fpace is expanded, and body extended. But in this every one has liberty: I propofe it only for the more clear and diftinct way of fpeaking. Men differ little in clear §. 28. The knowing precifely what our words ftand for, would, I imagine, in fimple ideas. this as well as a great many other cafes, quickly end the difpute. For I am apt to think that men, when they come to examine: them, find their fimple. ideas all generally to agree, though in difcourfe with one another they perhaps confound one another with different names. I imagine that men who abstract their thoughts, and do well examine the ideas of their own minds, cannot much differ in thinking; however they may perplex themfelves with words, according to the way of fpeaking of the several schools or fects they have been bred up in though amongst unthinking men, who examine not fcrupuloufly and carefully their own ideas, and ftrip them not from the marks men ufe for them, but confound them with words, there must be endless difpute, wrangling, and jargon; efpecially if they be learned bookish men, devoted to fome fect, and accustomed to the language of it, and have learned to talk after others. But if it fhould happen, that any two thinking men should really have different ideas, I do not fee how they could difcourfe or argue one with another. Here I must not be mistaken, to think that every floating imaginationin men's brains, is prefently of that fort of ideas I fpeak of. It is not eafy for the mind to put off those confufed notions and prejudices it has imbibed from cuftom, inadvertency, and common converfation: It' requires pains and affiduity to examine its ideas, till it refolves them into thofe clear and diftinct fimple ones, out of which they are compounded; and to fee which, amongst its fimple ones, have or have not a neceflary connexion and dependence one upon another. Till a man doth this in the primary and orignal notion of things, he builds upon floating and uncertain principles, and will often find himself at a lofs. CHAP. 6. I. THE Duration is fleeting ex tenfion. HERE is another fort of diftance or length, the idea whereof we get not from the permanent parts of fpace, but from the fleeting and perpetually perifhing parts of fucceffion. This we call duration, the fimple modes whereof are any different lengths of it, whereof we have diftinct ideas, as hours, days, years, &c. time and eternity. Its idea from reflection on the train of our ideas. §. 2. The anfwer of a great man, to one who asked what time was, "Si non rogas "Si non rogas "intelligo," (which amounts to this; the more I fet myself to think of it, the less I understand it) might perhaps perfuade one, that time, which reveals all other things, is itself not to be difcovered. Duration, time, and eternity, are not with-1 out reafon thought to have fomething very abftrufe in their nature. But however remote these may seem from our comprehenfion, yet if we trace them right to their originals, I doubt not but one of those fources of all our knowledge, viz. fenfation and reflection, will be able to furnish us with thefe ideas, as clear and distinct as many other which are thought much lefs obfcure; and we fhall find, that the idea of eternity itself is derived from the fame common original with the rest of our ideas. §. 3. To understand time and eternity aright, we ought with attention to confider what idea it is we have of duration, and how we came by it. It is evident to any one, who will but obferve what paffes in his own. mind, that there is train of ideas which conftantly fucceed one another in his understanding, as long as he is awake. Reflection on these appearances of feveral ideas, one after another, in our minds, is that which furnishes us with the idea of fucceffion; and the distance between any parts of that fucceffion, or between the M 2 appear appearance of any two ideas in our minds, is that we call duration. For whilft we are thinking, or whilft we receive fucceffively feveral ideas in our minds, we know that we do exift; and fo we call the existence, or the continuation of the exiftence of ourfelves, or any thing elfe, commenfurate to the fucceffion of any ideas in our minds, the duration of ourselves, or any fuch other thing coexiftent with our thinking. §. 4. That we have our notion of fucceffion and duration from this original, viz. from reflection on the train of ideas which we find to appear one after another in our own minds, feems plain to me, in that we have no perception of duration, but by confidering the train of ideas that take their turns in our underftandings. When that fucceffion of ideas ceafes, our perception of duration ccafes with it; which every one clearly experiments in himself, whilft he fleeps foundly, whether an hour or a day, a month or a year: of which duration of things, while he fleeps or thinks not, he has no perception at all, but it is quite loft to him; and the moment wherein he leaves off to think, till the moment he begins to think again, feems to him to have no distance. And fo I doubt not it would be to a waking man, if it were poffible for him to keep only one idea in his mind, without