flection, and therefore fit to be confidered in this place after the fimple ideas of fensation. Of compounding, comparing, abstracting, &c., I have but just spoken, having occafion to treat of them more at large in other places.

beginnings of human

knowledge.

These are the §. 15. And thus I have given a fhort, and, I think, true hiftory of the first beginnings of human knowledge, whence the mind has its firft objects, and by what steps it makes its progrefs 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 muft appeal to expe-. rience 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 ourselves, or have been taught by others to imagine.

Appeal to experience.

§. 16. 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 infufed 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 Ipeak but of what I find in myself, and is agreeable to those notions; which, if we will examine the whole course of men in their feveral ages, countries, and educations, feem to depend on thofe foundations which I have laid, and to correfpond with this method in all the parts and degrees thereof.

Dark room.

§. 17. 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. These alone as far as I can difcover, are the windows by which light is let into this dark room: for methinks the understanding is not much unlike a clofet wholly fhut from light, with only fome little opening left, to let in external vifible refemblances, or ideas of things without: would the pictures coming into fuch a dark room but ftay there, and lie fo orderly

મૂડ

as to be found upon occafion, it would very much refemble 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 underftanning comes to have and retain fimple ideas, and the modes of them, with fome other operations about them. I proceed now to examine some of thefe fimple ideas, and their modes, a little more particularly.

§. I.

CHAP. XII.

Of Complex Ideas.

E have hitherto confidered

Made by the mind out of whercof the mind is only paffive, which fimple ones. 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 thefe 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, so 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 exiftence; this is called abftraction: and thus all its general ideas are made. This fhows man's power, and its ways of operation, to be much what the fame in the material

WE thofe ideas, in the reception

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 firft 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 confider feveral of them united together as one idea; and that not only as they are united in external objects, but as itfelf 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 compli cated of various fimple ideas, or complex ideas made up of fimple ones, yet are, when the mind pleases, confidered each by itfelf as one entire thing, and fignified by one name.

Made volun

§. 2. In this faculty of repeating and tarily. 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 themselves, 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 itfelf; but when it has once got thefe fimple ideas, it is not confined barely to obfervation, and what offers itself from without: it can, by its own power, put together those ideas it has, and make new complex ones, which it never received fo united.

Are either modes, fubftances or reJations

§. 3. Complex ideas, however compounded and decompounded, though their number be infinite, and the variety endlefs, wherewith they fill and entertain the

thoughts

thoughts of men; yet, I think, they may be all reduced under these three heads: 1. Modes. 2. Subftances. 3. Relations.

§. 4. Firft, Modes I call fuch complex Modes. ideas, which, however compounded, con

tain not in them the fuppofition of fubfifting by themfelves, but are confidered as dependences on, or affections of fubftances; fuch as are ideas fignified by the words triangle, gratitude, murder, &c. And if in this I use the word mode in fomewhat a different fenfe 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.

Simple and mixed

modes.

5. Of these modes, there are two forts which deferve diftinct confideration. First, 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 fcore; which are nothing but the ideas of fo many dif tinct 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.

Subftances fingle or cole lective.

§. 6. Secondly, the ideas of fubftances are fuch combinations of fimple ideas, as are taken to reprefent diftinct particular things fubfifting by themfelves; in which the fuppofed or confufed idea of fubftance, fuch as it is, is always the first and chief. Thus if to fubftance be joined the fimple idea of a certain dull whitish coVOL. I. lour,

L

lour, with certain degrees of weight, hardnefs, 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 reafoning, joined to fubftance, make the ordinary idea of a man. Now of fubftances alfo there are two forts of ideas; one of fingle fubftances, as they exift feparately, as of a man or a fheep; the other of feveral of thofe put together, as an army of men, or flock of theep: which collective ideas of feveral substances thus put together, are as much each of them one fingle idea, as that of a man, or an unit.

Relation.

§. 7. Thirdly, the last fort of complex ideas, is that we call relation, which confifts in the confideration and comparing one idea with Of thefe feveral kinds we fhall treat in their

another.

order...

The abitrufeft ideas

fources.

§. 8. If we trace the progrefs of our minds, and with attention obferve how from the two it repeats, adds together, and unites its fimple ideas received from fenfation or refection, it will lead us farther than at first perhaps we fhould have imagined. And I believe we fhall 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 operations 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 abstract 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 fenfe, or from the operations it obferves in itself 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 thofe originals.

CHAP.