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[勞思光] [許國宏] [呂健吉] [郭朝順] [黃冠閔] [伍至學] [龔維正] [陳振崑] [冀劍制] |
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黃冠閔之哲學教學網
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AN ESSAY CONCERNING HUMAN UNDERSTANDING (1690) by
John Locke ————————————————————————————————————— 本篇文選包含的章節： BOOK
II Of Ideas Chapter
I Of Ideas in general, and their
Original Chapter
II Of Simple Ideas Chapter
III Of Simple Ideas of Sense Chapter
V Of Simple Ideas of Divers Senses Chapter
VI Of Simple Ideas of Reflection Chapter
VII Of Simple Ideas of both
Sensation and Reflection Chapter
XXVI Of Cause and Effect, and other
Relations Book
IV Chapter
V Of Truth in General ————————————————————————————————————— BOOK
II Of Ideas Chapter
I Of Ideas in general, and their
Original
1. Idea is the object of thinking. Every man being conscious to himself
that he thinks; and that which his mind is applied about whilst thinking being
the ideas that are there, it is past doubt that men have in their minds several
ideas,- such as are those expressed by the words whiteness, hardness, sweetness,
thinking, motion, man, elephant, army, drunkenness, and others: it is in the
first place then to be inquired, How he comes by them?
I know it is a received doctrine, that men have native ideas, and
original characters, stamped upon their minds in their very first being. This
opinion I have at large examined already; and, I suppose what I have said in the
foregoing Book will be much more easily admitted, when I have shown whence the
understanding may get all the ideas it has; and by what ways and degrees they
may come into the mind;- for which I shall appeal to every one's own observation
and experience.
2. All ideas come from sensation or reflection. Let us then suppose the
mind to be, as we say, white paper, void of all characters, without any ideas:-
How comes it to be furnished? Whence comes it by that vast store which the busy
and boundless fancy of man has painted on it with an almost endless variety?
Whence has it all the materials of reason and knowledge? To this I answer, in
one word, from EXPERIENCE. In that all our knowledge is founded; and from that
it ultimately derives itself. Our observation employed either, about external
sensible objects, or about the internal operations of our minds perceived and
reflected on by ourselves, is that which supplies our understandings with all
the materials of thinking. These two are the fountains of knowledge, from whence
all the ideas we have, or can naturally have, do spring.
3. The objects of sensation one source of ideas. First, our Senses,
conversant about particular sensible objects, do convey into the mind several
distinct perceptions of things, according to those various ways wherein those
objects do affect them. And thus we come by those ideas we have of yellow,
white, heat, cold, soft, hard, bitter, sweet, and all those which we call
sensible qualities; which when I say the senses convey into the mind, I mean,
they from external objects convey into the mind what produces there those
perceptions. This great source of most of the ideas we have, depending wholly
upon our senses, and derived by them to the understanding, I call SENSATION.
4. The operations of our minds, the other source of them. Secondly, the
other fountain from which experience furnisheth the understanding with ideas
is,- the perception of the operations of our own mind within us, as it is
employed about the ideas it has got;-which operations, when the soul comes to
reflect on and consider, do furnish the understanding with another set of ideas,
which could not be had from things without. And such are perception, thinking,
doubting, believing, reasoning, knowing, willing, and all the different actings
of our own minds;- which we being conscious of, and observing in ourselves, do
from these receive into our understandings as distinct ideas as we do from
bodies affecting our senses. This source of ideas every man has wholly in
himself; and though it be not sense, as having nothing to do with external
objects, yet it is very like it, and might properly enough be called internal
sense. But as I call the other SENSATION, so I Call this REFLECTION, the ideas
it affords being such only as the mind gets by reflecting on its own operations
within itself. By reflection then, in the following part of this discourse, I
would be understood to mean, that notice which the mind takes of its own
operations, and the manner of them, by reason whereof there come to be ideas of
these operations in the understanding. These two, I say, viz. external material
things, as the objects of SENSATION, and the operations of our own minds within,
as the objects of REFLECTION, are to me the only originals from whence all our
ideas take their beginnings. The term operations here I use in a large sense, as
comprehending not barely the actions of the mind about its ideas, but some sort
of passions arising sometimes from them, such as is the satisfaction or
uneasiness arising from any thought.
5. All our ideas are of the one or the other of these. The understanding
seems to me not to have the least glimmering of any ideas which it doth not
receive from one of these two. External objects furnish the mind with the ideas
of sensible qualities, which are all those different perceptions they produce in
us; and the mind furnishes the understanding with ideas of its own operations.
These, when we have taken a full survey of them, and their several modes,
combinations, and relations, we shall find to contain all our whole stock of
ideas; and that we have nothing in our minds which did not come in one of these
two ways. Let any one examine his own thoughts, and thoroughly search into his
understanding; and then let him tell me, whether all the original ideas he has
there, are any other than of the objects of his senses, or of the operations of
his mind, considered as objects of his reflection. And how great a mass of
knowledge soever he imagines to be lodged there, he will, upon taking a strict
view, see that he has not any idea in his mind but what one of these two have
imprinted;- though perhaps, with infinite variety compounded and enlarged by the
understanding, as we shall see hereafter.
6. Observable in children. He that attentively considers the state of a
child, at his first coming into the world, will have little reason to think him
stored with plenty of ideas, that are to be the matter of his future knowledge.
