they operate about simple ideas, which are usually in most men's minds much more clear, precise, and distinct, than complex ones, we may the better examine and learn how the mind abstracts, denominates, compares, and exercises its other operations about those which are complex, wherein we are much more liable to mistake.

Thirdly, Because these very operations of the mind about ideas received from sensations, are themselves, when reflected on, another set of ideas, derived from that other source of our knowledge, which I call reflection; and, therefore, fit to be considered in this place, after the simple ideas of sensation. Of compounding, comparing, abstracting, &c. I have but just spoken, having occasion to treat of them more at large in other places.

§. 15. These are the beginnings of human knowledge.—And thus I have given a short, and, I think, true history of the first beginnings of human knowledge; whence the mind has its first objects, and by what steps it makes its progress to the laying in, and storing up, those ideas, out of which is to be framed all the knowledge it is capable of; wherein I must appeal to experience and observation, whether I am in the right the best way to come to truth, being to examine things as really they are, and not to conclude they are, as we fancy ourselves, or have been taught by others to imagine.

§. 16. Appeal to experience.-To deal truly, this is the only way that I can discover, whereby the ideas of things are brought into the understanding. If other men have either innate ideas, or infused principles, they have reason to enjoy them; and if they are sure of it, it is impossible for others to deny them the privilege that they have above their neighbours. I can speak but of what I find in myself, and is agreeable to those notions; which, if we will examine the whole course of men in their several ages, countries, and education, seem to depend on those foundations which I have laid, and to correspond with this method, in all the parts and degrees thereof.

§. 17. Dark room.-I pretend not to teach, but to enquire; and, therefore, cannot but confess, here again, that external and internal sensation are the only passages, that I can find, of knowledge to the understanding. These alone, as far as I can discover, are the windows by which light is let into this dark room for, methinks, the understanding is not much unlike a closet wholly shut from light, with only some little opening left, to let in external visible resemblances, or ideas of things without: would the pictures coming into such a dark room but stay there, and lie so orderly as to be found upon occasion, it would

very much resemble the understanding of a man, in reference to all objects of sight, and the ideas of them.

These are my guesses concerning the means whereby the understanding comes to have, and retain, simple ideas; and the modes of them, with some other operations about them. I proceed now to examine some of these simple ideas, and their modes, a little more particularly.

CHAPTER XII.

OF COMPLEX IDEAS.

§. 1. Made by the mind out of simple ones.-We have hitherto considered those ideas, in the reception whereof the mind is only passive, which are those simple ones received from sensation and reflection before-mentioned, whereof the mind cannot make one to itself, nor have any idea which does not wholly consist of them. But as the mind is wholly passive in the reception of all its simple ideas, so it exerts several acts of its own, whereby, out of its simple ideas, as the materials and foundations of the rest, the others are framed. The acts of the mind wherein it exerts its power over its simple ideas, are chiefly these three : 1. Combining several simple ideas into one compound one, and thus all complex ideas are made. 2. The second is bringing two ideas, whether simple or complex, together; and setting them by one another, so as to take a view of them at once, without uniting them into one; by which way it gets all ideas of relations. 3. The third is separating them from all other ideas that accompany them in their real existence; this is called abstraction; and thus all its general ideas are made. This shows man's power, and its way of operation, to be much what the same in the material and intellectual word; for the material in both being such as he has no power over, either to make or destroy, all that man can do, is either to unite them together, or to set them by one another, or wholly separate them. I shall here begin with the first of these, in the consideration of complex ideas, and come to the other two, in their due places. As simple ideas are observed to exist in several combinations united together; so the mind has a power to consider several of them united together, as one idea; and that not only as they are united in external objects, but as itself has joned them. Ideas thus made up of several simple ones put together, I call complex;

which, though complicated of various simple ideas, or complex ideas made up of simple ones, yet are, when the mind pleases, considered each by itself, as one entire thing, and signified by

one name.

§. 2. Made voluntarily.—In this faculty of repeating and joining together its ideas, the mind has great power in varying and multiplying the objects of its thoughts, infinitely beyond what sensation or reflection furnishes it with; but all this still confined to those simple ideas which it received from those two sources, which are the ultimate materials of all its compositions. For simple ideas are all from things themselves; and of these the mind can have no more, nor other, than what are suggested to it. It can have no other ideas of sensible qualities, than what come from without, by the senses; nor any ideas of other kind of operations of a thinking substance, than what it finds in itself: but when it has once got these simple ideas, it is not confined barely to observation, and what offers itself from without it: it can, by its own power, put together those ideas it has, and make new complex ones, which it never received so united.

§. 3. Are either modes, substances or relations.-Complex ideas, however compounded and decompounded, though their number be infinite, and the variety endless, wherewith they fill and entertain the thoughts of men; yet, I think, they may be all reduced under these three heads: 1, Modes. 2, Substances. 3, Relations.

