinct ideas.

Nor are the different tastes, that by our palates we receive ideas of,

much better provided with names. Sweet, bitter, sour, harsh, and

salt are almost all the epithets we have to denominate that numberless

variety of relishes, which are to be found distinct, not only in

almost every sort of creatures, but in the different parts of the same

plant, fruit, or animal. The same may be said of colours and sounds. 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.

Chapter IV

Chapter V

Of Simple Ideas of Divers Senses

Ideas received both by seeing and touching. The ideas we get by more

than one sense are, of space or extension, figure, rest, and motion.

For these make perceivable impressions, both on the eyes and touch;

and we can receive and convey into our minds the ideas of the

extension, figure, motion, and rest of bodies, both by seeing and

feeling. But having occasion to speak more at large of these in

another place, I here only enumerate them.

Chapter VI

Of Simple Ideas of Reflection

1. Simple ideas are the operations of mind about its other ideas. The

mind receiving the ideas mentioned in the foregoing chapters from

without, when it turns its view inward upon itself, and observes its

own actions about those ideas it has, takes from thence other ideas,

which are as capable to be the objects of its contemplation as any

of those it received from foreign things.

2. 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:-

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 faculties.

Of some of the modes of these simple ideas of reflection, such as

are remembrance, discerning, reasoning, judging, knowledge, faith,

&c., I shall have occasion to speak hereafter.

Chapter VII

Chapter VIII

Some further considerations concerning

our Simple Ideas of Sensation

7. Ideas in the mind, qualities in bodies. 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 our minds; and as they are modifications of matter 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 something inherent in the subject; most of those of

sensation 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.

8. Our ideas and the qualities of bodies. Whatsoever the mind

perceives in itself, or is the immediate object of perception,

thought, or understanding, that I call idea; and the power to

produce any idea in our mind, I call quality of the subject wherein

that power is. Thus a snowball having the power to produce in us the

ideas of white, cold, and round,- the power to produce those ideas

in us, as they are in the snowball, I call qualities; and as they

are sensations or perceptions in our understandings, I call them

ideas; which ideas, if I speak of sometimes as in the things

themselves, I would be understood to mean those qualities in the

objects which produce them in us.

9. Primary qualities of bodies. Qualities thus considered in

bodies are, First, such as are utterly inseparable from the body, in what

state soever it be; and 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 bulk 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. 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, 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

original or primary qualities of body, which I think we may observe to

produce simple ideas in us, viz. solidity, extension, figure, motion

or rest, and number.

10. Secondary qualities of bodies. Secondly, such qualities which in

truth are nothing in the objects themselves but power to produce

various sensations in us by their primary qualities, i.e. by the bulk,

figure, texture, and motion of their insensible parts, as colours,

sounds, tastes, &c. 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 colour, or consistency, in wax or clay,- by its primary qualities,

is as much a quality in fire, as the power it has to produce in me a

new idea or sensation of warmth or burning, which I felt not

before,- by the same primary qualities, viz. the bulk, texture, and

motion of its insensible parts.

11. How bodies produce ideas in us. The next thing to be

considered is, how bodies produce ideas in us; and that is

manifestly by impulse, the only way which we can conceive bodies to

operate in.

12. By motions, external, and in our organism. If then external

objects be not united to our minds when they produce ideas therein;

and yet we perceive 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 brains or the seat of sensation, there to produce in

our minds the particular ideas we have of them. And since the

extension, figure, number, and motion of bodies of an observable

bigness, may be perceived at a distance by the sight, it is evident

some singly imperceptible bodies must come from them to the eyes,

and thereby convey to the brain some motion; which produces these

ideas which we have of them in us.

13. How secondary qualities produce their ideas. After the same

manner, that the ideas of these original qualities are produced in us,

we may conceive that the ideas of secondary qualities are also

produced, viz. by the operation of insensible particles on our senses.

For, it being manifest that there are bodies and good store of bodies,

each whereof are so small, that we cannot by any of our senses

discover either their bulk, figure, or motion,- as is evident in the

particles of the air and water, and others extremely smaller than

those; perhaps as much smaller than the particles of air and water, as

the particles of air and water are smaller than peas or

hail-stones;- let us suppose at present that 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 colours and smells of bodies; v.g. that a violet,

by the impulse of such insensible particles of matter, of peculiar

figures and bulks, and in different degrees and modifications of their

motions, causes the ideas of the blue colour, and sweet scent of

that flower to be produced in our minds. It being no more impossible

to conceive that God should annex such ideas to such motions, with

which they have no similitude, than that he should annex the idea of

pain to the motion of a piece of steel dividing our flesh, with

which that idea hath no resemblance.

14. They depend on the primary qualities. What I have said

concerning colours and smells may be understood also of tastes and

sounds, and other the like sensible qualities; which, whatever reality

we by mistake attribute to them, are in truth nothing in the objects

themselves, but powers to produce various sensations in us; and depend

on those primary qualities, viz. bulk, figure, texture, and motion

of parts as I have said.

15. Ideas of primary qualities are resemblances; of secondary,

not. From whence I think it easy to draw this observation,- that the

ideas of primary qualities of bodies are resemblances 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, existing 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 motion of the

insensible parts, in the bodies themselves, which we call so.

16. Examples. Flame is denominated hot and light; snow, white and

cold; and manna, white and sweet, from the ideas they produce in us.

Which qualities are commonly thought to be the same in those bodies

that those ideas are in us, the one the perfect resemblance of the

other, as they are in a mirror, and it would by most men be judged

very extravagant if one should say otherwise. And yet he that will

consider that the same fire that, at one distance produces in us the

sensation of warmth, does, at a nearer approach, produce in us the far

different sensation of pain, ought to bethink himself what reason he

has to say- that this idea of warmth, which was produced in him by the

fire, is actually in the fire; and his idea of pain, which the same

fire produced in him the same way, is not in the fire. Why are

whiteness and coldness in snow, and pain not, when it produces the one

and the other idea in us; and can do neither, but by the bulk, figure,

number, and motion of its solid parts?

17. The ideas of the primary alone really exist. The particular

bulk, number, figure, and motion of 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 coldness, are no

more really in them than sickness or pain is in manna. Take away the

sensation of them; let not the eyes see light or colours, nor the ears

hear sounds; let the palate not taste, nor the nose smell, and all

colours, tastes, odours, and sounds, as they are such particular

ideas, vanish and cease, and are reduced to their causes, i.e. bulk,

figure, and motion of parts.

18. The secondary exist in things only as modes of the primary. A

piece of manna of a sensible bulk is able to produce in us the idea of

a round or square figure; and by being removed from one place to

another, the idea of motion. This idea of motion represents it as it

really is in manna moving: a circle or square are the same, whether in

idea or existence, in the mind or in the manna. And this, both

motion and figure, are really in the manna, whether we take notice

of them or no: this everybody is ready to agree to. Besides, manna, by

tie bulk, figure, texture, and motion of its parts, has a power to

produce the sensations of sickness, and sometimes of acute pains or

gripings in us. That these ideas of sickness and pain are not in the

manna, but effects of its operations on us, and are nowhere when we

feel them not; this also every one readily agrees to. And yet men

are hardly to be brought to think that sweetness and whiteness are not

really in manna; which are but the effects of the operations of manna,

by the motion, size, and figure of its particles, on the eyes and

palate: as the pain and sickness caused by manna are confessedly

nothing but the effects of its operations on the stomach and guts,

by the size, motion, and figure of its insensible parts, (for by

nothing else can a body operate, as has been proved): as if it could

not operate on the eyes and palate, and thereby produce in the mind

particular distinct ideas, which in itself it has not, as well as we

allow it can operate on the guts and stomach, and thereby produce

distinct ideas, which in itself it has not. These ideas, being all

effects of the operations of manna on several parts of our bodies,

by the size, figure number, and motion of its parts;- why those

produced by the eyes and palate should rather be thought to be

really in the manna, than those produced by the stomach and guts; or

why the pain and sickness, ideas that are the effect of manna,

should be thought to be nowhere when they are not felt; and yet the

sweetness and whiteness, effects of the same manna on other parts of

the body, by ways equally as unknown, should be thought to exist in

the manna, when they are not seen or tasted, would need some reason to

explain.

