ceive, and attend to it: He, I fay, who confiders this, will perhaps find reason to imagine, that a fetus in the mother's womb differs not much from the fate of a vegetable, but paffes the greateft part of its time without perception or thought, doing very little but fleep in a place where it needs not feek for food, and is furrounded with liquor, always equally foft, and near of the fame temper; where the eyes have no light; and the ears fo fhut up, are not very fufceptible of founds; and where there is little or no variety or change of objects to move the senses.

§ 22.

FOLLOW a child from its birth, and obferve the alterations that time makes, and you fhall find, as the mind by the fenfes comes more and more to be furnished with ideas, it comes to be more and more awake; thinks more, the more it has matter to think on; after fome time it begins to know the objects, which being most familiar with it, have made lafting impreffions. Thus it comes by degrees to know the perfons it daily converfes with, and diftinguish them from ftrangers; which are inftances and effects of its coming to retain and distinguish the ideas the fenfes convey to it.

fo we may obferve how the mind by degrees improves in these, and advances to the exercife of thofe other faculties of enlarging, compounding, and abstracting its ideas, and of reasoning about them, and reflecting upon all thefe; of which I fhall have occafion to speak more hereafter.

§ 23.

Is it shall be demanded, then, When a man begins to have any ideas? I think the true answer is, When he firft has any fenfation; for fince there appear not to be any ideas in the mind before the fenfes have conveyed any in, I conceive that ideas in the understanding are coeval with fenfation; which is fuch an impreffion or motion made in fome part of the body, as produces fome perception in the understanding. It is about these impreffions made on our senses by outward objects that the mind feems first to employ itself in fuch operations

as we call perception, remembering, confideration, reafoning, &c.

§ 24. The Original of all our Knowledge. IN time the mind comes to reflect on its own operations about the ideas got by fenfation, and thereby ftores itself with a new fet of ideas, which I call ideas of reflection. These are the impreffions that are made on our fenfes by outward objects that are extrinfical to the mind; and its own operations, proceeding from powers intrinfical and proper to itself, which, when reficcted on by itself, become alfo objects of its contemplation, are, as I have faid, the original of all knowledge. Thus the first capacity of human intellect is, that the mind is fitted to receive the impreffions made on it, either through the fenfes by outward objects, or by its own operations when it reflects on them. This is the first ftep a man makes towards the difcovery of any thing, and the groundwork whereon to build all those notions which ever he fhall have naturally in this world. All thofe fublime thoughts which tower above the clouds, and reach as high as heaven itself, take their rife and footing here. In all that great extent wherein the mind wanders in thofe remote fpeculations it may feem to be elevated with, it ftirs not one jot beyond thofe ideas which fenfe or reflection have offered for its contempla

tion.

$25. In the reception of fimple Ideas the Underflanding is for the most part passive.

In this part the understanding is merely paffive; and whether or no it will have thefe beginnings, and, as it were, materials of knowledge, is not in its own power; for the objects of our fenfes do many of them obtrude their particular ideas upon our minds whether we will or no, and the operations of our minds will not let us be without at leaft fome obfcure notions of them. No man can be wholly ignorant of what he does when he thinks. Thefe fimple ideas, when offered to the mind, the understanding can no more refufe to have, nor alter when they are imprinted, nor blot them out, and make new ones itself, than a mirror can refuse,

alter, or obliterate the images or ideas which the objects fet before it do there in produce. As the bodics that furround us do diverfely affect our organs, the mind is forced to receive the impreffions, and cannot avoid the perception of thofe ideas that are annexed to them.

THE

CHAP. II.

OF SIMPLE IDEAS.

§ 1. Uncompounded Appearances.

HE better to understand the nature, manner, and extent of our knowledge, one thing is carefully to be obferved concerning the ideas we have, and that is, that fome of them are fimple, and fame complex.

