NOTE.-Page 64.

AGAINST this, that the materials of all our knowledge are suggested and furnished to the mind only by sensation and reflection, the bishop of Worcester makes use of the idea of substance in these words: "If the idea of substance be grounded upon plain and evident reason, then we must allow an idea of substance which comes not in by sensation or reflection; so we may be certain of something which we have not by those ideas."

To which our author answers: * "These words of your lordship's contain nothing that I see in them against me; for I never said, that the general idea of substance comes in by sensation and reflection, or that it is a simple idea of sensation or reflection, though it be ultimately founded in them; for it is a complex idea made up of the general idea of some thing or being with the relation of a support to accidents. For general ideas come not into the mind by sensation or reflection, but are the creatures or inventions of the understanding, as I think I have shown;† and also how the mind makes them from ideas which it has got by sensation and reflection; and as to the ideas of relation, how the mind forms them, and how they are derived from, and ultimately terminate in, ideas of sensation and reflection, I have likewise shown. "But that I may not be mistaken what I mean when I speak of ideas of sensation and reflection as the materials of all our knowledge, give me leave, my lord, to set down here a place or two out of my book to explain myself; as I thus speak of ideas of sensation and reflection :

"That these, when we have taken a full survey of them and their several modes, and the compositions made out of them, we shall find to contain all our whole stock of ideas, and we have nothing in our minds which did not come in one of those two ways.' This thought in another place I express thus: "These simple ideas, the materials of all our knowledge, are suggested and furnished to the mind, only by those two ways above-mentioned, viz. sensation and reflection.' § And again,

"These are the most considerable of those simple ideas which the mind has, and out of which is made all its other knowledge; all which it receives by the two fore-mentioned ways of sensation and reflection.' || And,

"Thus I have in a short draught given a view of our original ideas, from whence all the rest are derived, and of which they are made up.' ¶ "This and the like, said in other places, is what I have thought concerning ideas of sensation and reflection, as the foundation and materials of all our ideas, and consequently of all our knowledge: I have set down these particulars out of my book, that the reader, having a full view of my opinion herein, may the better see what in it is liable to your lordship's reprehension. For that your lordship is not very well satisfied with it, appears not only by the words under consideration, but by these also: 'But we are still told that our understanding can have no other ideas but either from sensation or reflection.' "Your lordship's argument, in the passage we are upon, stands thus: 'If the general idea of substance be grounded upon plain and evident reason, then we must allow an idea of substance which comes not in by sensation or reflection.' This is a consequence which, with submission, I think will not hold, because it is founded upon a supposition which I think will not hold; viz. that reason and ideas are inconsistent; for if that supposition be not true, then the general idea of substance may be grounded on plain and evident reason; and yet it will not follow from thence that it is not ultimately

* In his First Letter to the Bishop of Worcester, p. 35, &c. † Book iii. chap. iii.; book ii. chap. xxv. &c. xxviii. sect. 18. Book ii. chap. i. sect. 5. § Book ii. Book ii. chap. vii. sect. 10. Book ii. chap. xxi. sect. 73. F

chap. ii. sect. 2.

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

6

"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 the necessary connection 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 showed 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, 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 retail 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 that which your lordship means by the rational idea of substance,' 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.

6

6

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 existence 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 whichsoever of these it be meant I do not see how I am concerned in it."

CHAPTER 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; 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, tough and brittleare obvious enough.

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 want names. 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.

CHAPTER 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 insurmountable 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 moving 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 other, seems the idea most intimately connected with and essential to body, so as nowhere 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 farther, 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 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, as 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 another 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 other 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, protrusion and not-protrusion. And that men have ideas of space without body, their very disputes about a vacuum plainly demonstrate, as is showed in another place. As,

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