as thereby to produce in me the idea of light or heat; and, in the other, it is able fo to alter the bulk, figure, texture, or motion of the infenfible parts of the wax, as to make them fit to produce in me the distinct ideas of white and fluid.

$25.

THE reason why the one are ordinarily taken for real qualities, and the other only for bare powers, feems to be, becaufe the ideas we have of diftinct colours, founds, &c. containing nothing at all in them of bulk, figure, or motion, we are not apt to think them the effects of these primary qualities, which appear not, to our fenfes, to operate in their production; and with which they have not any apparent congruity, or conceivable connection. Hence it is that we are fo forward to imagine, that those ideas are the resemblances of fomething really exifting in the objects themfelves; fince fenfation dif covers nothing of bulk, figure, or motion of parts in their production; nor can reason fhow how bodies, by their bulk, figure, and motion, fhould produce in the mind the ideas of blue or yellow, &c. But in the other cafe, in the operations of bodies, changing the qualities one of another, we plainly discover, that the quality produced hath commonly no resemblance with any thing in the thing producing it; wherefore we look on it as a bare effect of power. For though receiving the idea of heat, or light, from the fun, we are apt to think it is a perception and resemblance of fuch a quality in the fun; yet when we fee wax, or a fair face, receive change of colour from the fun, we cannot imagine that to be the perception or resemblance of any thing in the fun, because we find not those different colours in the fun itself. For our fenfes being able to observe a likeness or unlikeness of fenfible qualities in two different external objects, we forwardly enough conclude the production of any fenfible quality in any fubject to be an effect of bare power, and not the communication of any quality, which was really in the efficient, when we find no fuch fenfible quality in the thing that produced it. But our fenfes, not being able to discover any unlikeness between

the idea produced in us, and the quality of the object producing it, we are apt to imagine, that our ideas are refemblances of fomething in the objects, and not the effects of certain powers placed in the modification of their primary qualities; with which primary qualities the ideas produced in us have no resemblance.

$26. Secondary Qualities twofold; Firft, immediately perceivable; Secondly, mediately perceivable. To conclude, befides those before mentioned primary qualities in bodies, viz. bulk, figure, extension, number, and motion of their folid parts; all the reft, whereby we take notice of bodies, and distinguish them one from another, are nothing elfe but feveral powers in them depending on those primary qualities; whereby they are fitted, either by immediately operating on our bodies, to produce feveral different ideas in us; or elfe by operating on other bodies, fo to change their primary qualities, as to render them capable of producing ideas The forus, different from what before they did. mer of thefe, I think, may be called fecondary qualities, "immediately perceivable: the latter fecondary qualities, mediately perceivable.

in

CHAP. IX.

OF PERCEPTION.

1. Perception the first simple Idea of Reflection. PERCEPTION, as it is the firft faculty of the mind, exercifed about our ideas; fo it is the first and fimpleft idea we have from reflection, and is by fome called thinking in general. Though thinking, in the propriety of the English tongue, fignifies that fort of operation of the mind about its ideas, wherein the mind is active; where it, with fome degree of voluntary attention, confiders any thing. For in bare naked perception, the mind is, for the most part, only paffive; and what it perceives, it cannot avoid perceiving.

§2. Is only when the Mind receives the impreffion. WHAT perception is, every one will know better by reflecting on what he does himself, what he fees, hears,

feels, &c. or thinks, than by any difcourfe of mine. Whoever reflects on what paffes in his own mind, cannot mifs it and if he does not reflect, all the words in the world cannot make him have any notion of it.

:

$ 3.

THIS is certain, that whatever alterations are made in the body, if they reach not the mind; whatever impreffions are made on the outward parts, if they are not taken notice of within; there is no perception. Fire may burn our bodies, with no other effect than it does a billet, unless the motion be continued to the brain; and there the fenfe of heat, or idea of pain, be produced in the mind, wherein consists actual percep

tion.

$ 4.

