‘It is evident,’ says Bishop Berkeley, ‘to any one who takes a survey of the objects of Human Knowledge, that they are either ideas actually imprinted on the senses, or else such as are perceived by attending to the passions and operations of the mind, or, lastly, ideas formed by help of memory and imagination; either compounding, dividing, or barely representing those originally perceived in the aforesaid ways. By sight I have the ideas of light and colours, with their several degrees and variations. By touch I perceive hard and soft, heat and cold, motion and resistance, &c. and of all these more and less, either as to quantity or degree. Smelling furnishes me with odours: the palate with tastes; and hearing conveys sounds to the mind in all their variety of tone and composition. And as several of these are observed to accompany each other, they come to be marked by one name, and so to be reputed as one thing. Thus, for example, a certain colour, taste, smell, figure, and consistence, having been observed to go together, are accounted one distinct thing, signified by the nameapple. Other collections of ideas constitute a stone, a tree, a book, and the like sensible things; which, as they are pleasing or disagreeable, excite the passions of love, hatred, joy, grief, &c.
‘2. But besides all that endless variety of ideas or objects of knowledge, there is likewise something which knows and perceives them, and exercises divers operations, as willing, imagining, remembering, &c. about them. This perceiving, active being is what I callmind,spirit,soul, ormyself. By which words I do not denote any one of my ideas, but a thing entirely distinct from them, wherein they exist, or, which is the same thing, whereby they are perceived, for the existence of an idea consists in being perceived.
‘3. That neither our thoughts, nor passions, nor ideas formed by the imagination, exist without the mind, is what every body will allow; and to me it is no less evident that the various sensations or ideas imprinted on the sense, however blended or combined together, (that is, whatever objects they compose,) cannot exist otherwise than in a mind perceiving them. I think an intuitive knowledge may be obtained of this, by any one that shall attend to what is meant by the termexist, when applied to sensible things. The table I write on, I say, exists;i.e.I see and feel it, and if I were out of my study, I should say it existed, meaning thereby, that if I was in my study I might perceive it, or that some other spirit actually does perceive it. There was an odour,i.e.it was smelt; there was a sound,i.e.it was heard; a colour or figure, and it was perceived by sight or touch. This is all that I can understand by these and the like expressions. For as to what is said of the absolute existence of unthinking things without any relation to their being perceived, that is to me perfectlyunintelligible. Theiresseispercipi, nor is it possible they should have any existence, out of the minds or thinking things which perceive them.
‘4. It is indeed an opinion strangely prevailing among men, that houses, mountains, rivers, and in a word all sensible objects, have an existence natural or real, distinct from their being perceived by the understanding. But with how great an assurance and acquiescence soever this principle may be entertained in the world, yet whoever shall find in his heart to call it in question, may, if I mistake not, perceive it to involve a manifest contradiction. For what are the forementioned objects but the things we perceive by sense, and what, I pray you, do we perceive besides our own ideas or sensations? And is it not plainly repugnant that any one of these, or any combination of them, should exist unperceived?
‘5. If we thoroughly examine this tenet, it will, perhaps, be found at bottom to depend on the doctrine ofabstract ideas. For can there be a nicer strain of abstraction than to distinguish the existence of sensible objects from their being perceived, so as to conceive them existing unperceived? Light and colours, heat and cold, extension and figures, in a word, the things we see and feel, what are they but so many sensations, notions, ideas, or impressions on the sense; and is it possible to separate, even in thought, any of these from perception? For my part, I might as easily divide a thing from itself. I may, indeed, divide in my thoughts, or conceive apart from each other, those things which, perhaps, I never perceived by sense so divided. Thus I imagine the trunk of a human body without the limbs, or conceive the smell of a rose without thinking on the rose itself. So far I will not deny I can abstract, if that may be properly calledabstractionwhich extends only to the conceiving separately such objects as it is possible may really exist or be actually perceived asunder. But my conceiving or imagining power does not extend beyond the possibility of real existence or perception. Hence, as it is impossible for me to see or feel any thing without an actual sensation of that thing, so it is impossible for me to conceive in my thoughts any sensible thing or object distinct from the sensation or perception of it. In truth, the object and the sensation are the same thing, and cannot therefore be extracted from each other.
