C. HA P. XIII. Of Simple Modes, and first of the Simple Modes of 3. 1. THOUGH in the foregoing part Simple I have often mentioned fimple Modes. ideas, which are truly the materials of all our know ledge; yet having treated of them there, rather in the way that they come into the mind, than as diftinguished from others more compounded, it will not be perhaps amifs to take a view of fome of them again under this confideration, and examine thofe different modifications of the fame idea: which the mind either finds in things exifting, or is able to make within itself, without the help of any extrinfecal object, or any foreign fuggeftion. Thofe modifications of any one fimple idea (which, as has been faid, I call fimple modes) are as perfectly different and diftinct ideas in the mind, as thofe of the greatest distance or contrariety. For the idea of two is as diftinct from that of one, as bluenefs from heat, or either of them from any number: and yet it is made up only of that fimple idea of an unit repeated; and repetitions of this kind joined together, make those diftinct fimple modes, of a dozen, a grofs, a million. §. 2. I fhall begin with the fimple idea Idea of of space. I have showed above, chap. 4. fpace. that we get the idea of fpace, both by our fight and touch; which, I think, is fo evident, that it would be as needlefs to go to prove that men perceive, by their fight, a distance between bodies of different colours, or, between the parts of the fame body, as that they fee colours themselves; nor is it lefs obvious, that they can do fo in the dark by feeling and touch. §. 3. This space confidered barely in length between any two beings, without confidering any thing elfe between them, Space and is called distance; if confidered in length, breadth, and thickness, I think it may be called capacity. The term extenfion is usually applied to it in what manner foever confidered. Immensity. §. 4. Each different diftance is a different modification of fpace; and each idea of any different diftance, or space, is a fimple mode of this idea. Men for the use, and by the cuftom of meafuring, fettle in their minds the ideas of certain ftated lengths, fuch as are an inch, foot, yard, fathom, mile, diameter of the earth, &c. which are fo many distinct ideas made up only of fpace. When any fuch stated lengths or measures of fpace are made familiar to men's thoughts, they can in their minds repeat them as often as they will, without mixing or joining to them the idea of body, or any thing elfe; and frame to themfelves the ideas of long, fquare, or cubic, feet, yards, or fathoms, here amongst the bodies of the universe, or elfe beyond the utmoft bounds of all bodies; and by adding thefe ftill one to another, enlarge their ideas of fpace as much as they please. The power of repeating, or doubling any idea we have of any distance, and adding it to the former as often as we will, without being ever able to come to any ftop or ftint, let us enlarge it as much as we will, is that which gives us the idea of immenfity. Figure. f. 5. There is another modification of this idea, which is nothing but the relation which the parts of the termination of extenfion, or circumfcribed fpace, have amongst themselves. This the touch discovers in fenfible bodies, whofe extremities come within our reach; and the eye takes both from bodies and colours, whofe boundaries are within its view where obferving how the extremities terminate either in ftraight lines, which meet at difcernible angles; or in crooked lines, wherein no angles can be perceived; by confidering the fe as they relate to one another, in all parts of the extremities of any body or fpace, it has that idea we call figure, which affords to the mind infinite variety. For befides the vast number of different figures, that do really exift in the coherent coherent maffes of matter, the ftock that the mind has in its power, by varying the idea of fpace, and thereby making ftill new compofitions, by repeating its own ideas, and joining them as it pleafes, is perfectly inexhaustible; and so it can multiply figures in infinitum. §. 6. For the mind having a power to Figure. repeat the idea of any length directly ftretched out, and join it to another in the fame direction, which is to double the length of that ftraight line, or else join another with what inclination it thinks fit, and fo make what fort of angle it pleases; and being able also to shorten any line it imagines, by taking from it one half, or one fourth, or what part it pleases, without being able to come to an end of any fuch divifions, it can make an angle of any bignefs: fo alfo the lines that are its fides, of what length it pleases; which joining again to other lines of different lengths, and at different angles, till it has wholly inclofed any space, it is evident, that it can multiply figures both in their shape and capacity, in infinitum; all which are but fo many different fimple modes of space. The fame that it can do with ftraight lines, it can alfo do with crooked, or crooked and straight together; and the fame it can do in lines, it can alfo in fuperficies: by which we may be led into farther thoughts of the endless variety of figures, that the mind has a power to make, and thereby to multiply the fimple modes of space. §. 