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§. 1. OF

CHAP. XXXI.

Of Adequate and Inadequate Ideas.

Adequate ideas are fuch as perfectly reprefent their

archetypes.

F our real ideas, fome are adequate, and fome are inadequate. Thofe I call adequate, which perfectly reprefent thofe archetypes which the mind. fuppofes them taken from; which it intends them to ftand for, and to which it refers them. Inadequate ideas are fuch, which are but a partial or incomplete representation of thofe archetypes to which they are referred. Upon which account it is plain,

§. 2. First, that all our fimple ideas are Simple ideas adequate. Because being nothing but the all adequate. effects of certain powers in things, fitted

and ordained by God to produce fuch fenfations in us, they cannot but be correspondent and adequate to those powers and we are fure they agree to the reality of things. For if fugar produce in us the ideas which we call whitenefs and fweetnefs, we are fure there is a power in fugar to produce thofe ideas in our minds, or elfe they could not have been produced by it. And fo each fenfation anfwering the power that operates on any of our fenfes, the idea fo produced is a real idea, (and not a fiction of the mind, which has no power to produce any fimple idea;) and cannot but be adequate, fince it ought only to answer that power: and fo all fimple ideas are adequate. It is true, the things producing in us thefe fimple ideas are but few of them denominated by us, as if they were only the causes of them; but as if thofe ideas were real beings in them. For though fire be called painful to the touch, whereby is fignified the power of producing in us the idea of pain, yet it is denominated alfo light and hot; as if light and heat were really fomething in the fire more than a power to excite thefe ideas in us; and therefore are called qualities in, or of the fire. But thefe being nothing,

nothing, in truth, but powers to excite fuch ideas in us, I must in that fenfe be understood, when I speak of fecondary qualities, as being in things; or of their ideas, as being the objects that excite them in us. Such ways of fpeaking, though accommodated to the vulgar notions, without which one cannot be well understood, yet truly fignify nothing but thofe powers which are in things to excite certain fenfations or ideas in us: fince were there no fit organs to receive the impreffions fire makes on the fight and touch, nora mind joined to thofe organs to receive the ideas of light and heat by thofe impreffions from the fire or. fun, there would yet be no more light or heat in the world, than there would be pain, if there were no fenfible creature to feel it, though the fun fhould continue juft as it is now, and mount Etna flame higher than ever it did. Solidity and extenfion, and the termination of it, figure, with motion and reft, whereof we have the ideas, would be really in the world as they are, whether there were any fenfible being to perceive them or no; and therefore we have reafon to look on thofe as the real modifications of matter, and fuch are the exciting causes of all our various fenfations from bodies. But this being an inquiry not belonging to this place, I fhall enter no farther into it, but proceed to fhow what complex ideas. are adequate, and what not. Modes are all §. 3. Secondly, our complex ideas of modes, being voluntary collections of fimple ideas which the mind puts together without reference to any real archetypes or standing patterns exifling any-where, are and cannot but be adequate ideas. Becaufe they not being intended for copies of things really exifting, but for archetypes made by the mind to rank and denominate things by, cannot want any thing: they having each of them that combination of ideas, and thereby that perfection which the mind intended they fhould: fo that the mind acquiefces in them, and can find nothing wanting. Thus by having the idea of a figure, with three fides meeting at three angles, I have a compleat idea, wherein I require nothing elfe to make it perfect. That the

adequate.

399 mind is fatisfied with the perfection of this its idea, is plain in that it does not conceive, that any underftanding hath, or can have a more compleat or perfect idea of that thing it fignifies by the word triangle, fuppofing it to exift, than itself has in that complex idea of three fides and three angles; in which is contained all that is, or can be effential to it, or neceffary to compleat it, wherever or however it exifts. But in our ideas of fubftances it is otherwife. For there defiring to copy things as they really do exift, and to reprefent to ourfelves that conftitution on which all their properties depend, we perceive our ideas attain not that perfection we intend: we find they ftill want fomething we fhould be glad were in them; and fo are all inadequate. But mixed modes and relations, being archetypes without patterns, and fo having nothing to reprefent but themselves, cannot but be adequate, every thing being fo to itself. He that at firft put together the idea of danger perceived, abfence of disorder from fear, fedate confideration of what was juftly to be done, and executing that without difturbance, or being deterred by the danger of it, had certainly in his mind that complex idea made up of that combination; and intending it to be nothing elfe, but what is, nor to have in it any other fimple ideas, but what it hath, it could not alfo but be an adequate idea: and laying this up in his memory, with the name courage annexed to it, to fignify to others, and denominate from thence any action he should obferve to agree with it, had thereby a ftandard to meafure and denominate actions by, as they agreed to it. This idea thus made, and laid, up for a pattern, muft neceffarily be adequate, being referred to nothing elfe but itfelf, nor made by any other original, but the good-liking and will of him that firft made this combination.

