leffen the valued efteem which others have for us, has not always blushing accompanying it.

18. Thefe Inftances do fhow how our Ideas of the Paffions are got from Senfation and Reflection.

I WOULD not be mistaken here, as if I meant this as a difcourfe of the paffions; they are many more than thofe

I have here named: And those I have taken notice of would each of them require a much larger and more accurate difcourfe. I have only mentioned thefe here as fo many inftances of modes of pleasure and pain refulting in our minds from various confiderations of good and evil. I might perhaps have inftanced in other modes of pleasure and pain more fimple than thefe, as the pain of hunger and thirst, and the pleasure of eating and drinking to remove them; the pain of tender eyes, and the pleasure of mufic; pain from captious uninftructive wrangling, and the pleasure of rational converfation with a friend, or of well-directed study in the fearch and difcovery of truth. But the paffions being of much more concernment to us, I rather made choice to inftance in them, and thow how the ideas we have of them are derived from fenfation and reflection.

THE

HE mind being every day informed, by the fenfes, of the alteration of thofe fimple ideas it obferves in things without, and taking notice how one comes to an end, and ceases to be, and another begins to exist which was not before; reflecting alfo on what paffes within itself, and obferving a conftant change of its ideas, fometimes by the impreffion of outward objects on the fenfes, and fometimes by the determination of its own choice; and concluding, from what it has fo constantly observed to have been, that the like changes

will for the future be made in the fame things by like agents, and by the like ways; confiders in one thing the poffibility of having any of its fimple ideas changed, and in another the poffibility of making that change; and fo comes by that idea which we call power. Thus we fay, fire has a power to melt gold, i. e. to deftroy the confiftency of its infenfible parts, and confequently its hardnefs, and make it fluid; and gold has a power to be melted: That the fun has a power to blanch wax, and wax a power to be blanched by the fun, whereby the yellownefs is destroyed, and whitenefs made to exift in its room. In which, and the like cafes, the power we confider is in reference to the change of perceivable ideas; for we cannot observe any alteration to be made in, or operation upon any thing, but by the obfervable change of its fenfible ideas; nor conceive any alteration to be made, but by conceiving a change of fome of its ideas.

§ 2. Power active and paffive.

POWER, thus confidered, is twofold, viz. as able to make, or able to receive any change: The one may be called active, and the other paffive power. Whether matter be not wholly deftitute of active power, as its author GOD is truly above all paffive power; and whether the intermediate state of created fpirits be not that alone which is capable of both active and paffive power, may be worth confideration. I fhall not now enter into that inquiry; my prefent bufinefs being, not to fearch into the original of power, but how we come by the idea of it. But fince active potvers make fo great a part of our complex ideas of natural fubftances (as we fhall fee hereafter), and I mention them as fuch according to common apprehenfion; yet they being not perhaps fo truly active powers, as our hafty thoughts are apt to reprefent them, I judge it not amifs, by this intimation, to direct our minds to the conûderation of GOD and fpirits, for the cleareft idea of active powers.

3. Power includes Relation.

I CONFESS power includes in it fome kind of relation (a re

217 lation to action or change), as indeed which of our ideas, of what kind foever, when attentively confidered, does not? For our ideas of extenfion, duration, and number, do they not all contain in them a fecret relation of the parts? Figure and motion have fomething relative in them much more vifibly; and fenfible quali-, ties, as colours and fmells, &c. what are they but the powers of different bodies in relation to our perception? &c.; and if confidered in the things themfelves,. do they not depend on the bulk, figure, texture, and motion of the parts? all which include fome kind of relation in them. Our idea, therefore, of power, I think, may well have a place amongst other fimple ideas, and be confidered as one of them, being one of thofe that make a principal ingredient in our complex ideas of fubftances, as we fhall hereafter have occafion to obferve.

