1. Idea is the object of thinking. Every man being conscious to himself that he thinks; and that which
his mind is applied about whilst thinking being the ideas that are there, it is past doubt that men
have in their minds several ideas,--such as are those expressed by the words whiteness, hardness,
sweetness, thinking, motion, man, elephant, army, drunkenness, and others: it is in the first place
then to be inquired, How he comes by them?
I know it is a received doctrine, that men have native ideas, and original characters, stamped upon
their minds in their very first being. This opinion I have at large examined already; and, I suppose
what I have said in the foregoing Book will be much more easily admitted, when I have shown
whence the understanding may get all the ideas it has; and by what ways and degrees they may
come into the mind;--for which I shall appeal to every one's own observation and experience.
2. All ideas come from sensation or reflection. Let us then suppose the mind to be, as we say, white
paper, void of all characters, without any ideas:--How comes it to be furnished? Whence comes it by
that vast store which the busy and boundless fancy of man has painted on it with an almost endless
variety? Whence has it all the materials of reason and knowledge? To this I answer, in one word,
from Experience. In that all our knowledge is founded; and from that it ultimately derives itself. Our
observation employed either, about external sensible objects, or about the internal operations of our
minds perceived and reflected on by ourselves, is that which supplies our understandings with all
the materials of thinking. These two are the fountains of knowledge, from whence all the ideas we
have, or can naturally have, do spring.
3. The objects of sensation one source of ideas. First, our Senses, conversant about particular
sensible objects, do convey into the mind several distinct perceptions of things, according to those
various ways wherein those objects do affect them. And thus we come by those ideas we have of
yellow, white, heat, cold, soft, hard, bitter, sweet, and al 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.
4. The operations of our minds, the other source of them. Secondly, the other fountain from which
experience furnisheth the understanding with ideas is,--the perception of the operations of our own
mind within us, as it is employed about the ideas it has got;--which operations, when the soul comes
to reflect on and consider, 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 senses. 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 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. These two, I say, viz., external material things,
as the objects of Sensation, and the operations of our own minds within, as the objects of
Reflection, are to me the only originals from whence all our ideas take their beginnings. 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.
5. All our ideas are of the one or the other of these. The understanding seems to me not to have the
least glimmering of any ideas which it doth not receive from one of these two. External objects
furnish the mind with the ideas of sensible qualities, which are all those different perceptions they
produce in us; and the mind furnishes the understanding with ideas of its own operations.
These, when we have taken a full survey of them, and their several modes, combinations, and
relations, we shall find to contain all our whole stock of ideas; and that we have nothing in our minds
which did not come in one of these two ways. 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.
6. Observable in children. He that attentively considers the state of a child, at his first coming into
the world, will have little reason to think him stored with plenty of ideas, that are to be the matter of
his future knowledge. It is by degrees he comes to be furnished with them. 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 if it 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 surrounded with bodies that
perpetually and diversely affect them, variety of ideas, whether care be taken of it 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 ideas
of scarlet or green, than he that from his childhood never tasted an oyster, or a pine-apple, has of
those particular relishes.
7. 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 considers 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 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, or 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.
8. 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. Because, though they pass
there continually, yet, like floating visions, they make not deep impressions enough to leave in their
mind clear, distinct, lasting ideas, till the understanding turns inward upon itself, reflects on its own
operations, and makes them the objects of its own contemplation. Children when they come first
into it, are surrounded with a world of new things, which, by a constant solicitation of their senses,
draw the mind constantly to them; forward to take notice of new, and apt to be delighted with the
variety of changing objects. Thus 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.
9. 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.
10. The soul thinks not always; for this wants proofs. But whether the soul be supposed to exist
antecedent to, or coeval with, or some time after the first rudiments of organization, or the
beginnings of life in the body, I leave to be disputed by those who have better thought of that matter.
