Book I. ther inquiry of whom it is borrowed, nor whom it belongs to, fo it affords but a fit rise for the prefent purpofe. But in the future part of this discourse, defigning to raise an edifice uniform and confiftent with itfelf, as far as my own experience and obfervation will affift me, I hope to erect it on such a basis, that I shall not need to fhore it up with props and buttreffes, leaning on borrowed or begged foundations; or at least, if mine prove a caftle in the air, I will endeavour it shall be all of a piece, and hang together. Wherein I warn the reader not to expect undeniable cogent demonftrations, unless I may be allowed the privilege, not feldom affumed by others, to take my principles for granted, and then I doubt not but I can demonstrate too. All that I fhall fay for the principles I proceed on is, that I can only appeal to mens own unprejudifed experience and obfervation, whether they be true or no; and this is enough for a man who profeffes no more` than to lay down candidly and freely his own conjectures concerning a fubject lying fomewhat in the dark, without any other defign than an unbiaffed inquiry after truth.

E

BOOK II.-CHAP. I.

OF IDEAS IN GENERAL, AND THEIR ORIGINAL.

§ 1. Idea is the Object of thinking.

VERY man being confcious to himself that he thinks, and that which his mind is applied about whilst thinking, being the ideas that are there, it is past doubt, that men have in their minds feveral ideas, fuch as are thofe expreffed by the words whiteness, hardnefs, fweetness, thinking, motion, man, elephant, army, drunkenness, and others. It is, in the first place then,

to be inquired, how he comes by them? I know it is a received doctrine, that men have native ideas and original characters stamped upon their minds in their very first being. This opinion I have at large examined already; and, I fuppofe, what I have faid in the foregoing book will be much more easily admitted, when I have shown whence the understanding may get all the ideas it has, and by what ways and degrees they may come into the mind, for which I fhall appeal to every one's own obfervation and experience.

§ 2. All Ideas come from Senfation or Reflection. LET us then fuppofe the mind to be, as we fay, white paper, void of all characters, without any ideas, how comes it to be furnished? Whence comes it by that vaft ftore which the bufy and boundless fancy of man has painted on it, with an almost endless variety? Whence has it all the materials of reafon and knowledge? To this I anfwer, in one word, from experience; in that all our knowledge is founded, and from that it ultimately derives itself. Our obfervation employed either about external fenfible objects, or about the internal operations of our minds, perceived and reflected on by ourselves, is that which fupplies our understandings with materials of thinking. These two are the fountains of knowledge, from whence all the ideas we have, or can naturally have, do spring.

$3. The Objects of Senfation one Source of Ideas. FIRST, Our fenfes, converfant about particular fenfible objects, do convey into the mind several distinct perceptions of things, according to thofe various ways wherein thofe objects do affect them; and thus we come by thofe ideas we have of yellow, white, heat, cold, foft, hard, bitter, fweet, and all those which we call fenfible qualities, which when I say the senses convey into the mind, I mean, they from external objects convey into the mind what produces there thofe perceptions. This great fource of most of the ideas we have, depending wholly upon our fenfes, and derived by them to the understanding, I call SENSATION.

§ 4. The Operations of our Minds the other Source of

them.

SECONDLY, The other fountain from which experience furnisheth the understanding with ideas, is the perception of the operations of our own mind within us, as it is employed about the ideas it has got; which operations, when the foul comes to reflect on and confider, do furnish the understanding with another fet of ideas, which could not be had from things without, and fuch are perception, thinking, doubting, believing, reafoning, knowing, willing, and all the different actings of our own minds, which we being confcious of and obferving in ourselves, do from these receive into our understandings as diftinct ideas, as we do from bodies affecting our fenfes. This fource of ideas every man has wholly in himself; and though it be not fenfe as having nothing to do with external objects, yet it is very like it, and might properly enough be called internal sense. But as I call the other Senfation, fo I call this REFLECTION, the ideas it affords being such only as the mind gets by reflecting on its own operations within itself. By REFLECTION, then, in the following part of this discourse, I would be understood to mean, that notice which the mind takes of its own operations, and the manner of them; by reason whereof there come to be ideas of thefe operations in the understanding. Thefe two, I fay, viz. external material things, as the objects of SENSATION, and the operations of our minds within, as the objects of REFLECTION, are to me the only originals from whence all our ideas take their beginnings. The term operations here I ufe in a large fenfe, as comprehending not barely the actions of the mind about its ideas, but fome fort of paffions arifing fometimes from them; fuch as is the fatisfaction or uneafinefs arifing from any thought.

