Ideas, NEW, for want of looking into other men's thoughts, av’ich appear in their books. be Your lordship's words, as an acknowledgment of your inftructions' in the cafe, and as a warning to others, who will be fo bold adventurers as to fpin any thing barely out of their own thoughts, I fhall fet down at large; And they run thus: Whether you took this way of ideas from the modern philofopher, mentioned by you, is not at all material; but I intended no reflection upon you in it (for that you mean, by my commending you as a scholar of Jo great a mafter); I never meant to take from you the honour of your qwn inventions: and I do believe you when you fay, That you wrote from your own thoughts, and the ideas you had there. But many things may feem new to one, who converfes only with his own thoughts, which really are not fo; as may find, when he looks into the thoughts of other men, which appear in their books. And therefore, although I have a juft efteem for the invention of fuch, who can fpin volumes barely out of their own thoughts; yet I am apt to think, they would oblige the world more, if, after they have thought fo much themselves, they would examine what thoughts others have had before them, concerning the fame things: that fo thofe may not be thought their own inventions which are common to themfelves and others. If a man should try all the magnetical experiments himself, and publish them as his own thoughts, he might take himself to be the inventor of them: but he that examines and compares with them what Gilbert, and others have done before him, will not diminish the praije of his diligence, but may wish he had compared his thoughts with other men's; by which the world would receive greater advantage, although he had loft the honour of being an original. To alleviate my fault herein, I agree with your lordship, that many things may feem NEW, to one that converses only with his own thoughts, which really are not fo; but I muft crave leave to fuggeft to your lordship, that if in the fpinning them out of his own thoughts, they feem new to him, he is certainly the inventor of them; and they may as juftly be thought his own invention, as any one's; and he is as certainly the inventor of them, as any one who thought on them before him: the diftinction of invention, or not invention, lying not in thinking first, or not first, but in borrowing, or not borrowing, our thoughts from another and he to whom, fpinning them out of his own thoughts, they feem new, could not certainly borrow them from another. So he truly invented printing in Europe, who without any communication with the Chinese, fpun it out of his own thoughts; though it were ever fo true, that the Chinese had the ufe of printing, nay, of printing in the very fame way, among them, many ages before him. So that he that fpins any thing out of his own thoughts. that feems new to him, cannot ceafe to think it his own invention, fhould he examine ever fo far, what thoughts others have had before him, concerning the fame thing, and fhould find by examining, that they had the fame thoughts too. But what great obligation this would be to the world, or weighty cause of turning over and looking into books, I confefs I do not fee. The great end to me, in converfing with my own or other men's thoughts, in matters of fpeculation, is to find truth, without being much concerned whether my own fpinning of it out of mine, or their fpinning of it out of their own thoughts, helps me to it. And how little I affect the honour of an original, may be feen at that place of my book, where, if any where, that itch of vain-glory was likelieft to have fhewn itfelf, had I been fo over-run with it, as to need a cure. It is where I fpeak of cer tainty, in thefe following words, taken notice of by your lordship, in another place: I think I have fhewn wherein it is that certainty, real ⚫ certainty confifts, which whatever it was to others, was, I confefs, to me, heretofore, one of those defiderata, which I found great want of." Here, my lord, however new this feemed to me, and the more fo becaufe poffibly I had in vain hunted for it in the books of others; yet I fpoke of it as new, only to myfelf: leaving others in the undisturbed poffeffion of what either by invention, or reading, was theirs before; without affuming to myfelf any other honour, but that of my own ignorance, till that time, if others before had fhewn wherein certainty lay, And yet, my lord, if I had, upon this occafion, been forward to affume to myfelf the bonour of an original, I think I had been pretty fafe in it; fince 1 fhould have had your lordship for my guarantee and vindicator in that point, who are pleased to call it new; and, as such, to write against it. And truly, my lord, in this refpeft, my book has had very unlucky ftars, fince it hath had the misfortune to