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15. These are the Beginnings of human Knowledge. AND thus I have given a fhort, and, I think, true hiftory of the first beginnings of human knowledge, whence the mind has its first objects, and by what steps it makes its progress to the laying in and ftoring up thofe ideas, out of which is to be framed all the knowledge it is capable of, wherein I must appeal to experience and obfervation whether I am in the right; the best way to come to truth, being to examine things as really they are, and not to conclude they are as we fancy of ourfelves, or have been taught by others to imagine.

§ 16. Appeal to Experience.

To deal truly, this is the only way that I can difcover, 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 fure of it, it is impoffible for others to deny them the privilege that they have above their neighbours. I can speak but of what I find in myself, and is agreeable to thofe notions, which, if we will examine the whole course of men in their feveral ages, countries, and educations, feem to depend on those foundations which I have laid, and to correfpond with this method. in all the parts and degrees thereof.

17. Dark Room.

I PRETEND not to teach, but to inquire, and therefore cannot but confefs here again, that external and internal fenfation are the only paffages that I can find of knowledge to the understanding. Thefe 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 fhut from light, with only fome little opening left, to let in external visible resemblances, or ideas of things without. Would the pictures coming into fuch a dark room but stay there, and lie fo orderly as to be found upon occafion, it would very much resemble the understanding of a man in reference to all objects of fight, and the ideas of them.

These are my gueffes concerning the means whereby the understanding comes to have and retain fimple ideas,

Book II. and the modes of them, with fome other operations about them. I proceed now to examine fome of these fimple ideas, and their modes, a little more particularly.

CHAP. XII.

OF COMPLEX IDEAS.

1. Made by the Mind out of fimple ones.

E have hitherto confidered thofe ideas, in the

W reception whereof the mind is only paffive,

which are thofe fimple ones received from fenfation and reflection before-mentioned, whereof the mind cannot make one to itself, nor have any idea which does not wholly confift of them. But as the mind is wholly paffive in the reception of all its fimple ideas, fo it exerts feveral acts of its own, whereby out of its fimple ideas, as the materials and foundations of the reft, the other are framed. The acts of the mind, wherein it exerts its power over its fimple ideas, are chiefly these three: 1. Combining feveral fimple ideas into one compound one, and thus all complex ideas are made. 2. The fecond is bringing two ideas, whether fimple or complex, together, and fetting them by one another, fo as to take a view of them at once, without uniting them into one, by which way it gets all its ideas of relations. 3. The third is feparating them from all other ideas that accompany them in their real existence; this is called abftraction; and thus all its general ideas are. made. This flows man's power, and its way of operation, to be much-what the fame in the material and intellectual world; for the materials in both being fuch as he has no power over, either to make or destroy, all that man can do is either to unite them together, or to fet them by one another, or wholly feparate them. I fhall here begin with the first of these in the confideration of complex ideas, and come to the other two in their due places. As fimple ideas are obferved to exift in feveral combinations united together, fo the mind. has a power to consider several of them united together.

as one idea; and that not only as they are united in external objects, but as itself has joined them. Ideas thus made up of feveral fimple ones put together, I call complex; fuch as are beauty, gratitude, a man, an army, the univerfe; which though complicated of various fimple ideas, or complex ideas made up of fimple ones, yet are, when the mind pleafes, confidered each by itself as one entire thing, and fignified by one name.

§ 2. Made voluntarily.

In this faculty of repeating and joining together its ideas, the mind has great power in varying and multiplying the objects of its thoughts, infinitely beyond what fenfation or reflection furnished it with; but all this ftill confined to thofe fimple ideas which it received from those two sources, and which are the ultimate materials of all its compofitions; for fimple ideas are all from things themfelves, and of thefe the mind can have no more, nor other than what are fuggefted to it. It can have no other ideas of fenfible qualities than what come from without by the fenfes, nor any ideas of other kind of operations of a thinking fubftance, than what it finds in itself; but when it has once got thefe fimple ideas, it is not confined barely to obfervation, and what offers itfelf from without; it can, by its own power, put together thofe ideas it has, and make new complex ones, which it never received fo united.