It is by degrees he comes to be furnished with them. And though the ideas of
obvious and familiar qualities imprint themselves before the memory begins to
keep a register of time or order, yet it is often so late before some unusual
qualities come in the way, that there are few men that cannot recollect the
beginning of their acquaintance with them. And if it were worth while, no doubt
a child might be so ordered as to have but a very few, even of the ordinary
ideas, till he were grown up to a man. But all that are born into the world,
being surrounded with bodies that perpetually and diversely affect them, variety
of ideas, whether care be taken of it or not, are imprinted on the minds of
children. Light and colours are busy at hand everywhere, when the eye is but
open; sounds and some tangible qualities fail not to solicit their proper
senses, and force an entrance to the mind;- but yet, I think, it will be granted
easily, that if a child were kept in a place where he never saw any other but
black and white till he were a man, he would have no more ideas of scarlet or
green, than he that from his childhood never tasted an oyster, or a pine-apple,
has of those particular relishes.
7. Men are differently furnished with these, according to the different
objects they converse with. Men then come to be furnished with fewer or more
simple ideas from without, according as the objects they converse with afford
greater or less variety; and from the operations of their minds within,
according as they more or less reflect on them. For, though he that contemplates
the operations of his mind, cannot but have plain and clear ideas of them; yet,
unless he turn his thoughts that way, and considers them attentively, he will no
more have clear and distinct ideas of all the operations of his mind, and all
that may be observed therein, than he will have all the particular ideas of any
landscape, or of the parts and motions of a clock, who will not turn his eyes to
it, and with attention heed all the parts of it. The picture, or clock may be so
placed, that they may come in his way every day; but yet he will have but a
confused idea of all the parts they are made up of, till he applies himself with
attention, to consider them each in particular.
8. Ideas of reflection later, because they need attention. And hence we
see the reason why it is pretty late before most children get ideas of the
operations of their own minds; and some have not any very clear or perfect ideas
of the greatest part of them all their lives. Because, though they pass there
continually, yet, like floating visions, they make not deep impressions enough
to leave in their mind clear, distinct, lasting ideas, till the understanding
turns inward upon itself, reflects on its own operations, and makes them the
objects of its own contemplation. Children when they come first into it, are
surrounded with a world of new things, which, by a constant solicitation of
their senses, draw the mind constantly to them; forward to take notice of new,
and apt to be delighted with the variety of changing objects. Thus the first
years are usually employed and diverted in looking abroad. Men's business in
them is to acquaint themselves with what is to be found without; and so growing
up in a constant attention to outward sensations, seldom make any considerable
reflection on what passes within them, till they come to be of riper years; and
some scarce ever at all.
9. The soul begins to have ideas when it begins to perceive. To ask, at
what time a man has first any ideas, is to ask, when he begins to perceive;-
having ideas, and perception, being the same thing. I know it is an opinion,
that the soul always thinks, and that it has the actual perception of ideas in
itself constantly, as long as it exists;
and that actual thinking is as inseparable from the soul as actual extension is
from the body; which if true, to inquire after the beginning of a man's ideas is
the same as to inquire after the beginning of his soul. For, by this account,
soul and its ideas, as body and its extension, will begin to exist both at the
same time.
10. The soul thinks not always; for this wants proofs. But whether the
soul be supposed to exist antecedent to, or coeval with, or some time after the
first rudiments of organization, or the beginnings of life in the body, I leave
to be disputed by those who have better thought of that matter. I confess myself
to have one of those dull souls, that doth not perceive itself always to
contemplate ideas; nor can conceive it any more necessary for the soul always to
think, than for the body always to move: the perception of ideas being (as I
conceive) to the soul, what motion is to the body; not its essence, but one of
its operations. And therefore, though thinking be supposed never so much the
proper action of the soul, yet it is not necessary to suppose that it should be
always thinking, always in action. That, perhaps, is the privilege of the
infinite Author and Preserver of all things, who "never slumbers nor
sleeps;" but is not competent to any finite being, at least not to the soul
of man. We know certainly, by experience, that we sometimes think; and thence
draw this infallible consequence,- that there is something in us that has a
power to think. But whether that substance perpetually thinks or no, we can be
no further assured than experience informs us. For, to say that actual thinking
is essential to the soul, and inseparable from it, is to beg what is in
question, and not to prove it by reason;- which is necessary to be done, if it
be not a self-evident proposition. But whether this, "That the soul always
thinks," be a self-evident proposition, that everybody assents to at first
hearing, I appeal to mankind. It is doubted whether I thought at all last night
or no. The question being about a matter of fact, it is begging it to bring, as
a proof for it, an hypothesis, which is the very thing in dispute: by which way
one may prove anything, and it is but supposing that all watches, whilst the
balance beats, think, and it is sufficiently proved, and past doubt, that my
watch thought all last night. But he that would not deceive himself, ought to
build his hypothesis on matter of fact, and make it out by sensible experience,
and not presume on matter of fact, because of his hypothesis, that is, because
he supposes it to be so; which way of proving amounts to this, that I must
necessarily think all last night, because another supposes I always think,
though I myself cannot perceive that I always do so.
But men in love with their opinions may not only suppose what is in
question, but allege wrong matter of fact. How else could any one make it an
inference of mine, that a thing is not, because we are not sensible of it in our
sleep? I do not say there is no soul in a man, because he is not sensible of it
in his sleep; but I do say, he cannot think at any time, waking or sleeping:
without being sensible of it. Our being sensible of it is not necessary to
anything but to our thoughts; and to them it is; and to them it always will be
necessary, till we can think without being conscious of it.
