not be conscious to itself the next moment after that it had thought.

§ 19. That a Man should be busy in thinking, and yet nos retain it the next moment, very improbable.

To fuppofe the foul to think, and the man not to perceive it, is, as has been faid, to make two perfons in one mau; and if one confiders well thefe mens way of speaking, one should be led into a fufpicion that they muft do fo; for they who tell us that the foul always thinks, do never, that I remember, fay that a man always thinks. Can the foul think, and not the man? or a man think, and not be confcious of it? This, perhaps, would be fufpected of jargon in others. If they fay, the man thinks always, but is not always confcious of it, they may as well fay, his body is extended without having parts; for it is altogether as intelligible to fay, that a body is extended without parts, as that any thing thinks without being conscious of it, or perceiving that it does fo. They who talk thus, may with as much reafon, if it be neceffary to their hypothefis, fay, that a man is always hungry, but that he does not always feel it; whereas hunger confifts in that very fenfation, as thinking confifts in being conscious that one thinks. If they fay, that a man is always confcious to himself of thinking, I afk, how they know it? Consciousness is the perception of what paffes in a man's own mind. Can another man perceive that I am confcious of any thing, when I perceive it not my felf? No man's knowledge here can go beyond his experience. Wake a man out of a found fleep, and ask him, What he was that moment thinking on? If he himself be conscious of nothing he then thought on, he must be a notable diviner of thoughts, that can affure him that he was thinking; may he not with more reason affure him he was not afleep? This is fomething beyond philosophy, and it cannot be lefs than revelation that discovers to another thoughts in my mind, when I can find none there myself; and they muft needs have a penetrating fight, who can certainly fee that I think, when I cannot perceive it myself, and when I declare that I do

Book II. not, and yet can fee that dogs or elephants do not think, when they give all the demonftration of it imaginable, except only telling us that they do fo. This fome may fufpect to be a step beyond the Rofecrucians, it seeming easier to make one's felf invifible to others, than to make another's thoughts vifible to me, which are not vifible to himself. But it is but defining the foul to be a fubftance that always thinks, and the bufinefs is done. If fuch definition be of any authority, I know not what it can serve for, but to make many men fufpect that they have no fouls at all, fince they find a good part of their lives pafs away without thinking; for no definitions, that I know, no fuppofitions of any fect, are of force enough to deftroy conftant experience; and perhaps it is the affectation of knowing beyond what we perceive, that makes fo much useless dispute and noise in the world.

§ 20. No Ideas but from Senfation or Reflection, evi

dent, if we obferve Children.

I SEE no reason therefore to believe, that the foul thinks before the fenfes have furnished it with ideas to think on; and as thofe are increased and retained, so it comes, by exercife, to improve its faculty of thinking, in the feveral parts of it; as well as afterwards, by compounding thofe ideas, and reflecting on its own operations, it increases its stock, as well as facility, in remembering, imagining, reasoning, and other modes of thinking. $ 21.

HE that will fuffer himself to be informed by obfervation and experience, and not make his own hypothefis the rule of nature, will find few signs of a foul accuftomed to much thinking in a new-born child, and much fewer of any reasoning at all; and yet it is hard to imagine, that the rational foul fhould think fo much, and not reason at all. And he that will confider, that infants, newly come into the world, spend the greatest part of their time in fleep, and are feldom awake, but when either hunger calls for the teat, or fome pain (the most importunate of all fenfations), or fome other violent impreffion upon the body, forces the mind to per

ceive, and attend to it: He, I fay, who confiders this, will perhaps find reason to imagine, that a fœtus in the mother's womb differs not much from the ftate of a vegetable, but paffes the greatest part of its time without perception or thought, doing very little but fleep in a place where it needs not feek for food, and is furrounded with liquor, always equally foft, and near of the fame temper; where the eyes have no light; and the ears fo fhut up, are not very fufceptible of founds; and where there is little or no variety or change of objects to move the fenfes.

§ 22.