19. Examples. Let us consider the red and white colours in porphyry.

Hinder light from striking on it, and its colours vanish; it no longer

produces any such ideas in us: upon the return of light it produces

these appearances on us again. Can any one think any real

alterations are made in the porphyry by the presence or absence of

light; and that those ideas of whiteness and redness are really in

porphyry in. the light, when it is plain it has no colour in the dark?

It has, indeed, such a configuration of particles, both night and day,

as are apt, by the rays of light rebounding from some parts of that

hard stone, to produce in us the idea of redness, and from others

the idea of whiteness; but whiteness or redness are not in it at any

time, but such a texture that hath the power to produce such a

sensation in us.

20. Pound an almond, and the clear white colour will be altered into

a dirty one, and the sweet taste into an oily one. What real

alteration can the beating of the pestle make in any body, but an

alteration of the texture of it?

21. Explains how water felt as cold by one hand may be warm to the

other. Ideas being thus distinguished and understood, we may be able

to give an account how the same water, at the same time, may produce

the idea of cold by one hand and of heat by the other: whereas it is

impossible that the same water, if those ideas were really in it,

should at the same time be both hot and cold. For, if we imagine

warmth, as it is in our hands, to be nothing but a certain sort and

degree of motion in the minute particles of our nerves or animal

spirits, we may understand how it is possible that the same water may,

at the same time, produce the sensations of heat in one hand and

cold in the other; which yet figure never does, that never

producing- the idea of a square by one hand which has produced the

idea of a globe by another. But if the sensation of heat and cold be

nothing but the increase or diminution of the motion of the minute

parts of our bodies, caused by the corpuscles of any other body, it is

easy to be understood, that if that motion be greater in one hand than

in the other; if a body be applied to the two hands, which has in

its minute particles a greater motion than in those of one of the

hands, and a less than in those of the other, it will increase the

motion of the one hand and lessen it in the other; and so cause the

different sensations of heat and cold that depend thereon.

…

23. Three sorts of qualities in bodies. The qualities, then, that

are in bodies, rightly considered, 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 not;

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 reason 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

colours, sounds, smells, tastes, &c. 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 first of these, as has been said, I think may be properly called

real, original, or primary qualities; because they are in the things

themselves, whether they are perceived or not: and upon their

different modifications it is that the secondary qualities depend.

The other two are only powers to act differently upon other

things: which powers result from the different modifications of

those primary qualities.

24. The first are resemblances; the second thought to be

resemblances, but are not; the third neither are nor are thought so.

But, though the two latter sorts of qualities are powers barely, and

nothing but powers, relating to several other bodies, and resulting

from the different modifications of the original qualities, yet they

are generally otherwise thought of. For the second sort, viz, the

powers to produce several ideas in us, by our senses, are looked

upon as real qualities in the things thus affecting us: but the

third sort are called and esteemed barely powers. v.g. The idea of

heat or light, which we receive by our eyes, or touch, from the sun,

are commonly thought real qualities existing in the sun, and something

more than mere powers in it. But when we consider the sun in reference

to wax, which it melts or blanches, we look on the whiteness and

softness produced in the wax, not as qualities in the sun, but effects

produced by powers in it. Whereas, if rightly considered, these

qualities of light and warmth, which are perceptions in me when I am

warmed or enlightened by the sun, are no otherwise in the sun, than

the changes made in the wax, when it is blanched or melted, are in the

sun. They are all of them equally powers in the sun, depending on

its primary qualities; whereby it is able, in the one case, so to

alter the bulk, figure, texture, or motion of some of the insensible

parts of my eyes or hands, as thereby to produce in me the idea of

light or heat; and in the other, it is able so to alter the bulk,

figure, texture, or motion of the insensible parts of the wax, as to

make them fit to produce in me the distinct ideas of white and fluid.

…

Chapter IX. Of Perception

1. Perception the first simple idea of reflection. PERCEPTION, as it

is the first faculty of the mind exercised about our ideas; so it is

the first and simplest idea we have from reflection, and is by some

called thinking in general. Though thinking, in the propriety of the

English tongue, signifies that sort of operation in the mind about its

ideas, wherein the mind is active; where it, with some degree of

voluntary attention, considers anything. For in bare naked perception,

the mind is, for the most part, only passive; and what it perceives,

it cannot avoid perceiving.

2. Reflection alone can give us the idea of what perception is. What

perception is, every one will know better by reflecting on what he

does himself, when he sees, hears, feels, &c., or thinks, than by

any discourse of mine. Whoever reflects on what passes in his own mind

cannot miss it. And if he does not reflect, all the words in the world

cannot make him have any notion of it.

3. Arises in sensation only when the mind notices the organic

impression. This is certain, that whatever alterations are made in the

body, if they reach not the mind; whatever impressions are made on the

outward parts, if they are not taken notice of within, there is no

perception. Fire may burn our bodies with no other effect than it does

a billet, unless the motion be continued to the brain, and there the

sense of heat, or idea of pain, be produced in the mind; wherein

consists actual perception.

4. Impulse on the organ insufficient. How often may a man observe in

himself, that whilst his mind is intently employed in the contemplation of some objects, and curiously surveying some ideas that are there, it takes no notice of impressions of sounding bodies made upon the organ of hearing, with the same alteration that uses to be for the producing the idea of sound? A sufficient impulse there may be on the organ; but it not reaching the observation of the mind, there follows no perception: and though the motion that uses to produce the idea of sound be made in the ear, yet no sound is heard. Want of sensation, in this case, is not through any defect in the organ, or that the man's ears are less affected than at other times when he does hear: but that which uses to produce the idea, though conveyed in by the usual organ, not being taken notice of in the understanding, and so imprinting no idea in the mind, there follows no sensation. So that wherever there is sense or perception, there some idea is actually produced, and present in the understanding.

