the idea produced in us, and the quality of the object producing it, we are apt to imagine, that our ideas are refemblances of fomething in the objects, and not the effects of certain powers placed in the modification of their primary qualities, with which primary qualities the ideas produced in us have no resemblance.

§ 26. Secondary Qualities twofold; First, immediately perceivable; Secondly, mediately perceivable. To conclude, befides those before-mentioned primary qualities in bodies, viz. bulk, figure, extenfion, number, and motion of their folid parts; all the reft, whereby we take notice of bodies, and diftinguish them one from another, are nothing else but feveral powers in them depending on those primary qualities, whereby they are fitted, either by immediately operating on our bodies, to produce feveral different ideas in us, or else by operating on other bodies, fo to change their primary qualities, as to render them capable of producing ideas in us different from what before they did. The former of thefe, I think, may be called fecondary qualities, immediately perceivable; the latter, fecondary qualities, mediately perceivable.

CHAP. IX.

OF PERCEPTION.

§1. Perception the firft fimple Idea of Reflection. PERCEPTION, as it is the first faculty of the mind,

exercised about our ideas, so it is the first and fimpleft idea we have from reflection, and is by fome called thinking in general; though thinking, in the propriety of the English tongue, fignifies that fort of operation of the mind about its ideas, wherein the mind is active, where it, with fome degree of voluntary attention, confiders any thing: For in bare naked perception, the mind is, for the most part, only paffive; and what it perceives, it cannot avoid perceiving.

§2. Is only when the Mind receives the impreffion. WHAT perception is, every one will know better by reflecting on what he does himself, when he fees, hears,

Book II. feels, &c. or thinks, than by any difcourfe of mine. Whoever reflects on what paffes in his own mind, cannot miss it; and if he does not reflect, all the words in the world cannot make him have any notion of it.

THIS is certain, that whatever alterations are made in the body, if they reach not the mind; whatever impreffions are made on the outward parts, if they are not taken notice of within, there is no perception. Fire may burn our bodies, with no other effect than it does a billet, unless the motion be continued to the brain, and there the fenfe of heat, or idea of pain, be produced in the mind, wherein confists actual percep

tion.

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How often may a man obferve in himself, that whilst his mind is intently employed in the contemplation of fome objects, and curioufly furveying fome ideas that are there, it takes no notice of impreffions of found. ing bodies made upon the organ of hearing, with the same alteration that uses to be for the producing the idea of found? A fufficient impulfe there may be on the organ, but it not reaching the obfervation of the mind, there follows no perception; and though the motion that uses to produce the idea of found, be made in the ear, yet no found is heard. Want of fensation in this cafe, is not through any defect in the organ, or that the man's ears are lefs affected than at other times when he does hear; but that which uses to produce the idea, though conveyed in by the ufual organ, not being taken notice of in the understanding, and fo imprinting no idea on the mind, there follows no fenfation: So that wherever there is fenfe, or perception, there fome idea is actually produced, and prefent in the understanding.

§ 5. Children, though they have Ideas in the Womb have none Innate.

THEREFORE I doubt not but children, by the exercise of their senses about objects that affect them in the womb, receive fome few ideas before they are born, as the unavoidable effects, either of the bodies that environ them

115 or elfe of those wants or difeafes 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 fome of the firft that children have, and which they fcarce ever part with again.

BUT though it be reasonable to imagine that children receive fome ideas before they come into the world, yet thefe 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 exte rior to the mind, no otherwife differing in their manner of production from other ideas derived from fenfe, but only in the precedency of time; whereas thofe 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 constitution.

$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 pleafe. 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 feveral ideas come at first into the mind, is

very various and uncertain also, 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, isof a flat circle variously fhadowed, with several 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 custom, alters the appearances into their caufes; 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 1 fhall 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 send 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 cube and a fphere of the fame metal, and nighly of the fame bignefs, fo as to tell when he felt one and the other, which is the cube, which the sphere: Suppofe then the cube and fphere 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 proposer 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, must affect his fight fo or fo; or that a protuberant angle in the cube, that preffed his hand unequally, fall ap❤

a

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 first 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 confider 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, propofed 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.

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BUT this is not, I think, ufual in any of our ideas, but thofe 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 sense; and also the far different ideas of space, figure, and motion, the several 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; so 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.

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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