‘6. Some truths there are so near and obvious to the mind that a man need only open his eyes to see them. Such I take this important one to be, viz. that all the choir of heaven, and furniture of the earth, in a word, all those bodies which compose the mighty frame of the world, have not any subsistence without a mind, that theiresseis to be perceived or known; that consequently, so long as they are notactually perceived by me, or do not exist in my mind or that of any other created spirit, they must either have no existence at all, or else subsist in the mind of some eternal spirit: it being perfectly unintelligible, and involving all the absurdity of abstraction, to attribute to any single part of them an existence independent of a spirit. To make this appear with all the light and evidence of an axiom, it seems sufficient if I can but awaken the reflection of the reader, that he may take an impartial view of his own meaning, and turn his thoughts upon the subject itself, free and disengaged from all embarrass of words and prepossession in favour of received mistakes.
‘7. From what has been said, it is evident there is not any other substance than spirit, or that which perceives. But for the fuller demonstration of this point, let it be considered, the sensible qualities are colour, figure, motion, smell, taste, &c.;i.e.the ideas perceived by sense. Now, for an idea to exist in an unperceiving thing is a manifest contradiction; for to have an idea is all one as to perceive; that, therefore, wherein colour, figure, &c. exist must perceive them. Hence it is clear there can be no unthinking substance orsubstratumof those ideas.
‘8. But, say you, though the ideas themselves do not exist without the mind, yet there may be things like them whereof they are copies or resemblances, which things exist without the mind, in an unthinking substance. I answer, an idea can be like nothing but an idea, a colour or figure, can be like nothing but another colour or figure. If we look but never so little into our thoughts, we shall find it impossible for us to conceive a likeness except only between our ideas. Again, I ask whether those supposed originals, or external things, of which our ideas are the pictures or representations, be themselves perceivable or no? If they are, then they are ideas, and we have gained our point; but if you say they are not, I appeal to any one whether it be sense to assert a colour is like something which is invisible: hard or soft, like something which is intangible, and so of the rest.
‘9. Some there are who make a distinction betweenprimaryandsecondaryqualities; by the former, they mean extension, figure, motion, rest, solidity or impenetrability, and number; by the latter, they denote all other sensible qualities, as colours, sounds, tastes, &c. The ideas we have of these they acknowledge not to be the resemblances of any thing existing without the mind, or unperceived, but they will have our ideas of the primary qualities to be patterns or images of things which exist without the mind, in an unthinking substance, which they callmatter. By matter, therefore, we are to understand an inert, useless substance, in which extension, figure, motion, &c. do actually subsist. But it is evident from what we havealready shewn, that extension, figure, and motion are only ideas existing in the mind, and that consequently neither they nor their archetypes can exist in an unperceiving substance. Hence it is plain that the very notion of what is calledmatterorcorporeal substanceinvolves a contradiction in it, insomuch that I should not think it necessary to spend more time in exposing its absurdity; but because the tenet of the existence of matter seems to have taken so deep a root in the minds of philosophers, and draws after it so many ill consequences, I choose rather to be thought prolix and tedious, than omit any thing that might conduce to the full discovery and extirpation of that prejudice.
‘10. They who assert that figure, motion, and the rest of the primary or original qualities do exist without the mind, in unthinking substances, do at the same time acknowledge that colours, sounds, heat, cold, &c. do not, which they tell us are sensations existing in the mind alone, that depend on, and are occasioned by the different size, texture, motion, &c. of the minute particles of matter. This they take for an undoubted truth, which they can demonstrate beyond all exception. Now if it be certain that those original qualities are inseparably united with the other sensible qualities, and not, even in thought, capable of being abstracted from them, it plainly follows that they exist only in the mind. But I desire any one to reflect and try whether he can, by any abstraction of thought, conceive the extension and motion of a body, without all other sensible qualities. For my own part, I see evidently that it is not in my power to form an idea of a body extended and moving, but I must withal give it some colour or other sensible quality, which is acknowledged to exist only in the mind. In short, extension, figure, and motion, abstracted from all other qualities, are inconceivable. Where, therefore, the other sensible qualities are, there must these be also,i.e.in the mind, and no where else.
‘11. Again,greatandsmall,swiftandslow, are allowed to exist nowhere without the mind, being entirely relative, and changing as the frame or position of the organs of sense varies. The extension, therefore, which exists without the mind, is neither great nor small, the motion neither swift nor slow; that is, they are nothing at all. But, say you, they are extension in general and motion in general. Thus we see how much the tenet of extended, moveable substances, existing without the mind, depends on that strange doctrine ofabstract ideas. And here I cannot but remark, how nearly the vague and indeterminate description of matter, or corporeal substance, which the modern philosophers are run into by their own principles, resembles that antiquated and so much ridiculed notion ofmateria prima, to be met with in Aristotleand his followers. Without extension, solidity cannot be conceived; since, therefore, it has been shown that extension exists not in an unthinking substance, the same must also be true of solidity.
