primary qualities; which appear not, to our senses, to operate in their
production, and with which they have not any apparent congruity or
conceivable connexion. Hence it is that we are so forward as to imagine,
that those ideas are the resemblances of something really existing
in the objects themselves since sensation discovers nothing of bulk,
figure, or motion of parts in their production; nor can reason show how
bodies BY THEIR BULK, FIGURE, AND MOTION, should produce in the mind the
ideas of blue or yel ow, &c. But, in the other case in the operations of bodies changing the qualities one of another, we plainly discover that
the quality produced hath commonly no resemblance with anything in the
thing producing it; wherefore we look on it as a bare effect of power.
For, through receiving the idea of heat or light from the sun, we are
apt to think IT is a perception and resemblance of such a quality in the
sun; yet when we see wax, or a fair face, receive change of colour from
the sun, we cannot imagine THAT to be the reception or resemblance of
anything in the sun, because we find not those different colours in
the sun itself. For, our senses being able to observe a likeness or
unlikeness of sensible qualities in two different external objects, we
forwardly enough conclude the production of any sensible quality in any
subject to be an effect of bare power, and not the communication of any
quality which was really in the efficient, when we find no such sensible
quality in the thing that produced it. But our senses, not being able to
discover any unlikeness between the idea produced in us, and the quality
of the object producing it, we are apt to imagine that our ideas are
resemblances of something in the objects, and not the effects of certain
powers placed in the modification of their primary qualities, with which
primary qualities the ideas produced in us have no resemblance.
26. Secondary Qualities twofold; first, immediately perceivable;
secondly, mediately perceivable.
To conclude. Beside those before-mentioned primary qualities in bodies,
viz. bulk, figure, extension, number, and motion of their solid parts;
al the rest, whereby we take notice of bodies, and distinguish them one
from another, are nothing else but several powers in them, depending on
those primary qualities; whereby they are fitted, either by immediately
operating on our bodies to produce several different ideas in us; or
else, by operating on other bodies, so to change their primary qualities
as to render them capable of producing ideas in us different from what
before they did. The former of these, I think, may be called secondary
qualities IMMEDIATELY PERCEIVABLE: the latter, secondary qualities,
MEDIATELY PERCEIVABLE.
CHAPTER IX.
OF PERCEPTION.
1. Perception the first simple Idea of Reflection.
PERCEPTION, as it is the first faculty of the mind exercised about our
ideas; so it is the first and simplest idea we have from reflection, and
is by some called thinking in general. Though thinking, in the propriety
of the English tongue, signifies that sort of operation in the mind
about its ideas, wherein the mind is active; where it, with some
degree of voluntary attention, considers anything. For in bare naked
perception, the mind is, for the most part, only passive; and what it
perceives, it cannot avoid perceiving.
2. Reflection alone can give us the idea of what perception is.
What perception is, every one wil know better by reflecting on what he
does himself, when he sees, hears, feels, &c., or thinks, than by any
discourse of mine. Whoever reflects on what passes in his own mind
cannot miss it. And if he does not reflect, all the words in the world
cannot make him have any notion of it.
3. Arises in sensation only when the mind notices the organic
impression.
This is certain, that whatever alterations are made in the body, if they
reach not the mind; whatever impressions are made on the outward parts,
if they are not taken notice of within, there is no perception. Fire may
burn our bodies with no other effect than it does a billet, unless the
motion be continued to the brain, and there the sense of heat, or idea
of pain, be produced in the mind; wherein consists actual perception.
4. Impulse on the organ insufficient.
How often may a man observe in himself, that whilst his mind is intently
employed in the contemplation of some objects, and curiously surveying
some ideas that are there, it takes no notice of impressions of sounding
bodies made upon the organ of hearing, with the same alteration that
uses to be for the producing the idea of sound? A sufficient impulse
there may be on the organ; but it not reaching the observation of the
mind, there follows no perception: and though the motion that uses to
produce the idea of sound be made in the ear, yet no sound is heard.
Want of sensation, in this case, is not through any defect in the organ,
or that the man's ears are less affected than at other times when he
does hear but that which uses to produce the idea, though conveyed in by
the usual organ, not being taken notice of in the understanding, and
so imprinting no idea in the mind, there follows no sensation. So that
wherever there is sense of perception, there some idea is actually
produced, and present in the understanding.
5. Children, though they may have Ideas in the Womb, have none innate.
Therefore I doubt not but children, by the exercise of their senses
about objects that affect them in the womb receive some few ideas before
they are born, as the unavoidable effects, either of the bodies that
environ them, or else of those wants or diseases they suffer; amongst
which (if one may conjecture concerning things not very capable of
examination) I think the ideas of hunger and warmth are two: which
probably are some of the first that children have, and which they scarce
ever part with again.
