objects do effect them; and thus we come by those ideas we have of 'yellow,' 'white,' 'heat,' 'cold,' 'soft,' ‘hard,' 'bitter,' 'sweet,' and all those which we call Sensible Qualities: which when I say the senses convey into the mind, I mean-they from external objects convey into the mind what produces there those perceptions. This great source of most of the ideas we have, depending wholly upon our senses, and derived by them to the Understanding, I call-SENSATION.

The operations of our minds the other source of them.— Secondly, The other fountain from which experience furnishes the Understanding with ideas is the Perception of the operations of our own minds within us, as it is employed about the ideas it has got; which operations, when the soul comes to reflect on and consider [them], do furnish the Understanding with another set of ideas which could not be had from things without; and such are Perception, Thinking, Doubting, Believing, Reasoning, Knowing, Willing, and all the different actings of our own minds; which we being conscious of, and observing in ourselves, do from these receive into our Understandings as distinct ideas as we do from bodies affecting our This source of ideas every man has wholly in himself; and though it be not Sense, as having nothing to do with external objects, yet it is very like it, and might properly enough be called Internal Sense. But as I call the other sensation, so I call this-REFLECTION; the ideas it affords being such only as the mind gets by reflecting on its own operations within itself. By Reflection, then, in the following part of this discourse, I would be understood to mean- -That notice which the

senses.

mind takes of its own operations and the manner of them; by reason whereof there come to be ideas of these operations in the Understanding. The term "operations" here I use in a large sense, as comprehending not barely the actions of the mind about its ideas, but some sort of passions arising sometimes from them, such as is the satisfaction or uneasiness arising from any thought.

All our ideas are of the one or the other of these.-Let any one examine his own thoughts, and thoroughly search into his Understanding, and then let him tell me, whether all the original ideas he has there are any other than of the objects of his Senses, or of the operations of his mind considered as objects of his Reflection; and how great a mass of Knowledge soever he imagines to be lodged there, he will, upon taking a strict view, see that he has not any idea in his mind but what one of these two have imprinted, though perhaps with infinite variety Compounded, and Enlarged by the Understanding, as we shall see hereafter.

Observable in children. -He that attentively considers the state of a child at his first coming into the world, will [observe that] it is by degrees he comes to be furnished with ideas; and though the ideas of obvious and familiar qualities imprint themselves before the Memory begins to keep a register of time or order, yet it is often so late before some unusual qualities come in the way, that there are few men that cannot recollect the beginning of their acquaintance with them: and, ifit were worth while, no doubt a child might be so ordered as to have but a very few even of the ordinary ideas till he were grown up to a man. But all that are born into the world, being sur

rounded with bodies that perpetually and diversely affect them, variety of ideas, whether care be taken or [not], are imprinted on the minds of children. Light and colours are busy at hand everywhere when the eye is but open; sounds and some tangible qualities fail not to solicit their proper senses, and force an entrance to the mind; but yet, I think it will be granted easily, that if a child were kept in a place where he never saw any other but black and white till he were a man, he would have no more idea of scarlet or green, than he that from his childhood never tasted an oyster or a pine-apple has of those particular relishes.

Men are differently furnished with these, according to the different objects they converse with.-Men, then, come to be furnished with fewer or more simple ideas from without, according as the objects they converse with afford greater or less variety; and from the operations of their minds within, according as they more or less reflect on them. For, though he that contemplates the operations of his mind cannot but have plain and clear ideas of them; yet, unless he turn his thoughts that way, and consider them attentively, he will no more have clear and distinct ideas of all the operations of his mind, and all that may be observed therein, than he will have of all the particular ideas of any landscape, or of the parts and motions of a clock, who will not turn his eyes to it, and with attention heed all the parts of it. The picture [and] clock may be so placed, that they may come in his way every day; but yet he will have but a confused idea of all the parts they are made up of, till he applies himself with attention to consider them each in particular.

Ideas of reflection later, because they need attention.And hence we see the reason why it is pretty late before most children get ideas of the operations of their own minds; and some have not any very clear or perfect ideas of the greatest part of them all their lives. The first years are usually employed and diverted in looking abroad. Men's business in them is to acquaint themselves with what is to be found without; and so, growing up in a constant attention to outward sensations, seldom make any considerable reflection on what passes within them, till they come to be of riper years; and some scarce ever at all.

The soul begins to have ideas when it begins to perceive. -To ask at what time a man has first any ideas is to ask when he begins to perceive; having ideas, and perception, being the same thing. I know it is an opinion, that the soul always thinks; and that it has the actual perception of ideas in itself constantly, as long as it exists; and that actual Thinking is as inseparable from the soul, as actual Extension is from the body: which if true, to inquire after the beginning of a man's ideas, is the same as to inquire after the beginning of his soul. For, by this account, Soul and its ideas, as Body and its extension, will begin to exist both at the same time.

[But] he that will suffer himself to be informed by observation and experience, and not make his own hypothesis the rule of nature, will find few signs of a soul accustomed to much thinking in a new-born child, and much fewer of any reasoning at all. And yet it is hard to imagine, that the rational Soul should think so much, and not reason at all.

Follow a child from its birth, and observe the alterations that time makes, and you shall find, as the mind by the senses comes more and more to be furnished with ideas, it comes to be more and more awake, thinks more the more it has matter to think on. After some time it begins to know the objects which, being most familiar with it, have made lasting impressions. Thus it comes by degrees to know the persons it daily converses with, and distinguish them from strangers; which are instances and effects of its coming to retain and distinguish the ideas the senses convey to it: and so we may observe how the mind, by degrees, improves in these, and advances to the exercise of those other faculties of Enlarging, Compounding, and Abstracting its ideas, and of reasoning about them, and Reflecting upon all these; of which I shall have occasion to speak more hereafter.

If it shall be demanded, then, when a man begins to have any ideas? I think, the true answer is, When he first has any Sensation. For since there appear not to be any ideas in the mind before the senses have conveyed any in, I conceive that ideas in the Understanding are coeval with Sensation, which is such an impression or motion made in some part of the body as produces some perception in the Understanding. It is about these impressions, made on our senses by outward objects, that the mind seems first to employ itself in such operations as we call Perception, Remembering, Consideration, Reasoning, &c.

In the reception of simple ideas the understanding is for the most part passive.-In this part the Understanding is merely passive; and whether or no it will have these be