it hat resists or is protruded by body, as well as on something that fills space, that can be protruded by the impulse of other bodies, or resist their motion; the idea of the distance between the opposite parts of a concave surface, being equally clear without, as with the idea of any solid parts between. If any one ask what solidity is, I send him to his senses to inform him. Let him put a flint or a football between his hands, and then endeavor to join them, and he will know.

CHAPTER V.

Of simple Ideas of divers Senses.

The ideas we get by more than one sense are of space or extension, figure, rest, and motion, for these we can receive both by seeing and feeling.

CHAPTER VI.

Of simple Ideas of Reflection.

The mind having received ideas from without, when it observes its actions about those ideas, takes from thence other ideas. The principal actions of the mind are perception or thinking, and volition. The power of thinking is called the understanding, the power of volition, the will. These two are denominated faculties.

CHAPTER VII.

Of simple Ideas, both of Sensation and Reflection.

There are other simple ideas conveyed into the mind by all the ways of sensation and reflection, viz. pleasure, pain, power, existence, unity. There is scarcely a sensation or a thought which is not able to produce pleasure or pain. By pleasure and pain I mean whatever delights or molests us, whether it arises from the thoughts of our minds, or any thing operating on our bodies.

Locke.

D

The wise Author of our being having given us power over several parts of our bodies to move or keep them at rest, and by their motion to move ourselves and contiguous bodies; having also given a power to our minds to choose amongst its ideas, on which it will think; to excite us to these actions of thinking and motion, he has joined to several thoughts and sensations a perception of delight. Without this we should have no reason to prefer one thought or action to another, or motion to rest: in which state man, however furnished with the faculties of understanding and will, would be an idle and unactive

creature.

Pain has the same efficacy to set us on work that pleasure has; and pain is often produced by the same objects and ideas that produce pleasure: thus heat, which is agreeable in one degree, by a greater increase of it produces torment; and light itself, increased beyond a due proportion, causes a very painful sensation. Which is wisely so ordered by nature, that when any object disorders the instruments of sensation, we might by pain be warned to withdraw, before the organ be quite unfitted for its proper functions. We may find also another reason why God hath scattered several degrees of pleasure and pain in all the things that environ and affect us; that we, finding the imperfection of earthly happiness, might be led to seek it in the enjoyment of him, with whom there is fulness of joy, and at whose right hand are pleasures for evermore.'

Existence and unity are two other ideas that are suggested to the understanding by every object without, and every 'i idea within. Power is another simple idea received from sensation and reflection; by observing that we can move our own bodies at pleasure, and that natural bodies are constantly producing effects in one another.

Succession is another idea, which, though suggested by the senses, is more constantly offered to us by what

passes in our own minds; for while we are awake or have any thought, we shall find our ideas passing in

train.

These, if not all, are at least the most considerable of those simple ideas which we receive from sensation and reflection, and out of which is derived all our other knowlege. Nor will it be so strange to think these few simple ideas sufficient to furnish the materials of all the various knowlege of mankind, if we consider how many words may be made out of 24 letters.

CHAPTER VIII.

Some farther Considerations concerning our simple Ideas.

Whatever is able by affecting our senses to cause a perception in the mind, produces in the understanding a simple idea, which is considered a real positive idea, though the cause of it be a privation in the subject. Thus the ideas of heat and cold, light and darkness, white and black, motion and rest, are equally positive, though some of their causes may be privations. An inquiry into their causes concerns not the idea as it is in the understanding, but the nature of the thing existing without us. A painter or dyer has the ideas of white and black as distinctly in his understanding as a philosopher who has busied himself in considering their natures. If I were inquiring into the natural causes of perception, I should offer this as a reason why a privative cause may produce a positive idea :—that all sensation being produced in us 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 idea as the variation or increase of it. Does not the shadow of a man, which is but the absence of light, cause as clear an idea in the mind as a man himself? Indeed, we have negative names which stand for the absence of positive ideas,

as, insipid,'' silence,' nihil,' &c. which words denote the absence of the positive ideas of taste, sound, being, &c. But it will be hard to determine whether we have any positive ideas from a privative cause, till it be determined whether rest be any more a privation than motion. To discover the nature of our ideas, it will be convenient to distinguish them as they are perceptions in our minds, and as they are modifications of matter, causing perceptions in us, that we may not think that they are the exact resemblances of something inherent in the subject. Whatsoever the mind perceives in itself, I call an idea; the power to produce the idea, I call a quality of the subject wherein that power is. Thus a snow-ball producing the ideas of cold, white, round, its powers to produce those ideas I call qualities; and as they are perceptions in the mind, I call them ideas.

Qualities in bodies are first such as are inseparable from the body in what state soever it be. Take a grain of wheat, divide it into two parts, each part has still solidity, extension, figure, and mobility: divide it again and again, till the parts become insensible, they still retain those qualities; for division can never take them away from any body. These, therefore, I call primary qualities.

Such qualities which are but powers to produce various sensations in us by the primary qualities; that is, by the bulk, figure, texture, and motion of their insensible parts, as colors, sounds, tastes, &c. I call secondary qualities. To these might be added a third sort, which are allowed to be barely powers, though they are as much real qualities in the subject, as those which I, for distinction, call secondary qualities: for the power of fire to produce a new color and consistency in wax by its primary qualities, is as much a quality, as the power it has to produce in me a new idea of warmth or burning, which I felt not before, by the same primary qualities, viz. the bulk, texture, and motion of its insensible parts.

Bodies produce ideas in us by impulse for if external objects be not united to our minds when they produce ideas there, some motion must be thence continued by our nerves to the seat of sensation, there to produce ideas; and since objects may be perceived at a distance by the sight, it is evident some singly imperceptible bodies must come from them to the eyes, and thereby convey to the brain some motion which produces the ideas which we have of them.

In the same manner ideas of secondary qualities are produced. For as it is manifest that there are bodies so small that our senses cannot discover their bulk, figure, or motion, it is conceivable that the different motions, figure, and bulk of such particles may affect our senses so as to produce the sensations which we have from colors and smells; it being no more impossible to conceive that the ideas of a blue color and a sweet smell in a violet should be annexed to certain motions of insensible particles of matter with which they have no similitude, than that the idea of pain should be annexed to the motion of a piece of steel dividing our flesh, with which that idea has no resemblance. The same may be said of tastes and sounds, and other sensible qualities, which are but powers in the objects to produce sensations in us.

Whence we draw the observation that the ideas of primary qualities are resemblances of them, but secondary qualities are only a power in bodies to produce those sensations in us. Thus flame is denominated hot and light, snow, white and cold, from the ideas they produce in us. If the same fire at a distance produces warmth, and at a nearer approach causes pain, why should we imagine that the idea of warmth is in the fire, and the idea of pain, produced by the same fire, is not in it? The particular bulk, number, figure, and motion of the parts of fire and snow are really in them whether any one's senses perceive them or no; but light, heat, whiteness, or coldness, are no more in them, than sickness or pain is in manna.