‘12. That number is entirely the creature of the mind, even though the other qualities be allowed to exist without it, will be evident to whoever considers that the same thing bears a different denomination of number, as the mind views it with different aspects. Thus the same extension is one, or three, or thirty-six, according as the mind considers it with reference to a yard, a foot, or an inch. Number is so visibly relative, and dependent on men’s understandings, that it is strange to think how any one should give it an absolute existence without the mind. We sayonebook,onepage,oneline, &c., all these are equally units, though some contain several of the others; and in each instance it is plain the unit relates to some particular combination of ideas arbitrarily put together by the mind.
‘13. Unity, I know, some will have to be a simple or uncompounded idea, accompanying all other ideas into the mind. That I have any such idea answering the wordunityI do not find, and if I had, methinks I could not miss finding it; on the contrary, it should be the most familiar to my understanding, since it is said to accompany all other ideas, and to be perceived by all the ways of sensation and reflection.[6]To say no more, it is anabstract idea.
‘14. I shall farther add, that after the same manner as modern philosophers prove colours, tastes, &c., to have no existence in matter, or without the mind, the same thing may be likewise proved of all other sensible qualities whatever. Thus for instance, it is said, that heat and cold are affections only of the mind, and not at all patterns of real beings existing in the corporeal substances which excite them, for that the same body which appears cold to one hand, seems warm to another. Now, why may we not as well argue, that figure and extension are not patterns or resemblances of qualities existing in matter, because to the same eye at different stations, or eyes of a different texture at the same station, they appear various, and cannot therefore be the images of any thing settled and determinate without the mind? Again, ’tis proved thatsweetness is not really in the sapid thing, because the thing remaining unaltered, the sweetness is changed into bitter, as in case of a fever, or otherwise vitiated palate. Is it not as reasonable to say, that motion is not without the mind, since if the succession of ideas in the mind become swifter, the motion, it is acknowledged, shall appear slower without any external alteration.
‘15. In short, let any one consider those arguments which are thought manifestly to prove that colours, tastes, &c. exist only in the mind, and he will find they may with equal force be brought to prove the same thing of extension, figure, and motion. Though it must be confessed this method of arguing does not so much prove that there is no extension, colour, &c. in an outward object, as that we do not know by sense which is the true extension or colour of the object. But the foregoing arguments plainly show it to be impossible that any colour or extension at all, or other sensible quality whatsoever, should exist in an unthinking subject without the mind, or in truth, that there should be any such thing as an outward object.’—Principles of Human Knowledge, pp. 54, &c.
Again, he says, page 58:—
‘But though it were possible that solid, figured movable substances may exist without the mind, corresponding to the ideas we have of bodies, yet how is it possible for us to know this? Either we must know it by sense or by reason. As for our senses, by them we have the knowledge only of our sensations, ideas, or those things that are immediately perceived by sense, call them what you will; but they do not inform us that things exist without the mind, or unperceived, like to those which are perceived. This the materialists themselves acknowledge. It remains, therefore, that if we have any knowledge at all of external things, it must be by reason, inferring their existence from what is immediately perceived by sense. But I do not see what reason can induce us to believe the existence of bodies without the mind, from what we perceive, since the very patrons of matter themselves do not pretend there is any necessary connexion betwixt them and our ideas. I say it is granted on all hands (and what happens in dreams, frenzies, and the like, puts it beyond dispute) that it is possible we might be affected with all the ideas we have now, though there were no bodies existing without resembling them. Hence it is evident the supposition of external bodies is not necessary for the producing our ideas, since it is granted they are produced sometimes, and might possibly be produced always, in the same order we see them in at present, without their concurrence. But though we might possibly have all our sensations without them, yet perhaps it may be thought easier to conceive and explain the mannerof their production, by supposing external bodies in their likeness rather than otherwise, and so it might be at least probable there are such things as bodies that excite their ideas in our minds. But neither can this be said, for though we give the materialists their external bodies, they, by their own confession, are never the nearer knowing how our ideas are produced, since they own themselves unable to comprehend in what manner body can act upon spirit, or how it is possible it should imprint any idea in the mind. Hence it is evident the production of ideas or sensations in our minds, can be no reason why we should suppose matter or corporeal substances, since that is acknowledged to remain equally inexplicable with, or without this supposition. If therefore it were possible for bodies to exist without the mind, yet to hold they do so, must needs be a very precarious opinion; since it is to suppose, without any reason at all, that God has created innumerable beings that are entirely useless, and serve to no manner of purpose.
