BOOK I. NEITHER PRINCIPLES NOR IDEAS ARE INNATE.
I. NO INNATE SPECULATIVE PRINCIPLES
II. NO INNATE PRACTICAL PRINCIPLES
III. OTHER CONSIDERATIONS CONCERNING INNATE PRINCIPLES, BOTH
SPECULATIVE AND PRACTICAL
BOOK II. OF IDEAS.
I. OF IDEAS IN GENERAL, AND THEIR ORIGINAL
II. OF SIMPLE IDEAS
III. OF SIMPLE IDEAS OF SENSATION
IV. IDEA OF SOLIDITY
V. OF SIMPLE IDEAS OF DIVERS SENSES
VI. OF SIMPLE IDEAS OF REFLECTION ...
VII. OF SIMPLE IDEAS OF BOTH SENSATION AND REFLECTION
VIII. SOME FURTHER CONSIDERATIONS CONCERNING OUR SIMPLE
IDEAS OF SENSATION
IX. OF PERCEPTION
X. OF RETENTION
XI. OF DISCERNING, AND OTHER OPERATIONS OF THE MIND
XII. OF COMPLEX IDEAS
XIII. OF SIMPLE MODES:--AND FIRST, OF THE SIMPLE MODES OF
THE IDEA OF SPACE
XIV. IDEA OF DURATION AND ITS SIMPLE MODES
XV. IDEAS OF DURATION AND EXPANSION, CONSIDERED TOGETHER
XVI. IDEA OF NUMBER AND ITS SIMPLE MODES
XVII. OF THE IDEA OF INFINITY
XVIII. OF OTHER SIMPLE MODES
XIX. OF THE MODES OF THINKING
XX. OF MODES OF PLEASURE AND PAIN
XXI. OF THE IDEA OF POWER
XXII. OF MIXED MODES
XXIII. OF OUR COMPLEX IDEAS OF SUBSTANCES
XXIV. OF COLLECTIVE IDEAS OF SUBSTANCES
XXV. OF IDEAS OF RELATION
XXVI. OF IDEAS OF CAUSE AND EFFECT, AND OTHER RELATIONS
XXVII. OF IDEAS OF IDENTITY AND DIVERSITY
XXVIII. OF IDEAS OF OTHER RELATIONS
XXIX. OF CLEAR AND OBSCURE, DISTINCT AND CONFUSED IDEAS
XXX. OF REAL AND FANTASTICAL IDEAS
XXXI. OF ADEQUATE AND INADEQUATE IDEAS
XXXII. OF TRUE AND FALSE IDEAS
XXXIII. OF THE ASSOCIATION OF IDEAS
TO THE RIGHT HONOURABLE THOMAS, EARL OF PEMBROKE AND MONTGOMERY, BARON
HERBERT OF CARDIFF LORD ROSS, OF KENDAL, PAR, FITZHUGH, MARMION, ST.
QUINTIN, AND SHURLAND;
LORD PRESIDENT OF HIS MAJESTY'S MOST HONOURABLE PRIVY COUNCIL; AND
LORD
LIEUTENANT OF THE COUNTY OF WILTS, AND OF SOUTH WALES.