4. The clearest Idea of active Power had from Spirit. WE are abundantly furnished with the idea of passive power by almost all forts of fenfible things. In molt of them we cannot avoid obferving their fenfible qualities, nay, their very fubftances to be in a continual flux; and therefore with reafon we look on them as liable still to the fame change. Nor have we of active power (which is the more proper fignification of the word power) fewer instances, fince whatever change is obferved, the mind muft collect a power fomewhere able to make that change, as well as a poffibility in the thing itself to receive it: But yet, if we will confider it attentively, bodies, by our fenses, do not afford us fo clear and distinct an idea of active power as we have from reflection on the operations of our minds; for all power relating to action, and there being but two forts of action whereof we have any idea, viz. thinking and motion, let us confider whence we have the clearest ideas of the powers which produce these actions. 1. Of thinking, body affords us no idea at all; it is only from reflection that we have that. 2. Neither have we from body any idea of the beginning of motion. A body at reft affords us no idea of any active power to move; and when it is fet

in motion itself, that motion is rather a paffion than an action in it: For when the ball obeys the ftroke of a billiard-ftick, it is not any action of the ball, but bare paffion; alfo when by impulfe it fets another ball in motion that lay in its way, it only communicates the motion it had received from another, and lofes in itself fo much as the other received; which gives us but a very obfcure idea of an active power of moving in body, whilft we obferve it only to transfer, but not produce any motion; for it is but a very obfcure idea of power which reaches not the production of the action, but the continuation of the paffion; for fo is motion in a body impelled by another, the continuation of the alteration made in it from reft to motion being little more an action than the continuation of the alteration of its figure by the fame blow is an action. The idea of the beginning of motion we have only from reflection on what paffes in ourselves, where we find by experience, that barely by willing it, barely by a thought of the mind, we can move the parts of our bodies which were before at reft. So that it feems to me we have from the obfervation of the operation of bodies by our fenfes but a very imperfect obscure idea of active power, fince they afford us not any idea in themfelves of the power to begin any action, either motion or thought. But if, from the impulfe bodies are obferved to make one upon another, any one thinks he has a clear idea of power, it serves as well to my purpose, fenfation being one of those ways whereby the mind comes by its ideas; only I thought it worth while to confider here by the way, whether the mind doth not receive its idea of active power clearer from reflection on its own operations than it doth from any external fenfation.

$5. Will and Underflanding two Powers.

THIS at least I think evident, that we find in ourselves a power to begin or forbear, continue or end feveral actions of our minds and motions of our bodies, barely by a thought or preference of the mind ordering, or, as it were, commanding the doing or not doing fuch or uch a particular action. This power which the mind

219 has thus to order the confideration of any idea, or the forbearing to confider it, or to prefer the motion of any part of the body to its reft, and vice verfa in any particular instance, is that which we call the will; the actual exercise of that power, by directing any particular action, or its forbearance, is that which we call volition, or willing; the forbearance of that action, confequent to fuch order or command of the mind, is called voluntary; and whatsoever action is performed without such a thought of the mind, is called involuntary; the power of perception is that which we call the underStanding. Perception, which we make the act of the understanding, is of three forts: 1. The perception of ideas in our mind. 2. The perception of the fignification of figns. 3. The perception of the connection or repugnancy, agreement or disagreement, that there is between any of our ideas. All these are attributed to the understanding, or perceptive power, though it be the two latter only that use allows us to fay we underfland.

6. Faculties.

THESE Powers of the mind, viz. of perceiving and of preferring, are ufually called by another name; and the ordinary way of fpeaking is, that the understanding and will are two faculties of the mind; a word proper enough, if it be used as all words fhould be, fo as not to breed any confufion in mens thoughts, by being fuppofed (as I fufpect it has been) to ftand for fome real beings in the foul, that performed thofe actions of understanding and volition. For when we fay the vill is the commanding and superior faculty of the foul, that it is or is not free, that it determines the inferior faculties, that it follows the dictates of the understanding, &c. though there, and the like expreflions, by thote that carefully attend to their own ideas, and conduct their thoughts more by the evidence of things than the found of words, may be understood in a clear and diftinet fenfe; yet I fufpect, I fay, that this way of fpeaking of faculties, has mifled many into a confufed notion of fo many diftinct agents in us, which had