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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 every one 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 any one 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 con

from ideas which come in by sensation or reflection, and so cannot be said to come in by sensation or reflection.

"To explain myself, and clear my meaning in this matter, all the ideas of all the sensible qualities of a cherry, come into my mind by sensation; the ideas of perceiving, thinking, reasoning, knowing, &c. come into my mind by reflection. The ideas of these qualities and actions, or powers, are perceived by the mind, to be by themselves inconsistent with existence; or, as your lordship well expresses it, we find that we can have no true conception of any modes or accidents, but we must conceive a substratum, or subject, wherein they are, i. e. that they cannot exist or subsist of themselves.' Hence the mind perceives their necessary connexion with inherence, or being supported, which being a relative idea, superadded to the red colour in a cherry, or to thinking in a man, the mind frames the correlative idea of a support. For I never denied, that the mind could frame to itself ideas of relation, but have shewed the quite contrary in my chapters about relation. But because a relation cannot be founded in nothing, or be the relation of nothing, and the thing here related as a supporter, or a support, is not represented to the mind by any clear and distinct idea; therefore, the obscure and indistinct vague idea of thing, or something, is all that is left to be the positive idea, which has the relation of a support, or substratum, to modes or accidents; and that general indetermined idea of something, is, by the abstraction of the mind, derived also from the simple ideas of sensation and reflection; and thus the mind, from the positive simple ideas got by sensation and reflection, comes to the general relative idea of substance, which, without these positive simple ideas, it would never have.

"This your lordship (without giving by detail all the particular steps of the mind in this business) has well expressed in this more familiar way: We find we can have no true conception of any modes or accidents, but we must conceive a substratum, or subject, wherein they are; since it is a repugnancy to our conceptions of things, that modes or accidents should subsist by themselves.'

Hence your lordship calls it the rational idea of substance. And says, I grant, that by sensation and reflection we come to know the powers and properties of things; but our reason is satisfied that there must be something beyond these, because it is impossible that they should subsist by themselves;' so that if this be what your lordship means by rational idea of substances, I see nothing there is in it against what I have said, that it is founded on simple ideas of sensation or reflection, and that it is a very obscure idea.

"Your lordship's conclusion from your foregoing words, is, ' And so we may be certain of some things which we have not by those ideas;' which is a proposition, whose precise meaning your lordship will forgive me, if I profess, as it stands there, I do not understand. For it is uncertain to me, whether your lordship means, we may certainly know the exist ence of something, which we have not by those ideas; or certainly know the distinct properties of something, which we have not by those ideas; or certainly know the truth of some proposition, which we have not by those ideas; for to be certain of something, may signify either of these but in which soever of these it be meant, I do not see how I am concerned in it."

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clude, that a blind man hath ideas of colours, and a deaf man true distinct notions of sounds.

§ 3. 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 any one 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 but with four senses, the qualities then, which are the object 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 intelligent 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.

CHAP. III.

OF IDEAS OF ONE SENSE.

§ 1. Division of simple ideas.-The better to conceive the ideas we receive from sensation, it may not be amiss for us to consider them, in reference to the different ways whereby they make their approaches to our minds, and make themselves perceivable by us.

First, Then, there are some which come into our minds by one sense only.

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

Thirdly, Others that are had from reflection only.

Fourthly, There are some that make themselves way, and are suggested to the mind by all the ways of sensation and reflection.

We shall consider them apart, under these several heads.

First, There are some ideas which have admittance only through one sense, which is peculiarly adapted to receive them. Thus light and colours, as white, red, yellow, blue, with their several degrees or shades, and mixtures, as green, scarlet, purple, sea-green, and the rest, come in only by the eyes all kind of noises, sounds, and tones, only by the ears and the several tastes and smells, by the nose and palate. And if these organs, or the nerves which are the conduits to convey them from without to their audience in the brain, the mind's presence-room (as I may so call it), are any of them so disordered, 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 understanding.

The most considerable of those belonging to the touch, are heat, and cold, and solidity; all the rest, consisting almost wholly in the sensible configuration, as smooth and rough; or else more or less firm adhesion of the parts, as hard and soft, rough and brittle, are obvious enough.

want names.

§ 2. I think it will be needless to enumerate all the particular simple ideas belonging to each sense; nor indeed is it possible, if we would, there being a great many more of them belonging to most of the senses than we have names for. The variety of smells, which are as many almost, if not more, than species of bodies in the world, do most of them Sweet and stinking, commonly serve our turn for these ideas; which, in effect, is little more than to call them pleasing or displeasing; though the smell of a rose and violet, both sweet, are certainly very distinct ideas. Nor are the different tastes, that by our palates we receive ideas of, much better provided with names. Sweet, bitter, sour, harsh, and salt, are almost all the epithets we have to denominate that numberless variety of relishes, which are to be found distinct, not only in almost every sort of creatures, but in the different parts of the same plant, fruit, or animal. The same may be said of colours and sounds. I shall, therefore, in the account of simple ideas I am here giving, content myself to set down only such as are most material to our present purpose, or are in themselves less 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 solidity: which, therefore, I shall treat of in the next chapter.

CHAP. IV.

OF SOLIDITY.

