4. As, First, all simple ideas are really conformed to things.
First, The first are simple ideas, which since the mind, as has
been shown, can by no means make to itself, must necessarily be the product of things operating on the mind, in a
natural way, and producing therein those perceptions which by the Wisdom and Will of our Maker they are
ordained and adapted to. From whence it follows, that simple ideas are not fictions of our fancies, but the natural
and regular productions of things without us, really operating upon us; and so carry with them all the conformity
which is intended; or which our state requires: for they represent to us things under those appearances which they
are fitted to produce in us: whereby we are enabled to distinguish the sorts of particular substances, to discern the
states they are in, and so to take them for our necessities, and apply them to our uses. Thus the idea of whiteness,
or bitterness, as it is in the mind, exactly answering that power which is in any body to produce it there, has all the
real conformity it can or ought to have, with things without us. And this conformity between our simple ideas and
the existence of things, is sufficient for real knowledge.
