Book II. nified by the words triangle, gratitude, murder, &c. And if in this I ufe the word mode in fomewhat a different fenfe from its ordinary fignification, I beg pardon; it being unavoidable in difcourfes, differing from the ordinary received notions, either to make new words, or to use old words in fomewhat a new fignification; the latter whereof, in our prefent cafe, is perhaps the more tolerable of the two.

$5. Simple and mixed Modes.

Or thefe medes, there are two forts which deferve diftinct confideration: First, There are fome which are only variations, or different combinations of the fame fimple idea, without the mixture of any other, as a dozen or fcore, which are nothing but the ideas of fo many distinct units added together; and thefe I call fimple modes, as being contained within the bounds of one fimple idea.

Secondly, There are others compounded of fimple ideas of leveral kinds, put together to make one complex one; v. g. beauty, confifting of a certain compofition of colour and figure, caufing delight in the beholder; theft, which being the concealed change of the poffeffion of any thing, without the confent of the proprietor, contains, as is vifible, a combination of feve ral ideas of feveral kinds; and these I call mixed modes. § 6. Subftances fingle or collective.

SECONDLY, The ideas of fubftances are fuch combinations or fimple ideas, as are taken to reprefent diftinct particular things fubfifting by themselves, in which the fuppofed or confused idea of fubstance, such as it is, is always the first and chief. Thus, if to fubftance be joined the fimple idea of a certain dull whitifh colour,. with certain degrees of weight, hardness, ductility, and fufibility, we have the idea of lead; and a combination of the ideas of a certain fort of figure, with the powers of motion, thought, and reafoning, joined to fubftance, make the ordinary idea of a man. Now of fubftances alfo there are two forts of ideas, one of fingle fubftances, as they exift feparately, as of a man or a sheep; the other of feveral of thofe put together, as an army.

of men, or flock of fheep: Which collective ideas of feveral fubftances thus put together, are as much each of them one fingle idea, as that of a man, or an unit.

$7. Relation.

THIRDLY, The laft fort of complex ideas, is that we call relation, which confifts in the confideration and comparing one idea with another. Of these several kinds we fhall treat in their order.

8. The abftrufeft Ideas from the two Sources. If we trace the progress of our minds, and with attention obferve how it repeats, adds together, and unites its fimple ideas received from sensation or reflection, it will lead us farther than at first perhaps we should have imagined. And I believe we fhall find, if we warily obferve the originals of our notions, that even the most abftrufe ideas, how remote foever they may feem from fenfe, or from any operation of our own minds, are yet only fuch as the understanding frames to itself, by repeating and joining together ideas, that it had either from objects of fenfe, or from its own operations about them; fo that thofe even large and abftract ideas, are derived from fenfation or reflection, being no other than what the mind, by the ordinary ufe of its own faculties, employed about ideas received from objects of sense, or from the operations it obferves in itself about them, may and does attain unto. This I fhall endeavour to fhow in the ideas we have of Space, time, and infinity, and some few others, that seem the most remote from those originals.

CHAP. XIII.

OF SIMPLE MODES; AND FIRST, OF THE SIMPLE MODES OF SPACE.

§1. Simple Modes.

HOUGH in the foregoing part I have often mentioned fimple ideas, which are truly the materials of all our knowledge; yet having treated of them there, rather in the way that they come into the mind,

than as distinguished from others more compounded, it will not be perhaps amifs to take a view of fome of them again under this confideration, and examine thofe different modifications of the fame idea, which the mind either finds in things exifting, or is able to make within itself, without the help of any extrinsical object, or any foreign fuggeftion.

Thofe modifications of any one fimple idea (which, as has been faid, I call fimple modes) are as perfectly different and distinct ideas in the mind, as those of the greateft diftance and contrariety. For the idea of tro is as diftinct from that of one, as blueness from heat, or either of them from any number; and yet it is made. up only of that fimple idea of an unit repeated; and repetitions of this kind joined together, make those distinct Jimple modes, of a dozen, a grofs, a million.