MY LORD,
This Treatise, which is grown up under your lordship's eye, and has
ventured into the world by your order, does now, by a natural kind of
right, come to your lordship for that protection which you several years
since promised it. It is not that I think any name, how great soever,
set at the beginning of a book, will be able to cover the faults that
are to be found in it. Things in print must stand and fall by their own
worth, or the reader's fancy. But there being nothing more to be desired
for truth than a fair unprejudiced hearing, nobody is more likely to
procure me that than your lordship, who are allowed to have got so
intimate an acquaintance with her, in her more retired recesses. Your
lordship is known to have so far advanced your speculations in the most
abstract and general knowledge of things, beyond the ordinary reach or
common methods, that your al owance and approbation of the design of
this Treatise wil at least preserve it from being condemned without
reading, and wil prevail to have those parts a little weighed, which
might otherwise perhaps be thought to deserve no consideration, for
being somewhat out of the common road. The imputation of Novelty is a
terrible charge amongst those who judge of men's heads, as they do of
their perukes, by the fashion, and can al ow none to be right but the
received doctrines. Truth scarce ever yet carried it by vote anywhere
at its first appearance: new opinions are always suspected, and usually
opposed, without any other reason but because they are not already
common. But truth, like gold, is not the less so for being newly brought
out of the mine. It is trial and examination must give it price, and
not any antique fashion; and though it be not yet current by the public
stamp, yet it may, for al that, be as old as nature, and is certainly
not the less genuine. Your lordship can give great and convincing
instances of this, whenever you please to oblige the public with some
of those large and comprehensive discoveries you have made of truths
hitherto unknown, unless to some few, from whom your lordship has been
pleased not whol y to conceal them. This alone were a sufficient reason,
were there no other, why I should dedicate this Essay to your lordship;
and its having some little correspondence with some parts of that nobler
and vast system of the sciences your lordship has made so new, exact,
and instructive a draught of, I think it glory enough, if your lordship
permit me to boast, that here and there I have fallen into some thoughts
not wholly different from yours. If your lordship think fit that, by
your encouragement, this should appear in the world, I hope it may be a
reason, some time or other, to lead your lordship further; and you will
al ow me to say, that you here give the world an earnest of something
that, if they can bear with this, will be truly worth their expectation.
This, my lord, shows what a present I here make to your lordship; just
such as the poor man does to his rich and great neighbour, by whom the
basket of flowers or fruit is not il taken, though he has more plenty
of his own growth, and in much greater perfection. Worthless things
receive a value when they are made the offerings of respect, esteem, and
gratitude: these you have given me so mighty and peculiar reasons to
have, in the highest degree, for your lordship, that if they can add a
price to what they go along with, proportionable to their own greatness,
I can with confidence brag, I here make your lordship the richest
present you ever received. This I am sure, I am under the greatest
obligations to seek all occasions to acknowledge a long train of favours
I have received from your lordship; favours, though great and important
in themselves, yet made much more so by the forwardness, concern,
and kindness, and other obliging circumstances, that never failed to
accompany them. To all this you are pleased to add that which gives yet
more weight and relish to al the rest: you vouchsafe to continue me in
some degrees of your esteem, and allow me a place in your good thoughts,
I had almost said friendship. This, my lord, your words and actions so
constantly show on al occasions, even to others when I am absent, that
it is not vanity in me to mention what everybody knows: but it would be
want of good manners not to acknowledge what so many are witnesses of,
and every day tell me I am indebted to your lordship for. I wish they
could as easily assist my gratitude, as they convince me of the great
and growing engagements it has to your lordship. This I am sure, I
should write of the UNDERSTANDING without having any, if I were not
extremely sensible of them, and did not lay hold on this opportunity to
testify to the world how much I am obliged to be, and how much I am,
MY LORD,
Your Lordship's most humble and most obedient servant,
JOHN LOCKE
2 Dorset Court, 24th of May, 1689
THE EPISTLE TO THE READER
READER,
I have put into thy hands what has been the diversion of some of my idle
and heavy hours. If it has the good luck to prove so of any of thine,
and thou hast but half so much pleasure in reading as I had in writing
it, thou wilt as little think thy money, as I do my pains, il bestowed.
Mistake not this for a commendation of my work; nor conclude, because I
was pleased with the doing of it, that therefore I am fondly taken with
it now it is done. He that hawks at larks and sparrows has no less
sport, though a much less considerable quarry, than he that flies at
nobler game: and he is little acquainted with the subject of this
treatise--the UNDERSTANDING--who does not know that, as it is the most
elevated faculty of the soul, so it is employed with a greater and more
constant delight than any of the other. Its searches after truth are a
sort of hawking and hunting, wherein the very pursuit makes a great
part of the pleasure. Every step the mind takes in its progress towards
Knowledge makes some discovery, which is not only new, but the best too,
for the time at least.