§ 5. All our ideas are of the one or other of these. THE understanding seems to me not to have the least glimmering of any ideas, which it doth not receive from one of these two. External objects furnish the mind with the ideas of fenfible qualities, which are all those dif

ferent perceptions they produce in us; and the mind furnishes the understanding with ideas of its own opera

tions.

Thefe, when we have taken a full furvey of them, and their feveral modes, combinations, and relations, we fhall find to contain all our whole ftock of ideas, and that we have nothing in our minds which did not come in one of these two ways. Let any one examine his own thoughts, and thoroughly search into his underftanding, and then let him tell me whether all the original ideas he has there are any other than of the objects of his fenfes, or of the operations of his mind, confidered as objects of his reflection; and how great a mafs of knowledge foever he imagines to be lodged there, he will, upon taking a strict view, fee that he has not any idea in his mind, but what one of these two have imprinted, though perhaps with infinite variety compounded and enlarged by the understanding, as we shall fee hereafter.

$6. Obfervable in Children.

HE that attentively confiders the ftate of a child, at his first coming into the world, will have little reason to think him ftored with plenty of ideas, that are to be the matter of his future knowledge; it is by degrees he comes to be furnifhed with them. And though the ideas of obvious and familiar qualities imprint themselves before the memory begins to keep a register of time and order, yet it is often fo late before fome unusual qualities come in the way, that there are few men that cannot recollect the beginning of their acquaintance with them; and if it were worth while, no doubt a child might be fo ordered, as to have but a very few even of the ordinary ideas, till he were grown up to a man. But all that are born into the world being furrounded with bodies that perpetually and diverfely affect them; variety of ideas, whether care be taken about it or no, are imprinted on the minds of children. Light and colours are busy at hand every where, when the eye is but open: Sounds, and some tangible qualities, fail not to solicit their proper fenfes, and force an entrance to the

§ 4. The Operations of our Minds the other Source of them.

SECONDLY, The other fountain from which experience furnifheth the understanding with ideas, is the perception of the operations of our own mind within us, as it is employed about the ideas it has got; which operations, when the foul comes to reflect on and confider, do furnish the understanding with another fet of ideas, which could not be had from things without, and fuch are perception, thinking, doubting, believing, reafoning, knowing, willing, and all the different actings of our own minds, which we being confcious of and obferving in ourselves, do from these receive into our understandings as diftinct ideas, as we do from bodies affecting our fenfes. This fource of ideas every man has wholly in himself; and though it be not sense as having nothing to do with external objects, yet it is very like it, and might properly enough be called internal fenfe. But as I call the other Senfation, fo I call this REFLECTION, the ideas it affords being fuch only as the mind gets by reflecting on its own operations within itself. By REFLECTION, then, in the following part of this difcourfe, I would be understood to mean, that notice which the mind takes of its own operations, and the manner of them; by reason whereof there come to be ideas of thefe operations in the understanding. These two, I fay, viz. external material things, as the objects of SENSATION, and the operations of our minds within, as the objects of REFLECTION, are to me the only originals from whence all our ideas take their beginnings. The term operations here I ufe in a large fenfe, as comprehending not barely the actions of the mind about its ideas, but fome fort of paffions arifing fometimes from them; fuch as is the fatisfaction or uneafiness arising from any thought.

$5. All our ideas are of the one or other of thefe. THE understanding feems to me not to have the least glimmering of any ideas, which it doth not receive from one of these two. External objects furnish the mind with the ideas of fenfible qualities, which are all those dif