often begotten from flight and almost innocent occafions, and quar els propagated and continued in the world.

§ 12.

A MAN has fuffered pain or fickness in any place; he faw his friend die in such a room; though thefe have in nature nothing to do one with another, yet when the idea of the place occurs to his mind, it brings (the impreffion being once made) that of the pain and difpleafure with it; he confounds them in his mind, and can as little bear the one as the other.

13. Why Time cures fome Disorders in the Mind which Reafon cannot.

WHEN this combination is fettled, and whilst it lasts, it is not in the power of reason to help us, and relieve us from the effects of it. Ideas in our minds, when they are there, will operate according to their natures and circumstances; and here we fee the cause why time cures certain affections, which reason, though in the right, and allowed to be fo, has not power over, nor is able against them to prevail with those who are apt to hearken to it in other cafes. The death of a child, that was the daily delight of his mother's eyes, and joy of her foul, rends from her heart the whole comfort of her life, and gives her all the torment imaginable; use the confolations of reafon in this cafe, and you were as good preach eafe to one on the rack, and hope to allay, by rational difcourfes, the pain of his joints tearing afunder. Till time has by difufe feparated the fenfe of that enjoyment, and its lofs. from the idea of the child returning to her memory, all representations, though ever fo reafonable, are in vain; and therefore fome in whom the union between these ideas is never diffolved, fpend their lives in mourning,, and carry an incurable forrow to their graves.

14. Farther Inflances of the Effect of the Affociation

of Ideas.

A FRIEND of mine knew one perfectly cured of madness, by a very harsh and offenfive operation: The gentleman, who was thus recovered, with great fenfe of gra titude and acknowledgment, owned the cure all his life after, as the greatest obligation he could have received;

but whatever gratitude and reafon fuggefted to him, he could never bear the fight of the operator; that image brought back with it the idea of that agony which he fuffered from his hands, which was too mighty and intolerable for him to endure.

§ 15.

MANY children, imputing the pain they endured at fchool to their books they were corrected for, so join thofe ideas together, that a book becomes their averfion, and they are never reconciled to the study and use of them all their lives after; and thus reading becomes a torment to them, which otherwife poffibly they might have made the greatest pleasure of their lives. There are rooms convenient enough, that fome men cannot study in, and fashions of veffels, which though ever so clean and commodious, they cannot drink out of, and that by reafon of fome accidental ideas which are annexed to them, and make them offenfive; and who is there that hath not cbferved fome man to flag at the appearance, or in the company of fome certain perfon not otherwife fuperior to him, but becaufe having once on fome occafion got the afcendant, the idea of authority and diftance goes along with that of the perfon, and he that has been thus fubjected, is not able to feparate them?

§ 16.

INSTANCES of this kind are fo plentiful every where, that if I add one more, it is only for the pleafant oddness of it: It is of a young gentleman, who having learned to dance, and that to great perfection, there happened to stand an old trunk in the room where he learned. The idea of this remarkable piece of household-ftuff, had so. mixed itself with the turns and fteps of all his dances, that though in that chamber he could dance excellently well, yet it was only whilft that trunk was there; nor could he perform well in any other place, unless that or fome fuch other trunk had its due pofition in the room. If this story fhall be fufpected to be dreffed up with fome comical circumftances, a little beyond precife nature, I answer for myself, that I had it fome years fince from a very fober and worthy man, upon his own know

ledge, as I report it, and I dare fay, there are very few inquifitive perfons, who read this, who have not met with accounts, if not examples of this nature, that may parallel, or at leaft juftify this.

§ 17. Its Influence on intellectual Habits. INTELLECTUAL habits and defects this way contracted, are not lefs frequent and powerful, though lefs obferved. Let the ideas of being and matter be strongly joined, either by education or much thought, whilst these are still combined in the mind, what notions, what reafonings will there be about separate fpirits? Let custom from the very childhood have joined figure and shape to the ideas of God, and what abfurdities will that mind be liable to about the Deity?

Let the idea of infallibility be infeparably joined to any person, and these two conftantly together poffefs the mind, and then one body in two places at once, fhall, unexamined, be fwallowed for a certain truth, by an implicit faith, whenever that imagined infallible perfon dictates and demands affent without inquiry.

