1. There are some ideas which have admittance only through one sense; thus light and colors come in only by the eyes, sounds by the ears, tastes and smells by the nose and palate; and if these organs are any of them so disordered as not to perform their functions, the ideas have no other way of being perceived by the understanding. The most considerable of those belonging to the touch are heat, cold, and solidity, the rest consisting almost wholly in the sensible configuration, as smooth and rough, or the more or less firm adhesion of the parts, as hard, soft, rough, brittle.

It is needless, and would be impossible, to enumerate all the particular simple ideas belonging to each sense, there being more of them than we have names for. The variety of smells do most of them want names: sweet and stinking serve our turn for these ideas, though the smell of a rose and violet, both sweet, are distinct ideas. Nor are different tastes better provided with names; the same may be said of colors and sounds. I shall, therefore, set down only such as are most material to our present purpose.

CHAPTER IV.

Of Solidity.

The idea of solidity we receive from the touch; and it arises from the resistance which we find in a body to the entrance of any other body into the place it possesses. This is an idea which we constantly receive from sensation; for whether we move or rest, we always feel something that supports us. I have thought the term solidity' more proper to express this idea than impenetrability,' which is rather a consequence of solidity, than solidity itself. idea seems, of all others, most essential to body; and though the senses only notice it in masses of matter,

This

yet the mind, once having the idea, can trace it in the minutest particle.

This is the idea belonging to body, whereby we conceive it to fill space. The idea of a solid body filling space, is that it excludes all other solid substances, and will hinder two bodies from touching one another unless it remove from between them. All the bodies in the world will never be able to overcome the resistance which a drop of water will make to their approaching each other, till it be removed out of their way. Our idea of solidity is hereby distinguished from pure space, which is incapable of resistance or motion: for a man may conceive of two bodies approaching one another from a distance till they meet, without displacing any solid thing. Hence we have the idea of space.

Solidity also differs from hardness, which is 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. This cohesion of parts gives no more solidity to the hardest than to the softest body. Adamant is not more solid than water. The softest body in the world will as invincibly resist the coming together of any two other bodies, if it be not put out of the way, as the hardest. An experiment was made at Florence which showed the solidity of water for a golden globe filled with water being put into a press, which was driven by the extreme force of screws, the water made itself way through the pores of the metal before the globe would yield to the compression of the engine. Solidity, then, is the cohesion or continuity of solid, separable, moveable parts, and space is the continuity of unsolid, inseparable, and immoveable parts. Of pure space and solidity there are several (among whom 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 hat resists or is protruded by body, as well as on something that fills space, that can be protruded by the impulse of other bodies, or resist their motion; the idea of the distance between the opposite parts of a concave surface, being equally clear without, as with the idea of any solid parts between. If any one ask what solidity is, I send him to his senses to inform him. Let him put a flint or a football between his hands, and then endeavor to join them, and he will know.

CHAPTER V.

Of simple Ideas of divers Senses.

The ideas we get by more than one sense are of space or extension, figure, rest, and motion, for these we can receive both by seeing and feeling.

CHAPTER VI.

Of simple Ideas of Reflection.

The mind having received ideas from without, when it observes its actions about those ideas, takes from thence other ideas. The principal actions of the mind are perception or thinking, and volition. The power of thinking is called the understanding, the power of volition, the will. These two are denominated faculties.

CHAPTER VII.

Of simple Ideas, both of Sensation and Reflection.

There are other simple ideas conveyed into the mind by all the ways of sensation and reflection, viz. pleasure, pain, power, existence, unity. There is scarcely a sensation or a thought which is not able to produce pleasure or pain. By pleasure and pain I mean whatever delights or molests us, whether it arises from the thoughts of our minds, or any thing operating on our bodies.

Locke.

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The wise Author of our being having given us power over several parts of our bodies to move or keep them at rest, and by their motion to move ourselves and contiguous bodies; having also given a power to our minds to choose amongst its ideas, on which it will think; to excite us to these actions of thinking and motion, he has joined to several thoughts and sensations a perception of delight. Without this we should have no reason to prefer one thought or action to another, or motion to rest: in which state man, however furnished with the faculties of understanding and will, would be an idle and unactive

creature.

Pain has the same efficacy to set us on work that pleasure has; and pain is often produced by the same objects and ideas that produce pleasure: thus heat, which is agreeable in one degree, by a greater increase of it produces torment; and light itself, increased beyond a due proportion, causes a very painful sensation. Which is wisely so ordered by nature, that when any object disorders the instruments of sensation, we might by pain be warned to withdraw, before the organ be quite unfitted for its proper functions. We may find also another reason why God hath scattered several degrees of pleasure and pain in all the things that environ and affect us; that we, finding the imperfection of earthly happiness, might be led to seek it in the enjoyment of him, with whom there is fulness of joy, and at whose right hand are pleasures for evermore.'

Existence and unity are two other ideas that are suggested to the understanding by every object without, and every idea within. Power is another simple idea received from sensation and reflection; by observing that we can move our own bodies at pleasure, and that natural bodies are constantly producing effects in one another.

Succession is another idea, which, though suggested by the senses, is more constantly offered to us by what

passes in our own minds; for while we are awake or have any thought, we shall find our ideas passing in train.

These, if not all, are at least the most considerable of those simple ideas which we receive from sensation and reflection, and out of which is derived all our other knowlege. Nor will it be so strange to think these few simple ideas sufficient to furnish the materials of all the various knowlege of mankind, if we consider how many words may be made out of 24 letters.

CHAPTER VIII.

Some farther Considerations concerning our simple Ideas.

Whatever is able by affecting our senses to cause a perception in the mind, produces in the understanding a simple idea, which is considered a real positive idea, though the cause of it be a privation in the subject. Thus the ideas of heat and cold, light and darkness, white and black, motion and rest, are equally positive, though some of their causes may be privations. An inquiry into their causes concerns not the idea as it is in the understanding, but the nature of the thing existing without us. A painter or dyer has the ideas of white and black as distinctly in his understanding as a philosopher who has busied himself in considering their natures. If I were inquiring into the natural causes of perception, I should offer this as a reason why a privative cause may produce a positive idea that all sensation being produced in us by different degrees and modes of motion in our animal spirits, variously agitated by external objects, the abatement of any former motion must as necessarily produce a new idea as the variation or increase of it. Does not the shadow of a man, which is but the absence of light, cause as clear an idea in the mind as a man himself? Indeed, we have negative names which stand for the absence of positive ideas,

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