‘But say what we can, some one perhaps might be apt to reply, he will still believe his senses, and never suffer any arguments, how plausible soever, to prevail over the certainty of them. Be it so, assert the evidence of sense as high as you please, we are willing to do the same. That what I see and hear, and feel, doth exist,i.e.is perceived by me, I no more doubt than I do of my own being: but I do not see how the testimony of sense can be alleged as a proof for the existence of any thing which is not perceived by sense. We are not for having any man turn sceptic, and disbelieve his senses; on the contrary, we give them all the stress and assurance imaginable, nor are there any principles more opposite to scepticism than those we have laid down, as shall be hereafter clearly shown. Secondly, it will be objected that there is a great difference between real fire, for instance, and the idea of fire, betwixt dreaming or imagining oneself burnt and actually being so: if you suspect it to be only the idea of fire which you see, do but put your hand into it, and you’ll be convinced with a witness. This and the like may be urged in opposition to our tenets. To all which the answer is evident from what hath been already said, and I shall only add in this place, that if real fire be very different from the idea of fire, so also is the real pain that it occasions very different from the idea of the same pain, and yet nobody will pretend that real pain either is, or can possibly be, in an unperceiving thing or without the mind, any more than its idea.’
Now with regard to this system, whatever we may think of the solidity of the foundation, the superstructure is as light and elegant as possible. There is a peculiar character in the metaphysical writingsof Berkeley which is to be found no where else. With all the closeness and subtilty of the deepest reflection, they combine the ease and vivacity of a common essay: so that the most violent paradoxes and elaborate distinctions are rendered familiar by the simplicity of the style. His writings show that he had thought with the utmost intensity on almost every subject, yet he has the same careless freedom of manner as if he had never thought at all. He is never entangled in the labyrinth of his own thoughts, and the buoyancy of his spirit surmounts every objection with a singular felicity, as if his mind had wings. It is perhaps worth remarking that the ‘Principles of Human Knowledge’ were published in 1710, at a time when the author was only five-and-twenty, as was the ‘Essay on Vision,’ the greatest by far of all his works, and the most complete example of elaborate analytical reasoning and particular induction joined together that perhaps ever existed. It is also generally free from that air of paradox and fanciful hypothesis which runs through his other writings.[7]I mention this the more because I believe that the greatest efforts of intellect have almost always been made while the passions are in their greatest vigour, and before hope loses its hold on the heart, and is the elastic spring which animates all our thoughts.
On the reasoning I have just quoted I will make one or two remarks without pretending to enter into the real difficulties of the question. First, it seems to me that the argument against the existence of the secondary qualities, drawn from the various effects produced by them on different minds or in different circumstances, which Hume mentions as the only solid one, and which Berkeley thinks more doubtful, is no argument at all. That an object at a distance, for example, does not look like the same object near is in consequence of the interposition of the air, which gives it a different hue; the logical inference merely is that one object has not the same sensible qualities as another, or as Berkeley has remarked, since the effect depends upon the combination and reaction of a number of things that we do not know what the true or natural qualities of each object are.
2. The proof of the non-existence of the primary qualities or of matter altogether, as inconceivable by the mind, goes upon the supposition that what is different cannot be the same. ‘An idea,’ saysBerkeley, ‘can be like nothing but an idea, a perception like nothing but a perception.’ But it might be proved in this manner that a print cannot resemble a picture, because that which has colour cannot be represented by any thing without colour. That as far as our ideas are perceptions they do not resemble any thing in matter is true, but no one ever supposed that in this respect there was any resemblance between them, or that matter thought. That they cannot be alike in any thing does not seem to me proved by this mode of reasoning: for that our ideas of things are not mere perceptions is evident from this, that they are different among themselves, that is, have other distinguishing qualities besides being perceived.
