pable of having them, yet the confideration of the reafon why they are annexed to so many other ideas, ferving to give us due fentiments of the wisdom and goodnefs of the Sovereign Difpofer of all things, may not be unfuitable to the main end of thefe inquiries, the knowledge and veneration of him being the chief endof all our thoughts, and the proper business of all our understandings.

§7. Existence and Unity. EXISTENCE and unity are two other ideas that are fuggefted to the understanding by every object without, and every idea within. When ideas are in our minds, we confider them as being actually there, as well as we confider things to be actually without us, which is, that they exist, or have existence; and whatever we can confider as one thing, whether a real being or idea, fuggefts to the understanding the idea of unity.

$8. Porver.

POWER alfo is another of thofe fimple ideas which we receive from fenfation and reflection; for obferving in ourselves that we can at pleasure move feveral parts of our bodies which were at reft, the effects also that natural bodies are able to produce in one another occurring every moment to our fenfes, we both these ways get the idea of pouer.

§ 9. Succeffion.

BESIDES thefe, there is another idea, which, though fuggefted by our fenfes, yet is more conftantly offered us by what paffes in our own minds, and that is, the idea of fucceffion; for if we look immediately into ourfelves, and reflect on what is obfervable there, we shall find our ideas always whilft we are awake, or have any thought, paffing in train, one going and another coming, without intermiflion.

ro. Simple Ideas the Materials of all our Knowledge. THESE, if they are not all, are at least (as I think) the moft confiderable of thofe fimple ideas which the mind has, and out of which is made all its other knowledge; all which it receives only by the two forementioned ways of fenfation and reflection. Nor let any one think thefe

too narrow bounds for the capacious mind of man to expatiate in, which takes its flight farther than the stars, and cannot be confined by the limits of the world; that extends its thoughts often even beyond the utmost expanfion of matter, and makes excurfions into that incomprehenfible inane. I grant all this, but defire any one to affign any fimple idea which is not received from one of thofe inlets before-mentioned, or any complex idea not made out of thofe fimple ones. Nor will it be so strange to think these few fimple ideas fufficient to employ the quickest thought or largest capacity, and to furnish the materials of all that various knowledge, and more various fancies and opinions of all mankind, if we confider how many words may be made out of the various compofition of twenty-four letters; or if, going one step farther, we will but reflect on the variety of combinations may be made with barely one of the abovementioned ideas, viz. number, whofe ftock is inexhauftible, and truly infinite: And what a large and immenfe field doth extenfion alone afford the mathematicians?

CHAP. VIII.

SOME FARTHER CONSIDERATIONS CONCERNING OUR
SIMPLE IDEAS.

C

§ 1. Pofitive Ideas from privative Causes. MONCERNING the fimple ideas of fenfation, it is to be confidered, that whatsoever is so constituted in nature as to be able, by affecting our fenfes, to caufe any perception in the mind, doth thereby produce in the understanding a simple idea, which, whatever be the external cause of it, when it comes to be taken notice of by our difcerning faculty, it is by the mind looked on and confidered there to be a real poftive idea in the understanding, as much as any other whatsoever, though perhaps the cause of it be but a. privation in the subject.

$2.

THUS the ideas of heat and cold, light and darkness, white and black, motion and reft, are equally clear and pofitive ideas in the mind, though perhaps fome of the caufes which produce them are barely privations in those fubjects from whence our fenfes derive thofe ideas. These the understanding, in its view of them, confiders all as diftinct pofitive ideas, without taking notice of the causes that produce them, which is an inquiry not belonging to the idea as it is in the understanding, but to the nature of the things exifting without These are two very different things, and carefully to be diftinguifhed, it being one thing to perceive and know the idea of white or black, and quite another to examine what kind of particles they muft be, and how ranged in the fuperficies, to make any object appear white or black.

us.

$3.

