no space, to have no extenfion, fo its actions feem to require no time, but many of them seem to be crowded into an inftant. I fpeak this in comparison to the actions of the body. Any one may easily obferve this in his own thoughts, who will take the pains to reflect on them. How, as it were in an inftant, 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 ftep by step fhow it another: Secondly, We shall not be fo much furprifed, that this is done in us with fo little notice, if we confider how the facility which we get of doing things, by a custom of doing, makes them often pafs in us without our notice. Habits, efpecially fuch as are begun very early, come at last to produce actions in us, which often escape 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 byword, do almoft in every fentence pronounce founds, which, though taken notice of by others, they themselves neither hear nor obferve. And therefore it is not so strange that our mind should 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.

§ 11. Perception puts the Difference between Animals and inferior Beings.

THIS faculty of perception feems to me to be that which puts the diflinction 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 figure and motion, and fo have obtained the name of fenfitive plants, from a motion which has some resemblance to that which in animals follows upon fenfation; yet, I fuppofe it is all bare mechanism, and no otherwife produced, than the turning of a wild oat-beard, by the infinuation of the particles of moifture, or the fhortening of a rope, by the effufion 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 fenfations which is in other animals; but yet it is fufficient for, and wifely adapted to the state and condition of that fort of animals who are thus made: So that the wifdom and goodness of the Maker plainly appears 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 fo many, nor fo quick fenfes as a man, or several 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, wherein at a distance it perceives good or evil? And would not quickness of fenfation be an inconvenience to an animal that must 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?

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BUT yet I cannot but think there is fome fmall 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, stopped 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 scarce perceived, or not at all retained: How far fuch an one (notwithstanding all that is boasted of innate principles) is in his knowledge, and intellectual faculties, above the condition of a cockle or an oyster, I leave to be confidered. And if a man had paffed fixty years in such 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 lowest degree of animals.

15. Perception the Inlet of Knowledge. PERCEPTION then being the first step 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 some 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 less in their particular individuals. It fuffices me only to have remarked here, that perception is the first operation of all our intellectual faculties, and the inlet of all knowledge into our minds; and I am apt too to imagine that it is 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.

CHAP. X.

THE

OF RETENTION.

§ 1. Contemplation.

HE next faeulty 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; first, by keeping the idea which is brought into it for fome time actually in view, which is called contemplation.

§ 2. Memory.

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 aside out of fight; and thus we do, when we conceive heat or light, yellow or sweet, the object being removed. This is memory, which is as it were the ftorehouse 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 thofe 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 be-. fore, and in this fenfe it is that our ideas are faid to be in our memories, when indeed they are actually nowhere, but only there is an ability in the mind when it will to revive them again, and, as it were, paint them anew on itself, though fome with more, fome with lefs difficulty, fome more lively, and others more obfcurely; and thus it is, by the affiitance of this faculty, that we are faid to have all thofe 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 first imprinted them there.

§ 3. Attention, Repetition, Pleasure, and Pain, fix Ideas.

ATTENTION and repetition help much to the fixing any ideas in the memory; but thofe which naturally at firit make the deepest and most lafting impreffion are thofe which are accompanied with pleafure or pain. The

great bufinefs 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 shown) that pain fhould accompany the reception of feveral ideas, which supplying the place of confideration and reafoning 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 preservation, and in both fettles in the memory a caution for the future.

§ 4. Ideas fade in the Memory. CONCERNING the feveral degrees of lafting, wherewith ideas are imprinted on the memory, we may observe, that fome of them have been produced in the underftanding by an object affecting the fenfes once only, and no more than once; others that have more than once offered themselves to the fenfes, have yet been little taken notice of; the mind either heedlefs, as in children, or otherwife employed, as in men, intent only on one thing, not fettling 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 default, the memory is very weak. In all these cafes, ideas in the mind quickly fade, and often vanish quite out of the understanding, leaving no more footsteps or remaining characters of themfelves than fhadows do flying over fields of corn, and the mind is as void of them as if they never had been there...

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THUS many of thofe ideas which were produced in the minds of children in the beginning of their fenfation (fome of which perhaps, as of feme pleafures and pains, were before they were born, and others in their infancy), if in the future courfe of their lives they are not repeated again, are quite loft, without the leaft glimpfe remaining of them. This may be ob ferved in those who by fome mifchance have loft their fight when they were very young, in whom the deas of colours having been but flightly taken notice of,