115 or else of those wants or diseases they fuffer; among which (if one may conjecture concerning things not very capable of examination), I think the ideas of hunger and warmth are two, which probably are some of the first that children have, and which they fcarce ever part with again, $ 6. BUT though it be reasonable to imagine that children receive fome ideas before they come into the world, yet these fimple ideas are far from those innate principles which fome contend for, and we above have rejected. These here mentioned being the effects of fenfation, are only from fome affections of the body, which happen to them there, and fo depend on fomething exterior to the mind, no otherwise differing in their manner of production from other ideas derived from fenfe, but only in the precedency of time; whereas those innate principles are fuppofed to be quite of another nature, not coming into the mind by any accidental alterations in, or operations on the body, but, as it were, original characters impreffed upon it, in the very first moment of its being and conftitution. 7. Which Ideas firft, is not evident. As there are fome ideas which we may reasonably fuppofe may be introduced into the minds of children in the womb, fubfervient to the neceffities of their life and being there, fo after they are born, thofe ideas are the earliest imprinted, which happen to be the fenfible qualities which firft occur to them; amongst which, light is not the leaft confiderable, nor of the weakest efficacy. And how covetous the mind is to be furnished with all fuch ideas as have no pain accompanying them, may be a little gueffed, by what is obfervable in children new-born, who always turn their eyes to that part from whence the light comes, lay them how you please. But the ideas that are most familiar at first being various, according to the divers circumstances of childrens first entertainment in the world; the order wherein the several ideas come at first into the mind, is very various and uncertain alfo, neither is it much material to know it. § 8. Ideas of Senfation often changed by the Judgment. WE are farther to confider concerning perception, that the ideas we receive by fenfation are often in grown people altered by the judgment, without our taking notice of it. When we fet before our eyes a round globe, of any uniform colour, v. g. gold, alabafter, or jet, it is certain that the idea thereby imprinted in our mind, is of a flat circle variously fhadowed, with feveral degrees of light and brightnefs coming to our eyes. But we having by ufe been accustomed to perceive what kind of appearance convex bodies are wont to make in us, what alterations are made in the reflections of light by the difference of the fenfible figures of bodies; the judgment prefently, by an habitual cuftom, alters the appearances into their causes; fo that from that which truly is variety of fhadow or colour, collecting the figure, it makes it pafs for a mark of figure, and frames to itself the perception of a convex figure and an uniform colour; when the idea we receive from thence is only a plane variously coloured, as is evident in painting. To which purpose I shall here infert a problem of that very ingenious and ftudious promoter of real knowledge, the learned and worthy Mr. Molineux, which he was pleased to fend me in a letter fome months fince; and it is this: Suppofe a man born blind, and now adult, and taught by his touch to diftinguish between a cube and a fphere of the fame metal, and nighly of the fame bigness, fo as to tell when he felt one and the other, which is the cube, which the sphere: Suppose then the cube and sphere placed on a table, and the blind man to be made to fee: Query, Whether by his fight before he touched them, he could now diftinguish and tell, which is the globe, which the cube? To which the acute and judicious propofer anfwers; Not: For though he has obtained the experience of, how a globe, how a cube affects his touch; yet he has not yet attained the experience, that that which affects his touch fo or fo, muft affect his fight fo or fo; or that a protuberant angle in the cube, that preffed his hand unequally, shall ap 117 pear to his eye as it does in the cube. I agree with this thinking gentleman, whom I am proud to call my friend, in his answer to this his problem; and am of opinion, that the blind man, at firft fight, would not be able with certainty to fay which was the globe, which the cube, whilft he only faw them; though he could unerringly name them by his touch, and certainly diftinguish them by the difference of their figure felt. This I have fet down, and leave with my reader, as an occafion for him to consider how much he may be beholden to experience, improvement, and acquired notions, where he thinks he has not the least use of or help from them; and the rather, because this obferving gentleman farther adds, That having upon the occafion of my book, proposed this to divers very ingenious men, he hardly ever met with one that at first gave the answer to it which he thinks true, till by hearing his reafons they were convinced. $9. BUT