11. It is not always conscious of it. I grant that the soul, in a waking
man, is never without thought, because it is the condition of being awake. But
whether sleeping without dreaming be not an affection of the whole man, mind as
well as body, may be worth a waking man's consideration; it being hard to
conceive that anything should think and not be conscious of it. If the soul doth
think in a sleeping man without being conscious of it, I ask whether, during
such thinking, it has any pleasure or pain, or be capable of happiness or
misery? I am sure the man is not; no more than the bed or earth he lies on. For
to be happy or miserable without being conscious of it, seems to me utterly
inconsistent and impossible. Or if it be possible that the soul can, whilst the
body is sleeping, have its thinking, enjoyments, and concerns, its pleasures or
pain, apart, which the man is not conscious of nor partakes in,- it is certain
that Socrates asleep and Socrates awake is not the same person; but his soul
when he sleeps, and Socrates the man, consisting of body and soul, when he is
waking, are two persons: since waking Socrates has no knowledge of, or
concernment for that happiness or misery of his soul, which it enjoys alone by
itself whilst he sleeps, without perceiving anything of it; no more than he has
for the happiness or misery of a man in the Indies, whom he knows not. For, if
we take wholly away all consciousness of our actions and sensations, especially
of pleasure and pain, and the concernment that accompanies it, it will be hard
to know wherein to place personal identity. [.....] Chapter
II Of Simple Ideas
1. Uncompounded appearances. The better to understand the nature, manner,
and extent of our knowledge, one thing is carefully to be observed concerning
the ideas we have; and that is, that some of them are simple and some complex.
Though the qualities that affect our senses are, in the things
themselves, so united and blended, that there is no separation, no distance
between them; yet it is plain, the ideas they produce in the mind enter by the
senses simple and unmixed. For, though the sight and touch often take in from
the same object, at the same time, different ideas;- as a man sees at once
motion and colour; the hand feels softness and warmth in the same piece of wax:
yet the simple ideas thus united in the same subject, are as perfectly distinct
as those that come in by different senses. The coldness and hardness which a man
feels in a piece of ice being as distinct ideas in the mind as the smell and
whiteness of a lily; or as the taste of sugar, and smell of a rose. And there is
nothing can be plainer to a man than the clear and distinct perception he has of
those simple ideas; which, being each in itself uncompounded, contains in it
nothing but one uniform appearance, or conception in the mind, and is not
distinguishable into different ideas.
2. The mind can neither make nor destroy them. These simple ideas, the
materials of all our knowledge, are suggested and furnished to the mind only by
those two ways above mentioned, viz. sensation and reflection. When the
understanding is once stored with these simple ideas, it has the power to
repeat, compare, and unite them, even to an almost infinite variety, and so can
make at pleasure new complex ideas. But it is not in the power of the most
exalted wit, or enlarged understanding, by any quickness or variety of thought,
to invent or frame one new simple idea in the mind, not taken in by the ways
before mentioned: nor can any force of the understanding destroy those that are
there. The dominion of man, in this little world of his own understanding being
muchwhat the same as it is in the great world of visible things; wherein his
power, however managed by art and skill, reaches no farther than to compound and
divide the materials that are made to his hand; but can do nothing towards the
making the least particle of new matter, or destroying one atom of what is
already in being. The same inability will every one find in himself, who shall
go about to fashion in his understanding one simple idea, not received in by his
senses from external objects, or by reflection from the operations of his own
mind about them. I would have any one try to fancy any taste which had never
affected his palate; or frame the idea of a scent he had never smelt: and when
he can do this, I will also conclude that a blind man hath ideas of colours, and
a deaf man true distinct notions of sounds.
3. Only the qualities that affect the senses are imaginable. This is the
reason why- though we cannot believe it impossible to God to make a creature
with other organs, and more ways to convey into the understanding the notice of
corporeal things than those five, as they are usually counted, which he has
given to man- yet I think it is not possible for any man to imagine any other
qualities in bodies, howsoever constituted, whereby they can be taken notice of,
besides sounds, tastes, smells, visible and tangible qualities. And had mankind
been made but with four senses, the qualities then which are the objects of the
fifth sense had been as far from our notice, imagination, and conception, as now
any belonging to a sixth, seventh, or eighth sense can possibly be;- which,
whether yet some other creatures, in some other parts of this vast and
stupendous universe, may not have, will be a great presumption to deny. He that
will not set himself proudly at the top of all things, but will consider the
immensity of this fabric, and the great variety that is to be found in this
little and inconsiderable part of it which he has to do with, may be apt to
think that, in other mansions of it, there may be other and different
intelligent beings, of whose faculties he has as little knowledge or
apprehension as a worm shut up in one drawer of a cabinet hath of the senses or
understanding of a man; such variety and excellency being suitable to the wisdom
and power of the Maker. I have here followed the common opinion of man's having
but five senses; though, perhaps, there may be justly counted more;- but either
supposition serves equally to my present purpose. Chapter
III Of Simple Ideas of Sense
1. Division of simple ideas. The better to conceive the ideas we receive
from sensation, it may not be amiss for us to consider 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 some which come into our minds by one sense only.