difpleafe your lordship, with many things in it, for their novelty; as new way of reasoning; new bypothefis about reafon; new fort of certainty; new terms; new way of ideas; zew method of certainty; &c. And yet in other places, your lordship feems to think it worthy in me of your lordship's reflection, for faying, but what others have faid before; as where I fay, In the different make ⚫ of men's tempers, and application of their thoughts, fome arguments ⚫ prevail more on one, and fome on another, for the confirmation of ⚫ the fame truth.' Your lordship afks, What is this different from what all men of understanding have faid? Again, I take it, your lordship meant not thefe words for a commendation of my book, where you fay, But if no more be meant by The fimple ideas that come in by fenfation, or reflection, and their being the foundation of our knowledge,' but that our motions of things come in, either from our fenfes or the exercife of our minds: as there is nothing extraordinary in the difcovery, fo your lordship is far enough from appofing that, wherein you think all mankind are agreed. And again, But what need all this great noise about ideas and certainty, true and real certainty by ideas; if, after all, it comes only to this, that our ideas only reprefent to us fuch things, from whence we bring arguments to prove the truth of things? But, the world hath been frangely amufed with ideas of late; and we have been told, that ftrange things might be done by the help of ideas; and yet thefe ideas, at last, come to be only common notions of things, which we must make use of in our reafoning. And to the like purpofe in other places. Whether, therefore, at laft, your lordship will refolve, that it is new or no; or more faulty by its being new, must be left to your lordship. This I find by it, that my book cannot avoid being condemned on the one fide or the other, nor do I fee a poffibility to help it. If there be readers that like only new thoughts; or, on the other fide, others that can bear nothing but what can be juftified by received authorities in print; I muft defire them to make themselves amends in that part which they like, for the displeasure they receive in the other: but if any fhould be fo exact, as to find fault with both, truly, I know not well what to fay to them. The cafe is a plain cafe, the book is all over naught, and there is not a sentence in it, that is not, either for its antiquity or novelty, to be condemned, and fo there is a fhort end of it. From your lordship, indeed, in particular, I can hope for fomething better; for your lordship lordship thinks the general defign of it fo good, that that, I flatter myself, would prevail on your lordship to preferve it from the fire. But as to the way, your lordship thinks, I fhould have taken to prevent the having it thought my invention, when it was common to me with others, it unluckily fo fell out, in the fubject of my Effay of Human Understanding, that I could not look into the thoughts of other men to inform myfelf. For my defign being, as well as I could, to copy nature, and to give an account of the operations of the mind in thinking; I could look into no-body's understanding but my own, to fee how it wrought; nor have a profpect into other men's minds, to view their thoughts there; and obferve what fteps and motions they took, and by what gradations they proceeded in their acquainting themselves with truth, and their advance in knowledge: what we find of their thoughts in books, is but the refult of this, and not the progrefs and working of their minds, in coming to the opinions or conclufions they fet down and published. All therefore, that I can fay of my book, is, that it is a copy of my own mind, in its feveral ways of operation. And all that I can fay for the publishing of it is, that I think the intellectual faculties are made, and operate alike in moft men; and that fome, that I fhewed it to before I published it, liked it fo well, that I was confirmed in that opinion. And therefore, if it should happen, that it should not be fo, but that fome men should have ways of thinking, reafoning, or arriving at certainty, different from others, and above those that I find my mind to use and acquiefce in, I do not fee of what use my book can be to them. I can only make it my humble request, in my own name, and in the name of thofe that are of my fize, who find their minds work, reason, and know in the fame low way that mine does, that thofe men of a more happy genius would fhew us the way of their nobler flights; and particularly would difcover to us their fhorter or furer way to certainty, than by ideas, and the obferving their agreement or disagreement. : * Your lordship adds, But now, it feems, nothing is intelligible but what fuits with the new way of ideas. My lord, The new way of ideas, and the old way of fpeaking intelligibly was always and ever will be the fame and if I may take the liberty to declare my fenfe of it, herein it confifts: 1. That a man ufe no words, but fuch as he makes the figns of certain determined objects of his mind in thinking, which he can make known to another. 