…

8. Sensations often changed by the judgment. We are further to

consider concerning perception, that the ideas we receive by sensation

are often, in grown people, altered by the judgment, without our

taking notice of it. When we set before our eyes a round globe of

any uniform colour, v.g. gold, alabaster, or jet, it is certain that

the idea thereby imprinted on our mind is of a flat circle,

variously shadowed, with several degrees of light and brightness

coming to our eyes. But we having, by use, been accustomed to perceive

what kind of appearance convex bodies are wont to make in us; what

alterations are made in the reflections of light by the difference

of the sensible figures of bodies;- the judgment presently, by an

habitual custom, alters the appearances into their causes. So that

from that which is truly variety of shadow or colour, collecting the

figure, it makes it pass for a mark of figure, and frames to itself

the perception of a convex figure and an uniform colour; when the idea

we receive from thence is only a plane variously coloured, as is

evident in painting. To which purpose I shall here insert a problem of

that very ingenious and studious promoter of real knowledge, the

learned and worthy Mr. Molyneux, which he was pleased to send me in

a letter some months since; and it is this:- "Suppose a man born

blind, and now adult, and taught by his touch to distinguish between a

cube and a sphere of the same metal, and nighly of the same bigness,

so as to tell, when he felt one and the other, which is the cube,

which the sphere. Suppose then the cube and sphere placed on a

table, and the blind man be made to see: quaere, whether by his sight,

before he touched them, he could now distinguish and tell which is the

globe, which the cube?" To which the acute and judicious proposer

answers, "Not. For, though he has obtained the experience of how a

globe, how a cube affects his touch, yet he has not yet obtained the

experience, that what affects his touch so or so, must affect his

sight so or so; or that a protuberant angle in the cube, that

pressed his hand unequally, shall appear to his eye as it does in

the cube."- I agree with this thinking gentleman, whom I am proud to

call my friend, in his answer to this problem; and am of opinion

that the blind man, at first sight, would not be able with certainty

to say which was the globe, which the cube, whilst he only saw them;

though he could unerringly name them by his touch, and certainly

distinguish them by the difference of their figures felt. This I

have set down, and leave with my reader, as an occasion for him to

consider how much he may be beholden to experience, improvement, and

acquired notions, where he thinks he had not the least use of, or help

from them. And the rather, because this observing gentleman further

adds, that "having, upon the occasion of my book, proposed this to

divers very ingenious men, he hardly ever met with one that at first

gave the answer to it which he thinks true, till by hearing his

reasons they were convinced."

…

15. Perception the inlet of all materials of knowledge. Perception

then being the first step and degree towards knowledge, and the

inlet of all the materials of it; the fewer senses any man, as well as

any other creature, hath; and the fewer and duller the impressions are

that are made by them, and the duller the faculties are that are

employed about them,- the more remote are they from that knowledge

which is to be found in some men. But this being in great variety of

degrees (as may be perceived amongst men) cannot certainly be

discovered in the several species of animals, much less in their

particular individuals. It suffices me only to have remarked here,-

that perception is the first operation of all our intellectual

faculties, and the inlet of all knowledge in our minds. And I am apt

too to imagine, that it is perception, in the lowest degree of it,

which puts the boundaries between animals and the inferior ranks of

creatures. But this I mention only as my conjecture by the by; it

being indifferent to the matter in hand which way the learned shall

determine of it.

…

Chapter X. Of Retention

1. Contemplation. The next faculty of the mind, whereby it makes a

further 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.

2. Memory. The other way of retention is, the power to revive

again in our minds those ideas which, after imprinting, have

disappeared, or have been as it were laid aside out of sight. And thus

we do, when we conceive 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 another 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 the memory

signifies no more but this,- that the mind has a power in many cases

to revive perceptions which it has once had, with this additional

perception annexed to them, that it has had them before. 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. And thus it is, by the assistance

of this faculty, that we are said to have all those ideas in our

understandings which, though we do not actually contemplate, yet we

can bring in sight, and make appear again, and be the objects of our

thoughts, without the help of those sensible qualities which first

imprinted them there.

…

Chapter XI

Of Discerning, and other operations of the Mind

1. No knowledge without discernment. 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

confused 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 depends upon this clear discerning

faculty of the mind, whereby it perceives two ideas to be the same, or

different. But of this more hereafter.

…

4. Comparing. The COMPARING them one with another, in respect of

extent, degrees, time, place, or any other circumstances, is another

operation of the mind about its 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.

…

6. Compounding. The next operation we may observe in the mind

about its ideas is COMPOSITION; whereby it puts together 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 a 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.

…

8. Naming. When children have, by repeated sensations, got ideas

fixed in their memories, they begin by degrees to learn the use of

signs. And when they have got the skill to apply the organs of

speech to the framing of articulate sounds, they begin to make use

of words, to signify their ideas to others. These verbal signs they

sometimes borrow from others, and sometimes make themselves, as one

may observe among the new and unusual names children often give to

things in the first use of language.

9. Abstraction. The use of words then being to stand as outward

marks of our internal ideas, and those ideas being taken from

particular things, if every particular idea that we take in should

have a distinct name, names must be endless. To prevent this, the mind

makes the particular ideas received from particular objects to

become general; which is done by considering them as they are in the

mind such appearances,- separate from all other existences, and the

circumstances of real existence, as time, place, or any other

concomitant ideas. This is called ABSTRACTION, whereby ideas taken

from particular beings become general representatives of all of the

same kind; and their names general names, applicable to whatever

exists conformable to such abstract ideas. Such precise, naked

appearances in the mind, without considering how, whence, or with what

others they came there, the understanding lays up (with names commonly

annexed to them) as the standards to rank real existences into

sorts, as they agree with these patterns, and to denominate them

accordingly. Thus the same colour being observed to-day in chalk or

snow, which the mind yesterday received from milk, it considers that

appearance alone, makes it a representative of all of that kind; and

having given it the name whiteness, it by that sound signifies the

same quality wheresoever to be imagined or met with; and thus

universals, whether ideas or terms, are made.

…

15. The true beginning of human knowledge. And thus I have given a

short, and, I think, true history of the first beginnings of human

knowledge;- whence the mind has its first objects; and by what steps

it makes its progress to the laying in and storing up those ideas, out

of which is to be framed all the knowledge it is capable of: wherein I

must appeal to experience and observation whether I am in the right:

the best way to come to truth being to examine things as really they

are, and not to conclude they are, as we fancy of ourselves, or have

been taught by others to imagine.

…

17. Dark room. I pretend not to teach, but to inquire; and therefore

cannot but confess here again,- that external and internal sensation

are the only passages I can find of knowledge to the understanding.

These alone, as far as I can discover, are the windows by which

light is let into this dark room. For, methinks, the understanding

is not much unlike a closet wholly shut from light, with only some

little openings left, to let in external visible resemblances, or

ideas of things without: would the pictures coming into such a dark

room but stay there, and lie so orderly as to be found upon

occasion, it would very much resemble the understanding of a man, in

reference to all objects of sight, and the ideas of them.

These are my guesses concerning the means whereby the

understanding comes to have and retain simple ideas, and the modes

of them, with some other operations about them.

I proceed now to examine some of these simple ideas and their

modes a little more particularly.

…

Chapter XII

Of Complex Ideas

1. Made by the mind out of simple ones. We have hitherto

considered those ideas, in the reception whereof the mind is only

passive, which are those simple ones received from sensation and

reflection before mentioned, whereof the mind cannot make one to

itself, nor have any idea which does not wholly consist of them. But

as the mind is wholly passive in the reception of all its simple

ideas, so it exerts several acts of its own, whereby out of its simple

ideas, as the materials and foundations of the rest, the others are

framed. The acts of the mind, wherein it exerts its power over its

simple ideas, are chiefly these three: (1) Combining several simple

ideas into one compound one; and thus all complex ideas are made.