3. Berkeley’s argument against the existence of matter not merely as the object or archetype, but as the cause of our sensations, is founded on the notion that we have a right to reject every general conclusion in which there is the least flaw or difficulty. Common sense is brought to the bar, like an old offender, and condemned upon the slightest shadow of evidence. If the vulgar system is vulnerable in any part, it is taken for granted that it ought to be discarded, to make room for a perfectly rational and philosophical account, the sufficiency of the understanding being never once doubted. But all this severe logic and scrutiny into the perfect connexion of our ideas vanishes, when the author comes to explain the cause of our external impressions, or to find a substitute for matter. This, he says, is God or an all-powerful spirit, and yet he affirms that we have no more idea of spirit than of matter, and consequently the one ought upon this theory to pass for a nonentity as much as the other.
‘We perceive a continual succession of ideas, some are anew excited, others are changed or totally disappear. There is therefore some cause of those ideas, whereon they depend, and which produces and changes them. That this cause cannot be any quality or idea or combination of ideas, is clear from what has been said. It must therefore be a substance, but it has been shewn that there is no corporeal or material substance. It remains therefore that the cause of ideas is an incorporeal active substance or spirit.
‘A spirit is one simple, undivided, active being: as it perceives ideas, it is called the understanding, and as it produces or otherwise operates about them, it is called the will. Hence there can be no idea formed of a soul or spirit. For all ideas whatever being passive and inert, they cannot represent unto us by way of image or likeness that which acts. Such is the nature of spirit or that which acts, that it cannot be itself perceived, but only by the effects which it produceth. If any man shall doubt of the truth of what is here delivered, let him but reflect and try if he can frame the idea of any power oractive being. A little attention will make it plain to any one, that to have an idea which shall be like that active principle of motion and change of ideas, is absolutely impossible.’ That is to say, matter is here excluded from being the cause or in any way the occasion of our ideas, because we know not what it is, and the inference is, that the cause of our ideas must be spirit, of which we are equally ignorant. The reasoning might have been reversed. But it is thus that philosophy seems to be in general nothing else but ‘reason pandering will.’ The literal conclusion from the foregoing argument is, that there is nothing in the universe but oneself, nor even that, but only the present idea: all other words must signify nothing.
To return to Mr. Locke. He has treated on the same question in the second volume, but without advancing any thing remarkable on it, and it is the only place in which he loses his temper, and substitutes ridicule for argument.
In the chapter on Perception, there are some observations on the manner in which our judgments alter the impressions of sensible objects, which are well worth notice, and show that the author was well acquainted with what may be called the practical processes of the human mind.
He says, p. 130, ‘We are farther 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,e.g.gold, alabaster, or jet, it is certain that the idea thereby imprinted in 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 truly is 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 nigh of the same bigness, so as to tell, when he felt the one and the other, which is the cube, which the sphere. Suppose then the cubeand sphere placed on a table, and the blind man made to see: Quere, whether by his sight, before he touched them, he could now distinguish and tell which is the globe, which the cube?†To which the acute and judicious proposer answers, “No. For though he has obtained the experience of how a globe, how a cube affects his touch, yet he has not yet attained 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’ (says Mr. Locke) ‘with this thinking gentleman, whom I am proud to call my friend, in his answer to this his 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 has not the least use of, or help from them, and the rather, because this observing gentleman farther 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.’ Mr. Locke then adds other instances to the same effect, as ‘That 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. How frequently do we in a day cover our eyes with our eyelids, without at all perceiving that we are 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.’
On the problem above stated, which has been often made a subject of dispute, I shall only remark that the answer given to it, with which Mr. Locke agrees, is directly repugnant to his doctrine of the real existence of the primary qualities of matter, namely figure and extension. For it is plain, that if there is any thing in external objects answering to their ideas in our minds, the ideas we have of those qualities and which are conveyed by different senses, must be like one another. If the ideas of figure as a visible and tangible thing have no resemblance to themselves, it is ridiculous to suppose that they can coincide with any thing out of them in nature. Secondly,it appears to me that the mind must recognise a certain similarity between the impressions of different senses in this case. For instance, the sudden change or discontinuity of the sensation, produced by the sharp angles of the cube, is something common to both ideas, and if so, must afford a means of comparing them together. Berkeley, in his ‘Essay on Vision,’ goes so far as to deny that there is any intuitive analogy between the ideas of number as conveyed by different senses, and asserts that the distinction between the two legs of a statue, for instance, as perceived by the touch or by the sight would not imply any idea of like or same. I grant this consequence to be true, on the principle maintained by him that there are no abstract ideas in the mind, for on this principle there can be no idea answering to the wordssameordifferent, but then this argument would destroy all kind of coincidence not only between ideas of different senses, but between repeated impressions of the same sense. The ‘Essay on Vision,’ of which I have already spoken, apparently originated in the problem here inserted, and is a more complete exemplification of the effects of association with respect to objects of sight than is to be found even in Hartley’s account of this subject.