Secondly, There are others that convey themselves into the mind by more
senses than one.
Thirdly, Others that are had from reflection only.
Fourthly, There are some that make themselves way, and are suggested to
the mind by all the ways of sensation and reflection.
We shall consider them apart under these several heads.
Ideas of one sense. There are some ideas which have admittance only
through one sense, which is peculiarly adapted to receive them. Thus light and
colours, as white, red, yellow, blue; with their several degrees or shades and
mixtures, as green, scarlet, purple, sea-green, and the rest, come in only by
the eyes. All kinds of noises, sounds, and tones, only by the ears. The several
tastes and smells, by the nose and palate. And if these organs, or the nerves
which are the conduits to convey them from without to their audience in the
brain,- the mind's presence-room (as I may so call it)- are any of them so
disordered as not to perform their functions, they have no postern to be
admitted by; no other way to bring themselves into view, and be perceived by the
understanding.
The most considerable of those belonging to the touch, are heat and cold,
and solidity: all the rest, consisting almost wholly in the sensible
configuration, as smooth and rough; or else, more or less firm adhesion of the
parts, as hard and soft, tough and brittle, are obvious enough.
2. Few simple ideas have names. I think it will be needless to enumerate
all the particular simple ideas belonging to each sense. Nor indeed is it
possible if we would; there being a great many more of them belonging to most of
the senses 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 stinking commonly serve our turn for these ideas, which in
effect is little more than to call them pleasing or displeasing; though the
smell of a rose and violet, both sweet, are certainly very distinct ideas. Nor
are the different tastes, that by our palates we receive ideas of, much better
provided with names. Sweet, bitter, sour, harsh, and salt are almost all the
epithets we have to denominate that numberless variety of relishes, which are to
be found distinct, not only in almost every sort of creatures, but in the
different parts of the same plant, fruit, or animal. The same may be said of
colours and sounds. I shall, therefore, in the account of simple ideas I am here
giving, content myself to set down only such as are most material to our present
purpose, or are in themselves less apt to be taken notice of though they are
very frequently the ingredients of our complex ideas; amongst which, I think, I
may well account solidity, which therefore I shall treat of in the next chapter. [......] Chapter
V Of Simple Ideas of Divers Senses
Ideas received both by seeing and touching. The ideas we get by more than
one sense are, of space or extension, figure, rest, and motion. For these make
perceivable impressions, both on the eyes and touch; and we can receive and
convey into our minds the ideas of the extension, figure, motion, and rest of
bodies, both by seeing and feeling. But having occasion to speak more at large
of these in another place, I here only enumerate them. Chapter
VI Of Simple Ideas of Reflection 1.
Simple ideas are the operations of mind about its other ideas. The mind
receiving the ideas mentioned in the foregoing chapters from without, when it
turns its view inward upon itself, and observes its own actions about those
ideas it has, takes from thence other ideas, which are as capable to be the
objects of its contemplation as any of those it received from foreign things.
2. The idea of perception, and idea of willing, we have from reflection.
The two great and principal actions of the mind, which are most frequently
considered, and which are so frequent that every one that pleases may take
notice of them in himself, are these two:-
Perception, or Thinking; and
Volition, or Willing.
The power of thinking is called the Understanding, and the power of
volition is called the Will; and these two powers or abilities in the mind are
denominated faculties.
Of some of the modes of these simple ideas of reflection, such as are
remembrance, discerning, reasoning, judging, knowledge, faith, &c., I shall
have occasion to speak hereafter. Chapter
VII Of Simple Ideas of both
Sensation and Reflection
1. Ideas of pleasure and pain. There be other simple ideas which convey
themselves into the mind by all the ways of sensation and reflection, viz.
pleasure or delight, and its opposite, pain, or uneasiness; power; existence;
unity.
2. Mix with almost all our other ideas. Delight or uneasiness, one or
other of them, join themselves to almost all our ideas both of sensation and
reflection: and there is scarce any affection of our senses from without, any
retired thought of our mind within, which is not able to produce in us pleasure
or pain. By pleasure and pain, I would be understood to signify, whatsoever
delights or molests us; whether it arises from the thoughts of our minds, or
anything operating on our bodies. For, whether we call it satisfaction, delight,
pleasure, happiness, &c., on the one side, or uneasiness, trouble, pain,
torment, anguish, misery, &c., on the other, they are still but different
degrees of the same thing, and belong to the ideas of pleasure and pain, delight
or uneasiness; which are the names I shall most commonly use for those two sorts
of ideas.
3. As motives of our actions. The infinite wise Author of our being,
having given us the power over several parts of our bodies, to move or keep them
at rest as we think fit; and also. by the motion of them, to move ourselves and
other contiguous bodies, in which consist all the actions of our body: having
also given a power to our minds, in several instances, to choose, amongst its
ideas, which it will think on, and to pursue the inquiry of this or that subject
with consideration and attention, to excite us to these actions of thinking and
motion that we are capable of,- has been pleased to join to several thoughts,
and several sensations a perception of delight. If this were wholly separated
from all our outward sensations, and inward thoughts, we should have no reason
to prefer one thought or action to another; negligence to attention, or motion
to rest. And so we should neither stir our bodies, nor employ our minds, but let
our thoughts (if I may so call it) run adrift, without any direction or design,
and suffer the ideas of our minds, like unregarded shadows, to make their
appearances there, as it happened, without attending to them. In which state
man, however furnished with the faculties of understanding and will, would be a
very idle, inactive creature, and pass his time only in a lazy, lethargic dream.
