culty leads him thus far. That which I would farther conclude from hence, is, that since the mind can sensibly put on, at several times, several degrees of thinking; and be sometimes even in a waking man so remiss, as to have thoughts dim and obscure to that degree, that they are very little removed from none at all; and at last, in the dark retirements of sound sleep, loses the sight perfectly of all ideas whatsoever; since, I say, this is evidently so in matter of fact, and constant experience, I ask, whether it be not probable, that thinking is the action, and not the essence, of the soul? Since the operations of agents will easily admit of intention and remission; but the essences of things, are not conceived capable of any such variation. But this by the by. CHAP. XX. OF MODES OF PLEASURE AND PAIN. §1. Pleasure and pain simple ideas.-Amongst the simple ideas which we receive both from sensation and reflection, pain and pleasure are two very considerable ones. For as in the body, there is sensation barely in itself, or accompanied with pain or pleasure; so the thought, or perception of the mind, is simply so, or else accompanied also with pleasure or pain, delight or trouble, call it how you please. These, like other simple ideas, cannot be described, nor their names defined; the way of knowing them is, as of the simple ideas of the senses, only by experience. For to define them by the presence of good or evil, is no otherwise to make them known to us, than by making us reflect on what we feel in ourselves, upon the several and various operations of good and evil upon our minds, as they are differently applied to, or considered by us. § 2. Good and evil, what.-Things then are good or evil, only in reference to pleasure or pain. That we call good, which is apt to cause or increase pleasure, or diminish pain in us; or else to procure, or preserve, us the possession of any other good, or absence of any evil. And, on the contrary, we name that evil, which is apt to produce or increase any pain, or diminish any pleasure in us; or else to procure us any evil, or deprive us of any good. By pleasure and pain, I must be understood to mean of body or mind, as they are commonly distinguished; though, in truth, they be only different constitutions of the mind, sometimes occasioned by disorder in the body, sometimes by thoughts of the mind. §3. Our passions moved by good and evil.-Pleasure and pain, and that which causes them, good and evil, are the hinges on which our passions turn; and if we reflect on ourselves, and observe how these, under various considerations, operate in us; what modifications or tempers of mind, what internal sensations (if I may so call them), they produce in us, we may thence form to ourselves the ideas of our passions. §4. Love. Thus any one reflecting upon the thought he has of the delight which any present or absent thing is apt to produce in him, has the idea we call love. For when a man declares in autumn, when he is eating them, or in spring, when there are none, that he loves grapes, it is no more but that the taste of grapes delights him; let an alteration of health or constitution destroy the delight of their taste, and he then can be said to love grapes no longer. § 5. Hatred. On the contrary, the thought of the pain which any thing present or absent is apt to produce in us, is what we call hatred. Were it my business here to inquire any farther than into the bare ideas of our passions, as they depend on different modifications of pleasure and pain, I should remark, that our love and hatred of inanimate insensible beings, is commonly founded on that pleasure and pain which we receive from their use and application any way to our senses, though with their destruction but hatred or love, to beings capable of happiness or misery, is often the uneasiness or delight which we find in ourselves, arising from a consideration of their very being or happiness. Thus the being and welfare of a man's children or friends producing constant delight in him, he is said constantly to love them. But it suffices to note, that our ideas of love and hatred, are but the dispositions of the mind, in respect of pleasure and pain in general, however caused in us. § 6. Desire.-The uneasiness a man finds in himself upon the absence of any thing, whose present enjoyment carries the idea of delight with it, is that we call desire, which is greater or less, as that uneasiness is more or less vehement. Where, by the by, it may perhaps be of some use to remark, that the chief, if not only spur to human industry and action, is uneasiness. For whatsoever good is proposed, if its absence carries no displeasure or pain with it; if a man be easy and content without it, there is no desire of it, nor endeavour after it; there is no more but a bare velleity, the term used to signify the lowest degree of desire, and that which is next to none at all, when there is so little uneasiness in the absence of any thing, that it carries a man no farther than some faint wishes for it, without any more effectual or vigorous use of the means to attain it. Desire also is stopped or abated by the opinion of the impossibility or unattainableness of the good proposed, as far as the uneasiness is cured or allayed by that consideration. This might carry our thoughts farther, were it seasonable in this place. § 7. Joy.