Though the qualities that affect our fenfes are, in the things themielves, fo united and blended, that there is no feparation, no diftance between them, yet it is plain the ideas they produce in the mind enter by the fenfes fimple and unmixed; for though the fight and touch often take in from the fame object, at the fame time, different ideas, as a man fees at once motion and colour, the hand feels foftnefs and warmth in the fame piece of wax, yet the fimple ideas thus united in the fame fubject are as perfectly distinct as thofe that come in by different fenfes, the coldness and hardness which a man feels in a piece of ice being as diftinct ideas in the mind as the smell and whitenefs of a lily, or as the taste of fugar, and fmell of a rofe; and there is nothing can be plainer to a man than the clear and diftinct perceptions he has of thofe fimple ideas, which being each in itfelf uncompounded, contains in it nothing but one uniform appearance or conception in the mind, and is not diftinguishable into different ideas.

§ 2. The Mind can neither make nor defirry them. THESE fimple ideas, the materials of all our knowledge, are fuggefted and furnished to the mind only by those two ways above-mentioned, viz. fenfation and reflection. When the understanding is once flored with thete imple

ideas, it has the power to repeat, compare, and unite them, even to an almost infinite variety, and fo canmake at pleasure new complex ideas; but it is not in the power of the most exalted wit, or enlarged underftanding, by any quickness or variety of thoughts, to invent or frame one new fimple idea in the mind, not taken in by the ways aforementioned; nor can any force of the understanding deftrey thofe that are there, the dominion of man in this little world of his own understanding being much-what the fame as it is in the great world of vifille 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 leaft particle of new matter, or deftroying one atom of what is already in being. The fame inability will every one find in himself, who shall go about to fashion in his understanding any fimple idea not received in by his fenfes from external objects, or by reflection from the opera-tions of his own mind about them. I would have any one try to fancy any tafte which had never affected his palate, or frame the idea of a fcent he had never smelt; and when he can do this, I will alfo conclude, that a blind man hath ideas of colours, and a deaf man true distinct notions of founds.

§3.

THIS is the reason why, though we cannot believe it impoffible to God to make a creature with other organs, and more ways to convey into the understanding the notice of corporeal things than thofe five, as they are ufually counted, which he has given to man, yet I think it is not poffible for any one to imagine any other qualities in bodies, howfoever conftituted, whereby they can be taken notice of, besides founds, taftes, fmells, vifible and tangible qualities. And had mankind been made with but four fenfes, the qualities then, which are the objects of the fifth fenfe, had been as far from our notice, imagination, and conception, as now any belonging to a fixth, feventh, or eighth fenfe, can poffibly be; which, whether yet fome other creatures, in fome other parts,

of this vaft and ftupendous univerfe, may not have, will be a great prefumption to deny. He that will not fet himfelf proudly at the top of all things, but will confider the immenfity of this fabric, and the great variety that is to be found in this little and inconfiderable part of it which he has to do with, may be apt to think, that in other manfions of it there may be other and different intelligent beings, of whofe faculties he has as little knowledge or apprehenfion as a worm fhut up in one drawer of a cabinet hath of the fenfes or understanding of a man, fuch variety and excellency being fuitable to the wifdom and power of the Maker. I have here followed the common opinion of man's having but five fenfes, though perhaps there may be justly counted more; but either fuppofition ferves equally to my prefent purpose.

CHAP. III.

OF IDEAS OF ONE SENSE.

1. Divifion of Simple Ideas.

HE better to conceive the ideas we receive from

them in reference to the different ways whereby they make their approaches to our minds, and make themfelves perceivable by us.

First, then, There are fome which come into our minds by one fenfe only.

Secondly, There are others that convey themselves into the mind by more fenfes than one.

Thirdly, Others that are had from reflection only." Fourthly, There are fome that make themselves way, and are fuggefted to the mind by all the ways of fenfation and reflection.

We shall confider them apart under these several heads. Ideas of one Senfe, as Colours, of Seeing, Sound, of Hear ing, &c.

FIRST, There are fome ideas which have admittance only through one fenfe, which is peculiarly adapted to receive them. Thus light and colours, as white, red, yellow,