From An Essay Concerning Human Understanding
BOOK
II: OF IDEAS
CHAPTER I
Of Ideas in General,
and Their Original
By John Locke
1. Idea is the object of thinking.—Every man
being conscious to himself that he thinks, and that which his mind is applied
about whilst thinking being the ideas that are there, it is past doubt that men
have in their mind several ideas, such as are those expressed by the words
whiteness, hardness, sweetness, thinking, motion, man, elephant, army,
drunkenness, and others: it is in the first place then to be inquired, How he
comes by them? I know it is a received doctrine, that men have native ideas and
original characters stamped upon their minds in their very first being. This
opinion I have at large examined already; and, I suppose, what I have said in
the foregoing book will be much more easily admitted, when I have shown whence
the understanding may get all the ideas it has, and by what ways and degrees
they may come into the mind; for which I shall appeal to everyone's own
observation and experience.
2. All ideas come from sensation or reflection.—Let
us then suppose the mind to be, as we say, white paper, void of all characters,
without any ideas; how comes it to be furnished? Whence comes it by that vast
store, which the busy and boundless fancy of man has painted on it with an
almost endless variety? Whence has it all the materials of reason and
knowledge? To this I answer, in one word, from experience. In that all our
knowledge is founded, and from that it ultimately derives itself. Our
observation, employed either about external sensible objects, or about the
internal operations of our minds, perceived and reflected on by ourselves, is
that which supplies our understandings with all the materials of thinking.
These two are the fountains of knowledge, from whence all the ideas we have, or
can naturally have, do spring.
3. The object of sensation one source of ideas.—First,
our senses, conversant about particular sensible objects, do convey into the
mind several distinct perceptions of things, according to those various ways
wherein those objects do affect them; and thus we come by those ideas we have
of yellow, white, heat, cold, soft, hard, bitter, sweet, and all those which we
call sensible qualities; which when I say the senses convey into the mind, I
mean, they from external objects convey into the mind what produces there those
perceptions. This great source of most of the ideas we have, depending wholly
upon our senses, and derived by them to the understanding, I call sensation.
4. The operations of our minds the other source of them.—Secondly,
the other fountain, from which experience furnisheth the understanding with
ideas, is the perception of the operations of our own mind within us, as it is
employed about the ideas it has got; which operations when the soul comes to
reflect on and consider, do furnish the understanding with another set of ideas
which could not be had from things without; and such are perception, thinking,
doubting, believing, reasoning, knowing, willing, and all the different actings
of our own minds; which we, being conscious of, and observing in ourselves, do
from these receive into our understandings as distinct ideas, as we do from
bodies affecting our senses. This source of ideas every man has wholly in
himself; and though it be not sense as having nothing to do with external
objects, yet it is very like it, and might properly enough be called internal sense. But as I call the other
sensation, so I call this reflection,
the ideas it affords being such only as the mind gets by reflecting on its own
operations within itself. By reflection, then, in the following part of this
discourse, I would be understood to mean that notice which the mind takes of
its own operations, and the manner of them, by reason whereof there come to be
ideas of these operations in the understanding. These two, I say, viz.,
external material things as the object of sensation, and the operations of our
own minds within as the objects of reflection, are, to me, the only originals
from whence all our ideas take their beginnings. The term operations here, I use in a large sense, as
comprehending not barely the actions of the mind about its ideas, but some sort
of passions arising sometimes from them, such as is the satisfaction or
uneasiness arising from any thought.
5. All our ideas are of the one or the other of these.—The
understanding seems to me not to have the least glimmering of any ideas which
it doth not receive from one of these two. External
objects furnish the mind with the ideas of sensible qualities, which are
all those different perceptions they produce in us; and the mind furnishes the understanding with ideas of its own
operations.
These, when we have
taken a full survey of them, and their several modes, [combinations, and
relations,] we shall find to contain all our whole stock of ideas; and that we
have nothing in our minds which did not come in one of these two ways. Let
anyone examine his own thoughts, and thoroughly search into his understanding,
and then let him tell me, whether all the original ideas he has there, are any
other than of the objects of his senses, or of the operations of his mind
considered as objects of his reflection; and how great a mass of knowledge
soever he imagines to be lodged there, he will, upon taking a strict view, see
that he has not any idea in his mind but what one of these two have imprinted,
though perhaps with infinite variety compounded and enlarged by the
understanding, as we shall see hereafter.