§ 1. We receive this idea from touch.-The idea of solidity we receive by our touch: and it arises from the resistance which we find in body, to the entrance of any other body into the place it possesses, till it has left it. There is no idea which we receive more constantly from sensation than solidity. Whether we move, or rest, in what posture soever we are, we always feel something under us, that supports us, and hinders our farther sinking downwards; and the bodies which we daily handle, make us perceive, that whilst they remain between them they do, by an unsurmountable force, hinder the approach of the parts of our hands that press them. That which thus hinders the approach of two bodies, when they are moved one towards another, I call solidity. I will not dispute, whether this acceptation of the word solid be nearer to its original signification, than that which mathematicians use it in it suffices that I think the common notion of solidity will allow, if not justify, this use of it; but if any one think it better to call it impenetrability," he has my consent; only I have thought the term solidity the more proper to express this idea, not only because of its vulgar use in that sense, but also because it carries something more of positive in it than impenetrability, which is negative, and is, perhaps, more a consequence of solidity, than solidity itself. This, of all others,

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seems the idea most intimately connected with, and essential to, body, so as no where else to be found or imagined but only in matter. And though our senses take no notice of it, but in masses of matter, of a bulk sufficient to cause a sensation in us: yet the mind, having once got this idea from such grosser sensible bodies, traces it faither, and considers it, as well as figure, in the minutest particle of matter that can exist; and finds it inseparably inherent in body, wherever, or however modified.

§ 2. Solidity fills space. This is the idea which belongs to body, whereby we conceive it to fill space. The idea of which filling of space is, that where we imagine any space taken up by a solid substance, we conceive it so to possess it, that it excludes all other solid substances: and will for ever hinder any two other bodies, that move towards one another in a straight line, from coming to touch one another, unless it removes from between them in a line not parallel to that which they move in. This idea of it, the bodies which we ordinarily handle, sufficiently furnish us with.

§3. Distinct from space. This resistance, whereby it keeps other bodies out of the space which it possesses, is so great, that no force, how great soever, can surmount it. All the bodies in the world, pressing a drop of water on all sides, will never be able to overcome the resistance which it will make, soft as it is, to their approaching one another, till it be removed out of their way: whereby our idea of solidity is distinguished both from pure space, which is capable neither of resistance nor motion; and from the ordinary idea of hardness. For a man may conceive two bodies at a distance, so as they may approach one another, without touching or displacing any solid thing, till their superficies come to meet whereby I think, we have the clear idea of space without solidity. For (not to go so far as annihilation of any particular body) I ask, whether a man cannot have the idea of the motion of one single body alone, without any other succeeding immediately into its place? I think it is evident he can: the idea of motion in one body, no more including the idea of motion in another, than the idea of a square figure in one body, includes the idea of a square figure in another. I do not ask whether bodies do so exist, that the motion of one body cannot really be without the motion of another. To determine this either way is to beg the question for or against a vacuum. But my question is, whether one cannot have the idea of one body moved, whilst others are at rest? And, I think, this no one will deny; if so, then the place it deserted gives us the idea of pure space, without solidity, whereinto any other body may enter, without either resistance or protrusion of any thing. When the sucker in a pump is drawn, the space it filled in the tube is certainly the same, whether any body follows the motion of the sucker or no; nor does it imply a contradiction, that upon the motion of one body, another, that is only contiguous to it, should not follow it. The necessity of such a motion is built only on the supposition, that the world is full; but not on the distinct ideas of space and solidity; which are as different as resistance and not resistance, and protrusion and not protrusion. And that men have ideas of space without a body, their very disputes about a vacuum plainly demonstrate, as is shewed in another place.

§ 4. From hardness.-Solidity is hereby also differenced from hardness, in, that solidity consists in repletion, and so an utter exclusion of other bodies out of the space it possesses; but hardness, in a firm cohesion of the parts of matter, making up masses of a sensible bulk, so that the whole does not easily change its figure. And, indeed, hard and soft are names that we give to things, only in relation to the constitutions of our own bodies; that being generally called hard by us, which will put us to pain, sooner than change figure by the pressure of any part of our bodies; and that, on the contrary, soft, which changes the situation of its parts upon an easy and unpainful touch.

But this difficulty of changing the situation of the sensible parts amongst themselves or of the figure of the whole, gives no more solidity to the hardest body in the world, than to the softest; nor is an adamant one jot more solid than water. For though the two flat sides of two pieces of marble, will more easily approach each other, between which there is nothing but water or air, than if there be a diamond between them; yet it is not, that the parts of the diamond are more solid than those of water, or resist more; but because the parts of water being more easily separable from each other, they will, by a side motion, be more easily removed, and give way to the approach of the two pieces of marble but if they could be kept from making place by that side motion, they would eternally hinder the approach of these two pieces of marble, as much as the diamond; and it would be as impossible, by any force, to surmount their resistance, as to surmount the resistance of the parts of a diamond. The softest body in the world will as invincibly resist the coming together of any other two bodies, if it be not put out of the way, but remain between them, as the hardest that can be found or imagined. He that shall fill a yielding soft body well with air or water, will quickly find its resistance; and he that thinks that nothing but bodies that are hard can keep his hands from approaching one another, may be pleased to make a trial with the air inclosed in a foot-ball. The experiment, I have been told, was made at Florence, with a hollow globe of gold filled with water, and exactly closed, which farther shews the solidity of so soft a body as water; for the golden globe thus filled, being put into a press, which was driven by the extreme force of screws, the water made itself way through the pores of that very close metal, and finding no room for a nearer approach of its particles within, got to the outside, where it rose like a dew, and so fell in drops, before the sides of the globe could be made to yield to the violent compression of the engine that squeezed it.

§ 5. On solidity depend impulse, resistance, and protrusion.-By this idea of solidity, is the extension of body distinguished from the extension of space. The extension of body being nothing but the cohesion or continuity of solid, separable, moveable parts; and the extension of space, the continuity of unsolid, inseparable, and immoveable parts. Upon the solidity of bodies also depends their mutual impulse, resisttance, and protrusion. Of pure space then, and solidity, there are several (amongst which I confess myself one) who persuade themselves they have clear and distinct ideas and that they can think on space without any thing in it that resists, or is protruded by body. This is the idea of

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