poffibly be: which, whether yet fome other creatures, in fome other parts of this vaft and stupendous universe, may not have, will be a greater prefumption to deny. He that will not fet himself proudly at the top of all things, but will confider the immenfity of this fabrick, 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 shut up in one drawer of a cabinet hath of the fenses or understanding of a man: fuch variety and excellency being fuitable to the wisdom 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.

5. I.

THE

CHA P. III.

Of Ideas of one Senfe.

Divifion of fimple ideas.

HE better to conceive the ideas we receive from fenfation, it may not be amifs for us to confider 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 fome which come into our minds by one fense 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 some that make themselves way, and are fuggefted to the mind by all the ways of fenfa tion and reflection.

We shall confider them apart under their feveral heads.

VOL. I.

H

.cer

Ideas of one

fenfe, as colours, of fee ing; found, of hearing; &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, blue, with their feveral degrees or fhades and mixtures, as green, fcarlet, purple, fea-green, and the reft, come in only by the eyes: all kinds of noises, founds, and tones, only by the ears: the feveral taftes and smells, by the nofe and palate. And if thefe organs, or the nerves, which are the conduits to convey them from without to their audience in the brain, the mind's prefence-room (as I may fo call it) are any of them fo difordered, as not to perform their functions, they have no poftern to be admitted by; no other way to bring themfelves into view, and be perceived by the understanding.

The most confiderable of thofe belonging to the touch are heat and cold, and folidity: all the reft, confifting almoft wholly in the fenfible configuration, as fmooth and rough, or elfe more or lefs firm adhesion of the parts, as hard and soft, tough and brittle, are obvious enough.

Few fimple

names.

§. 2. I think, it will be needless to enuideas have merate all the particular fimple ideas, belonging to each fenfe. Nor indeed is it poffible, if we would; there being a great many more of them belonging to most of the fenfes, 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 ftinking commonly ferve our turn for thefe ideas, which in effect is little more than to call them pleafing or difpleafing; though the fmell of a rote and violet, both fweet, are certainly very diftinct ideas. Nor are the different taftes, that by our palates we receive ideas of, much better provided with names. Sweet, bitter, four, harth, and falt, are almoft all the epithets we have to denominate that numberless variety of relifhes, which are to be found diftinct, not only in almost every fort of creatures, but in the different parts of the fame plant, fruit, or animal. The fame The fame may be faid of coo and founds. I fhall therefore, in the account of

fimple ideas I am here giving, content myfelf to fet down only fuch, as are moft material to our prefent purpose, or are in themselves lefs apt to be taken notice of, though they are very frequently the ingredients of our complex ideas, amongft which, I think, I may well account folidity; which therefore I fhall treat of in the next chapter.

§. 1.

TH

CHA P. IV.

Of Solidity.

this idea from touch.

HE idea of folidity we receive We receive by our touch; and it arifes from the resistance which we find in body, to the entrance of any other body into the place it poffeffes, till it has left it. There is no idea which we receive more conftantly from fenfation, than folidity. Whether we move or reft, in what pofture foever we are, we always feel fomething under us that fupports us, and hinders our farther finking downwards; and the bodies which we daily handle make us perceive, that, whilft they remain between them, they do by an infurmountable force hinder the approach of the parts of our hands that prefs them. That which thus hinders the approach of two bodies, when they are moved one towards another, I call folidity. I will not difpute, whether this acceptation of the word folid be nearer to its original fignification, than that which mathematicians ufe it in: it fuffices, that I think the common notion of folidity will allow, if not justify, this ufe of it; but, if any one think it better to call it impenetrability, he has my confent. Only I have thought the term folidity the more proper to exprefs this idea, not only because of its vulgar ufe in that fenfe, but also because it carries fomething more of positive in it than impenetrability, which is negative, and is perhaps more a confequence of folidity, than folidity itfelf. This, of all other, feems

H 2

feems the idea most intimately connected with and affential to body, fo as no-where elfe to be found or imagined, but only in matter. And though our fenfes take no notice of it, but in masses of matter, of a bulk fufficient to caufe a fenfation in us; yet the mind, having once got this idea from fuch groffer fenfible bodies, traces it farther; and confiders it, as well as figure, in the minutest particle of matter that can exist: and finds it infeparably inherent in body, wherever or however modified.

Solidity fills fpace.

Distinct from fpace.

§. 2. This is the idea which belongs to body, whereby we conceive it to fill space. The idea of which filling of space is, that, where we imagine any space taken up by a folid fubftance, we conceive it fo to poffefs it, that it excludes all other folid fubftances; and will for ever hinder any other two bodies, that move towards one another in a ftraight line, from coming to touch one another, unless it removes from between them, in a line not parallel to that which they move in. This idea of it the bodies which we ordinarily handle fufficiently furnish us with. §. 3. This refiftance, whereby it keeps other bodies out of the space which it poffeffes, is fo great, that no force, how great foever, can furmount it. All the bodies in the world, preffing a drop of water on all fides, will never be able to overcome the refiftance which it will make, soft as it is, to their approaching one another, till it be removed out of their way: whereby our idea of folidity is dif tinguished both from pure fpace, which is capable neither of refistance nor motion; and from the ordinary idea of hardness. For a man may conceive two bodies at a distance, so as they may approach one another, without touching or difplacing any folid thing, till their fuperficies come to meet: whereby, I think, we have the clear idea of space without folidity. For (not to go fo far as annihilation of any particular body) I afk, whether a man cannot have the idea of the motion of one fingle body alone without any other fucceeding immediately into its place? I think it is evident he can: the idea of motion in one body no more including the

idea of motion in another, than the idea of a fquare figure in one body includes the idea of a fquare figure in another. I do not afk, whether bodies do fo exist that the motion of one body cannot really be without the motion of another? To determine this either way, is to beg the queftion for or against a vacuum. But my queftion is, whether one cannot have the idea of one body moved whilft others are at reft? And I think this no one will deny. If fo, then the place it deferted gives us the idea of pure space without folidity, whereinto any other body may enter, without either refiftance or protrufion of any thing. When the fucker in a pump is drawn, the space it filled in the tube is certainly the fame whether any other body follows the motion of the fucker or not: nor does it imply a contradiction that, upon the motion of one body, another that is only contiguous to it, fhould not follow it. The neceffity of fuch a motion is built only on the fuppofition that the world is full, but not on the distinct ideas of space and folidity; which are as different as refiftance and not refiftance; protrufion and not protrufion. And that men have ideas of space without a body, their very dif putes about a vacuum plainly demonftrate; as is fhowed in another place.

From hard

§. 4. Solidity is hereby alfo differenced from hardness, in that folidity confifts in nefs. repletion, and fo an utter exclufion of other bodies out of the space it poffeffes; but hardness, in a firm cohesion of the parts of matter, making up maffes of a fenfible bulk, fo that the whole does not easily change its figure. And indeed, hard and foft are names that we give to things only in relation to the conftitutions of our own bodies; that being generally called hard by us, which will put us to pain fooner than change figure by the preffure of any part of our bodies; and that on the contrary foft, which changes the fituation of its parts upon an eafy and unpainful touch.

But this difficulty of changing the fituation of the fenfible parts amongst themfelves, or of the figure of the whole, gives no more folidity to the hardest body in in the world, than to the fofteft; nor is an adamant

H 3

one