§. 9. But this is not, I think, ufual in any of our ideas, but those received by fight: becaufe fight, the most comprehenfive of all our fenfes, conveying to our minds the ideas of light and colours, which are peculiar only to that fenfe; and also 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 settled habit, in things whereof we have frequent experience, is performed fo conftantly and so 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 sensation, ferves only to excite the other, and is fcarce taken notice of itfelf: 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 crouded into an inftant. I fpeak this in comparison to the actions of the body. Any one may easily observe this in his own thoughts, who will take the pains to reflect on them. How, as it were in an instant, 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 fhow it another? Secondly, we fhall not be fo much furprized, that this is done in us with fo little notice, if we confider how the facility which we get of doing things, by a cuftom of doing, makes them often pafs in us without our notice. Habits, efpecially fuch as are begun very early, come at laft 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 cuftom have got the use of a by-word do almoft in every fentence pronounce founds.

founds which, though taken notice of by others, they themselves neither hear nor obferve. And therefore it is not fo ftrange, that our mind fhould often change the idea of its fenfation into that of its judgment, and make one ferve only to excite the other, without our taking notice of it.

Perception puts the difference between ani

mals and inferior beings.

§. 11. 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 figures and motions, and fo have obtained the name of fenfitive plants, from a motion which has fome refemblance to that which in animals follows upon fenfation: yet, I fuppofe, it is all bare mechanifm; and no otherwife produced, than the turning of a wild oat-beard, by the infinuation of the particles of moisture; or the fhortening of a rope, by the affufion of 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 fenfation which are in other animals but yet it is fufficient for, and wifely adapted to, the ftate and condition of that fort of animals who are thus made. So that the wifdom and goodness of the Maker plainly appear in all the parts of this ftupendous fabric, and all the feveral degrees and ranks of Creatures in it.

§. 13. We may, I think, from the make of an oyster, or cockle, reasonably conclude that it has not so many, nor fo quick fenfes, as a man, or feveral other animals; nor if it had, would it, in that ftate 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

objects wherein at a distance it perceives good or evil? And would not quickness of fenfation be an inconvenience to an animal that muft 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?

S. 14. But yet I cannot but think there is some small 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, ftopped up almost all the paffages for new ones to enter: or, if there be fome of the inlets yet half open, the impreffions made are fcarce perceived, or not at all retained. How far fuch an one (notwithtanding all that is boafted of innate principles) is in his knowledge, and intellectual faculties, above the condition of a cockle or an oyfter, I leave to be considered. And if a man had paffed fixty years in fuch a state, as it is poffible he might, as well as three days; I wonder what difference there would have been, in any intellectual perfections, between him and the loweft degree of animals.

Perception the inlet of knowledge.

§. 15. Perception then being the firft ftep and degree towards knowledge, and the inlet of all the materials of it; the fewer fenfes any man, as well as any other creature, hath, and the fewer and duller the impreffions are that are made by them, and the duller the faculties are that are employed about them; the more remote are they from that knowledge, which is to be found in fome men. But this being in great variety of degrees (as may be perceived amongst men) cannot certainly be difcovered in the feveral fpecies of animals, much lefs in their particular individuals. It fuffices me only to have remarked here, that perception is the firft operation of all our intellectual faculties, and the inlet of all knowledge in our minds. And I am apt too to imagine, that it is perception

perception in the lowest degree of it, which puts the boundaries between animals and the inferior ranks of creatures. But this I mention only as my conjecture by the by; it being indifferent to the matter in hand, which way the learned fhall determine of it.

§. I.

Contemplation.

CHA P. X.

Of Retention.

THE

HE next faculty of the mind, whereby it makes a farther progrefs towards knowledge, is that which I call retention, or the keeping of thofe fimple ideas, which from fenfation or reflection it hath received. This is done two ways; firft, by keeping the idea, which is brought into it, for fome time actually in view; which is called contemplation.

Memory.

§. 2. The other way of retention, is the power to revive again in our minds thofe ideas, which after imprinting have disappeared, or have been as it were laid afide out of fight; and thus we do, when we conceive heat or light, yellow or fweet, the object being removed. This is memory, which is as it were the store-houfe of our ideas. For the narrow mind of man not being capable of having many ideas under view and confideration at once, it was neceffary to have a repofitory to lay up those ideas, which at another time it might have use of. But our ideas being nothing but actual perceptions in the mind, which ceafe to be any thing, when there is no perception of them, this laying up of our ideas in the repofitory of the memory, fignifies no more but this, that the mind has a power in many cafes to revive perceptions, which it has once had, with this additional perception annexed to them, that it has had them before. And in this fenfe it is, that our ideas are faid to be in our memories, when indeed they are actually no-where, but only there is an ability

ability in the mind when it will to revive them again, and as it were paint them a-new on fitfelf, though fome with more, fome with lefs difficulty; fome more lively, and others more obfcurely. And thus it is, by the affiftance of this faculty, that we are to have all those ideas in our understandings, which though we do not actually contemplate, yet we can bring in fight, and make appear again, and be the objects of our thoughts, without the help of those fenfible qualities which firft imprinted them there.

Attention,

repetition, pleasure and pain, fix ideas.

§. 3. Attention and repetition help much to the fixing any ideas in the memory: but those which naturally at first make the deepest and moft lafting impreffion, are those which are accompanied with pleasure or pain. The great business of the fenfes being to make us take notice of what hurts or advantages the body, it is wifely ordered by nature (as has been fhown) that pain fhould accompany the reception of feveral ideas; which fupplying the place of confideration and reasoning in children, and acting quicker than confideration in grown men, makes both the old and young avoid painful objects, with that hafte which is neceffary for their prefervation; and, in both, fettles in the memory a caution for the future.

Ideas fade in

the memory.

§. 4. Concerning the feveral degrees of lafting, wherewith ideas are imprinted on the memory, we may obferve, that fome of them have been produced in the understanding, by an object affecting the fenfes once only, and no more than once; others, that have more than once offered themfelves to the fenfes, have yet been little taken notice of: the mind either heedlefs, as in children, or otherwise employed, as in men, intent only on one thing, not fetting the ftamp deep into itself. And in fome, where they are fet on with care and repeated impreffions, either through the temper of the body, or fome other fault, the memory is very weak. In all thefe cafes, ideas in the mind quickly fade, and often vanish quite out of the understanding, leaving no more footsteps or remaining VOL. I.

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