(2) The second is bringing two ideas, whether simple or complex,

together, and setting them by one another, so as to take a view of

them at once, without uniting them into one; by which way it gets

all its ideas of relations. (3) The third is separating them from

all other ideas that accompany them in their real existence: this is

called abstraction: and thus all its general ideas are made. This

shows man's power, and its ways of operation, to be much the same in

the material and intellectual world. For the materials in both being

such as he has no power over, either to make or destroy, all that

man can do is either to unite them together, or to set them by one

another, or wholly separate them. I shall here begin with the first of

these in the consideration of complex ideas, and come to the other two

in their due places. As simple ideas are observed to exist in

several combinations united together, so the mind has a power to

consider several of them united together as one idea; and that not

only as they are united in external objects, but as itself has

joined them together. Ideas thus made up of several simple ones put

together, I call complex;- such as are beauty, gratitude, a man, an

army, the universe; which, though complicated of various simple ideas,

or complex ideas made up of simple ones, yet are, when the mind

pleases, considered each by itself, as one entire thing, and signified

by one name.

2. Made voluntarily. In this faculty of repeating and joining

together its ideas, the mind has great power in varying and

multiplying the objects of its thoughts, infinitely beyond what

sensation or reflection furnished it with: but all this still confined

to those simple ideas which it received from those two sources, and

which are the ultimate materials of all its compositions. For simple

ideas are all from things themselves, and of these the mind can have

no more, nor other than what are suggested to it. It can have no other

ideas of sensible qualities than what come from without by the senses;

nor any ideas of other kind of operations of a thinking substance,

than what it finds in itself But when it has once got these simple

ideas, it is not confined barely to observation, and what offers

itself from without; it can, by its own power, put together those

ideas it has, and make new complex ones, which it never received so

united.

3. Complex ideas are either of modes, substances, or relations.

COMPLEX IDEAS, however compounded and decompounded, though their number be infinite, and the variety endless, wherewith they fill and

entertain the thoughts of men; yet I think they may be all reduced

under these three heads:-

1. MODES.

2. SUBSTANCES.

3. RELATIONS.

4. Ideas of modes. First, Modes I call such complex ideas which,

however compounded, contain not in them the supposition of

subsisting by themselves, but are considered as dependences on, or

affections of substances;- such as are the ideas signified by the

words triangle, gratitude, murder, &c. And if in this I use the word

mode in somewhat a different sense from its ordinary signification,

I beg pardon; it being unavoidable in discourses, differing from the

ordinary received notions, either to make new words, or to use old

words in somewhat a new signification; the later whereof, in our

present case, is perhaps the more tolerable of the two.

5. Simple and mixed modes of simple ideas. Of these modes, there are

two sorts which deserve distinct consideration:

First, there are some which are only variations, or different

combinations of the same simple idea, without the mixture of any

other;- as a dozen, or score; which are nothing but the ideas of so

many distinct units added together, and these I call simple modes as

being contained within the bounds of one simple idea.

Secondly, there are others compounded of simple ideas of several

kinds, put together to make one complex one;- v.g. beauty,

consisting of a certain composition of colour and figure, causing

delight to the beholder; theft, which being the concealed change of

the possession of anything, without the consent of the proprietor,

contains, as is visible, a combination of several ideas of several

kinds: and these I call mixed modes.

6. Ideas of substances, single or collective. Secondly, the ideas of

Substances are such combinations of simple ideas as are taken to

represent distinct particular things subsisting by themselves; the

supposed or confused idea of substance, such as it is, is always the

first and chief Thus if to substance be joined the simple idea of a

certain dull whitish colour, with certain degrees of weight, hardness,

ductility, and fusibility, we have the idea of lead; and a combination

of the ideas of a certain sort of figure, with the powers of motion,

thought and reasoning, joined to substance, the ordinary idea of a

man. Now of substances also, there are two sorts of ideas:- one of

single substances, as they exist separately, as of a man or a sheep;

the other of several of those put together, as an army of men, or

flock of sheep- which collective ideas of several substances thus

put together are as much each of them one single idea as that of a man

or an unit.

7. Ideas of relation. Thirdly, the last sort of complex ideas is

that we call Relation, which consists in the consideration and

comparing one idea with another.

Of these several kinds we shall treat in their order.

…

…

…

…

Chapter XXIII

Of our Complex Ideas of Substances

1. Ideas of particular substances, how made. 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 constantly together; which

being presumed to belong to one thing, and words being suited to

common apprehensions, 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 complication of many ideas together: because, as I have

said, not imagining how these simple ideas can subsist by

themselves, we accustom ourselves to suppose some substratum wherein

they do subsist, and from which they do result, which therefore we

call substance.

2. Our obscure idea of substance in general. So that 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

colour 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 adhere in, he would not be in a much better

case 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. And thus here, as in all other cases

where we use words without having clear and distinct ideas, we talk

like children: who, being questioned what such a thing is, which

they know not, readily give this satisfactory answer, that it is

something: which in truth signifies no more, when so used, either by

children or men, but that they know not what; and that the thing

they pretend to know, and talk of, is what they have no distinct

idea of at all, and so are perfectly ignorant of it, and in the

dark. The idea then we have, to which we give the general name

substance, being nothing but the supposed, but unknown, support of

those qualities we find existing, which we imagine cannot subsist sine

re substante, without something to support them, we call that

support substantia; which, according to the true import of the word,

is, in plain English, standing under or upholding.

3. Of the sorts of substances. An obscure and relative idea of

substance in general being thus made we come to have the ideas of

particular sorts of substances, by collecting such combinations 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, &c.; of which substances, whether any one has any other

clear idea, further than of certain simple ideas co-existent together,

I appeal to every one's own experience. It is the ordinary 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 substantial 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 those simple ideas they are made up of, have

always the confused idea of something to which they belong, and in

which they subsist: and therefore when we speak of any sort of

substance, we say it is a thing having such or such qualities; as body

is a thing that is extended, figured, and capable of motion; spirit, a

thing capable of thinking; and so hardness, friability, and power to

draw iron, we say, are qualities to be found in a loadstone. These,

and the like fashions of speaking, intimate that the substance is

supposed always something besides the extension, figure, solidity,

motion, thinking, or other observable ideas, though we know not what

it is.

4. No clear or distinct idea of substance in general. Hence, when we

talk or think of any particular sort of corporeal substances, as

horse, stone, &c., though the idea we have of either of them be but

the complication 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 cannot conceive how they should

subsist alone, nor one in another, we suppose them existing in and

supported 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.

…

5. As clear an idea of spiritual substance as of corporeal

substance. The same thing happens concerning the operations of the

mind, viz. thinking, reasoning, fearing, &c., which we concluding

not to subsist of themselves, nor apprehending 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 supposing a substance wherein thinking, knowing,

doubting, and a power of moving, &c., 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 substratum to those operations we

experiment in ourselves within. It is plain then, that the idea of

corporeal substance in matter is as remote from our conceptions and

apprehensions, as that of spiritual substance, or spirit: and

therefore, from our not having any notion of the substance of

spirit, we can no more conclude its non-existence, than we can, for

the same reason, deny the existence of body; it being as rational to

affirm there is no body, because we have no clear and distinct idea of

the substance of matter, as to say there is no spirit, because we have

no clear and distinct idea of the substance of a spirit.