this is not, I think, ufual in any of our ideas, but thofe received by fight; becaufe fight, the moft comprehenfive of all our fenfes, conveying to our minds the ideas of light and colours, which are peculiar only to that fense; and alfo the far different ideas of space, figure, and motion, the feveral varieties whereof change the appearances of its proper object, viz. light and colours; we bring ourselves by ufe to judge of the one by the other. This, in many cafes, by a fettled habit, in things whereof we have frequent experience, is performed fo conftantly and fo quick, that we take that for the perception of our fenfation, which is an idea formed by our judgment; fo that one, viz. that of fenfation, ferves only to excite the other, and is fcarce taken notice of itself; as a man who reads or hears with attention and understanding, takes little notice of the characters or founds, but of the ideas that are excited in him by them. $ 10. NOR need we wonder that this is done with fo little notice, if we confider how very quick the actions of the mind are performed; for as itself is thought to take up no space, to have no extenfion, fo its actions feem to require no time, but many of them seem to be crowded into an inftant. I fpeak this in comparison to the actions of the body. Any one may eafily obferve this in his own thoughts, who will take the pains to reflect on them. How, as it were in an inftant, do our minds with one glance fee all the parts of a demonftration, which may very well be called a long one, if we confider the time it will require to put it into words, and step by step show it another: Secondly, We fhall not be so much surprised, that this is done in us with fo little notice, if we confider how the facility which we get of doing things, by a custom of doing, makes them often pass in us without our notice. Habits, efpecially fuch as are begun very early, come at last to produce actions in us, which often efcape our obfervation. How frequently do we, in a day, cover our eyes with our eye-lids, without perceiving that we are at all in the dark? Men that by custom have got the use of a byword, do almoft in every fentence pronounce founds, which, though taken notice of by others, they themselves neither hear nor obferve. And therefore it is not so strange that our mind fhould often change the idea of its sensation into that of its judgment, and make one ferve only to excite the other without our taking notice of it. § 11. Perception puts the Difference between Animals and inferior Beings. THIS faculty of perception feems to me to be that which puts the diftinction betwixt the animal kingdom and the inferior parts of nature. For however vegetables have, many of them, fome degrees of motion, and upon the different application of other bodies to them do very brifkly alter their figure and motion, and fo have obtained the name of fenfitive plants, from a motion which has some resemblance to that which in animals follows upon fenfation; yet, I fuppofe it is all bare mechanism, and no otherwife produced, than the turning of a wild oat-beard, by the infinuation of the particles of moifture, or the fhortening of a rope, by the effufion of 119 water; all which is done without any fenfation in the fubject, or the having or receiving any ideas. § 12. PERCEPTION, I believe, is in fome degree in all forts of animals, though in fome, poffibly, the avenues provided by nature for the reception of fenfations are fo few, and the perception they are received with fo obfcure and dull, that it comes extremely fhort of the quickness and variety of fenfations which is in other animals; but yet it is fufficient for, and wifely adapted to the state and condition of that fort of animals who are thus made: So that the wifdom and goodness of the Maker plainly appears in all the parts of this ftupendous fabric, and all the several degrees and ranks of creatures in it. § 13. We may, I think, from the make of an oyfter or cockle, reasonably conclude, that it has not fo many, nor fo quick senses as a man, or several other animals, nor if it had, would it, in that state and incapacity of transferring itself from one place to another, be bettered by them. What good would fight and hearing do to a creature that cannot move itself to or from the objects, wherein at a distance it perceives good or evil? And would not quicknefs of fenfation be an inconve nience to an animal that must lie ftill, where chance has once placed it, and there receive the afflux of colder or warmer, clean or foul water, as it happens to come to it? $14. BUT yet I cannot but think there is fome fmall dull perception, whereby they are diftinguished from perfect infenfibility. And that this may be fo, we have plain inftances, even in mankind itfelf. Take one, in whom decrepid old age has blotted out the memory of his past knowledge, and clearly wiped out the ideas his mind was formerly ftored with, and has, by destroying his fight, hearing, and fmell, quite, and his tafte to a great degree, stopped up almost all the paffages for new ones to enter; or, if there be fome of the inlets yet |