For the understanding, like the eye, judging of objects only by its own
sight, cannot but be pleased with what it discovers, having less regret
for what has escaped it, because it is unknown. Thus he who has raised
himself above the alms-basket, and, not content to live lazily on scraps
of begged opinions, sets his own thoughts on work, to find and follow
truth, wil (whatever he lights on) not miss the hunter's satisfaction;
every moment of his pursuit will reward his pains with some delight; and
he wil have reason to think his time not ill spent, even when he cannot
much boast of any great acquisition.
This, Reader, is the entertainment of those who let loose their own
thoughts, and follow them in writing; which thou oughtest not to envy
them, since they afford thee an opportunity of the like diversion, if
thou wilt make use of thy own thoughts in reading. It is to them, if
they are thy own, that I refer myself: but if they are taken upon trust
from others, it is no great matter what they are; they are not following
truth, but some meaner consideration; and it is not worth while to be
concerned what he says or thinks, who says or thinks only as he is
directed by another. If thou judgest for thyself I know thou wilt judge
candidly, and then I shall not be harmed or offended, whatever be thy
censure. For though it be certain that there is nothing in this Treatise
of the truth whereof I am not fully persuaded, yet I consider myself as
liable to mistakes as I can think thee, and know that this book must
stand or fall with thee, not by any opinion I have of it, but thy own.
If thou findest little in it new or instructive to thee, thou art not to
blame me for it. It was not meant for those that had already mastered
this subject, and made a thorough acquaintance with their own
understandings; but for my own information, and the satisfaction of
a few friends, who acknowledged themselves not to have sufficiently
considered it.
Were it fit to trouble thee with the history of this Essay, I should
tell thee, that five or six friends meeting at my chamber, and
discoursing on a subject very remote from this, found themselves quickly
at a stand, by the difficulties that rose on every side. After we had
awhile puzzled ourselves, without coming any nearer a resolution of
those doubts which perplexed us, it came into my thoughts that we took
a wrong course; and that before we set ourselves upon inquiries of that
nature, it was necessary to examine our own abilities, and see what
OBJECTS our understandings were, or were not, fitted to deal with. This
I proposed to the company, who al readily assented; and thereupon
it was agreed that this should be our first inquiry. Some hasty and
undigested thoughts, on a subject I had never before considered, which
I set down against our next meeting, gave the first entrance into this
Discourse; which having been thus begun by chance, was continued by
intreaty; written by incoherent parcels; and after long intervals of
neglect, resumed again, as my humour or occasions permitted; and at
last, in a retirement where an attendance on my health gave me leisure,
it was brought into that order thou now seest it.
This discontinued way of writing may have occasioned, besides others,
two contrary faults, viz., that too little and too much may be said in
it. If thou findest anything wanting, I shall be glad that what I have
written gives thee any desire that I should have gone further. If it
seems too much to thee, thou must blame the subject; for when I put pen
to paper, I thought all I should have to say on this matter would have
been contained in one sheet of paper; but the further I went the
larger prospect I had; new discoveries led me still on, and so it grew
insensibly to the bulk it now appears in. I wil not deny, but possibly
it might be reduced to a narrower compass than it is, and that some
parts of it might be contracted, the way it has been writ in, by
catches, and many long intervals of interruption, being apt to cause
some repetitions. But to confess the truth, I am now too lazy, or too
busy, to make it shorter. I am not ignorant how little I herein consult
my own reputation, when I knowingly let it go with a fault, so apt to
disgust the most judicious, who are always the nicest readers. But they
who know sloth is apt to content itself with any excuse, will pardon me
if mine has prevailed on me, where I think I have a very good one. I
will not therefore allege in my defence, that the same notion, having
different respects, may be convenient or necessary to prove or
il ustrate several parts of the same discourse, and that so it has
happened in many parts of this: but waiving that, I shall frankly avow
that I have sometimes dwelt long upon the same argument, and expressed
it different ways, with a quite different design. I pretend not to
publish this Essay for the information of men of large thoughts and
quick apprehensions; to such masters of knowledge I profess myself a
scholar, and therefore warn them beforehand not to expect anything here,
but what, being spun out of my own coarse thoughts, is fitted to men of
my own size, to whom, perhaps, it will not be unacceptable that I have
taken some pains to make plain and familiar to their thoughts some
truths which established prejudice, or the abstractedness of the ideas
themselves, might render difficult. Some objects had need be turned on
every side; and when the notion is new, as I confess some of these are
to me; or out of the ordinary road, as I suspect they wil appear to
others, it is not one simple view of it that will gain it admittance
into every understanding, or fix it there with a clear and lasting
impression. There are few, I believe, who have not observed in
themselves or others, that what in one way of proposing was very
obscure, another way of expressing it has made very clear and
intelligible; though afterwards the mind found little difference in the
phrases, and wondered why one failed to be understood more than the
other. But everything does not hit alike upon every man's imagination.