§. 4. Indeed another coming after, and in converfation learning from him the word courage, may make an idea, to which he gives the name courage, different from what the first author applied it to, and has in his mind, when he ufes it. And in

Modes, in reference to

fettled

names, may

be inade
quate.

this

this cafe, if he defigns that his idea in thinking fhould be conformable to the other's idea, as the name he ufes in fpeaking is conformable in found to his, from whom he learned it, his idea may be very wrong and inadequate becaufe in this cafe, making the other man's idea the pattern of his idea in thinking, as the other man's word or found is the pattern of his in fpeaking, his idea is fo far defective and inadequate, as it is diftant from the archetype and pattern he refers it to, and intends to exprefs and fignify by the name he ufes for it; which name he would have to be a fign of the other man's idea (to which, in its proper ufe, it is primarily annexed) and of his own, as agreeing to it: to which, if his own does not exactly correfpond, it is faulty and inadequate.

§. 5. Therefore these complex ideas of modes, when they are referred by the mind, and intended to correfpond to the ideas in the mind of fome other intelligent being, expreffed by the names we apply to them, they may be very deficient, wrong, and inadequate; because they agree not to that, which the mind designs to be their archetype and pattern: in which refpect only, any idea of modes can be wrong, imperfect, or inadequate. And on this account our ideas of mixed modes are the most liable to be faulty of any other; but this refers more to proper fpeaking, than knowing right.

Ideas of fubftances, as referred to real effences,

not adequate.

§. 6. Thirdly, what ideas we have of fubftances, I have above fhowed. Now thofe ideas have in the mind a double reference: 1. Sometimes they are referred to a fuppofed real effence of each fpecies of things. 2. Sometimes they are only defigned to be pictures and reprefentations in the mind of things that do exift by ideas of thofe qualities that are difcoverable in them. In both which ways, thefe copies of thofe originals and archetypes are imperfect and inadequate.

First, it is ufual for men to make the names of fubftances ftand for things, as fuppofed to have certain real effences, whereby they are of this or that

5

Species:

fpecies and names ftanding for nothing but the ideas that are in men's minds, they must conftantly refer their ideas to fuch real effences, as to their archetypes. That men (especially fuch as have been bred up in the learning taught in this part of the world) do fuppose certain fpecific effences of fubftances, which each individual, in its feveral kinds, is made conformable to, and partakes of; is fo far from needing proof, that it will be thought ftrange if any one fhould do otherwife. And thus they ordinarily apply the fpecific names they rank particular fubftances under to things, as diftinguished by fuch fpecific real effences. Who is there almoft, who would not take it amifs, if it fhould be doubted, whether he called himself a man, with any other meaning, than as having the real effence of a mán? And yet if you demand what thofe real effences are, it is plain men are ignorant, and know them not. From whence it follows, that the ideas they have in their minds, being referred to real effences, as to archetypes which are unknown, must be fo far from being adequate, that they cannot be supposed to be any reprefentation of them at all. The complex ideas we have of fubftances are, as it has been shown, certain collections of fimple ideas that have been obferved or fuppofed conftantly to exift together. But fuch a complex idea cannot be the real effence of any substance; for then the properties we difcover in that body would depend on that complex idea, and be deducible from it, and their neceffary connection with it be known; as all properties of a triangle depend on, and, as far as they are discoverable, are deducible from the complex idea of three lines, including a space. But it is plain, that in our complex ideas of fubftances are not contained fuch ideas, on which all the other qualities, that are to be found in them, do depend. The common. idea men have of iron, is a body of a certain colour, weight and hardnefs; and a property that they look on as belonging to it, is malleablenefs. But yet this property has no neceffary connexion with that complex idea, or any part of it; and there is no more reason to think that malleablenefs depends on that colour, weight, VOL. I.

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