alter, or obliterate the images or ideas which the objects fet before it do therein produce. As the bodies that furround us do diverfely affect our organs, the mind is forced to receive the impreflions, and cannot avoid the perception of thofe ideas that are annexed to them.

CHAP. II.

OF SIMPLE IDEAS.

1. Uncompounded Appearances.

HE better to understand the nature, manner, and

TH

extent of our knowledge, one thing is carefully to be observed concerning the ideas we have, and that is, that fome of them are fimple, and fome complex.

Though the qualities that affect our fenfes are, in the things themselves, fo united and blended, that there is no feparation, no distance between them, yet it is plain the ideas they produce in the mind enter by the fenfes fimple and unmixed; for though the fight and touch often take in from the fame object, at the fame time, different ideas, as a man fees at once motion and colour, the hand feels foftnefs and warmth in the fame piece of wax, yet the fimple ideas thus united in the fame fubject are as perfectly diftinct as those that come in by different fenfes, the coldness and hardness which a man feels in a piece of ice being as diftinct ideas in the mind as the fmell and whiteness of a lily, or as the taste of iugar, and smell of a rose; and there is nothing can be plainer to a man than the clear and distinct perceptions he has of thofe fimple ideas, which being each in itfelf uncompounded, contains in it nothing but one uniform appearance or conception in the mind, and is not diftinguishable into different ideas.

2. The Mind can neither make nor destroy them. THESE fimple ideas, the materials of all our knowledge, are fuggefted and furnished to the mind only by thofe two ways above-mentioned, viz. fenfation and reflection. When the understanding is once ftored with thefe fimple

ideas, it has the power to repeat, compare, and unite them, even to an almoft infinite variety, and fo can make at pleasure new complex ideas; but it is not in the power of the moft exalted wit, or enlarged underftanding, by any quickness or variety of thoughts, to invent or frame one neau fimple idea in the mind, not taken in by the ways aforementioned; nor can any force of the understanding defroy thofe that are there, the dominion of man in this little world of his own underftanding being much-what the fame as it is in the great world of vifille things, wherein his power, however managed by art and kill, reaches no farther than to compound and divide the materials that are made to his hand, but can do nothing towards the making the leait particle of new matter, or deftroying one atom of what is already in being. The fame inability will every one find in himself, who fhall go about to fashion in his undertanding any fimple idea not received in by his fenfes from external objects, or by reflection from the operations of his own mind about them. I would have any one try to fancy any tafte which had never affected his palate, or frame the idea of a fcent he had never fmelt; and when he can do this, I will alfo conclude, that a blind man hath ideas of colours, and a deaf man true diftinct notions of founds.

$3.

THIS is the reafon why, though we cannot believe it impoffible to God to make a creature with other organs, and more ways to convey into the understanding the notice of corporeal things than thofe five, as they are ufually counted, which he has given to man, yet I think it is not poffible for any one to imagine any other qualities in bodies, how foever conftituted, whereby they can be taken notice of, befides founds, taftes, fmells, vifible and tangible qualities. And had mankind been made with but four fenfes, the qualities then, which are the objects of the fifth fenfe, had been as far from our notice, imagination, and conception, as now any belonging to a fixth, feventh, or eighth fenfe, can poffibly be; which, whether yet fome other creatures, in fome other parts

of this vaft and ftupendous univerfe, may not have, will be a great prefumption to deny. He that will not fet himfelf proudly at the top of all things, but will con fider the immenfity of this fabric, and the great variety that is to be found in this little and inconfiderable 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 intelligent beings, of whofe faculties he has as little knowledge or apprehenfion as a worm fhut up in one drawer of a cabinet hath of the fenfes or understanding of a man, fuch variety and excellency being fuitable to the wisdom and power of the Maker. I have here followed the common opinion of man's having but five fenfes, though perhaps there may be juftly counted more; but either fuppofition ferves equally to my prefent purpose.

THE

CHAP. III.

OF IDEAS OF ONE SENSE.