6. The effects of Sensation in the womb.
But though it be reasonable to imagine that children receive some ideas
before they come into the world, yet these simple ideas are far from
those INNATE PRINCIPLES which some contend for, and we, above, have
rejected. These here mentioned, being the effects of sensation, are only
from some affections of the body, which happen to them there, and so
depend on something exterior to the mind; no otherwise differing in
their manner of production from other ideas derived from sense, but only
in the precedency of time. Whereas those innate principles are supposed
to be quite of another nature; not coming into the mind by any
accidental alterations in, or operations on the body; but, as it were,
original characters impressed upon it, in the very first moment of its
being and constitution.
7. Which Ideas appear first is not evident, nor important.
As there are some ideas which we may reasonably suppose may be
introduced into the minds of children in the womb, subservient to the
necessities of their life and being there: so, after they are born,
those ideas are the earliest imprinted which happen to be the sensible
qualities which first occur to them; amongst which light is not the
least considerable, nor of the weakest efficacy. And how covetous the
mind is to be furnished with all such ideas as have no pain accompanying
them, may be a little guessed by what is observable in children
new-born; who always turn their eyes to that part from whence the light
comes, lay them how you please. But the ideas that are most familiar at
first, being various according to the divers circumstances of children's
first entertainment in the world, the order wherein the several ideas
come at first into the mind is very various, and uncertain also; neither
is it much material to know it.
8. Sensations often changed by the Judgment.
We are further to consider concerning perception, that the ideas
we receive by sensation are often, in grown people, altered by the
judgment, without our taking notice of it. When we set before our eyes a
round globe of any uniform colour, v.g. gold, alabaster, or jet, it is
certain that the idea thereby imprinted on our mind is of a flat circle,
variously shadowed, with several degrees of light and brightness coming
to our eyes. But we having, by use, been accustomed to perceive
what kind of appearance convex bodies are wont to make in us; what
alterations are made in the reflections of light by the difference of
the sensible figures of bodies;--the judgment presently, by an habitual
custom, alters the appearances into their causes. So that from that
which is truly variety of shadow or colour, collecting the figure, it
makes it pass for a mark of figure, and frames to itself the perception
of a convex figure and an uniform colour; when the idea we receive from
thence is only a plane variously coloured, as is evident in painting. To
which purpose I shall here insert a problem of that very ingenious
and studious promoter of real knowledge, the learned and worthy Mr.
Molineux, which he was pleased to send me in a letter some months since;
and it is this:--"Suppose a man BORN blind, and now adult, and taught by his TOUCH to distinguish between a cube and a sphere of the same metal,
and nighly of the same bigness, so as to tell, when he felt one and the
other, which is the cube, which the sphere. Suppose then the cube and
sphere placed on a table, and the blind man be made to see: quaere,
whether BY HIS SIGHT, BEFORE HE TOUCHED THEM, he could now distinguish
and tel which is the globe, which the cube?" To which the acute and
judicious proposer answers, "Not. For, though he has obtained the
experience of how a globe, how a cube affects his touch, yet he has not
yet obtained the experience, that what affects his touch so or so, must
affect his sight so or so; or that a protuberant angle in the cube, that
pressed his hand unequally, shall appear to his eye as it does in the
cube."--I agree with this thinking gentleman, whom I am proud to call my friend, in his answer to this problem; and am of opinion that the blind
man, at first sight, would not be able with certainty to say which was
the globe, which the cube, whilst he only saw them; though he could
unerringly name them by his touch, and certainly distinguish them by the
difference of their figures felt. This I have set down, and leave
with my reader, as an occasion for him to consider how much he may be
beholden to experience, improvement, and acquired notions, where he
thinks he had not the least use of, or help from them. And the rather,
because this observing gentleman further adds, that "having, upon the
occasion of my book, proposed this to divers very ingenious men, he
hardly ever met with one that at first gave the answer to it which he
thinks true, till by hearing his reasons they were convinced."
9. This judgement apt to be mistaken for direct perception.
But this is not, I think, usual in any of our ideas, but those received
by sight. Because sight, the most comprehensive of all our senses,
conveying to our minds the ideas of light and colours, which are
peculiar only to that sense; and also the far different ideas of space,
figure, and motion, the several varieties whereof change the appearances
of its proper object, viz. light and colours; we bring ourselves by
use to judge of the one by the other. This, in many cases by a settled
habit,--in things whereof we have frequent experience is performed so
constantly and so quick, that we take that for the perception of our
sensation which is an idea formed by our judgment; so that one, viz.
that of sensation, serves only to excite the other, and is scarce taken
notice of itself;--as a man who reads or hears with attention and
understanding, takes little notice of the characters or sounds, but of
the ideas that are excited in him by them.
10. How, by Habit, ideas of Sensation are unconsciously changed into
ideas of Judgment.