I confess myself to have one of those dull souls, that doth not perceive itself always to contemplate
ideas; nor can conceive it any more necessary for the soul always to think, than for the body always
to move: the perception of ideas being (as I conceive) to the soul, what motion is to the body; not its
essence, but one of its operations. And therefore, though thinking be supposed never so much the
proper action of the soul, yet it is not necessary to suppose that it should be always thinking, always
in action. That, perhaps, is the privilege of the infinite Author and Preserver of all things, who "never
slumbers nor sleeps;" but is not competent to any finite being, at least not to the soul of man. We
know certainly, by experience, that we sometimes think; and thence draw this infallible
consequence,--that there is something in us that has a power to think. But whether that substance
perpetually thinks or no, we can be no further assured than experience informs us. For, to say that
actual thinking is essential to the soul, and inseparable from it, is to beg what is in question, and not
to prove it by reason;--which is necessary to be done, if it be not a self-evident proposition. But
whether this, "That the soul always thinks," be a self-evident proposition, that everybody assents to
at first hearing, I appeal to mankind. It is doubted whether I thought at all last night or no. The
question being about a matter of fact, it is begging it to bring, as a proof for it, an hypothesis, which
is the very thing in dispute: by which way one may prove anything, and it is but supposing that all
watches, whilst the balance beats, think, and it is sufficiently proved, and past doubt, that my watch
thought all last night. But he that would not deceive himself, ought to build his hypothesis on matter
of fact, and make it out by sensible experience, and not presume on matter of fact, because of his
hypothesis, that is, because he supposes it to be so; which way of proving amounts to this, that I
must necessarily think all last night, because another supposes I always think, though I myself
cannot perceive that I always do so.
But men in love with their opinions may not only suppose what is in question, but allege wrong
matter of fact. How else could any one make it an inference of mine, that a thing is not, because we
are not sensible of it in our sleep? I do not say there is no soul in a man, because he is not sensible
of it in his sleep; but I do say, he cannot think at any time, waking or sleeping: without being sensible
of it. Our being sensible of it is not necessary to anything but to our thoughts; and to them it is; and
to them it always will be necessary, till we can think without being conscious of it.
11. It is not always conscious of it. I grant that the soul, in a waking man, is never without thought,
because it is the condition of being awake. But whether sleeping without dreaming be not an
affection of the whole man, mind as well as body, may be worth a waking man's consideration; it
being hard to conceive that anything should think and not be conscious of it. If the soul doth think in
a sleeping man without being conscious of it, I ask whether, during such thinking, it has any
pleasure or pain, or be capable of happiness or misery? I am sure the man is not; no more than the
bed or earth he lies on. For to be happy or miserable without being conscious of it, seems to me
utterly inconsistent and impossible. Or if it be possible that the soul can, whilst the body is sleeping,
have its thinking, enjoyments, and concerns, its pleasures or pain, apart, which the man is not
conscious of nor partakes in,--it is certain that Socrates asleep and Socrates awake is not the same
person; but his soul when he sleeps, and Socrates the man, consisting of body and soul, when he is
waking, are two persons: since waking Socrates has no knowledge of, or concernment for that
happiness or misery of his soul, which it enjoys alone by itself whilst he sleeps, without perceiving
anything of it; no more than he has for the happiness or misery of a man in the Indies, whom he
knows not. For, if we take wholly away all consciousness of our actions and sensations, especially
of pleasure and pain, and the concernment that accompanies it, it will be hard to know wherein to
place personal identity.
