"that it ultimately derives itself. Our observation, em

ployed, either about external sensible objects, or about "the internal operations of our minds, perceived and re"flected on by ourselves, is that which supplies our un"derstanding with all the materials for thinking. These "two are the fountains of knowledge from whence all the "ideas we have, or can naturally have, do spring."

"First, our senses, conversant about particular sensi"ble 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 ob"jects 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.

"Secondly, the other fountain from which experience "furnisheth the understanding with ideas, is the percep"tion of the operations of our own minds within us, as it "is employed about the ideas it has got; which opera"tions, 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, willing, and all the different actings of our own minds; "which we, being conscious of, and observing in our"selves, do from these receive into our understandings

*For perception read consciousness.

❝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. These "two, I say, viz. external material things, as the objects "of sensation, and the operations of our own minds with. "in, as the objects of reflection, are to me the only ori'ginals from whence all our ideas take their beginnings."*

"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 un“derstanding, by any quickness or variety of thoughts, "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 much 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 or 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."+

* Locke's Essay, Book ii. Chap. i. § 2, 3, &c. * Locke's Essay, Book 2. Chap ii. § 2.

Thus far there seems to be little reprehensible in Locke's statement, as it might be fairly interpreted (notwithstanding some unguarded expressions) as implying nothing more than this, that the first occasions on which the mind is led to exercise its various faculties, and to acquire the simple notions which form the elements of all its knowledge, are furnished either by impressions made on our external senses, or by the phenomena of sensation and thought of which we are conscious. In this sense of the words, I have, in a former work, not only expressed my assent to Mr. Locke's doctrine, but have admitted as correct, the generalization of it adopted by most of his present followers;-"that the first occasions

on which our various faculties are exercised, and the "elements of all our knowledge acquired, may be traced "ultimately to our intercourse with sensible objects." This generalization, indeed, is an obvious and necessary consequence of the proposition as stated by Locke; the mind being unquestionably, in the first instance, awakened to the exercise of consciousness and reflection by im. pressions from without.*

The comments, however, which Locke has introduced on this cardinal principle of his system, in different parts of his Essay, prove beyond a doubt that he intended it to convey a great deal more than is implied in the interpretation of it which has just been given; and that, according to the meaning he annexed to his words, sensation and reflection are not merely affirmed to furnish the occa

* See Philosophy of the Human Mind, Chap. i. Sect. 4. which I must beg leave to recommend to the careful perusal of such of my readers as are at all aware of the importance of this discussion.

sions which suggest to the understanding the various simple or elementary modifications of thought to which he gives the name of simple Ideas; but to furnish the mind directly and immediately with these ideas, in the obvious and literal sense of the expression;-insomuch, that there is not a simple idea in the mind which is not either the appropriate subject of consciousness, (such as the ideas which the mind forms of its own operations,)—or a copy of some quality perceived by our external senses. It appears farther, that Locke conceived these copies, or images, to be the immediate objects of thought, all our information about the material world being obtained by their intervention: And it was for this reason, I before asserted, that his fundamental principle resolves into the supposition, that consciousness is exclusively the source of all our knowledge.*

That I may not be suspected of doing Locke any injustice on this occasion, I must quote a few passages in his own words.

"The next thing to be considered is, how bodies pro"duce ideas in us, and that is manifestly by impulse, the "only way we can conceive bodies to operate in."

"If, then, external objects be not united to our minds,

A remark, the same in substance with this, is made by Dr. Reid in the conclusion of his Inquiry. "When it is asserted, that all our "notions are either ideas of sensation, or ideas of reflection, the "plain English of this is, that mankind neither do, nor can think of any thing, but of the operations of their own minds."-Inquiry, c. p. 376, (3d Edition).

In some places, Locke speaks of the ideas of material things as being in the brain; but his general mode of expression supposes them to be in the mind; and consequently the immediate objects of consciousness.

"when they produce ideas in it; and yet we perceive these "original qualities in such of them as singly fall under "our senses, 'tis evident, that some motion must be thence "continued by our nerves or animal spirits, or by some << parts of our bodies to the brain, or the seat of sensation, "there to produce in our minds the particular ideas we "have of them. And since the extension, figure, number, " and motion of bodies of an observable bigness, may be perceived at a distance by the sight, 'tis evident, some singly imperceptible bodies must come from them to the eyes, and thereby convey to the brain some motion "which produces these ideas which we have of them in us."*

66

A few sentences after, Mr. Locke, having previously stated the distinction between the primary and the secondary qualities of matter, proceeds thus: "From whence "I think it easy to draw this observation, that the ideas "of primary qualities of bodies are resemblances of them, "and their patterns do really exist in the bodies them"selves; but the ideas produced in us by these secondary $6 qualities have no resemblance of them at all."+

What notion Mr. Locke annexed to the word resemblance, when applied to our ideas of primary qualities, may be best learned by the account he gives of the difference between them and our ideas of secondary qualities, in the paragraph immediately following. “Flame is "denominated hot and light;‡ snow, white and cold; and manna, white and sweet; from the ideas they produce

* Locke's Essay, Book ii. Chap. viii. § 11. and 12.

§ 15. The instances mentioned by Locke of primary qualities are, solidity, extension, figure, motion, or rest, and number.

For light read luminous.