2. Next, that he use the fame word fteadily for the fign of the fame immediate object of his mind in thinking. 3. That he join those words together in propofitions, according to the grammatical rules of that language he fpeaks in. 4. That he unite thofe fentences in a coherent difcourfe. Thus, and thus only, I humbly conceive, any one may preferve himself from the confines and fufpicion of jargon, whether he pleases to call thofe immediate objects of his mind, which his words do, or should stand for, ideas or nó. * Mr. Locke's Third Letter to the Bishop of Worcester, CHAP. §. 1. IT is an established opinion amongst The way fhewn how we come by any knowledge, fufficienttoprove it not innate. It would some men, that there are in the understanding certain innate principles; fome primary notions, oval voia, characters, as it were, ftamped upon the mind of man," which the foul receives in its very first being; and brings into the world with it. be fufficient to convince unprejudiced readers of the falfeness of this fuppofition, if I fhould only fhew (as I hope I fhall in the following parts of this difcourfe) how men, barely by the use of their natural faculties, may attain to all the knowledge they have, without the help of any innate impreffions; and may arrive at cettainty, without any fuch original notions or principles. For I imagine any one will eafily grant, that it would be impertinent to fuppofe, the ideas of colours innate in a creature, to whom God hath given fight, and a power to receive them by the eyes, from external objects and no lefs unreasonable would it be to attribute feveral truths to the impreffions of nature, and innate characters, when we may obferye in ourselves faculties, fit to attain as eafy and certain knowledge of them, as if they were originally imprinted on the mind. But because a man is not permitted without cenfure to follow his own thoughts in the fearch of truth, when they lead him ever fo little out of the common road I fhall fet down the reafons, that made me doubt of the truth of that opinion, as an excufe for my mistake if I be in one; which I leave to be confidered by those who, with me, dispose themselves to embrace truth wherever they find it. §. 2. There is nothing more commonly taken for granted, than that there are certain principles, both fpeculative and prac General af fent the grea argument. tical (for they speak of both) univerfally agreed upon by all mankind: which therefore, they argue, must needs be constant impreffions, which the fouls of men receive in their first beings, and which they bring into the world with them, as neceffarily and really as they do any of their inherent faculties. Univerfal confent proves nothing innate. §. 3. This argument, drawn from univerfal confent, has this misfortune in it, that if it were true in matter of fact, that there were certain truths, wherein all mankind agreed, it would not prove them innate, if there can be any other way fhewn, how men may come to that universal agreement, in the things they do confent in which I prefume may be done. "What is, is;" and, "it is impoffible for the fame thing to be, and not to be," not univerfally af fented to. §. 4. But, which is worse, this argument of univerfal confent, which is made ufe of to prove innate principles, feems to me a demonftration that there are none fuch; because there are none to which all mankind give an univerfal affent. I fhall begin with the fpeculative, and instance in those magnified principles of demonstration; "whatfoever is, is;" and, "it is impoffible for the fame thing to be, and not to be;" which, of all others, I think have the moft allowed title to innate. These have fo fettled a reputation of maxims univerfally received, that it will, no doubt, be thought strange, if any one should seem to queftion it. But yet I take liberty o fay, that these propofitions are so far from having an iniverfal affent, that there are great part of mankind o whom they are not fo much as known. Not on the ind natu illy im §. 5. For, firft, it is evident, that all children and idiots have not the least apprehenfion or thought of them: and the want rinted, be of that is enough to deftroy that univerfal ufe not affent, which muft needs be the neceffary own to ildren, concomitant of all innate truths; it feeming iots, &c. to me near a contradiction, to fay, that there e truths imprinted on the foul, which it perceives or unrftands not imprinting, if it fignify any thing, being >thing else, but the making certain truths to be per ceived. |