Mr. Locke’s account of the distinction between wit and understanding I have already noticed; his explanation of the difference between idiots and madmen has been often referred to, and is as follows:
‘The defect in naturals seems to proceed from want of quickness, activity, and motion in the intellectual faculties, whereby they are deprived of reason: whereas madmen, on the other side, seem to suffer by the other extreme. For they do not appear to me to have lost the faculty of reasoning; but having joined together some ideas very wrongly, they mistake them for truths; and they err as men do that argue right from wrong principles: for, by the violence of their imaginations, having taken their fancies for realities, they make right deductions from them. Thus you shall find a distracted man, fancying himself a king, with a right inference require suitable attendance, respect, and obedience: others, who have thought themselves made of glass, have used the caution necessary to preserve such brittle bodies. Hence it comes to pass, that a man who is very sober, and of a right understanding in all other things, may in one particular be as frantic as any in Bedlam, if either by any sudden very strong impression, or long fixing his fancy upon one sort of thoughts, incoherent ideas have been cemented together so powerfully as to remain united. But there are degrees of madness, as of folly; the disorderly jumbling together of ideas is in some more, and some less. In short, herein seems to lie the difference between idiots and madmen:that madmen put wrong ideas together, and so make wrong propositions, but argue and reason right from them: but idiots make very few or no propositions, and reason scarce at all.’
Mr. Locke’s account of Liberty and Necessity, contained in his chapter ‘On Power,’ has been commented upon in the previous Essay. As is there remarked, it is one which has been more found fault with than any other part of his work, I think without reason. He seems evidently to have admitted the definition of necessity, but not the name, which is not much to be wondered at, considering the improper use to which it is liable, and which can scarce be separated from it in the closest reasoning, much less as a term of general signification: in other words, he denies the power of the mind to act without a cause or motive, or, in any manner, in any circumstances, from mere indifference and absolute self motion; but he at the same time denies the inference which has been drawn from this principle, that the mind is not an agent at all, but altogether subject to external force, or blind impulse.
Mr. Locke, in treating of complex ideas, divides them into three sorts, those of modes, substances, and relations.
First, ‘Modes,’ he says, ‘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 the ideas signified by the wordstriangle,gratitude,murder, &c. Of these modes there are two sorts. 1. There are some which are only variations or different combinations of the same simple idea, without the mixture of any other, as adozenorscore, which are nothing but the ideas of so many distinct units added together, and these I call simple modes. 2. There are others, compounded of simple ideas of several kinds put together, to make one complex one;e.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 callmixed modes.’
With respect to modes, the author endeavours to shew, I think improperly, that as they are put together arbitrarily by the mind, according to circumstances, that they have no real existence in nature, and that the ideas we form of them are always correct. Neither of these consequences will be found to follow:i.e.the circumstances and actions which constitute theft do actually exist without the mind and are necessary to that idea, though it is arbitrary in me according to the occasion or the purpose in view, to think of that collection of ideas or another, which shall constitute robbery; that is, I may add or leaveout the circumstance of violence, as it happens; secondly, I may, without being aware of it, add or leave out some circumstance necessary to the combination of ideas spoken of, and thus confuse one idea with another, and not merely miscal, as Mr. Locke supposes, but misconceive the mode in question. We then merely miscal when though we give a wrong name to a thing, the idea is kept perfectly distinct and clear from other ideas, otherwise we confound both names and things. But it will not be contended, that the ideas of theft, robbery, and fraud, for instance, are always kept clear in every one’s mind, so that he is at no loss ever to define them, or can immediately in all cases refer any action to the class to which it belongs. Every collection of ideas which the mind puts together is undoubtedly that collection and no other; but in forming the ideas of mixed modes, the mind does something more than this, or it supposes one collection of ideas to be the same as another which it has had at a former time, and gives a certain name to, and in this supposition it often errs.
On this subject, the author is a good deal puzzled with the question, how it is possible for the mind ever to confound one idea with another? It is indeed a puzzling question, but the answer which he gives to it in resolving it into a mistake of words, is very unsatisfactory. For there is no more reason why we should mistake one name or sign of an idea for another, than why we should mistake the ideas themselves. If every circumstance belonging to our ideas was necessarily clear and self-evident to the mind, the sign affixed to it, which is one of those circumstances, would be so too, and we find that in those things with which we have a thorough acquaintance, we never confound one name with another, or if we should, it does not disturb the idea, and is of no consequence.