A PAINTER or dyer who never inquired into their caufes, hath the ideas of white and black, and other colours, as clearly, perfectly, and diftinctly in his understanding, and perhaps more diftinctly, than the philofopher who hath bufied himself in confidering their natures, and thinks he knows how far either of them is in its caufe pofitive or privative; and the idea of black is no lefs pofitive in his mind than that of white, however the caufe of that colour in the external object may be only a privation.

4.

If it were the defign of my prefent undertaking to inquire into the natural caufes and manner of perception, I fhould offer this as a reafon why a privative caufe might, in fome cafes at least, produce a pofitive idea, viz. that all fenfation being produced in us only by different degrees and modes of motion in our animal fpirits, variously agitated by external objects, the abatement of any former motion muft as neceffarily produce a new fenfation as the variation or increase of it, and so introduce a new idea, which depends only on a different motion of the animal fpirits in that organ.

$5.

BUT whether this be fo or no I will not here determine, but appeal to every one's own experience, whether the shadow of a man, though it confifts of nothing but the abfence of light (and the more the abfence of light is, the more difcernible is the fhadow), does not, when a man looks on it, caufe as clear and pofitive an idea in his mind as a man himself, though covered over with clear funshine? And the picture of a fhadow is a pofitive thing. Indeed we have negative names, which ftand not directly for pofitive ideas, but for their abfence, fuch as infipid, filence, nihil, &c. which words denote pofitive ideas, v. g. taße, found, being, with a fignification of their abfence.

§ 6. Pofitive Ideas from privative Caufes.

AND thus one may truly be faid to fee darknefs; for, fuppofing a hole perfectly dark, from whence no light is reflected, it is certain one may fee the figure of it, or it may be painted; or whether the ink I write with makes any other idea, is a queftion. The privative caufes I have here affigned of pofitive ideas are according to the common opinion; but in truth it will be hard to determine whether there be really any ideas from a privative caufe, till it be determined, whether reft be any more a privation than motion.

§7. Ideas in the Mind, Qualities in Bodies.

To difcover the nature of our ideas the better, and to difcourfe 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 caufe fuch perceptions in us, that so we may not think (as perhaps ufually is done) that they are exactly the images and refemblances of fomething inherent in the fubject; moft of thofe of fenfation being in the mind no more the likeness of fomething existing without us, than the names that ftand for them are the likeness of our ideas, which yet upon hearing they are apt to excite in us.

§ 8.

WHATSOEVER the mind perceives in itself, or is the im

mediate 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 fubject wherein that power is. Thus a fnow-ball having the power to produce in us the ideas of white, cold, and round, the powers to produce those ideas in us, as they are in the fnowball, I call qualities; and as they are fenfations or perceptions in our understandings, I call them ideas; which ideas, if I fpeak of fometimes as in the things themfelves, I would be understood to mean thofe qualities in the objects which produce them in us.

$9. Primary Qualities.

QUALITIES thus confidered in bodies are, firft, fuch as are utterly infeparable from the body, in what estate foever it be; fuch as, in all the alterations and changes it fuffers, all the force can be used upon it, it constantly keeps; and fuch as fenfe conftantly finds in every particle of matter which has bulk enough to be perceived, and the mind finds infeparable from every particle of matter, though lefs than to make itself fingly be perceived by our fenfes; v. g. Take a grain of wheat, divide it into two parts, each part has itill folidity, extenfion, figure, and mobility; divide it again, and it retains still the fame qualities; and fo divide it on till the parts become infenfible, they must retain still each of them all thofe qualities; for divifion (which is all that a mill, or pestle, or any other body, does upon another, in reducing it to infenfible parts) can never take away either folidity, extenfion, figure, or mobility, from any body, but only makes two or more diftinct feparate maffes of matter of that which was but one before; all which diftinct maffes, reckoned as fo many diftinct bodies, after division make a certain number. Thefe I call original or primary qualities of body, which I think we may obferve to produce fimple ideas in us, viz. folidity, extenfion, figure, motion, or reft, and number.

§ 10.

2dly, SUCH qualities which in truth are nothing in the objects themselves, but powers to produce various sen