-Joy is a delight of the mind, from the consideration of the present or assured approaching possession of a good; and we are then possessed of any good, when we have it so in our power, that we can use it when we please. Thus a man almost starved, has joy at the arrival of relief, even before he has the pleasure of using it and a father, in whom the very well-being of his children causes delight, is always, as long as his children are in such a state, in the possession of that good; for he needs but to reflect on it, to have that pleasure. Sorrow.-Sorrow § 8. Sorrow. Sorrow is uneasiness in the mind, upon the thought of a good lost, which might have been enjoyed longer; or the sense of a present evil. § 9. Hope.-Hope is that pleasure in the mind which every one finds in himself, upon the thought of a profitable future enjoyment of a thing which is apt to delight him. - § 10. Fear. Fear is an uneasiness of the mind, upon the thought of future evil likely to befal us. § 11. Despair.-Despair is the thought of the unattainableness of any good, which works differently in men's minds, sometimes producing uneasiness or pain, sometimes rest and indolency. § 12. Anger.-Anger is uneasiness or discomposure of the mind, upon the receipt of any injury, with a present purpose of revenge. §13. Envy.-Envy is an uneasiness of the mind, caused by the consideration of a good we desire, obtained by one we think should not have had it before us. : § 14. What passions all men have.-These two last, envy and anger, not being caused by pain and pleasure simply in themselves, but having in them some mixed considerations of ourselves and others, are not, therefore, to be found in all men, because those other parts of valuing their merits, or intending revenge, are wanting in them but all the rest terminating purely in pain and pleasure, are, I think, to be found in all men. For we love, desire, rejoice, and hope, only in respect of pleasure; we hate, fear, and grieve, only in respect of pain ultimately: in fine, all these passions are moved by things, only as they appear to be the causes of pleasure and pain, or to have pleasure and pain some way or other annexed to them. Thus we extend our hatred usually to the subject (at least if a sensible or voluntary agent) which has produced pain in us, because the fear it leaves is a constant pain: but we do not so constantly love what has done us good, because pleasure operates not so strongly on us as pain, and because we are not so ready to have hope it will do so again. But this by the by. § 15. Pleasure and pain, what.-By pleasure and pain, delight and uneasiness, I must all along be understood (as I have above intimated) to mean, not only bodily pain and pleasure, but whatsoever delight or uneasiness is felt by us, whether arising from any grateful or unacceptable sensation and reflection. § 16. It is farther to be considered, that in reference to the passions, the removal or lessening of a pain is considered, and operates as a pleasure and the loss or diminishing of a pleasure, as a pain. § 17. Shame. The passions, too, have most of them in most persons operations on the body, and cause various changes in it; which not being always sensible, do not make a necessary part of the idea of each passion. For shame, which is an uneasiness of the mind, upon the thought of having done something which is indecent, or will lessen the valued esteem which others have for us, has not always blushing accompanying it. $18. These instances to shew how our ideas of the passions are got from sensation and reflection.-I would not be mistaken here, as if I meant this as a discourse of the passions; they are many more than those I have here named: and those I have taken notice of, would each of them require a much larger and more accurate discourse. I have only mentioned these here, as so many instances of modes of pleasure and pain resulting in our minds from various considerations of good and evil. I might, perhaps, have instanced in other modes of pleasure and pain more simple than these, as the pain of hunger and thirst, and the pleasure of eating and drinking to remove them; the pain of tender eyes, and the pleasure of music; pain from captious uninstructive wrangling, and the pleasure of rational conversation with a friend, or of well directed study in the search and discovery of truth. But the pas sions being of much more concernment to us, I rather made choice to instance in them, and shew how the ideas we have of them are derived from sensation and reflection. CHAP. XXI. OF POWER. § 1. This idea how got.-The mind being every day informed by the senses, of the alteration of those simple ideas it observes in things without, and taking notice how one comes to an end and ceases to be, and another begins to exist, which was not before; reflecting also on what passes within itself, and observing a constant change of its ideas, sometimes by the impression of outward objects on the senses, and sometimes by the determination of its own choice; and concluding from what it has so constantly observed to have been, that the like changes will for the future be made in the same things, by like agents, and by the like ways; considers in one thing the possibility of having any of its simple ideas changed, and in another the possibility of making that change; and so comes by that idea which we call power. Thus we say, fire has a power to melt gold, i. e. to destroy the consistency of its insensible parts, and consequently its hardness, and make it fluid; and gold has a power to be melted: that the sun has a power to blanch wax, and wax a power to be blanched by the sun, whereby the yellowness is destroyed, and whiteness made to exist in its room. In which, and the like cases, the power we consider, is in reference to the change of perceivable ideas. For we cannot observe any alteration to be made in, or operation upon, any thing, but by the observable change of its sensible ideas; nor conceive any alteration to be made, but by conceiving a change of some of its ideas. §2. Power active and passive.