Skip directly to:Main content Main navigation

University of Virginia Library

An essay concerning human understanding

To The Right Honourable Lord Thomas,

Epistle to the Reader

collapse section

Introduction An Essay Concerning Human Understanding

1. An Inquiry into the understanding, pleasant and useful.

4. Useful to know the extent of our comprehension.

5. Our capacity suited to our state and concerns.

6. Knowledge of our capacity a cure of scepticism and idleness.

7. Occasion of this essay.

8. What idea stand for.

collapse section

1.

Book I Neither Principles Nor Ideas Are Innate

collapse section

1.

Chapter I No Innate Speculative Principles.

The way shown how we come by any Knowledge, sufficient to prove it not innate

2. General assent the great argument.

3. Universal consent proves nothing innate.

4. "What is, is," and "It is impossible for the same thing to be and not to be," not universally assented to.

5. Not on the mind naturally imprinted, because not known to children, idiots, etc.

6. That men know them when they come to the use of reason, answered.

8. If reason discovered them, that would not prove them innate.

9. It is false that reason discovers them.

10. No use made of reasoning in the discovery of these two maxims.

11. And if there were, this would prove them not innate.

12. The coming to the use of reason not the time we come to know these maxims.

13. By this they are not distinguished from other knowable truths.

14. If coming to the use of reason were the time of their discovery it would not prove them innate.

15. The steps by which the mind attains several truths.

16. Assent to supposed innate truths depends on having clear and distinct ideas of what their terms mean, and not on their innateness.

17. Assenting as soon as proposed and understood, proves them not innate.

18. If such an assent be a mark of innate, then "that one and two are equal to three, that sweetness is not bitterness," and a thousand the like, must be innate.

19. Such less general propositions known before these universal maxims.

20. "One and one equal to Two, etc., not general nor useful," answered.

21. These maxims not being known sometimes till proposed, proves them not innate.

22. Implicitly known before proposing, signifies that the mind is capable of understanding them, or else signifies nothing.

23. The argument of assenting on first hearing, is upon a false supposition of no precedent teaching.

24. Not innate, because not universally assented to.

25. These maxims not the first known.

26. And so not innate.

27. Not innate, because they appear least where what is innate shows itself clearest.

28. Recapitulation.

collapse section

2.

Chapter II No Innate Practical Principles

1. No moral principles so clear and so generally received as the forementioned speculative maxims.

2. Faith and justice not owned as principles by all men.

3. Objection: "though men deny them in their practice, yet they admit them in their thoughts," answered.

4. Moral rules need a proof, ergo not innate.

5. Instance in keeping compacts.

6. Virtue generally approved, not because innate, but because profitable.

7. Men's actions convince us that the rule of virtue is not their internal principle.

8. Conscience no proof of any innate moral rule.

9. Instances of enormities practised without remorse.

10. Men have contrary practical principles.

11. Whole nations reject several moral rules.

12. The generally allowed breach of a rule, proof that it is not innate.

13. If men can be ignorant of what is innate, certainty is not described by innate principles.

14. Those who maintain innate practical principles tell us not what they are.

15. Lord Herbert's innate principles examined.

16. These five either not all, or more than all, if there are any.

17. The supposed marks wanting.

18. Of little use if they were innate.

19. Scarce possible that God should engrave principles in words of uncertain meaning.

20. Objection, "innate principles may be corrupted," answered.

21. Contrary principles in the world.

22. How men commonly come by their principles.

23. Principles supposed innate because we do not remember when we began to hold them.

24. How such principles come to be held.

25. Further explained.

26. A worship of idols.

27. Principles must be examined.

collapse section

3.

Chapter III Other considerations concerning Innate Principles, both Speculative and Practical

1. Principles not innate, unless their ideas be innate.

2. Ideas, especially those belonging to principles, not born with children.

3. "Impossibility" and "identity" not innate ideas.

4. "Identity," an idea not innate.