6. Our ideas of particular sorts of substances. Whatever therefore

be the secret abstract nature of substance in general, all the ideas

we have of particular distinct sorts of substances are nothing but

several combinations of simple ideas, coexisting in such, though

unknown, cause of their union, as makes the whole subsist of itself It

is by such combinations of simple ideas, and nothing else, that we

represent particular sorts of substances to ourselves; such are the

ideas we have of their several species in our minds; and such only

do we, by their specific names, signify to others, v.g. man, horse,

sun, water, iron: upon hearing which words, every one who

understands the language, frames in his mind a combination of those

several simple ideas which he has usually observed, or fancied to

exist together under that denomination; all which he supposes to

rest in and be, as it were, adherent to that unknown common subject,

which inheres not in anything else. Though, in the meantime, it be

manifest, and every one, upon inquiry into his own thoughts, will

find, that he has no other idea of any substance, v.g. let it be gold,

horse, iron, man, vitriol, bread, but what he has barely of those

sensible qualities, which he supposes to inhere; with a supposition of

such a substratum as gives, as it were, a support to those qualities

or simple ideas, which he has observed to exist united together. Thus,

the idea of the sun,- what is it but an aggregate of those several

simple ideas, bright, hot, roundish, having a constant regular motion,

at a certain distance from us, and perhaps some other: as he who

thinks and discourses of the sun has been more or less accurate in

observing those sensible qualities, ideas, or properties, which are in

that thing which he calls the sun.

7. Their active and passive powers a great part of our complex ideas

of substances. For he has the perfectest idea of any of the particular

sorts of substances, who has gathered, and put together, most of those

simple ideas which do exist in it; among which are to be reckoned

its active powers, and passive capacities, which, though not simple

ideas, yet in this respect, for brevity's sake, may conveniently

enough be reckoned amongst them. Thus, the power of drawing iron is

one of the ideas of the complex one of that substance we call a

loadstone; and a power to be so drawn is a part of the complex one

we call iron: which powers pass for inherent qualities in those

subjects. Because every substance, being as apt, by the powers we

observe in it, to change some sensible qualities in other subjects, as

it is to produce in us those simple ideas which we receive immediately

from it, does, by those new sensible qualities introduced into other

subjects, discover to us those powers which do thereby mediately

affect our senses, as regularly as its sensible qualities do it

immediately: v.g. we immediately by our senses perceive in fire its

heat and colour; which are, if rightly considered, nothing but

powers in it to produce those ideas in us: we also by our senses

perceive the colour and brittleness of charcoal, whereby we come by

the knowledge of another power in fire, which it has to change the

colour and consistency of wood. By the former, fire immediately, by

the latter, it mediately discovers to us these several powers; which

therefore we look upon to be a part of the qualities of fire, and so

make them a part of the complex idea of it. For all those powers

that we take cognizance of, terminating only in the alteration of some

sensible qualities in those subjects on which they operate, and so

making them exhibit to us new sensible ideas, therefore it is that I

have reckoned these powers amongst the simple ideas which make the

complex ones of the sort? of substances; though these powers

considered in themselves, are truly complex ideas. And in this

looser sense I crave leave to be understood, when I name any of

these potentialities among the simple ideas which we recollect in

our minds when we think of particular substances. For the powers

that are severally in them are necessary to be considered, if we

will have true distinct notions of the several sorts of substances.

8. And why. Nor are we to wonder that powers make a great part of

our complex ideas of substances; since their secondary qualities are

those which in most of them serve principally to distinguish

substances one from another, and commonly make a considerable part

of the complex idea of the several sorts of them. For, our senses

failing us in the discovery of the bulk, texture, and figure of the

minute parts of bodies, on which their real constitutions and

differences depend, we are fain to make use of their secondary

qualities as the characteristical notes and marks whereby to frame

ideas of them in our minds, and distinguish them one from another: all

which secondary qualities, as has been shown, are nothing but bare

powers. For the colour and taste of opium are, as well as its

soporific or anodyne virtues, mere powers, depending on its primary

qualities, whereby it is fitted to produce different operations on

different parts of our bodies.

9. Three sorts of ideas make our complex ones of corporeal

substances. 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 by our senses, and

are in them even when we perceive them not; such are the bulk, figure,

number, situation, and motion of the parts of bodies; which are really

in them, whether we take notice of them or not. Secondly, the sensible

secondary qualities, which, 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. For whatever alteration

a loadstone has the power to make in the minute particles of iron,

we should have no notion of any power it had at all to operate on

iron, did not its sensible motion discover it: and I doubt not, but

there are a thousand changes, that bodies we daily handle have a power

to use in one another, which we never suspect, because they never

appear in sensible effects.

10. Powers thus make a great part of our complex ideas of particular

substances. Powers therefore justly make a great part of our complex

ideas of substances. He that will examine his complex idea of gold,

will find several of its ideas that make it up to be only powers; as

the power of being melted, but of not spending itself in the fire;

of being dissolved in aqua regia, are ideas as necessary to make up

our complex idea of gold, as its colour and weight: which, if duly

considered, are also nothing but different powers. For, to speak

truly, yellowness is not actually in gold, but is a power in gold to

produce that idea in us by our eyes, when placed in a due light: and

the heat, which we cannot leave out of our ideas of the sun, is no

more really in the sun, than the white colour it introduces into

wax. These are both equally powers in the sun, operating, by the

motion and figure of its sensible parts, so on a man, as to make him

have the idea of heat; and so on wax, as to make it capable to produce

in a man the idea of white.

11. The now secondary qualities of bodies would disappear, if we

could discover the primary ones of their minute parts. Had we senses

acute enough to discern the minute particles of bodies, and the real

constitution on which their sensible qualities depend, I doubt not but

they would produce quite different ideas in us: and that which is

now the yellow colour of gold, would then disappear, and instead of it

we should see an admirable texture of parts, of a certain size and

figure. This microscopes plainly discover to us; for what to our naked

eyes produces a certain colour, is, by thus augmenting the acuteness

of our senses, discovered to be quite a different thing; and the

thus altering, as it were, the proportion of the bulk of the minute

parts of a coloured object to our usual sight, produces different

ideas from what it did before. Thus, sand or pounded glass, which is

opaque, and white to the naked eye, is pellucid in a microscope; and a

hair seen in this way, loses its former colour, and is, in a great

measure, pellucid, with a mixture of some bright sparkling colours,

such as appear from the refraction of diamonds, and other pellucid

bodies. Blood, to the naked eye, appears all red; but by a good

microscope, wherein its lesser parts appear, shows only some few

globules of red, swimming in a pellucid liquor, and how these red

globules would appear, if glasses could be found that could yet

magnify them a thousand or ten thousand times more, is uncertain.

…

15. Our ideas of spiritual substances, as clear as of bodily

substances. Besides the complex ideas we have of material sensible

substances, of which I have last spoken,- by the simple ideas we

have taken from those operations of our own minds, which we experiment

daily in ourselves, as thinking, understanding, willing, knowing,

and power of beginning motion, &c., co-existing in some substance,

we are able to frame the complex idea of an immaterial spirit. And

thus, by putting together the ideas of thinking, perceiving,

liberty, and power of moving themselves and other things, we have as

clear a perception and notion of immaterial substances as we have of

material. For putting together the ideas of thinking and willing, or

the power of moving or quieting corporeal motion, joined to substance,

of which we have no distinct idea, we have the idea of an immaterial

spirit; and by putting together the ideas of coherent solid parts, and

a power of being moved, joined with substance, of which likewise we

have no positive idea, we have the idea of matter. The one is as clear

and distinct an idea as the other: the idea of thinking, and moving

a body, being as clear and distinct ideas as the ideas of extension,

solidity, and being moved. 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

reflection that we are apt to think that our senses show us nothing

but material things. 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 hearing, &c., that there is

some corporeal being without me, the object of that sensation, I do

more certainly know, that there is some spiritual being within me that

sees and hears. This, I must be convinced, cannot be the action of

bare insensible matter; nor ever could be, without an immaterial

thinking being.