It has therefore pleased our wise Creator to annex to several objects, and the
ideas which we receive from them, as also to several of our thoughts, a
concomitant pleasure, and that in several objects, to several degrees, that
those faculties which he had endowed us with might not remain wholly idle and
unemployed by us.
4. An end and use of pain. Pain has the same efficacy and use to set us
on work that pleasure has, we being as ready to employ our faculties to avoid
that, as to pursue this: only this is worth our consideration, that pain is
often produced by the same objects and ideas that produce pleasure in us. This
their near conjunction, which makes us often feel pain in the sensations where
we expected pleasure, gives us new occasion of admiring the wisdom and goodness
of our Maker, who, designing the preservation of our being, has annexed pain to
the application of many things to our bodies, to warn us of the harm that they
will do, and as advices to withdraw from them. But he, not designing our
preservation barely, but the preservation of every part and organ in its
perfection, hath in many cases annexed pain to those very ideas which delight
us. Thus heat, that is very agreeable to us in one degree, by a little greater
increase of it proves no ordinary torment: and the most pleasant of all sensible
objects, light itself, if there be too much of it, if increased beyond a due
proportion to our eyes, causes a very painful sensation. Which is wisely and
favourably so ordered by nature, that when any object does, by the vehemency of
its operation, disorder the instruments of sensation, whose structures cannot
but be very nice and delicate, we might, by the pain, be warned to withdraw,
before the organ be quite put out of order, and so be unfitted for its proper
function for the future. The consideration of those objects that produce it may
well persuade us, that this is the end or use of pain. For, though great light
be insufferable to our eyes, yet the highest degree of darkness does not at all
disease them: because that, causing no disorderly motion in it, leaves that
curious organ unharmed in its natural state. But yet excess of cold as well as
heat pains us: because it is equally destructive to that temper which is
necessary to the preservation of life, and the exercise of the several functions
of the body, and which consists in a moderate degree of warmth; or, if you
please, a motion of the insensible parts of our bodies, confined within certain
bounds.
5. Another end. Beyond all this, we may find another reason why God hath
scattered up and down several degrees of pleasure and pain, in all the things
that environ and affect us; and blended them together in almost all that our
thoughts and senses have to do with;- that we, finding imperfection,
dissatisfaction, and want of complete happiness, in all the enjoyments
which the creatures can afford us, might be led to seek it in the enjoyment of
Him with whom there is fullness of joy, and at whose right hand are pleasures
for evermore.
6. Goodness of God in annexing pleasure and pain to our other ideas.
Though what I have here said may not, perhaps, make the ideas of pleasure and
pain clearer to us than our own experience does, which is the only way that we
are capable of having them; yet the consideration of the reason why they are
annexed to so many other ideas, serving to give us due sentiments of the wisdom
and goodness of the Sovereign Disposer of all things, may not be unsuitable to
the main end of these inquiries: the knowledge and veneration of him being the
chief end of all our thoughts, and the proper business of all understandings.
7. Ideas of existence and unity. Existence and Unity are two other ideas
that are suggested to the understanding by every object without, and every idea
within. When ideas are in our minds, we consider them as being actually there,
as well as we consider things to be actually without us;- which is, that they
exist, or have existence. And whatever we can consider as one thing, whether a
real being or idea, suggests to the understanding the idea of unity.
8. Idea of power. Power also is another of those simple ideas which we
receive from sensation and reflection. For, observing in ourselves that we do
and can think, and that we can at pleasure move several parts of our bodies
which were at rest; the effects, also, that natural bodies are able to produce
in one another, occurring every moment to our senses,- we both these ways get
the idea of power.
9. Idea of succession. Besides these there is another idea, which, though
suggested by our senses, yet is more constantly offered to us by what passes in
our minds; and that is the idea of succession. For if we look immediately into
ourselves, and reflect on what is observable there, we shall find our ideas
always, whilst we are awake, or have any thought, passing in train, one going
and another coming, without intermission.
10. Simple ideas the materials of all our knowledge. These, if they are
not all, are at least (as I think) the most considerable of those simple ideas
which the mind has, and out of which is made all its other knowledge; all which
it receives only by the two forementioned ways of sensation and reflection.
Nor let any one think these too narrow bounds for the capacious mind of
man to expatiate in, which takes its flight further than the stars, and cannot
be confined by the limits of the world; that extends its thoughts often even
beyond the utmost expansion of Matter, and makes excursions into that
incomprehensible Inane. I grant all this, but desire any one to assign
any simple idea which is not received from one of those inlets before mentioned,
or any complex idea not made out of those simple ones. Nor will it be so strange
to think these few simple ideas sufficient to employ the quickest thought, or
largest capacity; and to furnish the materials of all that various knowledge,
and more various fancies and opinions of all mankind, if we consider how many
words may be made out of the various composition of twenty-four letters; or if,
going one step further, we will but reflect on the variety of combinations that
may be made with barely one of the above-mentioned ideas, viz. number, whose
stock is inexhaustible and truly infinite: and what a large and immense field
doth extension alone afford the mathematicians? [......] Chapter
XXVI Of Cause and Effect, and other
Relations
1. Whence the ideas of cause and effect got. In the notice that our
senses take of the constant vicissitude of things, we cannot but observe that
several particular, both qualities and substances, begin to exist; and that they
receive this their existence from the due application and operation of some
other being. From this observation we get our ideas of cause and effect. That
which produces any simple or complex idea we denote by the general name, cause,
and that which is produced, effect. Thus, finding that in that substance which
we call wax, fluidity, which is a simple idea that was not in it before, is
constantly produced by the application of a certain degree of heat we call the
simple idea of heat, in relation to fluidity in wax, the cause of it, and
fluidity the effect. So also, finding that the substance, wood, which is a
certain collection of simple ideas so called, by the application of fire, is
turned into another substance, called ashes; i.e., another complex idea,
consisting of a collection of simple ideas, quite different from that complex
idea which we call wood; we consider fire, in relation to ashes, as cause, and
the ashes, as effect. So that whatever is considered by us to conduce or operate
to the producing any particular simple idea, or collection of simple ideas,
whether substance or mode, which did not before exist, hath thereby in our minds
the relation of a cause, and so is denominated by us.
