ideas, it has the power to repeat, compare, and unite them, even to an almost infinite variety, and fo can make at pleasure new complex ideas; but it is not in

the power of the moft exalted wit, or enlarged underftanding, by any quickness or variety of thoughts, to invent or frame one new fimple idea in the mind, not taken in by the ways aforementioned; nor can any force of the understanding destroy thofe that are there, the dominion of man in this little world of his own underftanding being much-what the fame as it is in the great world of vifible things, wherein his power, however managed by art and fkill, reaches no farther than to compound and divide the materials that are made to his hand, but can do nothing towards the making the leaft particle of new matter, or deftroying one atom of what is already in being. The fame inability will every one find in himself, who shall go about to fashion in his understanding any fimple idea not received in by his fenfes from external objects, or by reflection from the operations of his own mind about them. I would have any one try to fancy any tafte which had never affected his palate, or frame the idea of a fcent he had never smelt; and when he can do this, I will also conclude, that a blind man hath ideas of colours, and a deaf man true diftinct notions of founds.

§ 3.

THIS is the reafon why, though we cannot believe it impoffible to God to make a creature with other organs, and more ways to convey into the understanding the notice of corporeal things than those five, as they are ufually counted, which he has given to man, yet I think it is not poffible for any one to imagine any other qualities in bodies, howfoever conftituted, whereby they can be taken notice of, befides founds, taftes, fmells, vifible and tangible qualities. And had mankind been made with but four fenfes, the qualities then, which are the objects of the fifth sense, had been as far from our notice, imagination, and conception, as now any belonging to a fixth, feventh, or eighth fenfe, can poffibly be; which, whether yet fome other creatures, in fome other parts

of this vaft and ftupendous univerfe, may not have, will be a great prefumption to deny. He that will not fet himfelf proudly at the top of all things, but will confider the immenfity of this fabric, and the great variety that is to be found in this little and inconfiderable part of it which he has to do with, may be apt to think, that in other manfions of it there may be other and different intelligent beings, of whofe faculties he has as little knowledge or apprehenfion as a worm fhut up in one drawer of a cabinet hath of the fenfes or understanding of a man, fuch variety and excellency being fuitable to the wisdom and power of the Maker. I have here followed the common opinion of man's having but five fenfes, though perhaps there may be justly counted more; but either fuppofition ferves equally to my prefent purpose.

TH

CHAP. III.

OF IDEAS OF ONE SENSE.

§1. Divifion of Simple Ideas.

HE better to conceive the ideas we receive from fenfation, it may not be amiss for us to confider them in reference to the different ways whereby they make their approaches to our minds, and make themfelves perceivable by us.

First, then, There are fome which come into our minds by one fenfe only.

Secondly, There are others that convey themselves into the mind by more fenfes than one.

Thirdly, Others that are had from reflection only. Fourthly, There are fome that make themselves way, and are fuggefted to the mind by all the ways of fenfation and reflection.

We fhall confider them apart under these several heads. Ideas of one Senfe, as Colours, of Seeing, Sound, of Hearing, &c.

FIRST, There are fome ideas which have admittance only through one fenfe, which is peculiarly adapted to receive them. Thus light and colours, as white, red, yellow,

blue, with their feveral degrees or fhades and mixtures, as green, fcarlet, purple, fea-green, and the reft, come in only by the eyes; all kind of noises, founds, and tones, only by the ears; the feveral taftes and smells, by the nofe and palate: And if these organs, or the nerves, which are the conduits to convey them from without to their audience in the brain, the mind's prefence-room (as I may call it), are any of them fo_difordered as not to perform their functions, they have no postern to be admitted by, no other way to bring themselves into view, and be perceived by the underftanding.

The most confiderable of thofe belonging to the touch are heat, and cold, and folidity; all the reft confifting almost wholly in the fenfible configuration, as smooth and rough, or else more or lefs firm adhesion of the parts, as hard and foft, tough and brittle, are obvious enough.

§2. Few fimple Ideas have Names.

