119 tution; I fay, only fome few of thofe properties; for thofe properties confifting moftly in the active and paffive powers it has, in reference to other things, all that are vulgarly known of any one body, and of which the complex idea of that kind of things is ufually made, are but a very few, in comparison of what a man, that has feveral ways tried and examined it, knows of that one fort of things; and all that the most expert man knows, are but few, in comparison of what are really in that body, and depend on its internal or effential conftitution. The effence of a triangle lies in a very little compass, confifts in a very few ideas; three lines including a space make up that effence; but the properties that flow from this effence, are more than can be eafily known or enumerated: So I imagine it is in fubftances; their real effences lie in a little compafs, though the properties flowing from that internal constitution are endless.

§ 25. Ideas when falfe.

To conclude; a man having no notion of any thing without him, but by the idea he has of it in his mind (which idea he has a power to call by what name he pleafes), he may indeed make an idea neither anfwering the reality of things, nor agreeing to the ideas commonly fignified by other peoples words, but cannot make a wrong or falfe idea of a thing, which is no otherwise known to him but by the idea he has of it: v. g. When I frame an idea of the legs, arms, and body of a man, and join to this a horse's head and neck, I do not make a falfe idea of any thing, because it reprefents nothing without me: But when I call it a Man or Tartar, and imagine it either to reprefent fome real being without me, or to be the fame idea that others call by the fame name; in either of these cafes I may err; and upon this account it is, that it comes to be termed a falfe idea; though indeed the falfehood lies not in the idea, but in that tacit mental propofition, wherein a conformity and refemblance is attributed to it, which it has not: But yet, if having framed fuch an idea in my mind, without thinking cither that existence, or the name Man or Tar

tar belongs to it, I will call it Man or Tartar, I may be justly thought fantaftical in the naming, but not erroneous in my judgment, nor the idea any way falfe.

$26. More properly to be called Right or Wrong. UPON the whole matter, I think that our ideas, as they are confidered by the mind, either in reference to the proper fignification of their names, or in reference to the reality of things, may very fitly be called right ar wrong ideas, according as they agree or difagree to those patterns to which they are referred: But if any one had rather call them true or falfe, it is fit he ufe a liberty, which every one has, to call things by thofe names he thinks beft; though in propriety of speech, truth or falfehood, will, I think, fcarce agree to them, but as they, fome way or other, virtually contain in them some mental propofition. The ideas that are in a man's mind, fimply confidered, cannot be wrong, unless complex ones, wherein inconfiftent parts are jumbled together: All other ideas are in themselves right, and the knowledge about them right and true knowledge; but when we come to refer them to any thing, as to their patterns and archetypes, then they are capable of being wrong, as far as they disagree with fuch archetypes.

CHAP. XXXIII.

OF THE ASSOCIATION OF IDEAS.

1. Something unreasonable in moft Men.

HERE is fcarce any one that does not obferve

felf really extravagant in the opinions, reafonings and actions of other men. The leaft flaw of this kind, if at all different from his own, every one is quick-fighted enough to efpy in another, and will by the authority of reafon forwardly condemn, though he be guilty of much greater unreasonableness in his own tenets and conduct, which he never perceives and will very hardly, if at all, be convinced of.

i

§ 2. Not wholly from Self-love.

THIS proceeds not wholly from felf-love, though that has often a great hand in it. Men of fair minds, and not given up to the over-weening of felf-flattery, are frequently guilty of it; and in many cafes one with amazement hears the arguings, and is aftonished at the obftinacy of a worthy man, who yields not to the evidence of reafon, though laid before him as clear as daylight.

3. Nor from Education.

THIS fort of unreasonablenefs is ufually imputed to education and prejudice, and for the most part truly enough, though that reaches not the bottom of the disease, nor fhows diftinctly enough where it rifes, or wherein it lies. Education is often rightly affigned for the cause, and prejudice is a good general name for the thing itfelf; but yet I think he ought to look a little farther, who would trace this fort of madness to the root it fprings from, and fo explain it, as to fhow whence this flaw has its original in very fober and rational minds, and wherein it confists.

§ 4. A degree of Madness.