Nor need we wonder that this is done with so little notice, if we
consider how quick the actions of the mind are performed. For, as itself
is thought to take up no space to have no extension; so its actions seem
to require no time but many of them seem to be crowded into an instant.
I speak this in comparison to the actions of the body. Any one may
easily observe this in his own thoughts, who will take the pains to
reflect on them. How, as it were in an instant, do our minds, with one
glance, see all the parts of a demonstration, which may very well be
called a long one, if we consider the time it wil require to put it
into words, and step by step show it another? Secondly, we shall not be
so much surprised that this is done in us with so little notice, if we
consider how the facility which we get of doing things, by a custom
of doing, makes them often pass in us without our notice. Habits,
especial y such as are begun very early, come at last to produce actions
in us, which often escape our observation. How frequently do we, in a
day, cover our eyes with our eyelids, without perceiving that we are at
al in the dark! Men that, by custom, have got the use of a by-word, do
almost in every sentence pronounce sounds which, though taken notice of
by others, they themselves neither hear nor observe. And therefore it
is not so strange, that our mind should often change the idea of its
sensation into that of its judgment, and make one serve only to excite
the other, without our taking notice of it.
11. Perception puts the difference between Animals and Vegetables.
This faculty of perception seems to me to be, that which puts the
distinction betwixt the animal kingdom and the inferior parts of nature.
For, however vegetables have, many of them, some degrees of motion, and
upon the different application of other bodies to them, do very briskly
alter their figures and motions, and so have obtained the name of
sensitive plants, from a motion which has some resemblance to that
which in animals follows upon sensation: yet I suppose it is all
bare MECHANISM; and no otherwise produced than the turning of a wild
oat-beard, by the insinuation of the particles of moisture, or the
shortening of a rope, by the affusion of water. All which is done
without any sensation in the subject, or the having or receiving any
ideas.
12. Perception in al animals.
Perception, I believe, is, in some degree, in al sorts of animals;
though in some possibly the avenues provided by nature for the reception
of sensations are so few, and the perception they are received with so
obscure and dull, that it comes extremely short of the quickness and
variety of sensation which is in other animals; but yet it is sufficient
for, and wisely adapted to, the state and condition of that sort of
animals who are thus made. So that the wisdom and goodness of the Maker
plainly appear in all the parts of this stupendous fabric, and all the
several degrees and ranks of creatures in it.
13. According to their condition.
We may, I think, from the make of an oyster or cockle, reasonably
conclude that it has not so many, nor so quick senses as a man, or
several other animals; nor if it had, would it, in that state and
incapacity of transferring itself from one place to another, be bettered
by them. What good would sight and hearing do to a creature that cannot
move itself to or from the objects wherein at a distance it perceives
good or evil? And would not quickness of sensation be an inconvenience
to an animal that must lie still where chance has once placed it, and
there receive the afflux of colder or warmer, clean or foul water, as it
happens to come to it?
14. Decay of perception in old age.
But yet I cannot but think there is some small dull perception, whereby
they are distinguished from perfect insensibility. And that this may be
so, we have plain instances, even in mankind itself. Take one in whom
decrepit old age has blotted out the memory of his past knowledge, and
clearly wiped out the ideas his mind was formerly stored with, and has,
by destroying his sight, hearing, and smell quite, and his taste to a
great degree, stopped up almost al the passages for new ones to enter;
or if there be some of the inlets yet half open, the impressions made
are scarcely perceived, or not at all retained. How far such an one
(notwithstanding al that is boasted of innate principles) is in his
knowledge and intellectual faculties above the condition of a cockle or
an oyster, I leave to be considered. And if a man had passed sixty years
in such a state, as it is possible he might, as well as three days, I
wonder what difference there would be, in any intellectual perfections,
between him and the lowest degree of animals.
15. Perception the Inlet of all materials of Knowledge.
Perception then being the FIRST step and degree towards knowledge, and
the inlet of al the materials of it; the fewer senses any man, as well
as any other creature, hath; and the fewer and duller the impressions
are that are made by them; and the dul er the faculties are that are
employed about them,--the more remote are they from that knowledge which
is to be found in some men. But this being in great variety of degrees
(as may be perceived amongst men) cannot certainly be discovered in the
several species of animals, much less in their particular individuals.
It suffices me only to have remarked here,--that perception is the
first operation of all our intellectual faculties, and the inlet of
al knowledge in our minds. And I am apt too to imagine, that it is
perception, in the lowest degree of it, which puts the boundaries
between animals and the inferior ranks of creatures. But this I mention
only as my conjecture by the by; it being indifferent to the matter in
hand which way the learned shall determine of it.
CHAPTER X.
OF RETENTION.