variation and the fucceffion of others. And we fee, that one who fixeshis thoughts very intently on one thing, fo as to take but little notice of the fucceffion of ideas that pass in his mind, whilft he is taken up with that carneft contemplation, lets flip out of his account a good part of that duration, and thinks that time fhorter than it is. But if fleep commonly unites the diftant parts of duration, it is becaufe during that time we have no fucceffion of ideas in our minds. For if a man, during his fleep, dreams, and variety of ideas make themfelves perceptible in his mind one after another; he hath then, during fuch dreaming, a fenfe of duration, and of the length of it. By which it is to me very clear, that men derive their ideas of duration from their reflections on the train of the ideas they observe to fucceed one another in their own understandings; without The idea of duration applicable to things whilft we fleep. without which observation they can have no notion of duration, whatever may happen in the world. §. 5. Indeed, a man having, from reflecting on the fucceffion and number of his own thoughts, got the notion or idea of duration, he can apply that notion to things which exift while he does not think; as he that has got the idea of extenfion from bodies by his fight or touch, can apply it to distances, where no body is seen or felt. And therefore though a man has no perception of the length of duration, which paffed whilst he slept or thought not; yet having obferved the revolution of days and nights, and found the length of their duration to be in appearance regular and conftant, he can, upon the fuppofition that that revolution has proceeded after the fame manner, whilft he was asleep or thought not, as it used to do at other times; he can, I fay, imagine and make allowance for the length of duration, whilft he flept. But if Adam and Eve (when they were alone in the world) instead of their ordinary night's fleep, had paffed the whole twenty-four hours in one continued fleep, the duration of that twentyfour hours had been irrecoverably loft to them, and been for ever left out of their account of time. §. 6. Thus by reflecting on the appearing of various ideas one after another in our understandings, we get the notion of fucceffion; which, if any one would think we did rather get from our obfervation of motion by our fenfes, he will perhaps be of my mind, when he confiders that even motion produces in his mind an idea of fucceffion, no otherwife than as it produces there a continued train of diftinguishable ideas. For a man looking upon a body really moving, perceives yet no motion at all, unless that motion produces a conftant train of fucceffive ideas: v. g. a man becalmed at fea, out of fight of land, in a fair day, may look on the fun, or fea, or fhip, a whole hour together, and perceive no motion at all in either; though it be certain that two, and perhaps all of them, have moved during that time a great way. But as foon as he per M 3 The idea fucceffion not from motion. ceives ceives either of them to have changed diftance with fome other body, as foon as this motion produces any new idea in him, then he perceives that there has been motion. But wherever a man is, with all things at rett about him, without perceiving any motion at all; if during this hour of quiet he has been thinking, he will perceive the various ideas of his own thoughts in his own mind, appearing one after another, and thereby obferve and find fucceffion where he could obferve no motion. §. 7. And this, I think, is the reafon why motions very flow, though they are conftant, are not perceived by us; because in their remove from one fenfible part towards another, their change of diftance is fo flow, that it caufes no new ideas in us, but a good while one after another and fo not causing a conftant train of new ideas to follow one another immediately in our minds, we have no perception of motion; which confifting in a conftant fucceffion, we cannot perceive that fucceffion without a conftant fucceffion of varying ideas arifing from it. §. 8. On the contrary, things that move fo fwift, as not to affect the fenfes diftinctly with feveral diftinguishable diftances of their motion, and fo caufe not any train of ideas in the mind, are not alfo perceived to move: For any thing that moves round about in a circle, in lefs time than our ideas are wont to fucceed one another in our minds, is not perceived to move; but feems to be a perfect entire circle of that matter or colour, and not a part of a circle in motion. The train of ideas has a certain de gree ofquick nefs. §. 9. Hence I leave it to others to judge, whether it be not probable, that our ideas do, whilft we are awake, fucceed one another in our minds at certain diftances, not much unlike the images in the infide of a lanthorn, turned round by the heat of a candle. This appearance of theirs in train, though perhaps it may be fometimes fafter, and fometimes flower, yet, I guefs, varies not very much in a waking man: there feem to be certain bounds to the quicknefs and flownefs of the fucceffion of thofe ideas one to another in our |