16. No idea of abstract substance either in body or spirit. By the

complex idea of extended, figured, coloured, and all other sensible

qualities, which is all that we know of it, we are as far from the

idea of the substance of body, as if we knew nothing at all: nor after

all the acquaintance and familiarity which we imagine we have with

matter, and the many qualities men assure themselves they perceive and

know in bodies, will it perhaps upon examination be found, that they

have any more or clearer primary ideas belonging to body, than they

have belonging to immaterial spirit.

17. Cohesion of solid parts and impulse, the primary ideas

peculiar to body. The primary ideas we have peculiar to body, as

contradistinguished to spirit, are the cohesion of solid, and

consequently separable, parts, and a power of communicating motion

by impulse. These, I think, are the original ideas proper and peculiar

to body; for figure is but the consequence of finite extension.

18. Thinking and motivity the primary ideas peculiar to spirit.

The ideas we have belonging and peculiar to spirit, are thinking,

and will, or a power of putting body into motion by thought, and,

which is consequent to it, liberty. For, as body cannot but

communicate its motion by impulse to another body, which it meets with

at rest, so the mind can put bodies into motion, or forbear to do

so, as it pleases. The ideas of existence, duration, and mobility, are

common to them both.

…

22. Our complex idea of an immaterial spirit and our complex idea of

body compared. Let us compare, then, our complex idea of an immaterial

spirit with our complex idea of body, and see whether there be any

more obscurity in one than in the other, and in which most. Our idea

of body, as I think, is an extended solid substance, capable of

communicating motion by impulse: and our idea of soul, as an

immaterial spirit, is of a substance that thinks, and has a power of

exciting motion in body, by willing, or thought. These, I think, are

our complex ideas of soul and body, as contradistinguished; and now

let us examine which has most obscurity in it, and difficulty to be

apprehended. I know that people whose thoughts are immersed in matter,

and have so subjected their minds to their senses that they seldom

reflect on anything beyond them, are apt to say, they cannot

comprehend a thinking thing, which perhaps is true: but I affirm, when

they consider it well, they can no more comprehend an extended thing.

…

28. Communication of motion by impulse, or by thought, equally

unintelligible. Another idea we have of body is, the power of

communication of motion by impulse; and of our souls, the power of

exciting motion by thought. These ideas, the one of body, the other of

our minds, every day's experience clearly furnishes us with: but if

here again we inquire how this is done, we are equally in the dark.

For, in the communication of motion by impulse, wherein as much motion

is lost to one body as is got to the other, which is the ordinariest

case, we can have no other conception, but of the passing of motion

out of one body into another; which, I think, is as obscure and

inconceivable as how our minds move or stop our bodies by thought,

which we every moment find they do. The increase of motion by impulse,

which is observed or believed sometimes to happen, is yet harder to be

understood. We have by daily experience clear evidence of motion

produced both by impulse and by thought; but the manner how, hardly

comes within our comprehension: we are equally at a loss in both. So

that, however we consider motion, and its communication, either from

body or spirit, the idea which belongs to spirit is at least as

clear as that which belongs to body. And if we consider the active

power of moving, or, as I may call it, motivity, it is much clearer in

spirit than body; since two bodies, placed by one another at rest,

will never afford us the idea of a power in the one to move the other,

but by a borrowed motion: whereas the mind every day affords us

ideas of an active power of moving of bodies; and therefore it is

worth our consideration, whether active power be not the proper

attribute of spirits, and passive power of matter. Hence may be

conjectured that created spirits are not totally separate from matter,

because they are both active and passive. Pure spirit, viz. God, is

only active; pure matter is only passive; those beings that are both

active and passive, we may judge to partake of both. But be that as it

will, I think, we have as many and as clear ideas belonging to

spirit as we have belonging to body, the substance of each being

equally unknown to us; and the idea of thinking in spirit, as clear as

of extension in body; and the communication of motion by thought,

which we attribute to spirit, is as evident as that by impulse,

which we ascribe to body. Constant experience makes us sensible of

both these, though our narrow understandings can comprehend neither.

For, when the mind would look beyond those original ideas we have from

sensation or reflection, and penetrate into their causes, and manner

of production, we find still it discovers nothing but its own

short-sightedness.

…

37. Recapitulation. And thus we have seen what kind of ideas we have

of substances of all kinds, wherein they consist, and how we came by

them. From whence, I think, it is very evident,

First, That all our ideas of the several sorts of 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 complex ideas of several sorts of

substances, are no other but such as we have received from sensation

or reflection. So that even in those which we think we are most

intimately acquainted with, and that come nearest the comprehension of

our most enlarged conceptions, we cannot go 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 complex

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 considered, 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,

&c., all united together in an unknown substratum: all which ideas are

nothing 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 fitness differently to operate, and be operated on by several

other substances.

…

Chapter XXVII

Of Identity and Diversity

1. Wherein identity consists. Another occasion the mind often

takes of comparing, is the very being of things, when, considering

anything 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 anything 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

respects: 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 anywhere at any time,

excludes all of the same kind, and is there itself alone. When

therefore we demand whether anything be the same or no, it refers

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

other. From whence it follows, that one thing cannot have two

beginnings of existence, nor two things one beginning; it being

impossible 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. That, therefore, that had one beginning, is the same

thing; and that which had a different beginning in time and place from

that, is not the same, but diverse. That which has made the difficulty

about this relation has been the little care and attention used in

having precise notions of the things to which it is attributed.

2. Identity of substances. We have the ideas but of three sorts of

substances: 1. God. 2. Finite intelligences. 3. Bodies.

First, God is without beginning, eternal, unalterable, and

everywhere, and therefore concerning his identity there can be no

doubt.

Secondly, Finite spirits having had each its determinate time and

place of beginning to exist, the relation to that time and place

will always determine to each of them its identity, as long as it

exists.

Thirdly, The same will hold of every particle of matter, to which no

addition or subtraction of matter being made, it is the same. For,

though these three sorts of substances, as we term them, do not

exclude one another out of the same place, yet we cannot conceive

but that they must necessarily each of them exclude any of the same

kind out of the same place: or else the notions and names of

identity and diversity would be in vain, and there could be no such

distinctions of substances, or anything else one from another. For

example: 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 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. But it being a contradiction that two or more should be

one, identity and diversity are relations and ways of comparing well

founded, and of use to the understanding.

Identity of modes and relations. All other things being but modes or

relations ultimately terminated in substances, the identity and

diversity of each particular existence of them too will be by the same

way determined: only as to things whose existence is in succession,

such as are the actions of finite beings, v.g. motion and thought,

both which consist in a continued train of succession, concerning

their diversity there can be no question: because each perishing the

moment it begins, they cannot exist in different times, or in

different places, as permanent beings can at different times exist

in distant places; and therefore no motion or thought, considered as

at different times, can be the same, each part thereof having a

different beginning of existence.

3. Principium Individuationis. From what has been said, it is easy

to discover what is so much inquired after, the principium

individuationis; and that, it is plain, is existence itself; which

determines a being of any sort to a particular time and place,

incommunicable to two beings of the same kind. This, though it seems

easier to conceive in simple substances or modes; yet, when

reflected on, is not more difficult in compound ones, if care be taken

to what it is applied: v.g. let us suppose an atom, i.e. a continued

body under one immutable superficies, existing in a determined time

and place; it is evident, that, considered in any instant of its

existence, 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 existence 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, consisting of the same atoms, must be the same mass, or

the same body, let the parts be ever so differently jumbled. But if

one of these atoms be taken away, or one new one added, it is no

longer the 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 they be truly one of them the same oak, and the other

the same horse. The reason whereof is, that, in these two cases- a

mass of matter and a living body- identity is not applied to the

same thing.