We have our understandings no less different than our palates; and he
that thinks the same truth shall be equally relished by every one in the
same dress, may as well hope to feast every one with the same sort of
cookery: the meat may be the same, and the nourishment good, yet every
one not be able to receive it with that seasoning; and it must be
dressed another way, if you wil have it go down with some, even of
strong constitutions. The truth is, those who advised me to publish it,
advised me, for this reason, to publish it as it is: and since I have
been brought to let it go abroad, I desire it should be understood by
whoever gives himself the pains to read it. I have so little affection
to be in print, that if I were not flattered this Essay might be of some
use to others, as I think it has been to me, I should have confined
it to the view of some friends, who gave the first occasion to it. My
appearing therefore in print being on purpose to be as useful as I may,
I think it necessary to make what I have to say as easy and intelligible
to all sorts of readers as I can. And I had much rather the speculative
and quick-sighted should complain of my being in some parts tedious,
than that any one, not accustomed to abstract speculations, or
prepossessed with different notions, should mistake or not comprehend my
meaning.
It wil possibly be censured as a great piece of vanity or insolence in
me, to pretend to instruct this our knowing age; it amounting to little
less, when I own, that I publish this Essay with hopes it may be useful
to others. But, if it may be permitted to speak freely of those who
with a feigned modesty condemn as useless what they themselves write,
methinks it savours much more of vanity or insolence to publish a book
for any other end; and he fails very much of that respect he owes the
public, who prints, and consequently expects men should read, that
wherein he intends not they should meet with anything of use to
themselves or others: and should nothing else be found allowable in this
Treatise, yet my design wil not cease to be so; and the goodness of my
intention ought to be some excuse for the worthlessness of my present.
It is that chiefly which secures me from the fear of censure, which
I expect not to escape more than better writers. Men's principles,
notions, and relishes are so different, that it is hard to find a book
which pleases or displeases all men. I acknowledge the age we live in is
not the least knowing, and therefore not the most easy to be satisfied.
If I have not the good luck to please, yet nobody ought to be offended
with me. I plainly tell al my readers, except half a dozen, this
Treatise was not at first intended for them; and therefore they need not
be at the trouble to be of that number. But yet if any one thinks fit to
be angry and rail at it, he may do it securely, for I shall find some
better way of spending my time than in such kind of conversation. I
shall always have the satisfaction to have aimed sincerely at truth
and usefulness, though in one of the meanest ways. The commonwealth
of learning is not at this time without master-builders, whose mighty
designs, in advancing the sciences, wil leave lasting monuments to the
admiration of posterity: but every one must not hope to be a Boyle or
a Sydenham; and in an age that produces such masters as the great
Huygenius and the incomparable Mr. Newton, with some others of that
strain, it is ambition enough to be employed as an under-labourer in
clearing the ground a little, and removing some of the rubbish that
lies in the way to knowledge;--which certainly had been very much more
advanced in the world, if the endeavours of ingenious and industrious
men had not been much cumbered with the learned but frivolous use
of uncouth, affected, or unintelligible terms, introduced into the
sciences, and there made an art of, to that degree that Philosophy,
which is nothing but the true knowledge of things, was thought unfit or
incapable to be brought into wel -bred company and polite conversation.
Vague and insignificant forms of speech, and abuse of language, have so
long passed for mysteries of science; and hard and misapplied words,
with little or no meaning, have, by prescription, such a right to be
mistaken for deep learning and height of speculation, that it will not
be easy to persuade either those who speak or those who hear them, that
they are but the covers of ignorance, and hindrance of true knowledge.