§. 4. Modes.-First, Modes I call such complex ideas, which however compounded, contain not in them the supposition of subsisting by themselves, but are considered as dependences on, or affections of, substances; such are ideas signified by the words triangle, gratitude, murder, &c. And if in this I use the word mode in somewhat a different sense from its ordinary signification, I beg pardon; it being unavoidable in discourses differing from the ordinary received notions, either to make new words, or to use old words in somewhat a new signification; the latter whereof, in our present case, is perhaps the most tolerable of the two.

§. 5. Simple and mixed modes. Of these modes there are two sorts, which deserve distinct consideration. First, There are some which are only variations, or different combinations of the same simple idea, without the mixture of any other, as a dozen, or score; which are nothing but the ideas of so many distinct units added together, 'and these I call simple modes, as being contained within the bounds of one simple idea. Secondly, There are others compounded of simple ideas of

several kinds, put together to make one complex one; v. g. beauty, consisting of a certain composition of colour and figure, causing delight in the beholder; theft, which being the concealed change of the possession of any thing, without the consent of the proprietor, contains, as is visible, a combination of several ideas of several kinds; and these I call mixed modes.

§. 6. Substances, single or collective.-Secondly, The ideas of substances are such combinations of simple ideas, as are taken to represent distinct particular things subsisting by themselves; in which the supposed, or confused, idea of substance, such as it is, is always the first and chief. Thus, if to substance be joined the simple idea of a certain dull whitish colour, with certain degrees of weight, hardness, ductility, and fusibility, we have the idea of lead; and a combination of the ideas of a certain sort of figure, with the powers of motion, thought, and reasoning, joined to substance, make the ordinary idea of a

Now, of substances also, there are two sorts of ideas; one of single substances, as they exist separately, as of a man, or a sheep; the other of several of those put together, as an army of men, or flock of sheep; which collective ideas of several substances thus put together, are as much each of them one single idea, as that of a man, or an unit.

§. 7. Relation. Thirdly, The last sort of complex ideas, is that we call relation, which consists in the consideration and comparing one idea with another; of these several kinds we shall treat in their order.

§. 8. The abtrusest ideas from the two sources,-If we trace the progress of our minds, and with attention observe how it repeats, adds together, and unites its simple ideas received from sensation or reflection, it will lead us farther than at first, perhaps, we should have imagined. And, I believe, we shall find, if we warily observe the originals of our notions, that even the most abstruse ideas, how remote soever they may seem from sense, or from any operations of our own minds, are yet only such as the understanding frames to itself, by repeating and joining together ideas, that it had, either from objects of sense, or from its own operations about them; so that even those large and abstract ideas, are derived from sensation or reflection, being no other than what the mind, by the ordinary use of its own faculties, employed about ideas received from objects of sense, or from the operations it observes itself about them, may, and does, attain unto. This I shall endeavour to show in the ideas we have of space, time, and infinity, and some few others that seem the most remote from those originals.

CHAPTER XIII.

OF SIMPLE MODES; AND FIRST, OF THE SIMPLE MODES OF

§. 1. Simple Modes.-Though, in the foregoing part, I have often mentioned simple ideas, which are truly the materials of all our knowledge; yet having treated of them there, rather in the way that they come into the mind, than as distinguished from others more compounded, it will not be, perhaps, amiss to take a view of some of them again under this consideration, and examine those different modifications of the same idea, which the mind either finds in things existing, or is able to make within itself, without the help of any extrinsical object, or any foreign suggestion.

Those modifications of any one simple idea (which, as has been said, I call simple modes), are as perfectly different and distinct ideas in the mind, as those of the greatest distance or contrariety. For the idea of two, is as distinct from that of one, as blueness from heat, or either of them from any number: and yet it is made up only of that simple idea of an unit repeated; and repetitions of this kind joined together, make those distinct simple modes, of a dozen, a gross, a million.

§. 2. Idea of space.-I shall begin with the simple idea of space. I have showed above, c. 4, that we get the idea of space, both by our sight and touch; which, I think, is so evident, that it would be as needless to go to prove, that men perceive, by their sight, a distance between bodies of different colours, or between the parts of the same body; as that they see colours themselves; nor is it less obvious, that they can do so in the dark by feeling and touch.

§. 3. Space and extension. This space, considered barely in length between any two beings, without considering any thing else between them, is called distance; if considered in length, breadth, and thickness, I think it may be called capacity; the term extension is usually applied to it in what manner soever considered.

§. 4. Immensity.-Each different distance, is a different modification of space; and each idea of any different distance, or space, is a simple mode of this idea. Men, for the use, and by the custom of measuring, settle in their minds the ideas of certain stated lengths, such as are an, inch, foot, yard, fathom, mile, diameter of the earth, &c., which are so many distinct ideas made up only of space. When any such stated lengths or