2. Delight, or Uneasiness, one or other of them join themselves to almost all our Ideas, both of Sensation and Reflection: And there is scarce any affection of our Senses from without, any retired thought of our Mind within, which is not able to produce in us pleasure or pain. By Pleasure and Pain, I would be understood to signifie, whatsoever delights or molests us; whether it arises from the thoughts of our Minds, or any thing operating on our Bodies. […]
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§ 7. Existence and Unity, are two other Ideas, that are suggested to the Understanding, by every Object without, and every Idea within. When Ideas are in our Minds, we consider them as being actually there, as well as we consider things to be [124]actually without us; which is, that they exist, or have Existence: And whatever we can consider as one thing, whether a real Being, or Idea, suggests to the Understanding, the Idea of Unity.
§ 8. Power also is another of those simple Ideas, which we receive from Sensation and Reflection. For observing in our selves, that we can, at pleasure, move several parts of our Bodies, which were at rest; the effects also, that natural Bodies are able to produce in one another, occurring every moment to our Senses, we both these ways get the Idea of Power.
§ 9. Besides these, there is another Idea, which though suggested by our Senses, yet is more constantly offered us, by what passes in our own Minds; and that is the Idea of Succession. For if we look immediately into our selves, and reflect on what is observable there, we shall find our Ideas always, whilst we are awake, or have any thought, passing in train, one going, and another coming, without intermission.
§ 10. These, if they are not all, are at least (as I think) the most considerable of those simple Ideas which the Mind has, and out of which is made all its other knowledge; all which it receives only by the two forementioned ways of Sensation and Reflection.
Nor let any one think these too narrow bounds for the capacious Mind of Man to expatiate in, which takes its flight farther than the Stars, and cannot be confined by the limits of the World; that extends its thoughts often, even beyond the utmost expansion of Matter, and makes excursions into that incomprehensible Inane. I grant all this, but desire any one to assign any simple Idea, which is not received from one of those Inlets before-mentioned, or any complex Idea not made out of [126]those simple ones. Nor will it be so strange, to think these few simple Ideas sufficient to employ the quickest Thought, or largest Capacity; and to furnish the Materials of all that various Knowledge, and more various Fancies and Opinions of all Mankind, if we consider how many Words may be made out of the various composition of 24 Letters; or if going one step farther, we will but reflect on the variety of combinations may be made, with barely one of the above-mentioned Ideas, viz. Number, whose stock is inexhaustible, and truly infinite: And what a large and immense field, doth Extension alone afford the Mathematicians?
Some farther Considerations concerning our simple Ideas
§ 1. CONCERNING the simple Ideas of Sensation ’tis to be considered, That whatsoever is so constituted in Nature, as to be able, by affecting our Senses, to cause any perception in the Mind, doth thereby produce in the Understanding a simple Idea; which, whatever be the external cause of it, when it comes to be taken notice of, by our discerning Faculty, it is by the Mind looked on and considered there, to be a real positive Idea in the Understanding, as much as any other whatsoever; though, perhaps, the cause of it be but a privation in the subject.
§ 2. Thus the Idea of Heat and Cold, Light and Darkness, White and Black, Motion and Rest, are equally clear and positive Ideas in the Mind; though, perhaps, some of the causes [128]which produce them, are barely privations in those Subjects, from whence our Senses derive those Ideas. These the Understanding, in its view of them, considers all as distinct positive Ideas, without taking notice of the Causes that produce them: which is an enquiry not belonging to the Idea, as it is in the Understanding; but to the nature of the things existing without us. These are two very different things, and carefully to be distinguished; it being one thing to perceive, and know the Idea of White or Black, and quite another to examine what kind of particles they must be, and how ranged in the Superficies, to make any Object appear White or Black. […]
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§ 4. If it were the design of my present Undertaking, to enquire into the natural Causes and manner of Perception, I should offer this as a reason why a privative cause might, in some cases at least, produce a positive Idea, viz. That all Sensation being produced in us, only by different degrees and modes of Motion in our animal Spirits, variously agitated by external Objects, the abatement of any former motion, must as necessarily produce a new sensation, as the variation or increase of it; and so introduce a new Idea, which depends only on a different motion of the animal Spirits in that Organ.
§ 5. But whether this be so, or no, I will not here determine, but appeal to every one’s own Experience, whether the shadow of a Man, though it consists of nothing but the absence of Light (and the more the absence of Light is, the more discernible is the shadow) does not, when a Man looks on it, cause [130]as clear and positive an Idea in his mind, as a Man himself, though covered over with clear Sun-shine? And the Picture of a Shadow, is a positive thing. Indeed, we have negative Names, which stand not directly for positive Ideas, but for their absence, such as Insipid, silence, Nihil, etc. which Words denote positive Ideas, v. g. Tast, Sound, Being, with a signification of their absence.
§ 6. And thus one may truly be said to see Darkness. For supposing a hole perfectly dark, from whence no light is reflected, ’tis certain one may see the Figure of it, or it may be Painted; or whether the Ink, I write with, makes any other Idea, is a Question. The privative causes I have here assigned of positive Ideas, are according to the common Opinion; but in truth it will be hard to determine, whether there be really any Ideas from a privative cause, till it be determined, Whether Rest be any more a privation than Motion.
§ 7. To discover the nature of our Ideas the better, and to discourse of them intelligibly, it will be convenient to distinguish them, as they are Ideas or Perceptions in our Minds; and as they are modifications of matter in the Bodies that cause such Perceptions in us: that so we may not think (as perhaps usually is done) that they are exactly the Images and Resemblances of something inherent in the subject; most of those of Sensation being in the Mind no more the likeness of something existing without us, than the Names, that stand for them, are the likeness of our Ideas, which yet upon hearing, they are apt to excite in us.
[132]§ 8. Whatsoever the Mind perceives in it self, or is the immediate object of Perception, Thought, or Understanding, that I call Idea; and the Power to produce any Idea in our mind, I call Quality of the Subject wherein that power is. Thus a Snow-ball having the power to produce in us the Ideas of White, Cold, and Round, the Powers to produce those Ideas in us, as they are in the Snow-ball, I call Qualities; and as they are Sensations, or Perceptions, in our Understandings, I call them Ideas; which Ideas, if I speak of sometimes, as in the things themselves, I would be understood to mean those Qualities in the Objects which produce them in us.
§ 9. Qualities thus considered in Bodies are, First such as are utterly inseparable from the Body, in what estate soever it be; such as in all the alterations and changes it suffers, all the force can be used upon it, it constantly keeps; and such as Sense constantly finds in every particle of Matter, which has bulk enough to be