4. Identity of vegetables. 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 disposition 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, &c., 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 conformable to that sort of plants. For this

organization, being at any one instant in any one collection of

matter, is in that particular concrete distinguished from all other,

and is that individual life, which existing constantly from that

moment both forwards and backwards, in the same continuity of

insensibly succeeding parts united to the living body of the plant, it

has that identity which makes the same plant, and all the parts of it,

parts of the same plant, during all the time that they exist united in

that continued organization, which is fit to convey that common life

to all the parts so united.

5. Identity of animals. The case is not so much different in

brutes but that any one may hence see what makes an animal and

continues it the same. Something we have like this in machines, and

may serve to illustrate it. For example, what is a watch? It is

plain it is nothing but a fit organization or construction of parts to

a certain end, which, when a sufficient force is added to it, it is

capable to attain. If we would suppose this machine one continued

body, all whose organized parts were repaired, increased, or

diminished by a constant addition or separation of insensible parts,

with one common life, we should have something very much like the body

of an animal; with this difference, That, in an animal the fitness

of the organization, and the motion wherein life consists, begin

together, the motion coming from within; but in machines the force

coming sensibly from without, is often away when the organ is in

order, and well fitted to receive it.

6. The identity of man. This also shows wherein the identity of

the same man consists; viz. in nothing but a participation of 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, Ismael,

Socrates, Pilate, St. Austin, and Caesar Borgia, to be the same man.

For if the identity of soul alone makes the same man; and there be

nothing in the nature of matter why the same individual spirit may not

be united to different bodies, it will be possible that those men,

living in distant ages, and of different tempers, may have been the

same man: which way of speaking must be from a very strange use of the

word man, applied to an idea out of which body and shape are excluded.

And that way of speaking would agree yet worse with the notions of

those philosophers who allow of transmigration, and are of opinion

that the souls of men may, for their miscarriages, be detruded into

the bodies of beasts, as fit habitations, with organs suited to the

satisfaction of their brutal inclinations. But yet I think nobody,

could he be sure that the soul of Heliogabalus were in one of his

hogs, would yet say that hog were a man or Heliogabalus.

7. Idea of identity suited to the idea it is applied to. It is not

therefore unity of substance that comprehends 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 stands

for: it being one thing to be the same substance, 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.

8. Same man. An animal is a living organized body; and

consequently the same animal, as we have observed, is the same

continued life communicated to different particles of matter, as

they happen successively to be united to that organized living body.

And whatever is talked of other definitions, ingenious observation

puts it past doubt, that the idea in our minds, of which the sound man

in our mouths is the sign, is nothing else but of an animal of such

a certain form. Since I think I may be confident, that, whoever should

see a creature of his own shape or make, though it had no more

reason all its life than a cat or a parrot, would call him still a

man; or whoever should hear a cat or a parrot discourse, reason, and

philosophize, would call or think it nothing but a cat or a parrot;

and say, the one was a dull irrational man, and the other a very

intelligent rational parrot. A relation we have in an author of

great note, is sufficient to countenance the supposition of a rational

parrot.

…

9. Personal identity. This being premised, to find wherein

personal identity consists, we must consider what person stands

for;- which, I think, is a thinking intelligent being, that has reason

and reflection, and can consider itself as itself, the same thinking

thing, in different times and places; which it does only by that

consciousness which is inseparable from thinking, and, as 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 anything, 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 divers substances. For, since consciousness always accompanies

thinking, and it is that which makes every one to be what he calls

self, and thereby distinguishes himself from all other thinking

things, in this alone consists personal identity, i.e. the sameness of

a rational being: and as far as this consciousness 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.

10. Consciousness makes personal identity. But it is further

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, evidently 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 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 consciousness 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, i.e. the same substance

or no. Which, however reasonable or unreasonable, concerns not

personal identity at all. The question being what makes the same

person; and not whether it be the same identical substance, which

always thinks in the same person, which, in this case, matters not

at all: different substances, by the same consciousness (where they do

partake in it) being united into one person, as well as different

bodies by the same life are united into one animal, whose identity

is preserved in that change of substances by the unity of one

continued life. For, it being the same consciousness that makes a

man be himself to himself, personal identity depends on that only,

whether it be annexed solely 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 substance,

no more two persons, than a man be two men by wearing other clothes

to-day than he did yesterday, with a long or a short sleep between:

the same consciousness uniting those distant actions into the same

person, whatever substances contributed to their production.

11. Personal identity in change of substance. That this is so, we

have some kind of evidence in our very bodies, all whose particles,

whilst vitally united to this same thinking conscious self, so that we

feel when they are touched, and are affected by, and conscious of good

or harm that happens to them, as a part of ourselves; i.e. of our

thinking conscious self. Thus, the limbs of his body are to every

one a part of Himself; he sympathizes and is concerned for them. Cut

off a hand, and thereby separate it from that consciousness he had

of its heat, cold, and other affections, and it is then no longer a

part of that which is himself, any more than the remotest part of

matter. Thus, we see the substance whereof personal self consisted

at one time may be varied at another, without the change of personal

identity; there being no question about the same person, though the

limbs which but now were a part of it, be cut off.

12. Personality in change of substance. But the question is, Whether

if the same substance 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 question 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 preserved 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 immaterial substances, as well as animal identity is

preserved 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 person in men; which the Cartesians at least

will not admit, for fear of making brutes thinking things too.

13. Whether in change of thinking substances there can be one

person. 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 substances they are that

do think; and whether the consciousness 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 a present representation of a past action, why it may not be

possible, that that may be represented to the mind to have been

which really never was, will remain to be shown. And therefore how far

the consciousness of past actions is annexed to any individual

agent, so that another cannot possibly have it, will be hard for us to

determine, till we know what kind of action it is that cannot be

done without a reflex act of perception accompanying it, and how

performed by thinking substances, who cannot think without being

conscious of it. 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. And that it never is so, will by us, till we

have clearer views of the nature of thinking substances, be best

resolved into the goodness of God; who, as far as the happiness or

misery of any of his sensible creatures is concerned in it, will

not, by a fatal error of theirs, transfer from one to another that

consciousness which draws reward or punishment with it. How far this

may be an argument against those who would place thinking in a

system of fleeting animal spirits, I leave to be considered. But

yet, to return 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 numerical 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 preserved, whether in the same or different

substances, the personal identity is preserved.