12. If a sleeping man thinks without knowing it, the sleeping and waking man are two persons. The
soul, during sound sleep, thinks, say these men. Whilst it thinks and perceives, it is capable
certainly of those of delight or trouble, as well as any other perceptions; and it must necessarily be
conscious of its own perceptions. But it has all this apart: the sleeping man, it is plain, is conscious
of nothing of all this. Let us suppose, then, the soul of Castor, while he is sleeping, retired from his
body; which is no impossible supposition for the men I have here to do with, who so liberally allow
life, without a thinking soul, to all other animals. These men cannot then judge it impossible, or a
contradiction, that the body should live without the soul; nor that the soul should subsist and think, or
have perception, even perception of happiness or misery, without the body. Let us then, I say,
suppose the soul of Castor separated during his sleep from his body, to think apart. Let us suppose,
too, that it chooses for its scene of thinking the body of another man, v.g. Pollux, who is sleeping
without a soul. For, if Castor's soul can think, whilst Castor is asleep, what Castor is never
conscious of, it is no matter what place it chooses to think in. We have here, then, the bodies of two
men with only one soul between them, which we will suppose to sleep and wake by turns; and the
soul still thinking in the waking man, whereof the sleeping man is never conscious, has never the
least perception. I ask, then, whether Castor and Pollux, thus with only one soul between them,
which thinks and perceives in one what the other is never conscious of, nor is concerned for, are not
two as distinct persons as Castor and Hercules, or as Socrates and Plato were? And whether one of
them might not be very happy, and the other very miserable? Just by the same reason, they make
the soul and the man two persons, who make the soul think apart what the man is not conscious of.
For, I suppose nobody will make identity of persons to consist in the soul's being united to the very
same numercial particles of matter. For if that be necessary to identity, it will be impossible, in that
constant flux of the particles of our bodies, that any man should be the same person two days, or
two moments, together.
13. Impossible to convince those that sleep without dreaming, that they think. Thus, methinks, every
drowsy nod shakes their doctrine, who teach that the soul is always thinking. Those, at least, who
do at any time sleep without dreaming, can never be convinced that their thoughts are sometimes
for four hours busy without their knowing of it; and if they are taken in the very act, waked in the
middle of that sleeping contemplation, can give no manner of account of it.
14. That men dream without remembering it, in vain urged. It will perhaps be said,--That the soul
thinks even in the soundest sleep, but the memory retains it not. That the soul in a sleeping man
should be this moment busy a thinking, and the next moment in a waking man not remember nor be
able to recollect one jot of all those thoughts, is very hard to be conceived, and would need some
better proof than bare assertion to make it be believed. For who can without any more ado, but
being barely told so, imagine that the greatest part of men do, during all their lives, for several hours
every day, think of something, which if they were asked, even in the middle of these thoughts, they
could remember nothing at all of? Most men, I think, pass a great part of their sleep without
dreaming. I once knew a man that was bred a scholar, and had no bad memory, who told me he
had never dreamed in his life, till he had that fever he was then newly recovered of, which was
about the five or six and twentieth year of his age. I suppose the world affords more such instances:
at least every one's acquaintance will furnish him with examples enough of such as pass most of
their nights without dreaming.
15. Upon this hypothesis, the thoughts of a sleeping man ought to be most rational. To think often,
and never to retain it so much as one moment, is a very useless sort of thinking; and the soul, in
such a state of thinking, does very little, if at all, excel that of a looking-glass, which constantly
receives variety of images, or ideas, but retains none; they disappear and vanish, and there remain
no footsteps of them; the looking-glass is never the better for such ideas, nor the soul for such
thoughts. Perhaps it will be said, that in a waking man the materials of the body are employed, and
made use of, in thinking; and that the memory of thoughts is retained by the impressions that are
made on the brain, and the traces there left after such thinking; but that in the thinking of the soul,
which is not perceived in a sleeping man, there the soul thinks apart, and making no use of the
organs of the body, leaves no impressions on it, and consequently no memory of such thoughts. Not
to mention again the absurdity of two distinct persons, which follows from this supposition, I answer,
further,--That whatever ideas the mind can receive and contemplate without the help of the body, it
is reasonable to conclude it can retain without the help of the body too; or else the soul, or any
separate spirit, will have but little advantage by thinking. If it has no memory of its own thoughts; if it
cannot lay them up for its own use, and be able to recall them upon occasion; if it cannot reflect
upon what is past, and make use of its former experiences, reasonings, and contemplations, to what
purpose does it think? They who make the soul a thinking thing, at this rate, will not make it a much
more noble being than those do whom they condemn, for allowing it to be nothing but the subtilist
parts of matter. Characters drawn on dust, that the first breath of wind effaces; or impressions made
on a heap of atoms, or animal spirits, are altogether as useful, and render the subject as noble, as
the thoughts of a soul that perish in thinking; that, once out of sight, are gone forever, and leave no
memory of themselves behind them. Nature never makes excellent things for mean or no uses: and
it is hardly to be conceived that our infinitely wise Creator should make so admirable a faculty which
comes nearest the excellency of his own incomprehensible being, to be so idly and uselessly
employed, at least a fourth part of its time here, as to think constantly, without remembering any of
those thoughts, without doing any good to itself or others, or being any way useful to any other part
of the creation, If we will examine it, we shall not find, I suppose, the motion of dull and senseless
matter, any where in the universe, made so little use of and so wholly thrown away.
