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

tions.

These, when we have taken a full furvey of them, and their feveral modes, combinations, and relations, we fhall find to contain all our whole stock 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 mass 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 state 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 furnished 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 unufual 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 so 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 bufy at hand every where, when the eye is but open: Sounds, and fome tangible qualities, fail not to folicit their proper fenfes, and force an entrance to the

Book II. mind; but yet, I think, it will be granted easily, that if a child were kept in a place where he never faw any other but black and white, till he were a man, he would have no more ideas of scarlet or green, than he that from his childhood never tafted an oyster or a pine-apple, has of those particular relishes.

§ 7. Men are differently furnished with thefe, according to the different Objects they converfe with.

MEN then come to be furnished with fewer or more fimple ideas from without, according as the objects they converse with afford greater or lefs variety, and from the operations of their minds within, according as they more or less reflect on them. For though he that contemplates the operations of his mind cannot but have plain and clear ideas of them, yet, unless he turn his thoughts that way, and confiders them attentively, he will no more have clear and diftinct ideas of all the operations of his mind, and all that may be observed therein, than he will have all the particular ideas of any landscape, or of the parts and motions of a clock, who will not turn his eyes to it, and with attention heed all the parts of it. The picture or clock may be fo placed, that they may come in his way every day; but yet he will have but a confused idea of all the parts they are made up of, till he applies himself with attention to confider them each in particular.

§ 8. Ideas of Reflection later, because they need At

tention.

AND hence we fee the reafon why it is pretty late before most children get ideas of the operations of their own minds, and some have not any very clear or perfect ideas of the greatest part of them all their lives; because, though they pafs there continually, yet, like floating visions, they make not deep impreffions enough to leave in the mind clear, diftinct, lafting ideas, till the understanding turns inwards upon itself, reflects on its own operations, and makes them the object of its own contemplation. Children, when they come first into it, are furrounded with a world of new things, which, by a constant solicitation of their fenfes, draw

the mind constantly to them, forward to take notice of new, and apt to be delighted with the variety of changing objects. Thus, the first years are ufually employed and diverted in looking abroad. Mens business in them is to acquaint themselves with what is to be found without, and fo, growing up in a constant attention to outward fenfations, feldom make any confiderable reflection on what paffes within them, till they come to be of riper years, and some scarce ever at all.

§ 9. The Soul begins to have Ideas, when it begins to

perceive.

To ask at what time a man has first any ideas, is to ask when he begins to perceive, having ideas, and perception, being the fame thing. I know it is an opinion, that the foul always thinks, and that it has the actual perception of ideas in itself conftantly as long as it exists, and that actual thinking is as infeparable from the foul as actual extenfion is from the body; which, if true, to inquire after the beginning of a man's ideas, is the fame as to inquire after the beginning of his foul; for, by this account, foul and its ideas, as body and its extenfion, will begin to exist both at the fame time.

IC. The Soul thinks not always, for this wants

Proofs.

BUT whether the foul be fuppofed to exift antecedent to, or coeval with, or fome time after, the first rudiments or organization, or the beginnings of life in the body, I leave to be difputed by thofe who have better thought of that matter. I confess myself to have one of thofe dull fouls, that doth not perceive itself always to contemplate ideas, nor can conceive it any more neceffary for the foul always to think, than for the body always to move, the perception of ideas being (as I conceive) to the foul, what motion is to the body, not its effence, but one of its operations. And therefore, though thinking be fuppofed ever so much the proper action of the foul, yet it is not neceflary to suppose that it should be always thinking, always in action; that, perhaps, is the privilege of the infinite Author and Preferver of things, who never flumbers nor fleeps, but

is not competent to any finite being, at least not to the foul of man. We know certainly by experience, that we fometimes think, and thence draw this infallible confequence, that there is fomething in us that has a power to think; but whether that fubftance perpetually thinks or no, we can be no farther affured than experience informs us; for to fay that actual thinking is effential to the foul, and infeparable from it, is to beg what is in queftion, and not to prove it by reason; which is neceffary to be done, if it be not a felf-evident propofition. But whether this, that the foul always thinks, be a felf-evident propofition that every body afsents to at first hearing, I appeal to mankind. It is doubted, whether I thought all last night or no; the queftion being about a matter of fact, it is begging it, to bring as a proof for it, an hypothefis, which is the very thing in difpute, by which way one may prove any thing; and it is but fuppofing that all watches, whilft the balance beats, think, and it is fufficiently proved, and past doubt, that my watch thought all last night. But he that would not deceive himself, ought to build his hypothesis on matter of fact, and make it out by fenfible experience, and not prefume on matter of fact, because of his hypothefis, that is, because he supposes it to be fo; which way of proving amounts to this, that I must neceffarily think all laft night, because another fuppofes I always think, though I myfelf cannot perceive that I always do fo.

But men, in love with their opinions, may not only fuppofe what is in question, but allege wrong matter of fact. How elfe could any one make it an inference of mine, that a thing is not, because we are not fenfible of it in our fleep? I do not fay there is no foul in a man, because he is not fenfible of it in his fleep; but I do say, he cannot think at any time, waking or fleeping, without being fenfible of it. Our being fenfible of it, is not neceffary to any thing, but to our thoughts, and to them it is, and to them it will always be neceffary, till we can think without being confcious of it.

§ 11. It is not always confcious of it.

I GRANT that the foul in a waking man is never without thought, because it is the condition of being awake; but whether fleeping, without dreaming, be not an affection of the whole man, mind as well as body, may be worth a waking man's confideration; it being hard to conceive, that any thing fhould think, and not be confcious of it. If the foul doth think in a fleeping man, without being confcious of it, I afk, whether, during fuch thinking, it has any pleasure or pain, or be capable of happiness or mifery? I am fure the man is not, no more than the bed or earth he lies on; for to be happy or miferable, without being confcious of it, feems to me utterly inconfiftent and impoffible. Or if it be poffible that the foul can, whilft the body is fleeping, have its thinking, enjoyments and concerns, its pleasure or pain apart, which the man is not conscious of, or partakes in; it is certain that Socrates asleep and Socrates awake is not the fame perfon; but his foul when he fleeps, and Socrates the man, confifting of body and foul when he is waking, are two perfons, fince waking Socrates has no knowledge of, or concernment for that happiness or mifery of his foul which it enjoys alone by itself whilst he fleeps, without perceiving any thing of it, no more than he has for the happiness or mifery of a man in the Indies, whom he knows not. For if we take wholly away all consciousnefs of our actions and fenfations, especially of pleafure and pain, and the concernment that accompanies it, it will be hard to know wherein to place perfonal identity.

§ 12. If a fleeping Man thinks without knowing it, the Sleeping and waking Man are two Perfons.

THE foul, during found fleep, thinks, say these men. Whilft it thinks and perceives, it is capable certainly of thofe of delight or trouble, as well as any other perceptions; and it must neceffarily be conscious of its own perceptions. But it has all this apart; the fleeping man, it is plain, is conscious of nothing of all this. Let us fuppofe then the foul of Caftor, while he is fleeping,