5. What makes the same man?

6. Whole and part, not innate ideas.

7. Idea of worship not innate.

8. Idea of God not innate.

9. The name of God not universal or obscure in meaning.

10. Ideas of God and idea of fire.

11. Idea of God not innate.

12. Suitable to God's goodness, that all men should have an idea of Him, therefore naturally imprinted by Him, answered.

13. Ideas of God various in different men.

14. Contrary and inconsistent ideas of God under the same name.

15. Gross ideas of God.

16. Idea of God not innate although wise men of all nations come to have it.

17. Odd, low, and pitiful ideas of God common among men.

18. If the idea of God be not innate, no other can be supposed innate.

19. Idea of substance not innate.

20. No propositions can be innate, since no ideas are innate.

21. No innate ideas in the memory.

22. Principles not innate, because of little use or little certainty.

23. Difference of men's discoveries depends upon the different application of their faculties.

24. Men must think and know for themselves.

25. Whence the opinion of innate principles.

26. Conclusion.

collapse section

2.

Book II Of Ideas

collapse section

1.

Chapter I Of Ideas in general, and their Original

1. Idea is the object of thinking.

2. All ideas come from sensation or reflection.

3. The objects of sensation one source of ideas.

4. The operations of our minds, the other source of them.

5. All our ideas are of the one or the other of these.

6. Observable in children.

7. Men are differently furnished with these, according to the different objects they converse with.

8. Ideas of reflection later, because they need attention.

9. The soul begins to have ideas when it begins to perceive.

10. The soul thinks not always; for this wants proofs.

11. It is not always conscious of it.

12. If a sleeping man thinks without knowing it, the sleeping and waking man are two persons.

13. Impossible to convince those that sleep without dreaming, that they think.

14. That men dream without remembering it, in vain urged.

15. Upon this hypothesis, the thoughts of a sleeping man ought to be most rational.

16. On this hypothesis, the soul must have ideas not derived from sensation or reflection, of which there is no appearance.

17. If I think when I know it not, nobody else can know it.

18. How knows any one that the soul always thinks? For if it be not a self-evident proposition, it needs proof.

19. "That a man should be busy in thinking, and yet not retain it the next moment," very improbable.

20. No ideas but from sensation and reflection, evident, if we observe children.

21. State of a child in the mother's womb.

22. The mind thinks in proportion to the matter it gets from experience to think about.

23. A man begins to have ideas when he first has sensation. What sensation is.

24. The original of all our knowledge.

25. In the reception of simple ideas, the understanding is for the most part passive.

collapse section

2.

Chapter II Of Simple Ideas

1. Uncompounded appearances.

2. The mind can neither make nor destroy them.

3. Only the qualities that affect the senses are imaginable.

collapse section

3.

Chapter III Of Simple Ideas of Sense

1. Division of simple ideas.

2. Few simple ideas have names.

collapse section

4.

Chapter IV Idea of Solidity

1. We receive this idea from touch.

2. Solidity fills space.

3. Distinct from space.

4. From hardness.

5. On solidity depend impulse, resistance, and protrusion.

6. What solidity is.

collapse section

5.

Chapter V Of Simple Ideas of Divers Senses

Ideas received both by seeing and touching.

collapse section

6.

Chapter VI Of Simple Ideas of Reflection

1. Simple ideas are the operations of mind about its other ideas.

2. The idea of perception, and idea of willing, we have from reflection.

collapse section

7.

Chapter VII Of Simple Ideas of both Sensation and Reflection

1. Ideas of pleasure and pain.

2. Mix with almost all our other ideas.

3. As motives of our actions.

4. An end and use of pain.

5. Another end.

6. Goodness of God in annexing pleasure and pain to our other ideas.

7. Ideas of existence and unity.

8. Idea of power.

9. Idea of succession.

10. Simple ideas the materials of all our knowledge.

collapse section

8.

Chapter VIII Some further considerations concerning our Simple Ideas of Sensation

1. Positive ideas from privative causes.

2. Ideas in the mind distinguished from that in things which gives rise to them.

3. We may have the ideas when we are ignorant of their physical causes.

4. Why a privative cause in nature may occasion a positive idea.

5. Negative names need not be meaningless.

6. Whether any ideas are due to causes really privative.

7. Ideas in the mind, qualities in bodies.

8. Our ideas and the qualities of bodies.

9. Primary qualities of bodies.

10. Secondary qualities of bodies.

11. How bodies produce ideas in us.

12. By motions, external, and in our organism.

13. How secondary qualities produce their ideas.

14. They depend on the primary qualities.

15. Ideas of primary qualities are resemblances; of secondary, not.

17. The ideas of the primary alone really exist.

18. The secondary exist in things only as modes of the primary.

21. Explains how water felt as cold by one hand may be warm to the other.

22. An excursion into natural philosophy.

23. Three sorts of qualities in bodies.

24. The first are resemblances; the second thought to be resemblances, but are not; the third neither are nor are thought so.

