III. Intel lectual CLASS IV. in their being a clock or a landscape, we can have but a very inadequate idea of their character and composition. The ideas presented to the mind, from which soever of these two sources derived, are of two kinds—SIMPLE and COMPLEX. principle, Ideas of two de scriptions from each of the above sources. Simple ideas, what. Complex SIMPLE IDEAS Consist of such as are limited to a single notion or perception; as those of unity, darkness, light, sound, simple pain or uneasiness. And in the reception of these the mind is passive; for it can neither make them to itself, nor can it, in any instance, have any idea which does not wholly consist of them; or, in other words, it cannot contemplate any one of them otherwise than in its totality. COMPLEX IDEAS are formed out of various simple ideas ideas, what. associated together or contemplated derivatively. And to this class belong the ideas of an army, a battle, a triangle, gratitude, veneration, gold, silver, an orange, an apple in the formation of all which it must be obvious that the mind is active: for it is the activity of the mind alone that produces the complexity out of such ideas as are simple. And that the ideas I have now referred to are complex, must be plain to every one; for every one must be sensible that the mind cannot form to itself the idea of an orange, without uniting into one aggregate the simple ideas of roundness, yellowness, juiciness, and sweetness; and so of the rest. Formed out of simple ideas by various mental operations. Complex ideas of combina tion. Complex ideas are formed out of simple ideas by many operations of the mind; the principal of which, however, are some combination of them, some abstraction or some comparison. Let us take a view of each of these. And first of complex ideas of COMBINATION. Unity, as I have already observed, is a simple idea; and it is one of the most common simple ideas that can be presented to the mind; for every object without, and every notion within, tend equally to excite it: and being a simple idea, the mind, as I have also remarked, is passive on its presentation: it can neither form such an idea to itself, nor contemplate it otherwise than in its totality: but it CLASS IV. III. Intel can combine the ideas of as many units as it pleases, and Her eyes, her lips, her cheeks, her shape, her features, ideas of In like manner the mind can produce complex ideas by Complex an opposite process; and that is by ABSTRACTION or abstraction. separation. Thus chalk, snow, and milk, though agreeing, perhaps, in no other respect, coincide in the same colour; and the mind, contemplating this agreement, may abstract or separate the colour from the other properties of these three objects, and form the idea which is indicated by the term whiteness; and having thus acquired a new idea by the process of abstraction, it may afterwards apply it as a character to a variety of other objects; and hence particular ideas become general or universal. ideas of compa Hence Other complex ideas are produced by COMPARISON. Complex Thus if the mind take one idea, as that of a foot, as a determinate measure, and place it by the side of another rison. idea, as the idea of a table, the result will be a formation of the complex idea of length, breadth, and thickness. Or, if we vary the primary idea, we may obtain, as a result, the secondary ideas of coarseness and fineness. And hence, complex ideas must be almost infinitely more numerous than simple ideas which are their elements or materials; as words must be always far more numerous than letters. I have instanced only a few of their prin- than simple. cipal kinds, and have applied them only to a few of the great variety of subjects to which they are referable, and by which they are elucidated, in the great work on Human Understanding. It must, however, from this imperfect sketch, appear obvious that many of our ideas have a NATURAL CORRE complex ideas far more nu merous Ideas pos sess a natu ral corre III. Intel lectual principle. spondence; or a natural congruity. Exemplified. Office of reason to trace out these con gruities and incongruities; a just perception of them a CLASS IV. SPONDENCE, congruity, and connexion with each other; and as many, perhaps, on the contrary, a NATURAL REPUGNANCY, incongruity, and disconnexion. Thus, if I were to speak of a cold fire I should put together ideas that are naturally disconnected and incongruous; and should consequently make an absurd proposition, or, to adopt common language, talk nonsense. I should be guilty of the same blunder if I were to talk of a square billiardball, or a soft, reposing rock; but a warm fire, on the contrary, a white or even a black billiard-ball, and a hard, rugged rock are congruous ideas, and consequently consistent with good sense. Now it is the direct office of that discursive faculty of the mind which we call reason, to trace out these natural coincidences or disjunctions, and to connect or separate them by proper relations: for it is a just perception of the natural connexion and congruity, or of the natural repugnancy and incongruity of our ideas that shows a sound mind and constitutes real knowledge. The wise man is he who has industriously laid in and carefully assorted an extensive stock of ideas ; as the stupid or ignorant man is he who, from natural hebetude, or having had but few opportunities, has collected and arranged but a small number. The man who discovers the natural relations of his ideas quickly, is a man of sagacity; and, in popular language, is said, and correctly so, to possess a quick, sharp intellect; the man, on the contrary, who