I SHALL be pardoned for calling it by fo harsh a name as madness, when it is confidered, that oppofition to reason. deferves that name, and is really madness; and there is scarce a man fo free from it, but that if he fhould always, on all occafions, argue or do as in fome cafes he conftantly does, would not be thought fitter for Bedlam than civil conversation. I do not here mean when he is under the power of an unruly paffion, but in the steady calm courfe of his life. That which will yet more apologife for this harsh name, and ungrateful imputation on the greatest part of mankind, is, that inquiring a little by the by into the nature of madness, B. II. C. II. § 13. Í found it to fpring from the very fame root, and to depend on the very fame caufe we are here fpeaking of. This confideration of the thing itself, at a time when I thought not the leaft on the subject which I am now treating of, fuggested it to me. And if this be a weaknefs to which all men are fo liable, if this be a taint VOL. II. F

which fo univerfally infects mankind, the greater care fhould be taken to lay it open under its due name, thereby to excite the greater care in its prevention and cure.

§ 5. From a wrong Connection of Ideas.

SOME of our ideas have a natural correfpondence and connection one with another: It is the office and excellency of our reafon to trace thefe, and hold them together in that union and correfpondence which is founded in their peculiar beings. Befides this, there is another connection of ideas wholly owing to chance or custom; Ideas that in themselves are not at all of kin, come to be fo united in fome mens minds, that it is very hard to separate them; they always keep in company, and the one no fooner at any time comes into the understanding, but its affociates appear with it, and if they are more than two, which are thus united, the whole gang, always infeparable, fhow themfelves together.

$6. This Connection how made.

THIS ftrong combination of ideas, not allied by nature, the mind makes in itself either voluntarily or by chance; and hence it comes in different men to be very different, according to their different inclinations, education, in-" terefts, &c. Cuftom fettles habits of thinking in the understanding, as well as of determining in the will, and of motions in the body; all which feems to be but trains of motion in the animal spirits, which once fet agoing, continue in the fame fteps they have been used to, which, by often treading, are worn into a smooth path, and the motion in it becomes eafy, and as it were natural. As far as we can comprehend thinking, thus ideas feem to be produced in our minds; or if they are not, this may ferve to explain their following one another in an habitual train, when once they are put into that track, as well as it does to explain such motions of the body. A musician ufed to any tune, will find, that let it but once begin in his head, the ideas of the feveral notes of it will follow one another orderly in his underftanding, without any care or attention, as regularly as his fingers move orderly over the keys of the organ to play out the tune he has begun, though his inattentive

thoughts be elsewhere a-wandering. Whether the natural caufe of these ideas, as well as of that regular dancing of his fingers, be the motion of his animal fpirits, I will not determine, how probable foever, by this instance, it appears to be fo; but this may help us a little to conceive of intellectual habits, and of the tying together of ideas.

$7. Some Antipathies an Effect of it.

THAT there are fuch affociations of them made by custom in the minds of most men, I think nobody will question, who has well confidered himself or others; and to this, perhaps, might be justly attributed most of the fympathies and antipathies obfervable in men, which work as ftrongly, and produce as regular effects as if they were natural, and are therefore called fo, though they at first had no other original but the accidental connection of two ideas, which either the ftrength of the first impreffion, or future indulgence, fo united, that they always afterwards kept company together in that man's mind, as if they were but one idea. I fay moft of the antipathies, I do not fay all, for fome of them are truly natural, depend upon our original conftitution, and are born with us; but a great part of those which are counted natural, would have been known to be from unheeded, though, perhaps, early impreffions, or wanton fancies at firft, which would have been acknowledged the original of them, if they had been warily obferved. A grown perfon furfeiting with honey, no fooner hears the name of it, but his fancy immediately carries fickness and qualms to his ftomach, and he cannot bear the very idea of it; other ideas of diflike, and ficknefs, and vomiting, prefently accompany it, and he is disturbed, but he knows from whence to date this weaknefs, and can tell how he got this indifpofition: Had this happened to him by an over-dofe of honey, when a child, all the fame effects would have followed, but the cause would have been mistaken, and the antipathy counted natural.

§ 8.

I MENTION this not out of any great neceffity there is in this prefent argument, to diftinguish nicely between