I THINK it will be needless to enumerate all the particular fimple ideas belonging to each sense; nor indeed is it poffible if we would, there being a great many more of them belonging to most of the fenfes than we have names for. The variety of fmells, which are as many almoft, if not more, than fpecies of bodies in the world, do moft of them want names. Sweet and linking commonly ferve our turn for thefe ideas, which in effect is little more than to call them pleafing or displeasing, though the fmell of a rofe and violet, both fweet, are certainly very diftinct ideas. Nor are the different taftes that by our palates we receive ideas of, much better provided with names. Sweet, bitter, four, harsh, and falt, are almost all the epithets we have to denominate that numberless variety of relies which are to be found diflinct, not only in almost every fort of creatures, but in the different parts of the fame plant, fruit, or animal. The fame may be faid of colours and founds. I fhall therefore, in the account of fimple ideas I am here giving, content myself to fet down only fuch as are moft material to our prefent purpose, or are in

themselves lefs apt to be taken notice of, though they are very frequently the ingredients of our complex ideas,' amongst which I think I may well account folidity, which therefore I fhall treat of in the next chapter.

THE

CHAP. IV.

OF SOLIDITY.

1. We receive this Idea from Touch.

HE idea of folidity we receive by our touch; and it arifes from the refiftance which we find in body to the entrance of any other body into the place it poffeffes till it has left it. There is no idea which we receive more conftantly from fenfation than folidity. Whether we move or reft, in what pofture foever we are, we always feel fomething under us that fupports us, and hinders our farther finking downwards; and the bodies which we daily handle make us perceive, that whilst they remain between them, they do, by an infurmountable force, hinder the approach of the parts of our hands that prefs them. That which thus hinders the approach of two bodies, when they are moving one towards another, I call folidity. I will not difpute whether this acceptation of the word folid be nearer to its original fignifi cation than that which mathematicians ufe it in ; it fuffices that I think the common notion of folidity will allow, if not justify this use of it; but if any.one think it better to call it impenetrability, he has my confent; only I have thought the term folidity the more proper to express this idea, not only because of its vulgar ufe in that fenfe, but also because it carries fomething more of pofitive in it than impenetrability, which is negative, and is perhaps more a confequence of folidity than folidity itself. This of all other feems the idea moft intimately connected with and effential to body, fo as nowhere elfe to be found or imagined but only in matter; and though our fenfes take no notice of it but in mafies of matter of a bulk fufficient to cause a fenfation in us, yet the mind having once got this idea from fuch groffer fenfible bodies, traces it farther, and confi

ders it, as well as figure, in the minutest particle of matter that can exist, and finds it infeparably inherent in body, wherever or however modified.

§ 2. Solidity fills Space.

THI is the idea belongs to body, whereby we conceive it to fill space; the idea of which filling of space is, that where we imagine any space taken up by a folid fubftance, we conceive it fo to poffefs it, that it excludes all other folid fubftances, and will for ever hinder any two other bodies, that move towards one another in a ftraight line, from coming to touch one another, unless it removes from between them in a line not parallel to that which they move in. This idea of it the bodies which we ordinarily handle fufficiently furnish us with. $3. Diftinct from Space.

THIS refiftance, whereby it keeps other bodies out of the space which it poffeffes, is fo great, that no force, how great foever, can furmount it. All the bodies in

the world preffing a drop of water on all fides, will never be able to overcome the refiftance which it will make, as foft as it is, to their approaching one another, till it be removed out of their way; whereby our idea of folidity is diftinguished both from pure fpace, which is capable neither of refiftance nor motion, and from the ordinary idea of hardness; for a man may conceive two bodies at a distance, fo as they may approach one another, without touching or difplacing any folid thing till their fuperficies come to meet; whereby I think we have the clear idea of fpace without folidity. For (not to go fo far as annihilation of any particular body) I afk, whether a man cannot have the idea of the motion of one fingle body alone, without any other fucceeding immediately into its place? I think it is evident he can, the idea of motion in one body no more including the idea of motion in another, than the idea of a fquare figure in one body includes the idea of a fquare figure in another. I do not afk, whether bodies do fo exift, that the motion of one body cannot really be without the motion of another; to determine this either way, is to beg the question for or against a vacuum: But my question is, whether one cannot have the idea of one