2. Creation, generation, making, alteration. Having thus, from what our
senses are able to discover in the operations of bodies on one another, got the
notion of cause and effect, viz. that a cause is that which makes any other
thing, either simple idea, substance, or mode, begin to be; and an effect is
that which had its beginning from some other thing; the mind finds no great
difficulty to distinguish the several originals of things into two sorts:-
First, When the thing is wholly made new, so that no part thereof did
ever exist before; as when a new particle of matter doth begin to exist, in
rerum natura, which had before no being, and this we call creation.
Secondly, When a thing is made up of particles, which did all of them
before exist; but that very thing, so constituted of pre-existing particles,
which, considered all together, make up such a collection of simple ideas, had
not any existence before, as this man, this egg, rose, or cherry, &c. And
this, when referred to a substance, produced in the ordinary course of nature by
internal principle, but set on work by, and received from, some external agent,
or cause, and working by insensible ways which we perceive not, we call
generation. When the cause is extrinsical, and the effect produced by a sensible
separation, or juxta-position of discernible parts, we call it making; and such
are all artificial things. When any simple idea is produced, which was not in
that subject before, we call it alteration. Thus a man is generated, a picture
made; and either of them altered, when any new sensible quality or simple idea
is produced in either of them, which was not there before: and the things thus
made to exist, which were not there before, are effects; and those things which
operated to the existence, causes. In which, and all other cases, we may
observe, that the notion of cause and effect has its rise from ideas received by
sensation or reflection; and that this relation, how comprehensive soever,
terminates at last in them. For to have the idea of cause and effect, it
suffices to consider any simple idea or substance, as beginning to exist, by the
operation of some other, without knowing the manner of that operation.
3. Relations of time. Time and place are also the foundations of very
large relations; and all finite beings at least are concerned in them. But
having already shown in another place how we get those ideas, it may suffice
here to intimate, that most of the denominations of things received from time
are only relations. Thus, when any one says that Queen Elizabeth lived
sixty-nine, and reigned forty-five years, these words import only the relation
of that duration to some other, and mean no more but this, That the duration of
her existence was equal to sixty-nine, and the duration of her government to
forty-five annual revolutions of the sun; and so are all words, answering, How
Long? Again, William the Conqueror invaded England about the year 1066; which
means this, That, taking the duration from our Saviour's time till now for one
entire great length of time, it shows at what distance this invasion was from
the two extremes; and so do all words of time answering to the question, When,
which show only the distance of any point of time from the period of a longer
duration, from which we measure, and to which we thereby consider it as related.
4. Some ideas of time supposed positive and found to be relative. There
are yet, besides those, other words of time, that ordinarily are thought to
stand for positive ideas, which yet will, when considered, be found to be
relative; such as are, young, old, &c., which include and intimate the
relation anything has to a certain length of duration, whereof we have the idea
in our minds. Thus, having settled in our thoughts the idea of the ordinary
duration of a man to be seventy years, when we say a man is young, we mean that
his age is yet but a small part of that which usually men attain to; and when we
denominate him old, we mean that his duration is run out almost to the end of
that which men do not usually exceed. And so it is but comparing the particular
age or duration of this or that man, to the idea of that duration which we have
in our minds, as ordinarily belonging to that sort of animals: which is plain in
the application of these names to other things; for a man is called young at
twenty years, and very young at seven years old: but yet a horse we call old at
twenty, and a dog at seven years, because in each of these we compare their age
to different ideas of duration, which are settled in our minds as belonging to
these several sorts of animals, in the ordinary course of nature. But the sun
and stars, though they have outlasted several generations of men, we call not
old, because we do not know what period God hath set to that sort of beings.
This term belonging properly to those things which we can observe in the
ordinary course of things, by a natural decay, to come to an end in a certain
period of time; and so have in our minds, as it were, a standard to which we can
compare the several parts of their duration; and, by the relation they bear
thereunto, call them young or old; which we cannot, therefore, do to a ruby or a
diamond, things whose usual periods we know not.