6. Observable in children.—He that attentively
considers the state of a child at his first coming into the world, will have
little reason to think him stored with plenty of ideas that are to be the
matter of his future knowledge. It is by degrees he comes to be furnished with
them; and though the ideas of obvious and familiar qualities imprint themselves
before the memory begins to keep a register of time or order, yet it is often
so late before some unusual qualities come in the way, that there are few men
that cannot recollect the beginning of their acquaintance with them: and, if it
were worth while, no doubt a child might be so ordered as to have but a very
few even of the ordinary ideas till he were grown up to a man. But all that are
born into the world being surrounded with bodies that perpetually and diversely
affect them, variety of ideas, whether care be taken about it or not, are
imprinted on the minds of children. Light and colors are busy at hand
everywhere when the eye is but open; sounds and some tangible qualities fail
not to solicit their proper senses, and force an entrance to the mind; but yet
I think it will be granted easily, that if a child were kept in a place where
he never saw any other but black and white till he were a man, he would have no
more ideas of scarlet or green than he that from his childhood never tasted an
oyster or a pineapple has of those particular relishes.
7. Men are differently furnished with these according to
the different objects they converse with.—Men then come to be furnished
with fewer or more simple ideas from without, according as the objects they
converse with afford greater or less variety; and from the operations of their
minds within, according as they more or less reflect on them. For, though he
that contemplates the operations of his mind cannot but have plain and clear
ideas of them; yet, unless he turn his thoughts that way, and considers them
attentively, he will no more have clear and distinct ideas of all the
operations of his mind, and all that may be observed therein, than he will have
all the particular ideas of any landscape, or of the parts and motions of a
clock, who will not turn his eyes to it, and with attention heed all the parts
of it. The picture or clock may be so placed, that they may come in his way
every day; but yet he will have but a confused idea of all the parts they are
made of, till he applies himself with attention to consider them each in
particular.
8. Ideas of reflection later, because they need
attention.—And hence we see the reason why it is pretty late before most
children get ideas of the operations of their own minds; and some have not any
very clear or perfect ideas of the greatest part of them all their lives:
because, though they pass there continually, yet like floating visions, they
make not deep impressions enough to leave in the mind, clear, distinct, lasting
ideas, till the understanding turns inwards upon itself, reflects on its own
operations, and makes them the objects of its own contemplation. Children, when
they come first into it, are surrounded with a world of new things, which, by a
constant solicitation of their senses, draw the mind constantly to them,
forward to take notice of new, and apt to be delighted with the variety of changing
objects. Thus the first years are usually employed and diverted in looking
abroad. Men's business in them is to acquaint themselves with what is to be
found without; and so, growing up in a constant attention to outward
sensations, seldom make any considerable reflection on what passes within them
till they come to be of riper years; and some scarce ever at all.
9. The soul begins to have ideas when it begins to
perceive.—To ask, at what time a man has first any ideas, is to ask when
he begins to perceive; having ideas, and
perception, being the same thing. I know
it is an opinion, that the soul always thinks; and that it has the actual
perception of ideas in itself constantly, as long as it exists; and that actual
thinking is as inseparable from the soul, as actual extension is from the body:
which if true, to inquire after the beginning of a man's ideas is the same as
to inquire after the beginning of his soul. For by this account, soul and its
ideas, as body and its extension, will begin to exist both at the same time.
10. The soul thinks not always; for this wants proofs.—But
whether the soul be supposed to exist antecedent to, or coeval with, or some
time after, the first rudiments or organization, or the beginnings of life in
the body, I leave to be disputed by those who have better thought of that
matter. I confess myself to have one of those dull souls that doth not perceive
itself always to contemplate ideas; nor can conceive it any more necessary for
the soul always to think, than for the body always to move; the perception of
ideas being, as I conceive, to the soul, what motion is to the body: not its
essence, but one of its operations; and, therefore, though thinking be supposed
never so much the proper action of the soul, yet it is not necessary to suppose
that it should be always thinking, always in action. That, perhaps, is the
privilege of the infinite Author and Preserver of all things, 'who never
slumbers nor sleeps;' but it is not competent to any finite being, at least not
to the soul of man. We know certainly, by experience, that we sometimes think;
and thence draw this infallible consequence—that there is something in us that
has a power to think. But whether that substance perpetually thinks, or no, we
can be no farther assured than experience informs us. For to say that actual
thinking is essential to the soul, and inseparable from it, is to beg what is
in question, and not to prove it by reason; which is necessary to be done, if
it be not a self-evident proposition. But whether this—that 'the soul always
thinks,' be a self-evident proposition, that everybody assents to on first
hearing, I appeal to mankind. [It is doubted whether I thought all last night,
or no; the question being about a matter of fact, it is begging it to bring as
a proof for it an hypothesis which is the very thing in dispute; by which way
one may prove anything; and it is but supposing that all watches, whilst the
balance beats, think, and it is sufficiently proved, and past doubt, that my
watch thought all last night. But he that would not deceive himself ought to
build his hypothesis on matter of fact, and make it out by sensible experience,
and not presume on matter of fact because of his hypothesis; that is, because
he supposes it to be so; which way of proving amounts to this,—that I must
necessarily think all last night, because another supposes I always think,
though I myself cannot perceive that I always do so.
