and weight; the changes that one body is apt to make and receive in another, exceeding not only our knowlege, but even our imagination. So that all our complex ideas of substances are inadequate; which would be so also in mathematical figures, if we were to have our idea of them only by collecting their properties in reference to other figures.

Our simple ideas then are adequate, because, being intended to express only a power to produce such a sensation, that sensation, when produced, cannot but be the effect of that power. Our complex ideas are not perfect copies, but inadequate; for whatever collection of simple ideas the mind makes of any substance, it cannot be sure that it answers all that are in that substance; and, after all, if we had in our complex idea an exact collection of all the secondary qualities of any substance, we should not thereby have an idea of the essence of the thing. But complex ideas of modes and relations are original and archetypes, and exactly answer to that which the mind intends them to be conformable to. These being such collections of such simple ideas as the mind itself puts together, are archetypes of modes that may exist, and belong only to such modes when they do exist. The ideas therefore of modes and relations cannot but be adequate.

CHAPTER XXXII.

Of true and false Ideas.

Though truth and falsehood properly belong only to propositions, yet ideas, with some deviation from the strict signification of the word, are often termed true or false. Ideas, being only appearances, or perceptions in our minds, cannot, any more than the names of things, be properly called true or false; but when the mind has passed some judgment on its ideas, that

is, has affirmed or denied something of them, then in popular language we call them true or false.

Ideas may be called true or false according as they are justly or not referred to things with which we suppose them to be conformable. The most usual cases are the following:

1. When the mind supposes any idea it has conformable to that in other men's minds called by the

same name.

2. When the mind supposes any idea it has to be conformable to some real existence.

3. When the mind refers any of its ideas to that real constitution and essence of any thing, whereon its properties depend.

These suppositions the mind is apt to make, especially concerning its abstract complex ideas; for if the mind proceeded to knowlege by particulars, its progress would be very slow; therefore in the contemplation of things it is apt to rank them into sorts, that what knowlege it gets of any may be extended to all of that sort; and so advance in knowlege by larger steps.

If we will observe the course of the mind, we shall find that having got an idea which it thinks it may have use of, it first abstracts it, then gets a name to it, and so lays up in the memory with the mark of that name. Hence, when any one sees a new thing of a kind that he knows not, he asks what it is by inquiring the name.

But this abstract idea being something in the mind between the name and the thing, it is in our ideas that the rightness of our knowlege and the propriety of speaking consists. Hence men suppose that the ideas they have in their minds agree to the things existing without, and are the same to which the names do properly belong.

1. When the truth of our ideas is judged of by the conformity they have to the ideas which other men

signify by the same name, they may, any of them, be false. But simple ideas are least liable to be so, be cause a man may easily satisfy himself what the simple ideas are by the objects they are to be found in: therefore it is seldom that any one mistakes in his names of simple ideas, or confounds the names of ideas belonging to different senses.

Complex ideas are more liable to be false, and the complex ideas of mixed modes more than those of substances; because in substances certain sensible qualities serve to distinguish one sort from another; but in mixed modes we are more uncertain; and in referring our ideas to those of other men, called by the same name, ours may be false.

This sort of falsehood is much more familiarly attributed to our ideas of mixed modes than to any other. When a man is said to have a false idea of justice, gratitude, or glory, it is because his idea agrees not with those of other men. The reason of which is, that ideas of mixed modes, being voluntary combina tions of simple ideas, we have nothing else to refer these ideas to as a standard, but the ideas of those who are thought to use those names in their most proper significations.

2. As to the truth and falsehood of our ideas, in reference to the real existence of things, when that is made the standard of their truth, none can be termed false, but only complex ideas of substances.

Simple ideas being such perceptions as God has fitted us to receive by external objects, their truth consists in nothing else, but in such appearances as are produced in us, and must be suitable to those powers he has placed in external objects, or else they could not be produced in us; and thus, answering those powers, they are true ideas. Nor do they become liable to any imputation of falsehood; for God having set them as marks of distinction, whereby we may discern one thing from another, it alters not the

nature of the idea, whether we think the idea of blue be in the violet itself or in our mind only, and only the power of producing it by the texture of its parts; for the name of blue denotes nothing but that mark of distinction that is in the violet, discernible by our eyes only, whatever it consists in, that being beyond our capacities to know.

Neither would it carry imputation of falsehood to our simple ideas, if, by the different structure of our organs, it were so ordered that the same object should produce in several men's minds different ideas at the same time for since this could never be known, because one man's mind could not pass into another man's body, to perceive what appearances were produced by these organs; neither the ideas hereby, nor the names, would be at all confounded, or any falsehood be in either.

From what has been said concerning our simple ideas, I think it evident that none of them can be false in respect of things existing without us. Neither can our complex ideas of modes, in reference to the essence of any thing really existing, be false; because complex ideas have no reference to any pattern existing or made by nature: but our complex ideas of substances being referred to patterns in things themselves, may be false. They are false, 1. when they put together simple ideas which, in the real existence of things, have no union: 2. when, from any collection of simple ideas, which always exist together, there is separated any other simple idea which is constantly joined with them.

Though, in compliance with the ordinary way of speaking, I have showed on what ground our ideas may be true or false, yet, if we look a little nearer into the matter, it is from some judgment that the mind makes that it is true or false: for truth and falsehood being never without affirmation or negation, where signs are joined or separated, `truth lies in so joining

or separating these signs, as the things they stand for do in themselves agree or disagree; and falsehood in the contrary.

Any idea, then, whether conformable or not to the existence of things, or to other men's ideas, cannot for this alone be called false; but the falsehood is,

1. When the mind having any idea, it judges it the same that is in other men's minds signified by the same name, when indeed it is not: 2. when having a complex idea made up of such a collection of simple ones as nature never put together, it judges it to agree to a species of creatures really existing: 3. when in its complex idea it has united a number of simple ideas that exist together in some sorts of creatures, but has left out others as much inseparable, and judges this to be a complete idea of a sort of things, which really it is not: 4. the mistake is greater, when I judge that this complex idea contains in it the real essence of any body existing.

To conclude, a man having no notion of any thing without him, but by the idea he has of it in his mind, he may make an idea neither answering the reality of things, nor agreeing to the ideas commonly signified by other people's words; but cannot make a wrong or false idea of a thing which is no otherwise known to him but by the idea he has of it. Our ideas may be called right or wrong, according as they agree or disagree to those patterns to which they are referred. Truth or falsehood will, I think, scarce agree to them, but as they contain in them some mental proposition.

CHAPTER XXXIII.

Of the Association of Ideas.

We are apt enough to discover and condemn the extravagances of other men in their opinions, reasonings, and actions, though we are almost always blind