1. Contemplation
The next faculty of the mind, whereby it makes a further progress
towards knowledge, is that which I call RETENTION; or the keeping of
those simple ideas which from sensation or reflection it hath received.
This is done two ways.
First, by keeping the idea which is brought into it, for some time
actually in view, which is cal ed CONTEMPLATION.
2. Memory.
The other way of retention is, the power to revive again in our minds
those ideas which, after imprinting, have disappeared, or have been as
it were laid aside out of sight. And thus we do, when we conceive heat
or light, yel ow or sweet,--the object being removed. This is MEMORY,
which is as it were the storehouse of our ideas. For, the narrow mind of
man not being capable of having many ideas under view and consideration
at once, it was necessary to have a repository, to lay up those ideas
which, at another time, it might have use of. But, our IDEAS being
nothing but actual perceptions in the mind, which cease to be anything;
when there is no perception of them; this laying up of our ideas in the
repository of the memory signifies no more but this,--that the mind has
a power in many cases to revive perceptions which it has once had, with
this additional perception annexed to them, that IT HAS HAD THEM BEFORE.
And in this sense it is that our ideas are said to be in our memories,
when indeed they are actually nowhere;--but only there is an ability in
the mind when it will to revive them again, and as it were paint them
anew on itself, though some with more, some with less difficulty;
some more lively, and others more obscurely. And thus it is, by the
assistance of this faculty, that we are said to have all those ideas in
our understandings which, though we do not actually contemplate yet we
CAN bring in sight, and make appear again, and be the objects of our
thoughts, without the help of those sensible qualities which first
imprinted them there.
3. Attention, Repetition, Pleasure and Pain, fix Ideas.
Attention and repetition help much to the fixing any ideas in the
memory. But those which naturally at first make the deepest and most
lasting impressions, are those which are accompanied with pleasure or
pain. The great business of the senses being, to make us take notice of
what hurts or advantages the body, it is wisely ordered by nature, as
has been shown, that pain should accompany the reception of several
ideas; which, supplying the place of consideration and reasoning in
children, and acting quicker than consideration in grown men, makes
both the old and young avoid painful objects with that haste which is
necessary for their preservation; and in both settles in the memory a
caution for the future.
4. Ideas fade in the Memory.
Concerning the several degrees of lasting, wherewith ideas are imprinted
on the memory, we may observe,--that some of them have been produced in
the understanding by an object affecting the senses once only, and no
more than once; others, that have more than once offered themselves
to the senses, have yet been little taken notice of: the mind, either
heedless, as in children, or otherwise employed, as in men intent only
on one thing; not setting the stamp deep into itself. And in some, where
they are set on with care and repeated impressions, either through the
temper of the body, or some other fault, the memory is very weak. In all
these cases, ideas in the mind quickly fade, and often vanish quite out
of the understanding, leaving no more footsteps or remaining characters
of themselves than shadows do flying over fields of corn, and the mind
is as void of them as if they had never been there.
5. Causes of oblivion.
Thus many of those ideas which were produced in the minds of children,
in the beginning of their sensation, (some of which perhaps, as of some
pleasures and pains, were before they were born, and others in their
infancy,) if in the future course of their lives they are not repeated
again, are quite lost, without the least glimpse remaining of them. This
may be observed in those who by some mischance have lost their sight
when they were very young; in whom the ideas of colours having been but
slightly taken notice of, and ceasing to be repeated, do quite wear out;
so that some years after, there is no more notion nor memory of colours
left in their minds, than in those of people born blind. The memory of
some men, it is true, is very tenacious, even to a miracle. But yet
there seems to be a constant decay of al our ideas, even of those which
are struck deepest, and in minds the most retentive; so that if they be
not sometimes renewed, by repeated exercise of the senses, or reflection
on those kinds of objects which at first occasioned them, the print
wears out, and at last there remains nothing to be seen. Thus the ideas,
as wel as children, of our youth, often die before us: and our minds
represent to us those tombs to which we are approaching; where, though
the brass and marble remain, yet the inscriptions are effaced by time,
and the imagery moulders away. The pictures drawn in our minds are laid
in fading colours; and if not sometimes refreshed, vanish and disappear.
How much the constitution of our bodies are concerned in this; and
whether the temper of the brain makes this difference, that in some
it retains the characters drawn on it like marble, in others like
freestone, and in others little better than sand, I shall here inquire;
though it may seem probable that the constitution of the body does
sometimes influence the memory, since we oftentimes find a disease quite
strip the mind of al its ideas, and the flames of a fever in a few days
calcine al those images to dust and confusion, which seemed to be as
lasting as if graved in marble.
6. Constantly repeated Ideas can scarce be lost.
But concerning the ideas themselves, it is easy to remark, that those
that are oftenest refreshed (amongst which are those that are conveyed
into the mind by more ways than one) by a frequent return of the objects
or actions th