these two numbers of years, is as clear to the one as the other; i. e. neither of them has any clear positive idea of it at all: For he that adds only 4 years to 4, and so on, shall as foon reach eternity, as he that adds 400,000,000 of years, and fo on, or if he please, doubles the increafe as often as he will; the remaining abyfs being still as far beyond the end of all these progreffions, as it is from the length of a day or an hour; for nothing finite bears any proportion to infinite; and therefore our ideas, which are all finite, cannot bear any. Thus it is also in our idea of extenfion, when we increase it by addition, as well as when we diminish it by divifion, and would enlarge our thoughts to infinite fpace. After a few doublings of thofe ideas of extenfion, which are the largest we are accustomed to have, we lose the clear distinct idea of that space; it becomes a confufedly great one, with a furplus of ftill greater; about which, when we would argue or reason, we shall always find ourselves at a lofs; confufed ideas in our arguings and deductions from that part of them which is confused, always leading us into confufion. B CHAP. XXX. OF REAL AND FANTASTICAL IDEAS. §1. Real Ideas are conformable to their Archetypes. ESIDES what we have already mentioned concerning ideas, other confiderations belong to them, in reference to things from whence they are taken, or which they may be fuppofed to reprefent: and thus, I think, they may come under a threefold diftinction; and are, Firft, Either real or fantaftical. First, By real ideas, I mean fuch as have a foundation in nature; fuch as have a conformity with the real being and existence of things, or with their archetypes. Fantastical or chimerical, I call fuch as have no founda tion in nature, nor have any conformity with that reality of being to which they are tacitly referred as to their archetypes. If we examine the feveral forts of ideas before mentioned, we fhall find that, § 2. Simple Ideas all real. FIRST, Our fimple ideas are all real, all agree to the reality of things: Not that they are all of them the images or reprefentations of what does exift; the contrary whereof, in all but the primary qualities of bodies, hath been already shown. But though whitenefs and coldnefs are no more in fnow than the pain is, yet those ideas of whitenefs and coldness, pain, &c. being in us the effects of powers in things without us, ordained by our Maker to produce in us such sensations, they are real ideas in us, whereby we diftinguish the qualities that are really in things themselves. For thefe feveral appearances being defigned to be the marks whereby we are to know and diftinguish things which we have to do with, our ideas do as well ferve us to that purpose, and are as real diftinguishing characters, whether they be only conftant effects, or else exact resemblances of fomething in the things themselves; the reality lying in that steady correfpondence they have with the diftinct conftitutions of real beings. But whether they answer to thofe conftitutions, as to caufes or patterns, it matters not; it fuffices that they are conftantly produced by them. And thus our fimple ideas are all real and true, because they answer and agree to thofe powers of things which produce them in our minds, that being all that is requifite to make them real, and not fictions at pleafure. For in fimple ideas (as has been shown) the mind is wholly confined to the operation of things upon it, and can make to itself no fimple idea, more than what it has received. §3. Complex Ideas are voluntary Combinations. THOUGH the mind be wholly paffive, in refpect of its fimple ideas, yet, I think, we may fay it is not fo in refpect of its complex ideas; for those being combinations of fimple ideas put together, and united under one general name, it is plain that the mind of man uses fome kind of liberty, in forming thofe complex ideas : How else comes it to pass, that one man's idea of gold or juftice is different from another's, but because he has put in or left out of his fome fimple idea, which the other has pot. The queftion then is, which of these are real, and which barely imaginary combinations? What collections agree to the reality of things, and what not? And to this I fay, That, 4. Mixed Modes, made of confiftent Ideas, are real. SECONDLY, Mixed modes and relations having no other reality but what they have in the minds of men, there is nothing more required to thofe kind of ideas, to make them real, but that they be fo framed, that there be a poffibility of exifting conformable to them. These ideas themselves being archetypes, cannot differ from their archetypes, and fo cannot be chimerical, unlefs any one will jumble together in them inconfiftent ideas. Indeed, as any of them have the names of a known language affigned to them, by which he that has them in his mind would fignify them to others, fo bare poffibility of exifting is not enough; they must have a conformity to the ordinary fignification of the name that is given them, that they may not be thought fantastical, as if a man would give the name of juftice to that idea, which common ufe calls liberality. But this fantasticalness relates more to propriety of fpeech than reality of ideas; for a man to be undisturbed in danger, fedately to confider what is fittest to be done, and to execute it fteadily, is a mixed mode, or a complex idea of an action which may exift; but to be undisturbed in danger, without using one's reafon or induftry, is what is alfo poffible to be, and fo is as real an idea as the other; though the first of these, having the name courage given to it, may, in respect of that name, be a right or wrong idea; but the other, whilst it has not a common received name of any known language afligned to it, is not capable of any deformity, being made with no reference to any thing but itfelf. § 5. Ideas of Subftances are real, when they agree with the Exiftence of Things. THIRDLY, Our complex ideas of fubftances being made all sas to things exifting without us, and prefentations of fubftances as they farther real than as they are fuch comple ideas as are really united, and cowithout us. On the contrary, thefe are vich are made up of fuch collections of fim..re never really united, never were found -in y fubitance; v. g. a rational creature, conft. of a horfe's head, joined to a body of human fhaj or fuch as the Centaurs are defcribed; or a body yellow, very malleable, fufible, and fixed, but lighter then omnich water; or an uniform unorganized body, confitting, as to fenfe, all of fimilar parts, with perceptn and voluntary motion joined to it. Whether fuch fufianes as thefe can poflibly exift or no, it is probable o not know; but be that as it will, thefe ideas of fftance being made conformable to no pattern exifti hat ve know, and confifting of fuch collections of ideas es no substance ever showed us united together, they ought to pafs with us for barely imaginary; but much more are thofe complex ideas fo, which contain in them any inconfiftency or contradiction of their parts. ་. CHAP. XXXI. OF ADEQUATE AND INADEQUATE IDEAS. § 1. Adequate Ideas are such as perfectly represent their Archetypes. F our real ideas, fome are adequate, and fome are inadequate. Thofe I call adequate, which perfecay reprefert thofe archetypes which the mind fuppoles them taken from, which it intends them to stand for, and to which it refers them. Inadequate ideas are fucb, which are but a partial or incomplete reprefentation of thofe archetypes to which they are referred. Upon which account it is plain, § 2. Simple Ideas all adequate. FIRST, That al cur Ample ideas are adequate; because being nothing but the effects of certain powers in things, fitted and ordained by God to produce fuch fenfations in us, they cannot but be correfpondent and adequate to thofe 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 sweetness, we are sure 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 finple ideas are adequate. It is true, the things producing in us these 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 these being nothing, in truth, but powers to excite fuch ideas in us, I muft, in that fense, be understood, when I speak of fecondary qualities as being in things, or of their ideas, as being in 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 those 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, nor a mind joined to those organs to receive the ideas of light and heat by thofe impreflions from the fire or the 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 should continue just 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 |