14. Whether, the same immaterial substance remaining, there can be

two persons. As to the second part of the question, Whether the same

immaterial substance remaining, there may be two distinct persons;

which question seems to me to be built on this,- Whether the same

immaterial being, being conscious of the action of its past

duration, may be wholly stripped of all the consciousness of its

past existence, and lose it beyond the power of ever retrieving it

again: and so as it were beginning a new account from a new period,

have a consciousness that cannot reach beyond this new state. All

those who hold pre-existence are evidently of this mind; since they

allow the soul to have no remaining consciousness of what it did in

that pre-existent state, either wholly separate from body, or

informing any other body; and if they should not, it is plain

experience would be against them. So that personal identity,

reaching no further than consciousness reaches, a pre-existent

spirit not having continued so many ages in a state of silence, must

needs make different persons. Suppose a Christian Platonist or a

Pythagorean should, upon God's having ended all his works of

creation the seventh day, think his soul hath existed ever since;

and should imagine it has revolved in several human bodies; as I

once met with one, who was persuaded his had been the soul of Socrates

(how reasonably I will not dispute; this I know, that in the post he

filled, which was no inconsiderable one, he passed for a very rational

man, and the press has shown that he wanted not parts or learning;)-

would any one say, that he, being not conscious of any of Socrates's

actions or thoughts, could be the same person with Socrates? Let any

one reflect upon himself, and conclude that he has in himself an

immaterial spirit, which is that which thinks in him, and, in the

constant change of his body keeps him the same: and is that which he

calls himself: let him also suppose it to be the same soul that was in

Nestor or Thersites, at the siege of Troy, (for souls being, as far as

we know anything of them, in their nature indifferent to any parcel of

matter, the supposition has no apparent absurdity in it), which it may

have been, as well as it is now the soul of any other man: but he

now having no consciousness of any of the actions either of Nestor

or Thersites, does or can he conceive himself the same person with

either of them? Can he be concerned in either of their actions?

attribute them to himself, or think them his own, more than the

actions of any other men that ever existed? So that this

consciousness, not reaching to any of the actions of either of those

men, he is no more one self with either of them than if the soul or

immaterial spirit that now informs him had been created, and began

to exist, when it began to inform his present body; though it were

never so true, that the same spirit that informed Nestor's or

Thersites' body were numerically the same that now informs his. For

this would no more make him the same person with Nestor, than if

some of the particles of matter that were once a part of Nestor were

now a part of this man; the same immaterial substance, without the

same consciousness, no more making the same person, by being united to

any body, than the same particle of matter, without consciousness,

united to any body, makes the same person. But let him once find

himself conscious of any of the actions of Nestor, he then finds

himself the same person with Nestor.

15. The body, as well as the soul, goes to the making of a man.

And thus may we be able, without any difficulty, to conceive the

same person at the resurrection, though in a body not exactly in

make or parts the same which he had here,- the same consciousness

going along with the soul that inhabits it. But yet the soul alone, in

the change of bodies, would scarce to any one but to him that makes

the soul the man, be enough to make the same man. For should the

soul of a prince, carrying with it the consciousness of the prince's

past life, enter and inform the body of a cobbler, as soon as deserted

by his own soul, every one sees he would be the same person with the

prince, accountable only for the prince's actions: but who would say

it was the same man? The body too goes to the making the man, and

would, I guess, to everybody determine the man in this case, wherein

the soul, with all its princely thoughts about it, would not make

another man: but he would be the same cobbler to every one besides

himself. I know that, in the ordinary way of speaking, the same

person, and the same man, stand for one and the same thing. And indeed

every one will always have a liberty to speak as he pleases, and to

apply what articulate sounds to what ideas he thinks fit, and change

them as often as he pleases. But yet, when we will inquire what

makes the same spirit, man, or person, we must fix the ideas of

spirit, man, or person in our minds; and having resolved with

ourselves what we mean by them, it will not be hard to determine, in

either of them, or the like, when it is the same, and when not.

16. Consciousness alone unites actions into the same person. But

though the same immaterial substance or soul does not alone,

wherever it be, and in whatsoever state, make the same man; yet it

is plain, consciousness, as far as ever it can be extended- should

it be to ages past- unites existences and actions very remote in

time into the same person, as well as it does the existences and

actions of the immediately preceding moment: so that whatever has

the consciousness of present and past actions, is the same person to

whom they both belong. Had I the same consciousness that I saw the ark

and Noah's flood, as that I saw an overflowing of the Thames last

winter, or as that I write now, I could no more doubt that I who write

this now, that saw' the Thames overflowed last winter, and that viewed

the flood at the general deluge, was the same self,- place that self

in what substance you please- than that I who write this am the same

myself now whilst I write (whether I consist of all the same

substance, material or immaterial, or no) that I was yesterday. For as

to this point of being the same self, it matters not whether this

present self be made up of the same or other substances- I being as

much concerned, and as justly accountable for any action that was done

a thousand years since, appropriated to me now by this

self-consciousness, as I am for what I did the last moment.

17. Self depends on consciousness, not on substance. Self is that

conscious thinking thing,- whatever substance made up of, (whether

spiritual or material, simple or compounded, it matters not)- which is

sensible or conscious of pleasure and pain, capable of happiness or

misery, and so is concerned for itself, as far as that consciousness

extends. Thus every one finds that, whilst comprehended under that

consciousness, the little finger is as much a part of himself as

what is most so. Upon separation of this little finger, should this

consciousness go along with the little finger, and leave the rest of

the body, it is evident the little finger would be the person, the

same person; and self then would have nothing to do with the rest of

the body. As in this case it is the consciousness that goes along with

the substance, when one part is separate from another, which makes the

same person, and constitutes this inseparable self: so it is in

reference to substances remote in time. 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 further; as

every one who reflects will perceive.

…

18. Persons, not substances, the objects of reward and punishment.

In this personal identity is founded all the right and justice of

reward and punishment; happiness and misery being that for which every

one is concerned for himself, and not mattering what becomes of any

substance, not joined to, or affected with that consciousness. For, as

it is evident in the instance I gave but now, if the consciousness

went along with the little finger when it was cut off, that would be

the same self which was concerned for the whole body yesterday, as

making part of itself, whose actions then it cannot but admit as its

own now. Though, if the same body should still live, and immediately

from the separation of the little finger have its own peculiar

consciousness, whereof the little finger knew nothing, it would not at

all be concerned for it, as a part of itself, or could own any of

its actions, or have any of them imputed to him.

19. Which shows wherein personal identity consists. This may show us

wherein personal identity consists: not in the identity of

substance, but, as I have said, in the identity of consciousness,

wherein if Socrates and the present mayor of Queinborough agree,

they are the same person: if the same Socrates waking and sleeping

do not partake of the same consciousness, Socrates waking and sleeping

is not the same person. And to punish Socrates waking for what

sleeping Socrates thought, and waking Socrates was never conscious of,

would be no more of right, than to punish one twin for what his

brother-twin did, whereof he knew nothing, because their outsides were

so like, that they could not be distinguished; for such twins have

been seen.

20. Absolute oblivion separates what is thus forgotten from the

person, but not from the man. But yet possibly it will still be

objected,- Suppose I wholly lose the memory of some parts of my

life, beyond a possibility of retrieving them, so that perhaps I shall

never be conscious of them again; yet am I not the same person that

did those actions, had those thoughts that I once was conscious of,

though I have now forgot them? To which I answer, that we must here

take notice what the word I is applied to; which, in this case, is the

man only. And the same man being presumed to be the same person, I

is easily here supposed to stand also for the same person. But if it

be possible for the same man to have distinct incommunicable

consciousness at different times, it is past doubt the same man

would at different times make different persons; which, we see, is the

sense of mankind in the solemnest declaration of their opinions, human

laws not punishing the mad man for the sober man's actions, nor the

sober man for what the mad man did,- thereby making them two

persons: which is somewhat explained by our way of speaking in English

when we say such an one is "not himself," or is "beside himself"; in

which phrases it is insinuated, as if those who now, or at least first

used them, thought that self was changed; the selfsame person was no

longer in that man.

…

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