Among the second sort of complex ideas Mr. Locke classes those of substances. These, he says, 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 or 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 power of motion, thought, and reasoning, joined to substance, make the ordinary idea of a man. 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 a flock of sheep: which collective ideas of several substances are as much each of them onesingle idea as that of a man or an unit.’ He then adds, ‘and the third sort of complex ideas is that which we call relative, which consists in the consideration and comparing one idea with another.’ This last sort of ideas seems to me the only ones that are perfectly simple and indivisible: things themselves are always complex. Mr. Locke considers rightly that we know nothing of the nature of substance, and that we can only define it as an abstract idea of some thing, that supports accidents or connects different sensible qualities together. For this modest confession of his own ignorance he was however called to a very severe account by the learned of the time, Bishop Stillingfleet and others, who thought they knew more of the matter, and could penetrate the essence of things. The ‘Essay on the Human Understanding’ is swelled out with repeated and long extracts from this controversy, and they are not the least valuable part of the work, as they show to what shifts men can be driven, to defend systematically not truth but their own opinion, who become blind and obstinate by implicit faith, and who by adhering to every established prejudice drive others into all the absurdities of paradox.
Mr. Locke’s own account of our ideas of substance is a good deal spun out, and is enriched with as many illustrations from the qualities of gold, as if he had been candidate for the place of assay-master of the mint. The chapter ‘On Identity’ is perhaps the best reasoned and the most full of thought and observation of any in the Essay: though the author sets out with an observation which seems to augur differently. For after explaining identity as it relates to individuality, or implies that a thing is the same with itself, he says, ‘From what has been said it is easy to discover what is so much inquired after, theprincipium individuationis: and that, it is plain, is existence itself, which determines a being of any sort to a particular time and place, incommunicable to two beings of the same kind.’ He then, very wisely quitting this principle which would certainly be of no use to him, proceeds directly to account for the identity of different things from a continuance, not of the same substance, but of the same essence, or of the characteristic properties of any thing, carried on in succession; as a river is the same while it flows through the same channel, or an oak while it retains the same organization, and a man while he retains the same life and continued consciousness.
In the chapter entitled ‘Of true and false Ideas,’ the author supposes truth to depend on some mental or verbal proposition, and does not, like Hobbes and the modern metaphysical writers, make it consist entirely in a form of words. In the last chapter of thefirst volume he treats of the association of ideas. This chapter was added after the first edition of the work, and he confesses, that the subject was something new to him. He has treated it in that mixed way of observation and reasoning, in which the peculiar force of his mind lay. The account he has given of it does not form a system, but the fragments of a system, something like the French memoirs that are to serve for the materials of a history. He does not appear to have laid down any general theorem on the subject, or to have been aware of the possibility of applying this principle to account in a plausible manner for the whole chain of our thoughts and feelings, as Hobbes and Hartley have done. Sound, practical, good sense, and a kind of discursive observation, neither grovelling in vulgar common place, nor soaring into the regions of paradox, are in fact the general characteristics of his mind, which has not been understood by his admirers and commentators. A short passage will suffice to show his manner of considering this doctrine of association.
‘Many children,’ he says, ‘imputing the pain they endured at school to their books they were corrected for, so join those ideas together that a book becomes their aversion, and they are never reconciled to the study and use of them all their lives after: and thus reading becomes a torment to them, which otherwise possibly they might have made the great pleasure of their lives. There are rooms convenient enough that some men cannot study in, and fashions of vessels, which though ever so clean and commodious they cannot drink out of, and that by reason of some accidental ideas which are annexed to them, and make them offensive: and who is there that has not observed some man to flag at the appearance, or in the company of some certain person, not otherwise superior to him, but because having once on some occasion got the ascendant, the idea of authority and distance goes along with that of the person? And he that has been thus subjected is not able to separate them. Instances of this kind are so plentiful every where, that if I add one more, it is only for the pleasant oddness of it: it is of a young gentleman, who having learned to dance, and that to great perfection, there happened to stand an old trunk in the room where he learned: the idea of this remarkable piece of household stuff had so mixed itself with all the turns and steps of his dances, that though in that chamber he could dance exceedingly well, yet it was only whilst that trunk was there; nor could he perform well in any other place, unless that, or some such other trunk had its due position in the room.’