To break in upon the sanctuary of vanity and ignorance wil be, I
suppose, some service to human understanding; though so few are apt to
think they deceive or are deceived in the use of words; or that the
language of the sect they are of has any faults in it which ought to be
examined or corrected, that I hope I shall be pardoned if I have in the
Third Book dwelt long on this subject, and endeavoured to make it
so plain, that neither the inveterateness of the mischief, nor the
prevalency of the fashion, shall be any excuse for those who will not
take care about the meaning of their own words, and wil not suffer the
significancy of their expressions to be inquired into.
I have been told that a short Epitome of this Treatise, which was
printed in 1688, was by some condemned without reading, because INNATE
IDEAS were denied in it; they too hastily concluding, that if innate
ideas were not supposed, there would be little left either of the notion
or proof of spirits. If any one take the like offence at the entrance of
this Treatise, I shall desire him to read it through; and then I hope he
will be convinced, that the taking away false foundations is not to the
prejudice but advantage of truth, which is never injured or endangered
so much as when mixed with, or built on, falsehood. In the Second
Edition I added as followeth:--
The bookseller wil not forgive me if I say nothing of this New Edition,
which he has promised, by the correctness of it, shall make amends for
the many faults committed in the former. He desires too, that it should
be known that it has one whole new chapter concerning Identity, and many
additions and amendments in other places. These I must inform my reader
are not all new matter, but most of them either further confirmation of
what I had said, or explications, to prevent others being mistaken in
the sense of what was formerly printed, and not any variation in me from
it.
I must only except the alterations I have made in Book II. chap. xxi.
What I had there written concerning Liberty and the Will, I thought
deserved as accurate a view as I am capable of; those subjects having
in al ages exercised the learned part of the world with questions and
difficulties, that have not a little perplexed morality and divinity,
those parts of knowledge that men are most concerned to be clear in.
Upon a closer inspection into the working of men's minds, and a stricter
examination of those motives and views they are turned by, I have found
reason somewhat to alter the thoughts I formerly had concerning that
which gives the last determination to the Wil in all voluntary actions.
This I cannot forbear to acknowledge to the world with as much freedom
and readiness; as I at first published what then seemed to me to be
right; thinking myself more concerned to quit and renounce any opinion
of my own, than oppose that of another, when truth appears against it.
For it is truth alone I seek, and that wil always be welcome to me,
when or from whencesoever it comes. But what forwardness soever I have
to resign any opinion I have, or to recede from anything I have writ,
upon the first evidence of any error in it; yet this I must own, that I
have not had the good luck to receive any light from those exceptions
I have met with in print against any part of my book, nor have, from
anything that has been urged against it, found reason to alter my sense
in any of the points that have been questioned. Whether the subject I
have in hand requires often more thought and attention than cursory
readers, at least such as are prepossessed, are willing to allow; or
whether any obscurity in my expressions casts a cloud over it, and
these notions are made difficult to others' apprehensions in my way of
treating them; so it is, that my meaning, I find, is often mistaken, and
I have not the good luck to be everywhere rightly understood.
Of this the ingenious author of the Discourse Concerning the Nature of
Man has given me a late instance, to mention no other. For the civility
of his expressions, and the candour that belongs to his order, forbid me
to think that he would have closed his Preface with an insinuation, as
if in what I had said, Book II. ch. xxvi , concerning the third rule
which men refer their actions to, I went about to make virtue vice and
vice virtue, unless he had mistaken my meaning; which he could not have
done if he had given himself the trouble to consider what the argument
was I was then upon, and what was the chief design of that chapter,
plainly enough set down in the fourth section and those following. For
I was there not laying down moral rules, but showing the original and
nature of moral ideas, and enumerating the rules men make use of in
moral relations, whether these rules were true or false: and pursuant
thereto I tel what is everywhere cal ed virtue and vice; which "alters not the nature of things," though men generally do judge of and
denominate their actions according to the esteem and fashion of the
place and sect they are of.
If he had been at the pains to