25. Why the secondary are ordinarily taken for real qualities, and not for bare powers.

26. Secondary qualities twofold; first, immediately perceivable; secondly, mediately perceivable.

collapse section

9.

Chapter IX Of Perception

1. Perception the first simple idea of reflection.

2. Reflection alone can give us the idea of what perception is.

3. Arises in sensation only when the mind notices the organic impression.

4. Impulse on the organ insufficient.

5. Children, though they may have ideas in the womb, have none innate.

6. The effects of sensation in the womb.

7. Which ideas appear first, is not evident, nor important.

8. Sensations often changed by the judgment.

9. This judgment apt to be mistaken for direct perception.

10. How, by habit, ideas of sensation are unconsciously changed into ideas of judgment.

11. Perception puts the difference between animals and vegetables.

12. Perception in all animals.

13. According to their condition.

14. Decay of perception in old age.

15. Perception the inlet of all materials of knowledge.

collapse section

10.

Chapter X Of Retention

1. Contemplation.

2. Memory.

3. Attention, repetition, pleasure and pain, fix ideas.

4. Ideas fade in the memory.

5. Causes of oblivion.

6. Constantly repeated ideas can scarce be lost.

7. In remembering, the mind is often active.

8. Two defects in the memory, oblivion and slowness.

9. A defect which belongs to the memory of man, as finite.

10. Brutes have memory.

collapse section

11.

Chapter XI Of Discerning, and other operations of the Mind

1. No knowledge without discernment.

2. The difference of wit and judgment.

3. Clearness done hinders confusion.

5. Brutes compare but imperfectly.

6. Compounding.

7. Brutes compound but little.

9. Abstraction.

10. Brutes abstract not.

11. Brutes abstract not, yet are not bare machines.

12. Idiots and madmen.

13. Difference between idiots and madmen.

14. Method followed in this explication of faculties.

15. The true beginning of human knowledge.

16. Appeal to experience.

collapse section

12.

Chapter XII Of Complex Ideas

1. Made by the mind out of simple ones.

2. Made voluntarily.

3. Complex ideas are either of modes, substances, or relations.

4. Ideas of modes.

5. Simple and mixed modes of simple ideas.

6. Ideas of substances, single or collective.

7. Ideas of relation.

8. The abstrusest ideas we can have are all from two sources.

collapse section

13.

Chapter XIII Complex Ideas of Simple Modes:--and First, of the Simple Modes of the Idea of Space

1. Simple modes of simple ideas.

2. Idea of Space.

3. Space and extension.

6. Endless variety of figures.

8. Place relative to particular bodies.

9. Place relative to a present purpose.

10. Place of the universe.

11. Extension and body not the same.

12. Extension not solidity.

13. The parts of space inseparable, both really and mentally.

14. The parts of space, immovable.

15. The definition of extension explains it not.

16. Division of beings into bodies and spirits proves not space and body the same.

17. Substance which we know not, no proof against space without body.

18. Different meanings of substance.

19. Substance and accidents of little use in philosophy.

20. Sticking on and under-propping.

21. A vacuum beyond the utmost bounds of body.

22. The power of annihilation proves a vacuum.

23. Motion proves a vacuum.

24. The ideas of space and body distinct.

25. Extension being inseparable from body, proves it not the same.

26. Essences of things.

27. Ideas of space and solidity distinct.

28. Men differ little in clear, simple ideas.

collapse section

14.

Chapter XIV Idea of Duration and its Simple Modes

1. Duration is fleeting extension.

2. Its idea from reflection on the train of our ideas.

3. Nature and origin of the idea of duration.

4. Proof that its idea is got from reflection on the train of our ideas.

5. The idea of duration applicable to things whilst we sleep.

6. The idea of succession not from motion.

7. Very slow motions unperceived.

8. Very swift motions unperceived.

9. The train of ideas has a certain degree of quickness.

10. Real succession in swift motions without sense of succession.

11. In slow motions.

12. This train, the measure of other successions.

13. The mind cannot fix long on one invariable idea.

15. The extent of our power over the succession of our ideas.

16. Ideas, however made, include no sense of motion.

17. Time is duration set out by measures.

18. A good measure of time must divide its whole duration into equal periods.

19. The revolutions of the sun and moon, the properest measures of time for mankind.

20. But not by their motion, but periodical appearances.

21. No two parts of duration can be certainly known to be equal.

22. Time not the measure of motion.

23. Minutes, hours, days, and years not necessary measures of duration.

24. Our measure of time applicable to duration before time.

25. As we can measure space in our thoughts where there is no body.

26. The assumption that the world is neither boundless nor eternal.

28. Our measures of duration dependent on our ideas.

29. The duration of anything need not be co-existent with the motion we measure it by.

30. Infinity in duration.

31. Origin of our ideas of duration, and of the measures of it.

collapse section

15.