The following passage approaches the nearest to the statement of a general principle:
‘This strong combination of ideas, not allied by nature, the mind makes in itself either voluntarily or by chance: and hence it comes in different men to be very different, according to their different inclinations, educations, interests, &c. Custom settles habits of thinking in the understanding, as well as of determining in the will, and of motions in the body: all which seems to be but trains of motion in the animal spirits, which once set agoing continue in the same steps they have been used to, which by often treading are worn into a smooth path, and the motion in it becomes easy, and as it were natural. As far as we can comprehend thinking, thus ideas seem to be produced in our minds; or if they are not, this may serve to explain their following one another in an habitual train when once they are put into that track, as well as it does to explain such motions of the body. A musician used to any tune will find, that let it but once begin in his head, the ideas of the several notes of it will follow one another orderly in his understanding, without any care or attention, as regularly as his finger moves orderly over the keys of the organ to play out the tune he has begun, though his inattentive thoughts be elsewhere a wandering. Whether the natural cause of these ideas, as well as of that regular dancing of the fingers, be the motion of his animal spirits, I will not determine, how probable soever by this instance it appears to be so; but this may help us a little to conceive of intellectual habits, and of the tying together of ideas. That there are such associations of them made by custom in the minds of most men, I think nobody will question, who has well considered himself or others; and to this perhaps might be justly attributed most of the sympathies and antipathies observable in men, which work as strongly and produce as regular effects as if they were natural, and are therefore called so, though they at first had no other original but the accidental connexion of two ideas, which either the strength of the first impression or future indulgence so united, that they always afterwards kept company together in that man’s mind, as if they were but one idea. I say, most of the antipathies, I do not say all; for some of them are truly natural, depend upon our original constitution, and are born with us; but a great part of those which are counted natural, would have been known to be from unheeded though perhaps early impressions, or wanton fancies at first, which would have been acknowledged the original of them, if they had been warily observed.’
The former part of this passage, relating to the dancing of the animal spirits, the Abbé Condillac in his ‘Logic’ has paraphrased with a self-sufficiency, an assumption of originality, and a smoothness of flippancy, peculiar almost to himself.
On the subject of materialism, Mr. Locke seems to have had two opinions; the first, that as far as we can discern, the properties of mind and matter are utterly distinct and irreconcileable; the second, that God might for aught we know be able to superadd to matter a faculty of thinking: either the one or the other of these opinions must be without meaning. In speaking of the difficulties attending both sides of this question, he has, however, offered one of the best moral cautions against precipitancy of judgment and impatience of inquiry to be found in any author. He says, (vol. ii. p. 203:) ‘He that considers how hardly sensation is in our thoughts reconcilable to extended matter, or existence to any thing that hath no extension at all, will confess that he is very far from certainly knowing what his soul is. It is a point which seems to me to be put out of the reach of our knowledge: and he who will give himself leave to consider freely, and look into the dark and intricate part of each hypothesis, will scarce find his reason able to determine him fixedly for or against the soul’s materiality. Since on which side soever he views it, either as an unextended substance, or a thinking extended matter, the difficulty to conceive either, will, whilst either alone is in his thoughts, still drive him to the contrary side. An unfair way which some men take with themselves; who because of the unconceivableness of some thing they find in one, throw themselves violently into the contrary hypothesis, though altogether as unintelligible to an unbiassed understanding. This serves not only to show the weakness and scantiness of our knowledge, but the insignificant triumph of such sort of arguments, which drawn from our own views may satisfy us that we can find no certainty on one side of the question; but do not at all thereby help us to truth, by running into the opposite opinion, which on examination will be found clogged with equal difficulties.’
Mr. Locke has not, I think, himself enough attended to this admirable caution in his adoption of the common argument to demonstrate the existence of Godà priori, towards which I conceive not the slightest advances can be made in this method. For the axiom that every thing must have a cause can never be made to infer the existence of a first cause, that is, of something without a cause. It is equally impossible for the human mind to conceive of the beginning of existence, or to pass from nothing to something, either by the help of an infinite series of finite existences, or by the infinite duration of one simple, absolute existence. Those who wish to see how far human ingenuity can push a complete confusion of ideas into the verge of the strictest logical demonstration and self-evident truth, may find all that they want in Dr. Clarke’s celebrated work on the‘Attributes,’ which contains more logical acuteness and more power of scholastic disputation than any other work that I know of in modern times. Hartley has lost himself in the same endless labyrinth of finite and infinite series. And Locke’s statement of this question is only better, because it is shorter, and goes straight forward, without stopping to answer difficulties.