§1. Divifion of Simple Ideas.

better to conceive the ideas we receive from fenfation, it may not be amifs for us to confider them in reference to the different ways whereby they make their approaches to our minds, and make themfelves perceivable by us.

First, then, There are fome which come into our minds by one fenfe only.

Secondly, There are others that convey themselves into the mind by more fenfes than one.

Thirdly, Others that are had from reflection only. Fourthly, There are fome that make themfelves way, and are fuggefted to the mind by all the ways of fenfation and reflection.

We shall confider them apart under these several heads. Ideas of one Senfe, as Colours, of Seeing, Sound, of Hearing, Esc.

FIRST, There are fome ideas which have admittance only through one fenfe, which is peculiarly adapted to receive them. Thus light and colours, as white, red, yellow,

Book II. blue, with their feveral degrees or fhades and mixtures, as green, fcarlet, purple, fea-green, and the reft, come in only by the eyes; all kind of noifes, founds, and tones, only by the ears; the feveral taftes and smells, by the nofe and palate: And if thefe organs, or the nerves, which are the conduits to convey them from without to their audience in the brain, the mind's prefence-room (as I may call it), are any of them fo difordered 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 underftanding.

The most confiderable of those belonging to the touch are heat, and cold, and folidity; all the rest confifting almost wholly in the fenfible configuration, as fmooth and rough, or elfe more or lefs firm adhefion of the parts, as hard and foft, tough and brittle, are obvious enough.

§ 2. Few fimple Ideas bave Names.

I THINK it will be needlefs to enumerate all the particular fimple ideas belonging to each fense; nor indeed is it poffible if we would, there being a great many more of them belonging to most of the fenfes than we have names for. The variety of fmells, which are as many almost, if not more, than fpecies of bodies in the world, do moft of them want names. Sweet and stinking commonly ferve our turn for the fe ideas, which in effect is little more than to call them pleafing or difpleafing, though the fmell of a rofe and violet, both fweet, are certainly very diftinct ideas. Nor are the different tastes that by our palates we receive ideas of, much better provided with names. Sweet, bitter, four, harfh, and falt, are almost all the epithets we have to denominate that numberless variety of relishes which are to be found diftinct, not only in almoft every fort of crea tures, but in the different parts of the fame plant, fruit, or animal. The fame may be faid of colours and founds. I fhall therefore, in the account of fimple ideas I am here giving, content myself to fet down only fuch as are moft material to our prefent purpofe, or are in

gi themselves lefs apt to be taken notice of, though they are very frequently the ingredients of our complex ideas, amongst which I think I may well account folidity, which therefore I fhall treat of in the next chapter.

CHAP. IV.

OF SOLIDITY.

§ 1. We receive this Idea from Touch.

THE 'HE idea of folidity we receive by our touch; and it arifes from the refiftance which we find in body to the entrance of any other body into the place it poffeffes till it has left it. There is no idea which we receive more conftantly from fenfation than folidity. Whether we move or reft, in what posture foever we are, we always feel fomething under us that fupports us, and hinders our farther firking downwards; and the bodies which we daily handle make us perceive, that whilft they remain between them, they do, by an infurmountable force, hinder the approach of the parts of our hands that prefs them. That which thus hinders the approach of two bodies, when they are moving one towards another, I call folidity. I will not difpute whether this acceptation of the word folid be nearer to its original fignification than that which mathematicians ufe it in; it fuffices that I think the common notion of folidity will allow, if not juftify this ufe of it; but if any one think it better to call it impenetrability, he has my confent; only I have thought the term folidity the more proper to exprefs this idea, not only because of its vulgar ufe in that fenfe, but also because it carries fomething more of pofitive in it than impenetrability, which is negative, and is perhaps more a confequence of folidity than folidity itfelf. This of all other feems the idea moft intimately connected with and effential to body, fo as nowhere elfe to be found or imagined but only in matter; and though our fenfes take no notice of it but in maffes of matter of a bulk fufficient to cause a sensation in us, yet the mind having once got this idea from fuch groffer fenfible bodies, traces it farther, and confi