Chapter XV Ideas of Duration and Expansion, considered together

1. Both capable of greater and less.

2. Expansion not bounded by matter.

3. Nor duration by motion.

4. Why men more easily admit infinite duration than infinite expansion.

5. Time to duration is as place to expansion.

6. Time and place are taken for so much of either as are set out by the existence and motion of bodies.

7. Sometimes for so much of either as we design by measures taken from the bulk or motion of bodies.

8. They belong to all finite beings.

9. All the parts of extension are extension, and all the parts of duration are duration.

10. Their parts inseparable.

11. Duration is as a line, expansion as a solid.

12. Duration has never two parts together, expansion altogether.

collapse section

16.

Chapter XVI Idea of Number

1. Number the simplest and most universal idea.

2. Its modes made by addition.

3. Each mode distinct.

4. Therefore demonstrations in numbers the most precise.

5. Names necessary to numbers.

6. Another reason for the necessity of names to numbers.

7. Why children number not earlier.

8. Number measures all measureables.

collapse section

17.

Chapter XVII Of Infinity

1. Infinity, in its original intention, attributed to space, duration, and number.

2. The idea of finite easily got.

3. How we come by the idea of infinity.

4. Our idea of space boundless.

5. And so of duration.

6. Why other ideas are not capable of infinity.

7. Difference between infinity of space, and space infinite.

8. We have no idea of infinite space.

9. Number affords us the clearest idea of infinity.

10. Our different conceptions of the infinity of number contrasted with those of duration and expansion.

11. How we conceive the infinity of space.

12. Infinite divisibility.

13. No positive idea of infinity.

14. How we cannot have a positive idea of infinity in quantity.

15. What is positive, what negative, in our idea of infinite.

16. We have no positive idea of an infinite duration.

17. No complete idea of eternal being.

18. No positive idea of infinite space.

19. What is positive, what negative, in our idea of infinite.

20. Some think they have a positive idea of eternity, and not of infinite space.

21. Supposed positive ideas of infinity, cause of mistakes.

22. All these are modes of ideas got from sensation and reflection.

collapse section

18.

Chapter XVIII Other Simple Modes

1. Other simple modes of simple ideas of sensation.

2. Simple modes of motion.

3. Modes of sounds.

4. Modes of colours.

5. Modes of tastes.

6. Some simple modes have no names.

7. Why some modes have, and others have not, names.

collapse section

19.

Chapter XIX Of the Modes of Thinking

1. Sensation, remembrance, contemplation, etc. modes of thinking.

2. Other modes of thinking.

3. The various degrees of attention in thinking.

4. Hence it is probable that thinking is the action, not the essence of the soul.

collapse section

20.

Chapter XX Of Modes of Pleasure and Pain

1. Pleasure and pain, simple ideas.

2. Good and evil, what.

3. Our passions moved by good and evil.

14. What passions all men have.

15. Pleasure and pain, what.

16. Removal or lessening of either.

18. These instances to show how our ideas of the passions are got from sensation and reflection.

collapse section

21.