How often may a man observe in himself, that whilft his mind is intently employed in the contemplation of fome objects, and curiously furveying fome ideas that are there, it takes no notice of impreffions of founding bodies made upon the organ of hearing, with the fame alteration that ufes to be for the producing the idea of found? A fufficient impulfe there may be on the organ; but it not reaching the obfervation of the mind, there follows no perception: and though the motion that ufes to produce the idea of found, be made in the ear, yet no found is heard. Want of fenfation, in this cafe, is not through any defect in the organ, or that the man's ears are lefs affected than at other times when he does hear: but that which uses to produce the idea, though conveyed in by the ufual organ, not being taken notice of in the understanding, and fo imprinting no idea in the mind, there follows no fenfation. that wherever there is fenfe, or perception, there fome idea is actually produced, and prefent in the understanding.

§ 5. Children though they have Ideas in the Womb, have none Innate.

THEREFORE I doubt not but children, by the exercife of their fenfes about objects that affect them in the womb, receive fome few ideas before they are born; as the unavoidable effects, either of the bodies that environ them, VOL. I.

Q

or elfe of thofe wants or difeafes they fuffer: among which (if one may conjecture concerning things not very capably of examination) I think the ideas of hunger and warmth are two; wl ich probably are fome of the firft that children have, and which they fearce ever part with again.

6.

BUT though it be reafonable to imagine that children receive fome ideas before they come into the world; yet these fimple ideas are far from those innate principles which fome contend for, and we above have rejected. These here mentioned being the effects of fenfation, are only from fomne affections of the body, which hap pens to them there, and fo depend on fomething exterior to the mind; no otherwife differing in their manner of production from other ideas derived from fenfe, but only in the precedency of time; whereas thofe innate principles are fuppofed to be quite of another nature; not coming into the mind by any accidental alterations in, or operations on, the body; but, as it were, original characters impreffed upon it, in the very first moment of its being and conftitution.

§ 7. Which Ideas firft, is not evident.

As there are fome ideas which we may reafonably fuppofe may be introduced into the minds of children in the womb, fubfervient to the neceffities of their life and being there; fo after they are born, thofe ideas are the earliest imprinted, which happen to be the fenfible qualities which firft occur to them; amongft which light is not the leaft confiderable, nor of the weakeft efficacy. And how covetous the mind is to be furnished with all fuch ideas as have no pain accompanying them, may be little gueffed, by what is obfervable in children newborn, who always turn their eyes to that part from whence the light comes, lay them how you pleafe. But the ideas that are moft familiar at first being various, according to the divers circumftances of children's firft entertainment in the world; the order wherein the feveral ideas come at firft into the mind is

very various and uncertain alfo; neither is it much material to know it.

8. Ideas of Senfation often changed by the Judgment. We are further to confider concerning perception, that the ideas we receive by fenfation are often in grown people altered by the judgment, without our taking notice of it. When we fet before our eyes a round globe, of any uniform colour, v. g. gold, alabafter, or jet; it is certain that the idea thereby imprinted in our mind, is of a flat circle variously fhadowed, with feveral degrees of light and brightness coming to our eyes. But we having by use been accustomed to perceive what kind of appearance convex bodies are wont to make in us, what alterations are made in the reflections of light by the difference of the fenfible figures of bodies; the judgment prefently, by an habitual cuftom, alters the appearances into their caufes; fo that from that which truly is variety of fhadow or colour, collecting the fig

it makes it pafs for a mark of figure, and frames to itself the perception of a convex figure and an uniform colour; when the idea we receive from thence is only a plane variously coloured, as is evident in painting. To which purpofe I fhall here infert a problem of that very ingenious and ftudious promoter of real knowledge, the learned and worthy Mr. Molineux, which he was pleased to send me in a letter fome months fince; and it is this: Suppofe a man born blind, and now adult, and taught by his touch to diftinguish between a 2.cube and a sphere of the fame metal, and nighly of the fame bignefs, fo as to tell, when he felt one and the other, which is the cube, which the sphere. Suppose then the cube and fphere placed on a table, and the blind man to be made to fee: Query, Whether by his fight before he touched them, he could now diftinguish and tell, which is the globe, which the cube? To which the acute and judicious propofer an fwers: Not. For though he has obtained the experience of, how a globe, how a cube affects his touch; yet he has not yet attained the experience, that that which affects his touch fo or fo, muft affect his fight fo or fo; or that a protuberant angle in the cube, that preffed his hand unequally, fall ap

t