5. Relations of place and extension. The relation also that things have
to one another in their places and distances is very obvious to observe; as
above, below, a mile distant from Charing-cross, in England, and in London. But
as in duration, so in extension and bulk, there are some ideas that are relative
which we signify by names that are thought positive; as great and little are
truly relations. For here also, having, by observation, settled in our minds the
ideas of the bigness of several species of things from those we have been most
accustomed to, we make them as it were the standards, whereby to denominate the
bulk of others. Thus we call a great apple, such a one as is bigger than the
ordinary sort of those we have been used to; and a little horse, such a one as
comes not up to the size of that idea which we have in our minds to belong
ordinarily to horses; and that will be a great horse to a Welchman, which is but
a little one to a Fleming; they two having, from the different breed of their
countries, taken several-sized ideas to which they compare, and in relation to
which they denominate their great and their little.
6. Absolute terms often stand for relations. So likewise weak and strong
are but relative denominations of power, compared to some ideas we have at that
time of greater or less power. Thus, when we say a weak man, we mean one that
has not so much strength or power to move as usually men have, or usually those
of his size have; which is a comparing his strength to the idea we have of the
usual strength of men, or men of such a size. The like when we say the creatures
are all weak things; weak there is but a relative term, signifying the
disproportion there is in the power of God and the creatures. And so abundance
of words, in ordinary speech, stand only for relations (and perhaps the greatest
part) which at first sight seem to have no such signification: v.g. the ship has
necessary stores. Necessary and stores are both relative words; one having a
relation to the accomplishing the voyage intended, and the other to future use.
All which relations, how they are confined to, and terminate in ideas derived
from sensation or reflection, is too obvious to need any explication. [......] Book
IV Chapter
V Of Truth in General
1. What truth is. What is truth? was an inquiry many ages since; and it
being that which all mankind either do, or pretend to search after, it cannot
but be worth our while carefully to examine wherein it consists, and so acquaint
ourselves with the nature of it, as to observe how the mind distinguishes it
from falsehood.
2. A right joining or separating of signs, i.e. either ideas or words.
Truth, then, seems to me, in the proper import of the word, to signify nothing
but the joining or separating of Signs, as the Things signified by them do agree
or disagree one with another. The joining or separating of signs here meant, is
what by another name we call proposition. So that truth properly belongs only to
propositions: whereof there are two sorts, viz. mental and verbal; as there are
two sorts of signs commonly made use of, viz. ideas and words.
3. Which make mental or verbal propositions. To form a clear notion of
truth, it is very necessary to consider truth of thought, and truth of words,
distinctly one from another: but yet it is very difficult to treat of them
asunder. Because it is unavoidable, in treating of mental propositions, to make
use of words: and then the instances given of mental propositions cease
immediately to be barely mental, and become verbal. For a mental proposition
being nothing but a bare consideration of the ideas, as they are in our minds,
stripped of names, they lose the nature of purely mental propositions as soon as
they are put into words.
4. Mental propositions are very hard to he treated of. And that which
makes it yet harder to treat of mental and verbal propositions separately is,
that most men, if not all, in their thinking and reasonings within themselves,
make use of words instead of ideas; at least when the subject of their
meditation contains in it complex ideas. Which is a great evidence of the
imperfection and uncertainty of our ideas of that kind, and may, if attentively
made use of, serve for a mark to show us what are those things we have clear and
perfect established ideas of, and what not. For if we will curiously observe the
way our mind takes in thinking and reasoning, we shall find, I suppose, that
when we make any propositions within our own thoughts about white or black,
sweet or bitter, a triangle or a circle, we can and often do frame in our minds
the ideas themselves, without reflecting on the names. But when we would
consider, or make propositions about the more complex ideas, as of a man,
vitriol, fortitude, glory, we usually put the name for the idea: because the
ideas these names stand for, being for the most part imperfect, confused, and
undetermined, we reflect on the names themselves, because they are more clear,
certain, and distinct, and readier occur to our thoughts than the pure ideas:
and so we make use of these words instead of the ideas themselves, even when we
would meditate and reason within ourselves, and make tacit mental propositions.
In substances, as has been already noticed, this is occasioned by the
imperfections of our ideas: we making the name stand for the real essence, of
which we have no idea at all. In modes, it is occasioned by the great number of
simple ideas that go to the making them up. For many of them being compounded,
the name occurs much easier than the complex idea itself, which requires time
and attention to be recollected, and exactly represented to the mind, even in
those men who have formerly been at the pains to do it; and is utterly
impossible to be done by those who, though they have ready in their memory the
greatest part of the common words of that language, yet perhaps never troubled
themselves in all their lives to consider what precise ideas the most of them
stood for. Some confused or obscure notions have served their turns; and many
who talk very much of religion and conscience, of church and faith, of power and
right, of obstructions and humours, melancholy and choler, would perhaps have
little left in their thoughts and meditations if one should desire them to think
only of the things themselves and lay by those words with which they so often
confound others, and not seldom themselves also.
5. Mental and verbal propositions contrasted. But to return to the
consideration of truth: we must, I say, observe two sorts of propositions that
we are capable of making:-
First, mental, wherein the ideas in our understandings are without the
use of words put together, or separated, by the mind perceiving or judging of
their agreement or disagreement.
Secondly, Verbal propositions, which are words, the signs of our ideas,
put together or separated in affirmative or negative sentences. By which way of
affirming or denying, these signs, made by sounds, are, as it were, put together
or separated one from another. So that proposition consists in joining or
separating signs; and truth consists in the putting together or separating those
signs, according as the things which they stand for agree or disagree.