Chapter XXI Of Power

1. This idea how got.

2. Power, active and passive.

3. Power includes relation.

4. The clearest idea of active power had from spirit.

5. Will and understanding two powers in mind or spirit.

6. Faculties, not real beings.

7. Whence the ideas of liberty and necessity.

8. Liberty, what.

9. Supposes understanding and will.

10. Belongs not to volition.

11. Voluntary opposed to involuntary, not to necessary.

12. Liberty, what.

13. Necessity, what.

14. Liberty belongs not to the will.

16. Powers, belonging to agents.

17. How the will, instead of the man, is called free.

18. This way of talking causes confusion of thought.

19. Powers are relations, not agents.

20. Liberty belongs not to the will.

21. But to the agent, or man.

22. In respect of willing, a man is not free.

23. How a man cannot be free to will.

24. Liberty is freedom to execute what is willed.

25. The will determined by something without it.

26. The ideas of liberty and volition must be defined.

28. What volition and action mean.

29. What determines the will.

30. Will and desire must not be confounded.

31. Uneasiness determines the will.

32. Desire is uneasiness.

33. The uneasiness of desire determines the will.

34. This is the spring of action.

35. The greatest positive good determines not the will, but present uneasiness alone.

36. Because the removal of uneasiness is the first step to happiness.

37. Because uneasiness alone is present.

38. Because all who allow the joys of heaven possible, pursue them not.

39. But any great uneasiness is never neglected.

40. Desire accompanies all uneasiness.

41. The most pressing uneasiness naturally determines the will.

42. All desire happiness.

43. Happiness and misery, good and evil, what they are.

44. What good is desired, what not.

45. Why the greatest good is not always desired.

46. Why not being desired, it moves not the will.

47. Due consideration raises desire.

48. The power to suspend the prosecution of any desire makes way for consideration.

49. To be determined by our own judgment, is no restraint to liberty.

50. The freest agents are so determined.

51. A constant determination to a pursuit of happiness no abridgment of liberty.

52. The necessity of pursuing true happiness the foundation of liberty.

53. Power to suspend.

54. Government of our passions the right improvement of liberty.

55. How men come to pursue different, and often evil, courses.

56. All men seek happiness, but not of the same sort.

57. Power to suspend volition explains responsibility for ill choice.

58. Why men choose what makes them miserable.

59. The causes of this.

60. Our judgment of present good or evil always right.

61. Our wrong judgments have regard to future good and evil only.

62. From a wrong judgment of what makes a necessary part of their happiness.

63. A more particular account of wrong judgments.

64. No one chooses misery willingly, but only by wrong judgment.

65. Men may err in comparing present and future.

66. Causes of our judging amiss when we compare present pleasure and pain with future.

67. Absent good unable to counterbalance present uneasiness.

68. Wrong judgment in considering consequences of actions.

69. Causes of this.

70. Wrong judgment of what is necessary to our happiness.

71. We can change the agreeableness or disagreeableness in things.

72. Preference of vice to virtue a manifest wrong judgment.

73. Recapitulation--liberty of indifferency.

74. Active and passive power, in motions and in thinking.

75. Summary of our original ideas.

collapse section

22.

Chapter XXII Of Mixed Modes

1. Mixed modes, what.

2. Made by the mind.

3. Sometimes got by the explication of their names.

4. The name ties the parts of mixed modes into one idea.

5. The cause of making mixed modes.

6. Why words in one language have none answering in another.

7. And languages change.

8. Mixed modes, where they exist.

9. How we get the ideas of mixed modes.

10. Motion, thinking, and power have been most modified.

11. Several words seeming to signify action, signify but the effect.

12. Mixed modes made also of other ideas than those of power and action.

collapse section

23.

Chapter XXIII Of our Complex Ideas of Substances

1. Ideas of particular substances, how made.

2. Our obscure idea of substance in general.

3. Of the sorts of substances.

4. No clear or distinct idea of substance in general.

5. As clear an idea of spiritual substance as of corporeal substance.

6. Our ideas of particular sorts of substances.

7. Their active and passive powers a great part of our complex ideas of substances.

9. Three sorts of ideas make our complex ones of corporeal substances.

10. Powers thus make a great part of our complex ideas of particular substances.

11. The now secondary qualities of bodies would disappear, if we could discover the primary ones of their minute parts.

12. Our faculties for discovery of the qualities and powers of substances suited to our state.

13. Conjecture about the corporeal organs of some spirits.

14. Our specific ideas of substances.

15. Our ideas of spiritual substances, as clear as of bodily substances.

16. No idea of abstract substance either in body or spirit.

17. Cohesion of solid parts and impulse, the primary ideas peculiar to body.

18. Thinking and motivity the primary ideas peculiar to spirit.

19. Spirits capable of motion.

20. Proof of this.

21. God immoveable, because infinite.

22. Our complex idea of an immaterial spirit and our complex idea of body compared.

23. Cohesion of solid parts in body as hard to be conceived as thinking in a soul.

24. Not explained by an ambient fluid.

25. We can as little understand how the parts cohere in extension, as how our spirits perceive or move.

26. The cause of coherence of atoms in extended substances incomprehensible.

27. The supposed pressure brought to explain cohesion is unintelligible.

28. Communication of motion by impulse, or by thought, equally unintelligible.

30. Our idea of spirit and our idea of body compared.

31. The notion of spirit involves no more difficulty in it than that of body.

32. We know nothing of things beyond our simple ideas of them.

33. Our complex idea of God.

34. Our complex idea of God as infinite.

35. God in his own essence incognisable.

36. No ideas in our complex ideas of spirits, but those got from sensation or reflection.

37. Recapitulation.

collapse section

24.