2. Idea of Space.

I SHALL begin with the fimple idea of space. I have fhowed above, chap. 4. that we get the idea of space, both by our fight and touch; which, I think, is fo evident, that it would be as needlefs to go to prove that men perceive, by their fight, a diftance between bodies of different colours, or between the parts of the same body, as that they fee colours themselves; nor is it lefs obvious that they can do fo in the dark by feeling and touch.

§3. Space and Extenfion.

THIS fpace confidered barely in length between any two beings, without confidering any thing elfe between them, is called diftance; if confidered in length, breadth, and thickness, I think it may be called capacity. The term extenfion is usually applied to it, in what manner foever confidered.

$4. Immenfity.

EACH different diftance is a different modification of fpace; and each idea of any different diftance or space is a fimple mode of this idea. Men, for the ufe, and by the cuftom of meafuring, fettle in their minds the ideas of certain ftated lengths, fuch as are an inch, foot, yard, fathom, mile, diameter of the earth, &c. which are fo

many diftinct ideas made up only of space. When any fuch stated lengths or measures of space are made familiar to mens thoughts, they can in their minds repeat them as often as they will, without mixing or joining to them the idea of body, or any thing else, and frame to themselves the ideas of long, fquare, or cubic, feet, yards, or fathoms, here amongst the bodies of the univerfe, or else beyond the utmost bounds of all bodies; and by adding these ftill one to another, enlarge their idea of space as much as they please. This power of repeating, or doubling any idea we have of any distance, and adding it to the former as often as we will, without being ever able to come to any stop or ftint, let us enlarge it as much as we will, is that which gives us the idea of immensity.

$5. Figure.

THERE is another modification of this idea, which is nothing but the relation which the parts of the termination of extenfion, or circumfcribed space, have amongst themselves. This the touch discovers in fenfible bodies, whofe extremities come within our reach; and the eye takes both from bodies and colours, whose boundaries are within its view; where obferving how the extremities terminate either in straight lines, which meet at discernible angles, or in crooked lines, wherein no angles can be perceived, by confidering these as they relate to one another, in all parts of the extremities of any body or space, it has that idea we call figure, which affords to the mind infinite variety: For befides the vaft number of different figures that do really exist in the coherent maffes of matter, the ftock that the mind has in its power, by varying the idea of fpace, and thereby making ftill new compofitions, by repeating its own ideas, and joining them as it pleafes, is perfectly inexhaustible; and fo it can multiply figures in infi

nitum.

§ 6. Figure.

any

FOR the mind having a power to repeat the idea of length directly stretched out, and join it to another in the fame direction, which is to double the length of

that straight line, or elfe join it to another with what inclination it thinks fit, and fo make what fort of angles it pleases; and being able alfo to fhorten any line it imagines, by taking from it one half, or one fourth, or what part it pleases, without being able to come to an end of any fuch divifions, it can make an angle of any bigness; fo alfo the lines that are its fides, of what length it pleases; which joining again to other lines of different lengths and at different angles, till it has wholly inclofed any space, it is evident, that it can multiply figures both in their shape and capacity in infinitum ; all which are but fo many different fimple modes of space.

The fame that it can do with ftraight lines, it can do alfo with crooked, or crooked and ftraight together; and the fame it can do in lines, it can alfo in fuperficies; by which we may be led into farther thoughts of the endless variety of figures that the mind has a power to make, and thereby to multiply the fimple modes of space.

$7. Place.

ANOTHER idea coming under this head, and belonging to this tribe, is that we call place. As in fimple space, we confider the relation of distance between any two bodies or points, fo in our idea of place, we confider the relation of distance betwixt any thing, and any two or more points, which are confidered as keeping the same distance one with another, and fo confidered as at reft; for when we find any thing at the fame distance now, which it was yesterday, from any two or more points, which have not fince changed their distance one with another, and with which we then compared it, we fay it hath kept the fame place; but if it hath fenfibly altered its distance with either of thofe points, we say it hath changed its place; though, vulgarly speaking, in the common notion of place, we do not always exactly obferve the distance from precife points, but from larger portions of fenfible objects, to which we confider the thing placed to bear relation, and its diftance from which we have fome reafon to observe.