fection, and therefore fit to be considered in this place
after the simple ideas of sensation. Of compounding,
comiparing, abstracting, &c., I have but just spoken,
having occasion to treat of them more at large in other
places.
These are the

. 15. And thus I have given a short,
beginnings and, I think, true history of the first be-
of human ginpings of human knowledge, whence the
knowledge. 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 know-
ledge it is capable of; wherein I must appeal to expe-
rience and observation, whether I am in the right : the
best way to come to truth, bcing 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.
Appeal to

$. 16. To deal truly, this is the only way experience. that I can discover, whereby the ideas of

things are brought into the understanding : if other men have either innate ideas, or infused principles, they have reason to enjoy them; and if they are sure of it, it is impossible for others to deny then the privilege that they have above their neighbours. I caii speak but of what I find in myself, and is agreeable to those notions; which, if we will examine the whole course of men in their several ages, countries, and educations, seem to depend on those foundations which I have laid, and to correspond with this method in all the parts and degrees thereof. Dark room. $. 17. I pretend not to teach, but to in

quire, and therefore cannot but confess here again, that external and internal sensation are the only passages that 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 opening left, to let in external visible resemblances, or ideas of things without: would the pictures coming into şuch a dark room but stay there, and lie so orderly

as

is nie as to be found upon occasion, it would very much reune semble the understanding of a man, in reference to all

objects of sight, and the ideas of them. hon 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

CHAP. XII.

Of Complex Ideas.

f 1. WWE have hitherto considered Made by the

y those ideas, in the reception mind out of whereof the mind is only passive, which simple ones. 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 other

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. 9. The second is bringing two ideas, whether simple or comples, 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 relasitions. 3. The third is separating them from all other

Ideas that accompany thein in their real existence; me this is called abstraction, and thus all its general ideas Be are made. This shows man's power, and ïts ways of

operation, to be much wbat the same in the material

and

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 thein united together as one idea; and that not only as they are united in external objects, but as itself has joined thein. 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 siinple 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. Made yolun

... §. 2. In this faculty of repeating and

joining together its ideas, the mind las"

great power in varying and multiplying the objects of its thoughts, iufinitely beyond what sensation or reflection furnished it witlı; 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 10 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. Are either §. 3. Complex ideas, however, commodes, sub. pounded and decompounded, though their stances or re- number be infinite, and the variety endlacions.

less, wherevrith they fill and entertain the

tarily.

thoughts

thoughts of men; yet, I think, they may be all reduced under these three heads : 1. Modes. 2. Substances. 3. Relations.

§. 4. First, Modes I call such complex M 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 ideas signified by the words triangle, gratitude, murder, &c. And it in this I use the word mode in somewhat a different sense froin its ordinary signification, I beg pardon ; it being unavoidable in discourses, differing from the ordinary received notions, cither to make new words, or to use old words in somewhat a new signification : the latter whereof, in our present case, is perhaps the more tolerable of the two.

$. 5. Of these modes, there are two Simple and sorts which deserve distinct consideration. mixed First, there are some which are only va- modes. riations, 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 com

plex one; v. g. beauty, consisting of a certain comi position of colour and figure, causing delight in the

beholder ; theft, which being the concealed change of the possession of any thing, without the consent of the proprietor, contains, as is visible, a combination of several ideas of several kinds : and these I call mixed modes.

5. 6. Secondly, the ideas of substances are such combinations of simple ideas, as

Substances : are taken to represent distinct particular

+ particular single or col. things subsisting by themselves; in which the supposed or confused idea of substance, such as it is, is always the first and chief. Thus if to substance be joined the simple idea of a certain dull whitish co

Vol. I.

lour, lour, 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, make the ordinary idea of a man. Now of substances also, there are two sorts of ideas; one of single substances, as they exist separately, as of a man or a sheep; the other of several of those put together, as an army of men, or flock of sheep : which collective ideas of several substances thus put together, are as much each of them one single idea, as that of a man, or an unit.

$. 7. Thirdly, the last sort of complex Relation.

ideas, is that we call relation, which consists in the consideration and comparing one idea with another. Of these several kinds we sliall treat in their order.

smu. $. 8. If we trace the progress of our sest ideas · minds, and with attention observe how from the two it repeats, adds together, and unites its sourccs. simple ideas received from sensation or reflection, it will lead us farther than at first perhaps we should have imagined. And I believe we shall find, if we warily observe the originals of our notions, that even the most abstruse ideas, how remote soever they may seem from sense, or from any operations of our own minds, are yet only such as the understanding frames to itself, by repeating and joining together ideas, only that it had either from objects of sense, or from its own operations about them: so that those even large dict and abstract ideas are derived from sensation or reflection, being no other than what the mind, by the ordinary use of its own faculties, employed about ideas l'e- he ceived from objects of sense, or from the operations it cho observes in itself about them, may and does attain unto. * Reed' This I shall endeavour to show in the ideas we have a of space, time, and infinity, and some few others, that seem the most remote from those originals.

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