Chapter XXIV Of Collective Ideas of Substances

1. A collective idea is one idea.

2. Made by the power of composing in the mind.

3. Artificial things that are made up of distinct substances are our collective ideas.

collapse section

25.

Chapter XXV Of Relation

1. Relation, what.

2. Ideas of relations without correlative terms, not easily apprehended.

3. Some seemingly absolute terms contain relations.

4. Relation different from the things related.

5. Change of relation may be without any change in the things related.

6. Relation only betwixt two things.

7. All things capable of relation.

8. Our ideas of relations often clearer than of the subjects related.

9. Relations all terminate in simple ideas.

10. Terms leading the mind beyond the subject denominated, are relative.

11. All relatives made up of simple ideas.

collapse section

26.

Chapter XXVI Of Cause and Effect, and other Relations

1. Whence the ideas of cause and effect got.

2. Creation, generation, making, alteration.

3. Relations of time.

4. Some ideas of time supposed positive and found to be relative.

5. Relations of place and extension.

6. Absolute terms often stand for relations.

collapse section

27.

Chapter XXVII Of Identity and Diversity

1. Wherein identity consists.

2. Identity of substances.

3. Identity of modes and relations.

4. Principium Individuationis.

5. Identity of vegetables.

6. Identity of animals.

7. The identity of man.

8. Idea of identity suited to the idea it is applied to.

A rational Parrot.

11. Personal identity.

10. Consciousness makes personal identity.

11. Personal identity in change of substance.

12. Personality in change of substance.

13. Whether in change of thinking substances there can be one person.

14. Whether, the same immaterial substance remaining, there can be two persons.

15. The body, as well as the soul, goes to the making of a man.

16. Consciousness alone unites actions into the same person.

17. Self depends on consciousness, not on substance.

18. Persons, not substances, the objects of reward and punishment.

19. Which shows wherein personal identity consists.

20. Absolute oblivion separates what is thus forgotten from the person, but not from the man.

21. Difference between identity of man and of person.

23. Consciousness alone unites remote existences into one person.

24. Not the substance with which the consciousness may be united.

25. Consciousness unites substances, material or spiritual, with the same personality.

26. "Person" a forensic term.

27. Suppositions that look strange are pardonable in our ignorance.

28. The difficulty from ill use of names.

29. Continuance of that which we have made to he our complex idea of man makes the same man.

collapse section

28.

Chapter XXVIII Of Other Relations

1. Ideas of proportional relations.

2. Natural relation.

3. Ideas of instituted or voluntary relations.

4. Ideas of moral relations.

5. Moral good and evil.

6. Moral rules.

8. Divine law the measure of sin and duty.

9. Civil law the measure of crimes and innocence.

10. Philosophical law the measure of virtue and vice.

11. The measure that men commonly apply to determine what they call virtue and vice.

12. Its enforcement is commendation and discredit.

13. These three laws the rules of moral good and evil.

14. Morality is the relation of voluntary actions to these rules.

15. Moral actions may be regarded either absolutely, or as ideas of relation.

16. The denominations of actions often mislead us.

17. Relations innumerable, and only the most considerable here mentioned.

18. All relations terminate in simple ideas.

19. We have ordinarily as clear a notion of the relation, as of the simple ideas in things on which it is founded.

20. The notion of relation is the same, whether the rule any action is compared to be true or false.

collapse section

29.

Chapter XXIX Of Clear and Obscure, Distinct and Confused Ideas

1. Ideas, some clear and distinct, others obscure and confused.

2. Clear and obscure explained by sight.

3. Causes of obscurity.

4. Distinct and confused, what.

6. Confusion of ideas is in reference to their names.

7. Defaults which make this confusion.

8. Their simple ones jumbled disorderly together.

9. Their simple ones mutable and undetermined.

10. Confusion without reference to names, hardly conceivable.

11. Confusion concerns always two ideas.

12. Causes of confused ideas.

13. Complex ideas may be distinct in one part, and confused in another.

14. This, if not heeded, causes confusion in our arguings.

15. Instance in eternity.

16. Infinite divisibility of matter.

collapse section

30.