discovers these relations slowly, we call dull or heavy. If he rapidly discover and put together relations that lie remote, and, perhaps touch only in a few points, but those points striking and pleasant, he is a man of wit, genius, or brilliant fancy, of agreeable allusion and metaphor; if he intermix ideas of fancy with ideas of reality, those of reflexion with those of sensation, and mistake the one for the other, however numerous his ideas may be, and whatever their order of succession, he is a madman; he reasons from false principles, and, as we say in popular language, and with perfect correctness, is out of his judgement. ledge. Wise man, what. Ignorant man. Man of sagacity. Man of dulness. Man of wit, genius, and imagination. Mad-man : or out of his judgement. Association of ideas. Finally, our ideas are very apt to ASSOCIATE or run CLASS IV. III. Intel together in trains; and upon this peculiar and happy disposition of the mind we lay our chief dependence in sow- lectual ing the seeds of education. It often happens, however, principle. that some of our ideas have been associated erroneously, and even in a state of early life, before education has commenced; and hence, from the difficulty of separating Sympathies them, most of the sympathies and antipathies, the whims and antipaand prejudices that occasionally haunt us to the latest whims and period of old age. prejudices. thies: tion. Such, then, is the manner, in which the mind, at first General a sheet of white paper, without characters of any kind, recapitulabecomes furnished with that vast store of ideas, the materials of wisdom and knowledge, which the busy and boundless fancy of man paints upon it with an almost endless variety. The whole is derived from experience, THE EXPERIENCE OF SENSATION OR OF REFLEXION; from the observations of the mind employed either about external sensible objects, or the internal operations of itself, per-ceived and reflected upon by its own faculties. the mind body. as distinct These FACULTIES are to the mind what organs are to the Hence fabody they are its ministers in the production, combination, and resolution of different trains of ideas, and in what organs supplying it with the results of its own activity. We We are to the sometimes, however, are apt to speak of them as distinct often and separate existences from the mind, or as possessing spoken of a sort of independent entity, and as controlling one existences, another by their individual authorities, and occasionally, but erroneously. indeed, as controlling the mind itself: for we accustom Exempliourselves to describe the will as being overpowered by fied. the judgement; or the judgement as being overpowered by the imagination; or the mind itself as being carried headlong by the violence of its own passions. By all which, however, we only mean or should only mean, that the mind does not, on such occasions, exert its own faculties in a fitting or sober manner, or that from some diseased affection, it is incapable of doing so. For the Faculties faculties of the mind are so many powers; and, as powers, tinct are mere attributes of the being or substance to which powers; and they belong, and not the being or substance itself. These, from each merely dis all disinct other. III. Intel lectual principle. The mind has also its feelings as well as the CLASS IV. therefore, being all different powers in the mind or in the man, to do several actions, he exerts them as he thinks fit: but the power to do one action is not operated upon by the power to do another action: for the power of thinking operates not on the power of choosing, nor the power of choosing on the power of thinking: any more than the power of dancing operates on the power of singing, or the power of singing on the power of dancing* as any one who reflects on these things will easily perceive. The body has its feelings, and the mind has its feelings also; and it is the feelings of the latter which we call PASSIONS, a mere Latin term for the feelings or sufferings of colloquial language. The feelings of the body are numerous and diversified, as those of simple ache or ease, hunger, thirst, heat, cold, and a multitude of others. Those of the mind are still more numerous and more diversified, for they comprise the multifarious train of grief, joy, love, hatred, avarice, ambition, conceit, and and diversi perhaps hundreds more: all which, whether of body or mind, Mr. Locke has endeavoured to resolve into different modifications of pleasure or pain, according as they are productive of good or evil. body. These are called passions. Numerous fied. Examples. Hence the mind subject to various dis eases as well as the body. Those discases may But the analogy we are thus conducting between the mind and the body holds much farther: for as the latter is subject to DISEASES OF VARIOUS KINDS, so also is the former. The body may be enfeebled in all its powers, in only a few of them, or in only a single one. So also may the mind: "The powers of perception and imaginabe also con- tion," observes M. Pinel," are frequently disturbed without any excitement of the passions. The functions of the understanding, on the other hand, are ofter perfectly sound, while the man is driven by his passions to acts of turbulence and outrage." And these infirmities, whether and tempo- of body or mind, may be constitutional and permanent, periodical or recurrent, or merely incidental and temporary. The body may be of a sanguineous temperament, of a plethoric temperament, of a nervous or irritable tem stitutional and permanent, periodical and recurrent, accidental rary. Illustrated. Locke, p. 129. |