FOLLOW a child from its birth, and obferve the alterations that time makes, and you fhall find, as the mind by the senses comes more and more to be furnished with ideas, it comes to be more and more awake; thinks more, the more it has matter to think on; after fome time it begins to know the objects, which being. most familiar with it, have made lafting impreffions. Thus it comes by degrees to know the perfons it daily converses with, and diftinguish them from ftrangers; which are inftances and effects of its coming to retain and distinguish the ideas the fenfes convey to it. And fo we may obferve how the mind by degrees improves in these, and advances to the exercise of those other faculties of enlarging, compounding, and abftracting its ideas, and of reafoning about them, and reflecting upon all thefe; of which I fhall have occafion to speak more hereafter.

23.

IF it shall be demanded, then, When a man begins to have any ideas? I think the true answer is, When he firft has any fenfation; for fince there appear not to be any ideas in the mind before the fenfes have conveyed any in, I conceive that ideas in the understanding are coeval with fenfation; which is fuch an impreffion or motion made in fome part of the body, as produces fome perception in the understanding. It is about these impreffions made on our senses by outward objects that the mind feems first to employ itself in fuch operations

as we call perception, remembering, confideration, reafoning, &c.

§ 24. The Original of all our Knowledge. IN time the mind comes to reflect on its own operations about the ideas got by fenfation, and thereby ftores itself with a new set of ideas, which I call ideas of reflection. There are the impreffions that are made on our fenfes by outward objects that are extrinfical to the mind; and its own operations, proceeding from powers intrinfical and proper to itself, which, when reflected on by itself, become alfo objects of its contemplation, are, as I have faid, the original of all knowledge. Thus the first capacity of human intellect is, that the mind is fitted to receive the impreffions made on it, either through the fenfes by outward objects, or by its own operations when it reflects on them. This is the firft ftep a man makes towards the difcovery of any thing, and the groundwork whercon to build all thofe notions which ever he fhall have naturally in this world. All thofe fublime thoughts which tower above the clouds, and reach as high as heaven itself, take their rife and footing here. In all that great extent wherein the mind wanders in those remote fpeculations it may feem to be elevated with, it ftirs not one jot beyond thofe ideas which fenfe or reflection have offered for its contemplation.

§ 25. In the reception of fimple Ideas the Understanding is for the most part paffive.

IN this part the understanding is merely paffive; and whether or no it will have thefe beginnings, and, as it were, materials of knowledge, is not in its own power; for the objects of our fenfes do many of them obtrude their particular ideas upon our minds whether we will or no, and the operations of our minds will not let us be without at least fome obfcure notions of them. No man can be wholly ignorant of what he does when he thinks. Thefe fimple ideas, when offered to the mind, the understanding can no more refufe to have, nor alter when they are imprinted, nor blot them out, and make new ones itfelf, than a mirror can refuse,

alter, or obliterate the images or ideas which the objects fet before it do therein produce. As the bodies that furround us do diverfely affect our organs, the mind is forced to receive the impreffions, and cannot avoid the perception of thofe ideas that are annexed to them.

TH

CHAP. II.

OF SIMPLE IDEAS.

1. Uncompounded Appearances.

HE better to understand the nature, manner, and extent of our knowledge, one thing is carefully to be observed concerning the ideas we have, and that is, that fome of them are fimple, and fome complex.

Though the qualities that affect our fenfes are, in the things themselves, fo united and blended, that there is no feparation, no diftance between them, yet it is plain the ideas they produce in the mind enter by the fenfes fimple and unmixed; for though the fight and touch often take in from the fame object, at the fame time, different ideas, as a man fees at once motion and colour, the hand feels foftness and warmth in the fame piece of wax, yet the fimple ideas thus united in the fame fubject are as perfectly diftinct as thofe that come in by different fenfes, the coldness and hardness which a man feels in a piece of ice being as distinct ideas in the mind as the smell and whiteness of a lily, or as the taste of sugar, and smell of a rose; and there is nothing can be plainer to a man than the clear and diftinct perceptions he has of thofe fimple ideas, which being each in itself uncompounded, contains in it nothing but one uniform appearance or conception in the mind, and is not diftinguishable into different ideas.

§ 2. The Mind can neither make nor destroy them. THESE fimple ideas, the materials of all our knowledge, are fuggefted and furnished to the mind only by thofe two ways above-mentioned, viz. fenfation and reflection. When the understanding is once ftored with thefe fimple