Chapter XXX Of Real and Fantastical Ideas

1. Ideas considered in reference to their archetypes.

2. Simple ideas are all real appearances of things.

3. Complex ideas are voluntary combinations.

4. Mixed modes and relations, made of consistent ideas, are real.

5. Complex ideas of substances are real, when they agree with the existence of things.

collapse section

31.

Chapter XXXI Of Adequate and Inadequate Ideas

1. Adequate ideas are such as perfectly represent their archetypes.

2. Simple ideas all adequate.

3. Modes are all adequate.

4. Modes, in reference to settled names, may be inadequate.

5. Because then meant, in propriety of speech, to correspond to the ideas in some other mind.

6. Ideas of substances, as referred to real essences, not adequate.

7. Because men know not the real essences of substances.

8. Ideas of substances, when regarded as collections of their qualities, are all inadequate.

9. Their powers usually make up our complex ideas of substances.

10. Substances have innumerable powers not contained in our complex ideas of them.

11. Ideas of substances, being got only by collecting their qualities, are all inadequate.

12. Simple ideas, ektupa, and adequate.

13. Ideas of substances are ektupa, and inadequate.

14. Ideas of modes and relations are archetypes and cannot be adequate.

collapse section

32.

Chapter XXXII Of True and False Ideas

1. Truth and falsehood properly belong to propositions, not to ideas.

2. Ideas and words may be said to be true, inasmuch as they really are ideas and words.

3. No idea, as an appearance in the mind, either true or false.

4. Ideas referred to anything extraneous to them may be true or false.

5. Other men's ideas; real existence; and supposed real essences, are what men usually refer their ideas to.

6. The cause of such reference.

7. Names of things supposed to carry in them knowledge of their essences.

8. How men suppose that their ideas must correspond to things, and to the customary meanings of names.

9. Simple ideas may be false, in reference to others of the same name, but are least liable to be so.

10. Ideas of mixed modes most liable to be false in this sense.

11. Or at least to be thought false.

13. As referred to real existence, none of our ideas can be false but those of substances.

14. Simple ideas in this sense not false, and why.

15. Though one man's idea of blue should be different from another's.

16. Simple ideas can none of them be false in respect of real existence.

17. Modes not false cannot be false in reference to essences of things.

18. Ideas of substances may be false in reference to existing things.

19. Truth or falsehood always supposes affirmation or negation.

20. Ideas in themselves neither true nor false.

21. But are false--when judged agreeable to another man's idea, without being so.

22. When judged to agree to real existence, when they do not.

23. When judged adequate, without being so.

24. When judged to represent the real essence.

25. Ideas, when called false.

26. More properly to be called right or wrong.

collapse section

33.

Chapter XXXIII Of the Association of Ideas

1. Something unreasonable in most men.

2. Not wholly from self-love.

3. Not from education.

4. A degree of madness found in most men.

5. From a wrong connexion of ideas.

6. This connexion made by custom.

7. Some antipathies an effect of it.

8. Influence of association to be watched educating young children.

9. Wrong connexion of ideas a great cause of errors.

10. An instance.

11. Another instance.

12. A third instance.

13. Why time cures some disorders in the mind, which reason cannot cure.

14. Another instance of the effect of the association of ideas.

15. More instances.

16. A curious instance.

17. Influence of association on intellectual habits.

18. Observable in the opposition between different sects of philosophy and of religion.

19. Conclusion.

collapse section

3.

Book III Of Words

collapse section

1.

Chapter I Of Words or Language in General

1. Man fitted to form articulate sounds.

2. To use these sounds as signs of ideas.

3. To make them general signs.

4. To make them signify the absence of positive ideas.

5. Words ultimately derived from such as signify sensible ideas.

6. Distribution of subjects to be treated of.

collapse section

2.

Chapter II Of the Signification of Words

1. Words are sensible signs, necessary for communication of ideas.

2. Words, in their immediate signification, are the sensible signs of his ideas who uses them.

3. Examples of this.

4. Words are often secretly referred first to the ideas supposed to be in other men's minds.

5. To the reality of things.

6. Words by use readily excite ideas of their objects.

7. Words are often used without signification, and why.

8. Their signification perfectly arbitrary, not the consequence of a natural connexion.

collapse section

3.