6. When mental propositions contain real truth, and when verbal. Every
one's experience will satisfy him, that the mind, either by perceiving, or
supposing, the agreement or disagreement of any of its ideas, does tacitly
within itself put them into a kind of proposition affirmative or negative; which
I have endeavoured to express by the terms putting together and separating. But
this action of the mind, which is so familiar to every thinking and reasoning
man, is easier to be conceived by reflecting on what passes in us when we affirm
or deny, than to be explained by words. When a man has in his head the idea of
two lines, viz. the side and diagonal of a square, whereof the diagonal is an
inch long, he may have the idea also of the division of that line into a certain
number of equal parts: v.g. into five, ten, a hundred, a thousand, or any other
number, and may have the idea of that inch line being divisible, or not
divisible, into such equal parts, as a certain number of them will be equal to
the sideline. Now, whenever he perceives, believes, or supposes such a kind of
divisibility to agree or disagree to his idea of that line, he, as it were,
joins or separates those two ideas, viz. the idea of that line, and the idea of
that kind of divisibility; and so makes a mental proposition, which is true or
false, according as such a kind of divisibility; a divisibility into such
aliquot parts, does really agree to that line or no. When ideas are so put
together, or separated in the mind, as they or the things they stand for do
agree or not, that is, as I may call it, mental truth. But truth of words is
something more; and that is the affirming or denying of words one of another, as
the ideas they stand for agree or disagree: and this again is two-fold; either
purely verbal and trifling, which I shall speak of, (chap. viii.,) or real and
instructive; which is the object of that real knowledge which we have spoken of
already.
7. Objection against verbal truth, that "thus it may all be
chimerical." But here again will be apt to occur the same doubt about
truth, that did about knowledge: and it will be objected, that if truth be
nothing but the joining and separating of words in propositions, as the ideas
they stand for agree or disagree in men's minds, the knowledge of truth is not
so valuable a thing as it is taken to be, nor worth the pains and time men
employ in the search of it: since by this account it amounts to no more than the
conformity of words to the chimeras of men's brains. Who knows not what odd
notions many men's heads are filled with, and what strange ideas all men's
brains are capable of? But if we rest here, we know the truth of nothing by this
rule, but of the visionary words in our own imaginations; nor have other truth,
but what as much concerns harpies and centaurs, as men and horses. For those,
and the like, may be ideas in our heads, and have their agreement or
disagreement there, as well as the ideas of real beings, and so have as true
propositions made about them. And it will be altogether as true a proposition to
say all centaurs are animals, as that all men are animals; and the certainty of
one as great as the other. For in both the propositions, the words are put
together according to the agreement of the ideas in our minds: and the agreement
of the idea of animal with that of centaur is as clear and visible to the mind,
as the agreement of the idea of animal with that of man; and so these two
propositions are equally true, equally certain. But of what use is all such
truth to us?
8. Answered, "Real truth is about ideas agreeing to things."
Though what has been said in the foregoing chapter to distinguish real from
imaginary knowledge might suffice here, in answer to this doubt, to distinguish
real truth from chimerical, or (if you please) barely nominal, they depending
both on the same foundation; yet it may not be amiss here again to consider,
that though our words signify nothing but our ideas, yet being designed by them
to signify things, the truth they contain when put into propositions will be
only verbal, when they stand for ideas in the mind that have not an agreement
with the reality of things. And therefore truth as well as knowledge may well
come under the distinction of verbal and real; that being only verbal truth,
wherein terms are joined according to the agreement or disagreement of the ideas
they stand for; without regarding whether our ideas are such as really have, or
are capable of having, an existence in nature. But then it is they contain real
truth, when these signs are joined, as our ideas agree; and when our ideas are
such as we know are capable of having an existence in nature: which in
substances we cannot know, but by knowing that such have existed.
9. Truth and falsehood in general. Truth is the marking down in words the
agreement or disagreement of ideas as it is. Falsehood is the marking down in
words the agreement or disagreement of ideas otherwise than it is. And so far as
these ideas, thus marked by sounds, agree to their archetypes, so far only is
the truth real. The knowledge of this truth consists in knowing what ideas the
words stand for, and the perception of the agreement or disagreement of those
ideas, according as it is marked by those words.
10. General propositions to be treated of more at large. But because
words are looked on as the great conduits of truth and knowledge, and that in
conveying and receiving of truth, and commonly in reasoning about it, we make
use of words and propositions, I shall more at large inquire wherein the
certainty of real truths contained in propositions consists, and where it is to
be had; and endeavour to show in what sort of universal propositions we are
capable of being certain of their real truth or falsehood.
I shall begin with general propositions, as those which most employ our
thoughts, and exercise our contemplation. General truths are most looked after
by the mind as those that most enlarge our knowledge; and by their
comprehensiveness satisfying us at once of many particulars, enlarge our view,
and shorten our way to knowledge.
11. Moral and metaphysical truth. Besides truth taken in the strict sense
before mentioned, there are other sorts of truths: As, 1. Moral truth, which is
speaking of things according to the persuasion of our own minds, though the
proposition we speak agree not to the reality of things; 2. Metaphysical truth,
which is nothing but the real existence of things, conformable to the ideas to
which we have annexed their names. This, though it seems to consist in the very
beings of things, yet, when considered a little nearly, will appear to include a
tacit proposition, whereby the mind joins that particular thing to the idea it
had before settled with the name to it. But these considerations of truth,
either having been before taken notice of, or not being much to our present
purpose, it may suffice here only to have mentioned them. |