it impossible, or a contradiction, That the Body should live without the Soul; nor that the Soul should subsist and think, or have Perception, even Perception of Happiness or Misery, without the Body. Let us then, as I say, suppose the Soul of Castor separated, during his Sleep, from his Body, to think apart. Let us suppose too, that it chuses for its Scene of Thinking, the Body of another Man, v. g. Pollux, who is sleeping without a Soul: For if Castor’s Soul can think whilst Castor is asleep, what Castor is never conscious of, ’tis no matter what Place it chuses to think in. We have here then the Bodies of two Men with only one Soul between them, which we will suppose to sleep and wake by turns; and the Soul still thinking in the waking Man, whereof the sleeping Man is never conscious, has never the least Perception. I ask then, Whether Castor and Pollux, thus, with only one Soul between them, which thinks and perceives in one, what the other is never conscious of, nor is concerned for, are not two as distinct Persons, as Castor and Hercules; or, as Socrates and Plato were? And [104]whether one of them might not be very happy, and the other very miserable? Just by the same Reason, they make the Soul and the Man two Persons, who make the Soul think apart, what the Man is not conscious of. For, I suppose, no body will make Identity of Persons, to consist in the Soul’s being united to the very same numerical Particles of matter: For if that be necessary to Identity, ’twill be impossible, in that constant flux of the Particles of our Bodies, that any Man should be the same Person, two days, or two moments together.
§ 13. Thus, methinks, every drowsy Nod shakes their Doctrine, who teach, That the Soul is always thinking. […]
[…]
§ 24. […] the first capacity of Humane Intellect, is, That the mind is fitted to receive the Impressions made on it; either, through the Senses, by outward Objects; or by its own Operations, when it reflects on them. This is the first step a Man makes towards the Discovery of any thing, and the Groundwork, whereon to build all those Notions, which ever he shall have naturally in this World. All those sublime Thoughts, which towre above the Clouds, and reach as high as Heaven it self, take their Rise and Footing here: In all that great Extent wherein the mind wanders, in those remote Speculations, it may seem to be elevated with, it stirs not one jot beyond those Ideas, which Sense or Reflection, have offered for its Contemplation.
§ 25. In this Part, the Understanding is meerly passive; and whether or no, it will have these Beginnings, and as it were materials of Knowledge, is not in its own Power. For the Objects [106]of our Senses, 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 some obscure Notions of them. No Man, can be wholly ignorant of what he does, when he thinks. These simple Ideas, when offered to the mind, the Understanding can no more refuse to have, nor alter, when they are imprinted, nor blot them out, and make new ones in it self, than a mirror can refuse, alter, or obliterate the images or Ideas, which, the Objects set before it, do therein produce. As the Bodies that surround us, do diversly affect our Organs, the mind is forced to receive the Impressions; and cannot avoid the Perception of those Ideas that are annexed to them.
Of simple Ideas
§ 1. THE 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 some of them are simple, and some complex.
Though the Qualities that affect our Senses, are, in the things themselves, so united and blended, that there is no separation, no distance between them; yet ’tis plain, the Ideas they produce in the Mind, enter by the Senses simple and unmixed. For though the Sight and Touch often take in from the [108]same Object, at the same time, different Ideas; as a Man sees at once Motion and Colour; the Hand feels Softness and Warmth in the same piece of Wax: Yet the simple Ideas thus united in the same Subject, are as perfectly distinct, as those that come in by different Senses. 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 distinct Perception he has of those simple Ideas; which being each in it self uncompounded, contains in it nothing but one uniform Appearance, or Conception in the mind, and is not distinguishable into different Ideas.
§ 2. These simple Ideas, the Materials of all our Knowledge, are suggested and furnished to the Mind, only by those two ways above mentioned, viz. Sensation and Reflection. When the Understanding is once stored with these simple Ideas, it has the Power to repeat, compare, and unite them even to an almost infinite Variety, and so can make at Pleasure new complex Ideas. But it is not in the Power of the most exalted Wit, or enlarged Understanding, by any quickness or variety of Thought, to invent or frame one new simple Idea in the mind, not taken in by the ways before mentioned: nor can any force of the Understanding, destroy those that are there. […]
§ 3. This is the Reason why, though we cannot believe it impossible 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 usually counted, which he has given to Man: Yet I think, it is not possible, for any [110]one to imagine any other Qualities in Bodies, howsoever constituted, whereby they can be taken notice of, besides Sounds, Tastes, Smells, visible and tangible Qualities. And had Mankind been made with but four Senses, the Qualities then, which are the Object of the Fifth Sense, had been as far from our Notice, Imagination, and Conception, as now any belonging to a sixth, seventh, or eighth Sense, can possibly be: which, whether yet some other Creatures, in some other Parts of this vast, and stupendious Universe, may not have, will be a great Presumption to deny. […]
Of Ideas of one Sense
§ 1. THE better to conceive the Ideas, we receive from Sensation, it may not be amiss for us to consider them, in reference to the different ways, whereby they make their Approaches to our minds, and make themselves perceivable by us.
First then, There are some, which come into our minds by one Sense only.
Secondly, There are others, that convey themselves into the mind by more Senses than one.
Thirdly, Others that are had from Reflection only.
Fourthly, There are some that make themselves way, and are suggested to the mind by all the ways of Sensation and Reflection.
We shall consider them apart under these several Heads.
[112]First, There are some Ideas, which have admittance only through one Sense, which is peculiarly adapted to receive them. Thus Light and Colours, as white, red, yellow, blue; with their several Degrees or Shades, and Mixtures, as Green, Scarlet, Purple, Sea-green, and the rest, come in only by the Eyes: All kinds of Noises, Sounds, and Tones, only by the Ears: The several Tastes and Smells, by the Nose 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 Presence-room (as I may so call it) are any of them so disordered, 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 Understanding.
The most considerable of those, belonging to the Touch, are Heat and Cold, and Solidity; all the rest, consisting almost wholly in the sensible Configuration, as smooth and