-Power, thus considered, is two-fold, viz., as able to make, or able to receive, any change; the one may be called active, and the other passive, power. Whether matter be not wholly destitute of active power, as its author, God, is truly above all passive power; and whether the intermediate state of created spirits be not that alone which is capable of both active and passive power, may be worth consideration. I shall not now enter into that inquiry, my present business being not to search into the original of power, but how we come by the idea of it. But since active powers make so great a part of our complex ideas of natural substances (as we shall see hereafter), and I mention them as such, according to common apprehension; yet they being not, perhaps, so truly active powers, as our hasty thoughts are apt to represent them, I judge it not amiss, by this intimation, to direct our minds to the consideration of God and spirits, for the clearest idea of active powers. § 3. Power includes relation.-I confess, power includes in it some kind of relation (a relation to action or change), as, indeed, which of our ideas, of what kind soever, when attentively considered does not? For our ideas of extension, duration, and number, do they not all contain in them a secret relation of the parts? Figure and motion have something relative in them much more visibly: and sensible qualities, as colours and smells, &c., what are they but the powers of different bodies, in relation to our perception? &c. And if considered in things themselves, do they not depend on the bulk, figure, texture, and motion of the parts? All which include some kind of relation in them. Our idea, therefore, of power, I think, may well have a place amongst other simple ideas, and be considered as one of them, being one of those that make a principal ingredient in our complex ideas of substances, as we shall hereafter have occasion to observe. § 4. The clearest idea of active power had from spirit.-We are abundantly furnished with the idea of passive power, by almost all sorts of sensible things. In most of them we cannot avoid observing their sensible qualities, nay, their very substances, to be in a continual flux: and, therefore, with reason we look on them as liable still to the same change. Nor have we of active power (which is the more proper signification of the word power) fewer instances. Since whatever change is observed, the mind must collect a power somewhere able to make that change, as well as a possibility in the thing itself to receive it. But yet, if we will consider it attentively, bodies, by our senses, do not afford us so clear and distinct an idea of active power, as we have from reflection on the operations of our minds. For all power relating to action, and there being but two sorts of action whereof we have any idea, viz., thinking and motion, let us consider whence we have the clearest ideas of the powers which produce these actions. 1, Of thinking, body affords us no idea at all; it is only from reflection that we have that. 2, Neither have we from body any idea of the beginning of motion. A body at rest, affords us no idea of any active power to move; and when it is set in motion itself, that motion is rather a passion, than an action in it. For when the ball obeys the stroke of a billiard-stick, it is not any action of the ball, but bare passion: also when by impulse it sets another ball in motion, that lay in its way, it only communicates the motion it had received from another, and loses in itself so much as the other received; which gives us but a very obscure idea of an active power of moving in body, whilst we observe it only to transfer, but not produce, any motion. For it is but a very obscure idea of power, which reaches not the production of the action, but the continuation of the passion. For so is motion in a body impelled by another; the continuation of the alteration made in it from rest to motion being little more an action, than the continuation of the alteration of its figure by the same blow, is an action. The idea of the beginning of motion, we have only from reflection on what passes in ourselves, where we find by experience, that barely by willing it, barely by a thought of the mind, we can move the parts of our bodies which were before at rest. So that it seems to me, we have, from the observation of the operation of bodies by our senses, but a very imperfect, obscure idea of active power, since they afford us not any idea in themselves of the power to begin any action, either motion or thought. But if from the impulse bodies are observed to make one upon another, any one thinks he has a clear idea of power, it serves as well to |