But men in love with
their opinions may not only suppose what is in question, but allege wrong
matter of fact. How else could anyone make it an inference of mine, that a
thing is not, because we are not sensible of it in our sleep? I do not say,
there is no soul in a man because he is not sensible of it in his sleep; but I
do say, he cannot think at any time, waking or sleeping, without being sensible
of it. Our being sensible of it is not necessary to anything but to our
thoughts; and to them it is, and to them it will always be, necessary, till we
can think without being conscious of it.]
11. It is not always conscious of it.—I grant that
the soul in a waking man is never without thought, because it is the condition
of being awake; but whether sleeping without dreaming be not an affection of
the whole man, mind as well as body, may be worth a waking man's consideration;
it being hard to conceive that anything should think and not be conscious of
it. If the soul doth think in a sleeping man without being conscious of it, I
ask, whether, during such thinking, it has any pleasure or pain, or be capable
of happiness or misery? I am sure the man is not, no more than the bed or earth
he lies on. For to be happy or miserable without being conscious of it, seems
to me utterly inconsistent and impossible. Or if it be possible that the soul
can, whilst the body is sleeping, have its thinking, enjoyments, and concerns,
its pleasure or pain, apart, which the man is not conscious of, nor partakes
in, it is certain that Socrates asleep and Socrates awake is not the same
person; but his soul when he sleeps, and Socrates the man, consisting of body
and soul, when he is waking, are two persons; since waking Socrates has no
knowledge of, or concernment for that happiness or misery of his soul, which it
enjoys alone by itself whilst he sleeps, without perceiving anything of it, no
more than he has for the happiness or misery of a man in the Indies, whom he
knows not. For if we take wholly away all consciousness of our actions and
sensations, especially of pleasure and pain, and the concernment that
accompanies it, it will be hard to know wherein to place personal identity.…
Chapter II
Of Simple Ideas
1. Uncompounded appearances.—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 it is 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 same object, at the same
time, different ideas—as a man sees at once motion and color, 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 itself uncompounded, contains in it nothing but one uniform appearance or conception in the mind,
and is not distinguishable into different ideas.
2. The mind can neither make nor destroy them.—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: the dominion of
man in this little world of his own understanding, being much-what the same as
it is in the great world of visible things; wherein his power, however managed
by art and skill, reaches no farther than to compound and divide the materials
that are made to his hand but can do nothing towards the making the least
particle of new matter, or destroying one atom of what is already in being. The
same inability will everyone find in himself, who shall go about to fashion in
his understanding any simple idea not received in by his senses from external
objects, or by reflection from the operations of his own mind about them. I
would have anyone try to fancy any taste which had never affected his palate,
or frame the idea of a scent he had never smelt; and when he can do this, I
will also conclude that a blind man hath ideas
of colors, and a deaf man true, distinct notions of sounds.
3. Only the qualities that affect the senses are
imaginable.—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 anyone 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 objects 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 stupendous universe, may not
have, will be a great presumption to deny. He that will not set himself proudly
at the top of all things, but will consider the immensity of this fabric, and
the great variety that is to be found in this little and inconsiderable part of
it which he has to do with, may be apt to think, that in other mansions of it
there may be other and different intelligible beings, of whose faculties he has
as little knowledge or apprehension, as a worm shut up in one drawer of a
cabinet hath of the senses or understanding of a man; such variety and
excellency being suitable to the wisdom and power of the Maker. I have here
followed the common opinion of man's having but five senses, though perhaps
there may be justly counted more; but either supposition serves equally to my
present purpose.
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