7. Another idea coming under this Place. head, and belonging to this tribe, is that we call place. As in fimple space, we confider the relation of distance between any two bodies or points; fo in our idea of place, we confider the relation of dif tance betwixt any thing, and any two or more points, which are confidered as keeping the fame distance one with another, and fo confidered as at reft: for when we find any thing at the fame diftance now, which it was yesterday, from any two or more points, which have not fince changed their distance one with another, and with which we then compared it, we say it hath kept the fame place; but if it hath fenfibly altered its distance with either of those points, we fay it hath changed its place: though vulgarly speaking, in the common notion of place, we do not always exactly obferve the deftance from thefe precife points; but from larger portions of fenfible objects, to which we confider the thing placed to bear relation, and its distance from which we have some reason to obferve. §. 8. Thus a company of chefs-men ftanding on the fame fquares of the chefs-board, where we left them, we fay they are all in the fame place, or unmoved; though perhaps the chefs-board hath been in the mean time carried out of one room into another; because we compared them only to the parts of the chefs-board, which keep the fame diftance one with another. The chefs-board, we alfo fay, is in the fame place it was, if it remain in the fame part of the cabin, though perhaps the fhip, which it is in, fails all the while: and the fhip is faid to be in the fame place, fuppofing it kept the fame diftance with the parts of the neighbouring land; though perhaps the earth hath turned round; and fo both chefs-men, and board, and ship, have every one changed place, in refpect of remoter bodies, which have kept the fame diftance one with another. But yet the distance from certain parts of the board, being that which determines the place of the chefs-men; and the diftance from the fixed parts of the cabin (with which we made the comparifon) be ing that which determined the place of the chefs-board ; and the fixed parts of the earth, that by which we determined the place of the fhip; these things may be faid to be in the fame place in thofe refpects: though their distance from fome other things, which in this matter we did not confider, being varied, they have undoubtedly changed place in that refpect; and we ourfelves fhall think fo, when we have occafion to compare them with those other. §. 9. But this modification of diftance we call place, being made by men, for their common ufe, that by it they might be able to defign the particular pofition of things, where they had occafion for fuch defignation": men 151 men confider and determine of this place, by reference to thofe adjacent things which beft ferved to their prefent purpose, without confidering other things, which to answer another purpose would better determine the place of the fame thing. Thus in the chefs-board, the afe of the defignation of the place of each chefs-man, being determined only within that chequered piece of wood, it would crofs that purpose, to measure it by any thing elfe: but when thefe very chefs-men are put up in a bag, if any one fhould ask where the black king is, it would be proper to determine the place by the parts of the room it was in, and not by the chefsboard; there being another use of defigning the place it is now in, than when in play it was on the chefsboard, and fo must be determined by other bodies. So if any one should afk, in what place are the verses, which report the ftory of Nifus and Euryalus, it would be very improper to determine this place, by faying, they were in fuch a part of the earth, or in Bodley's library: but the right defignation of the place would be by the parts of Virgil's works; and the proper anfwer would be, that these verses were about the middle of the ninth book of his Eneid; and that they have been always conftantly in the fame place ever fince Virgil was printed; which is true, though the book itself hath moved a thousand times; the ufe of the idea of place here being to know in what part of the book that story is, that fo upon occafion we may know where to find it, and have recourse to it for use. §. 10. That our idea of place is nothing Place. elfe but such a relative pofition of any thing, as I have before mentioned, I think is plain, and will be easily admitted, when we confider that we can have no idea of the place of the univerfe, though we can of all the parts of it; because beyond that we have not the idea of any fixed, distinct, particular beings, in reference to which we can imagine it to have any relation of distance; but all beyond it is one uniform space or expanfion, wherein the mind finds no variety, no marks. For to fay, that the world is fomewhere, means no more than that it does exift: this, though a L 4 phrafe |