§3. Are either Modes, Subftances, or Relations. COMPLEX ideas, however compounded and decompounded, though their number be infinite, and the va riety endlefs, wherewith they fill and entertain the thoughts of men; yet, I think, they may be all reduced under thefe three heads :

1. Modes.

2. Subftances. 3. Relations.

$4. Modes.

FIRST, Modes I call fuch complex ideas, which however compounded, contain not in them the fuppofition of fubfifting by themselves, but are confidered as dependences on, or affections of fubftances; fuch are the ideas fig

Book II. nified by the words triangle, gratitude, murder, &c. And if in this I use the word mode in fomewhat a different fense from its ordinary fignification, I beg pardon; it being unavoidable in difcourfes, differing from the ordinary received notions, either to make new words, or to use old words in fomewhat a new fignification; the latter whereof, in our prefent cafe, is perhaps the more tolerable of the two.

5. Simple and mixed Modes.

Or thefe modes, there are two forts which deferve diftinct confideration: Firft, There are fome which are only variations, or different combinations of the fame fimple idea, without the mixture of any other, as a dozen or score, which are nothing but the ideas of fo many distinct units added together; and thefe I call fimple modes, as being contained within the bounds of one fimple idea.

Secondly, There are others compounded of fimple ideas of feveral kinds, put together to make one complex one; v. g. beauty, confifting of a certain compofition of colour and figure, caufing delight in the beholder; theft, which being the concealed change of the poffeffion of any thing, without the confent of the proprietor, contains, as is vifible, a combination of feveral ideas of feveral kinds; and thefe I call mixed modes. § 6. Subfiances fingle or collective.

SECONDLY, The ideas of fubftances are fuch combinations or fimple ideas, as are taken to represent distinct particular things fubfifting by themselves, in which the fuppofed or confufed idea of fubftance, such as it is, is always the firft and chief. Thus, if to fubftance be joined the fimple idea of a certain dull whitish colour, with certain degrees of weight, hardness, ductility, and fufibility, we have the idea of lead; and a combination of the ideas of a certain fort of figure, with the powers of motion, thought, and reasoning, joined to fubftance, make the ordinary ida of a man. Now of fubftances alfo there are two forts of ideas, one of fingle substances, as they exift feparately, as of a man or a sheep; the other of feveral of thofe put together, as an army

of men, or flock of fheep: Which collective ideas of feveral fubftances thus put together, are as much each of them one fingle idea, as that of a man, or an unit.

$7. Relation.

THIRDLY, The laft fort of complex ideas, is that we call relation, which confifts in the confideration and comparing one idea with another. Of these feveral kinds we fhall treat in their order.

§8. The abftrufeft Ideas from the two Sources. If we trace the progrefs of our minds, and with attention obferve how it repeats, adds together, and unites its fimple ideas received from fenfation or reflection, it will lead us farther than at first perhaps we should have imagined. And I believe we shall find, if we warily obferve the originals of our notions, that even the most abftrufe ideas, how remote foever they may feem from fenfe, or from any operation of our own minds, are yet only fuch as the understanding frames to itself, by repeating and joining together ideas, that it had either from objects of fenfe, or from its own operations about them; fo that thofe even large and abftract ideas, are derived from fenfation or reflection, being no other than what the mind, by the ordinary ufe of its own faculties, employed about ideas received from objects of sense, or from the operations it obferves in itfelf about them, may and does attain unto. This I fhall endeavour to fhow in the ideas we have of Space, time, and infinity, and fome few others, that feem the most remote from those originals.

CHAP. XIII.

OF SIMPLE Modes; and first, of the SIMPLE MODES OF SPACE.

1. Simple Modes.

THOUGH in the foregoing part I have often men

tioned fimple ideas, which are truly the materials of all our knowledge; yet having treated of them there, rather in the way that they come into the mind,

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