§ 18. Obfervable in different Sects.

SOME fuch wrong and unnatural combinations of ideas will be found to establish the irreconcileable oppofition between different fects of philofophy and religion; for we cannot imagine every one of their followers to impofe wilfully on himself, and knowingly refuse truth offered by plain reafon. Intereft, though it does a great deal in the cafe, yet cannot be thought to work whole focieties of men to fo univerfal a perverfenefs, as that every one of them, to a man, fhould knowingly maintain falfehood; fome at leaft muft be allowed to do what all pretend to, i. e. to pursue truth fincerely; and therefore there must be fomething that blinds their underftandings, and makes them not fee the falfehood of what they embrace for real truth. That which thus captivates their reafons, and leads men of fincerity blindfold from common fenfe, will, when examined, be found to be what we are speaking of. Some independent ideas, of no alliance to one another, are by education, cuftom, and the conftant din of their party, fo coupled in their

minds, that they always appear there together, and they can no more feparate them in their thoughts, than if they were but one idea, and they operate as if they were fo. This gives fenfe to jargon, demonstration to abfurdities, and confiftency to nonfenfe, and is the foundation of the greateft, I had almost faid of all the errors in the world; or if it does not reach so far, it is at least the most dangerous one, fince fo far as it obtains, it hinders men from feeing and examining. When two things in themselves disjoined, appear to the fight conftantly united, if the eye fees these things rivetted which are loofe, where will you begin to rectify the mistakes that follow in two ideas, that they have been accustomed fo to join in their minds, as to substitute one for the other, and, as I am apt to think, often without perceiving it themselves? This, whilft they are under the deceit of it, makes them incapable of conviction, and they applaud themselves as zealous champions for truth, when indeed they are contending for error; and the confufion of two different ideas, which a cuftomary connection of them in their minds hath to them made in effect but one, fills their heads with false views, and their reasonings with falfe confequences.

19. Conclufion.

HAVING thus given an account of the original, forts and extent of our ideas, with feveral other confiderations about these (I know not whether I may fay) inftruments or materials of our knowledge, the method I at first propofed to myself, would now require that I fhould immediately proceed to fhow what use the understanding makes of them, and what knowledge we have by them. This was that which, in the first general view I had of this fubject, was all that I thought I should have to do; but upon a nearer approach, I find that there is so close a connection between ideas and words, and our abstract ideas, and general words have fo conftant a relation one to another, that it is impoffible to speak clearly and diftinctly of our knowledge, which all confifts in propofitions, without confidering firft the nature, ufe and fignification of language; which therefore must be the bufinefs of the next book.

BOOK III.-CHAP. I.

OF WORDS OR LANGUAGE IN GENERAL.

§ 1. Man fitted to form articulate Sounds. YOD having defigned man for a fociable creature,

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made him not only with an inclination, and under a neceflity to have fellowship with thofe of his own kind, but furnished him alfo with language, which was to be the great inftrument and common tie of fociety. Man therefore had by nature his organs fo fafhioned, as to be fit to frame articulate founds, which we call words: But this was not enough to produce language; for parrots, and feveral other birds, will be taught to make articulate founds diftinct enough, which yet by no means are capable of language.

§ 2. To make them Signs of Ideas.

BESIDES articulate founds therefore, it was farther ne ceffary, that he should be able to use these founds as figns of internal conceptions, and to make them ftand as marks. for the ideas within his own mind, whereby they might be made known to others, and the thoughts of mens minds be conveyed from one to another.

3. To make general Signs.

BUT neither was this fufficient to make words fo useful as they ought to be. It is not enough for the perfection of language, that founds can be made figns of ideas, unlefs thofe figns can be fo made ufe of, as to comprehend feveral particular things; for the multiplication of words. would have perplexed their ufe, had every particular thing need of a distinct name to be fignified by. To remedy this inconvenience, language had yet a farther improvement in the ufe of general terms, whereby one word was made to mark a multitude of particular exiftences; which advantageous ufe of founds was obtained only by the difference of the ideas they were made figus. of; thofe names becoming general, which are made to