16. On this hypothesis, the soul must have ideas not derived from sensation or reflection, of which
there is no appearance. It is true, we have sometimes instances of perception whilst we are asleep,
and retain the memory of those thoughts: but how extravagant and incoherent for the most part they
are; how little conformable to the perfection and order of a rational being, those who are acquainted
with dreams need not be told. This I would willingly be satisfied in,--whether the soul, when it thinks
thus apart, and as it were separate from the body, acts less rationally than when conjointly with it, or
no. If its separate thoughts be less rational, then these men must say, that the soul owes the
perfection of rational thinking to the body: if it does not, it is a wonder that our dreams should be, for
the most part, so frivolous and irrational; and that the soul should retain none of its more rational
soliloquies and meditations.
17. If I think when I know it not, nobody else can know it. Those who so confidently tell us that the
soul always actually thinks, I would they would also tell us, what those ideas are that are in the soul
of a child, before or just at the union with the body, before it hath received any by sensation. The
dreams of sleeping men are, as I take it, all made up of the waking man's ideas; though for the most
part oddly put together. It is strange, if the soul has ideas of its own that it derived not from sensation
or reflection, (as it must have, if it thought before it received any impressions from the body,) that it
should never, in its private thinking, (so private, that the man himself perceives it not,) retain any of
them the very moment it wakes out of them, and then make the man glad with new discoveries.
Who can find it reason that the soul should, in its retirement during sleep, have so many hours'
thoughts, and yet never light on any of those ideas it borrowed not from sensation or reflection; or at
least preserve the memory of none but such, which, being occasioned from the body, must needs
be less natural to a spirit? It is strange the soul should never once in a man's whole life recall over
any of its pure native thoughts, and those ideas it had before it borrowed anything from the body;
never bring into the waking man's view any other ideas but what have a tang of the cask, and
manifestly derive their original from that union. If it always thinks, and so had ideas before it was
united, or before it received any from the body, it is not to be supposed but that during sleep it
recollects its native ideas; and during that retirement from communicating with the body, whilst it
thinks by itself, the ideas it is busied about should be, sometimes at least, those more natural and
congenial ones which it had in itself, underived from the body, or its own operations about them:
which, since the waking man never remembers, we must from this hypothesis conclude either that
the soul remembers something that the man does not; or else that memory belongs only to such
ideas as are derived from the body, or the mind's operations about them.
18. How knows any one that the soul always thinks? For if it be not a self-evident proposition, it
needs proof. I would be glad also to learn from these men who so confidently pronounce that the
human soul, or, which is all one, that a man always thinks, how they come to know it; nay, how they
come to know that they themselves think when they themselves do not perceive it. This, I am afraid,
is to be sure without proofs, and to know without perceiving. It is, I suspect, a confused notion, taken
up to serve an hypothesis; and none of those clear truths, that either their own evidence forces us to
admit, or common experience makes it impudence to deny. For the most that can be said of it is,
that it is possible the soul may always think, but not always retain it in memory. And I say, it is as
possible that the soul may not always think; and much more probable that it should sometimes not
think, than that it should often think, and that a long while together, and not be conscious to itself,
the next moment after, that it had thought.
19. "That a man should be busy in thinking, and yet not retain it the next moment," very improbable.
To suppose the soul to think, and the man not to perceive it, is, as has been said, to make two
pers