Chapter III Of General Terms

1. The greatest part of words are general terms.

2. That every particular thing should have a name for itself is impossible.

3. And would be useless, if it were possible.

4. A distinct name for every particular thing, not fitted for enlargement of knowledge.

5. What things have proper names, and why.

6. How general words are made.

7. Shown by the way we enlarge our complex ideas from infancy.

8. And further enlarge our complex ideas, by still leaving out properties contained in them.

9. General natures are nothing but abstract and partial ideas of more complex ones.

10. Why the genus is ordinarily made use of in definitions.

11. General and universal are creatures of the understanding, and belong not to the real existence of things.

12. Abstract ideas are the essences of genera and species.

13. They are the workmanship of the understanding, but have their foundation in the similitude of things.

14. Each distinct abstract idea is a distinct essence.

15. Several significations of the word Essence.

Nominal essences.

16. Constant connexion between the name and nominal essence.

17. Supposition, that species are distinguished by their real essences, useless.

18. Real and nominal essence the same in simple ideas and modes, different in substances.

19. Essences ingenerable and incorruptible.

20. Recapitulation.

collapse section

4.

Chapter IV Of the Names of Simple Ideas

1. Names of simple ideas, modes, and substances, have each something peculiar.

2. Names of simple ideas, and of substances intimate real existence.

3. Names of simple ideas and modes signify always both real and nominal essences.

4. Names of simple ideas are undefinable.

5. If all names were definable, it would be a process in infinitum.

6. What a definition is.

7. Simple ideas, why undefinable.

8. Instances: scholastic definitions of motion.

9. Modern definitions of motion.

10. Definitions of light.

11. Simple ideas, why undefinable, further explained.

12. The contrary shown in complex ideas, by instances of a statue and rainbow.

13. Colours indefinable to the born-blind.

14. Complex ideas definable only when the simple ideas of which they consist have been got from experience.

15. Names of simple ideas of less doubtful meaning than those of mixed modes and substances.

16. Simple ideas have few ascents in linea praedicamentali.

17. Names of simple ideas not arbitrary, but perfectly taken from the existence of things.

collapse section

5.

Chapter V Of the Names of Mixed Modes and Relations

1. Mixed modes stand for abstract ideas, as other general names.

2. First, The abstract ideas they stand for are made by the understanding.

3. Secondly, made arbitrarily, and without patterns.

4. How this is done.

5. Evidently arbitrary, in that the idea is often before the existence.

6. Instances: murder, incest, stabbing.

7. But still subservient to the end of language, and not made at random.

8. Whereof the intranslatable words of divers languages are a proof.

9. This shows species to be made for communication.

10. In mixed modes it is the name that ties the combination of simple ideas together, and makes it a species.

12. For the originals of our mixed modes, we look no further than the mind; which also shows them to he the workmanship of the understanding.

13. Their being made by the understanding without patterns, shows the reason why they are so compounded.

14. Names of mixed modes stand always for their real essences, which are the workmanship of our minds.

15. Why their names are usually got before their ideas.

16. Reason of my being so large on this subject.

collapse section

6.

Chapter VI Of the Names of Substances

1. The common names of substances stand for sorts.

2. The essence of each sort of substance is our abstract idea to which the name is annexed.

3. The nominal and real essence different.

4. Nothing essential to individuals.

5. The only essences perceived by us in individual substances are those qualities which entitle them to receive their names.

6. Even the real essences of individual substances imply potential sorts.

7. The nominal essence bounds the species for us.

8. The nature of species, as formed by us.

9. Not the real essence, or texture of parts, which we know not.

10. Not the substantial form, which we know less.

11. That the nominal essence is that only whereby we distinguish species of substances, further evident, from our ideas of finite spirits and of God.

12. Of finite spirits there are probably numberless species, in a continuous series or gradation.

13. The nominal essence that of the species, as conceived by us, proved from water and ice.

14. Difficulties in the supposition of a certain number of real essences.

15. A crude supposition.

16. Monstrous births.

17. Are monsters really a distinct species? Thirdly, It ought to be determined whether those we call monsters be really a distinct species, according to the scholastic notion of the word species; since it is certain that everything that exists has its particular constitution.

18. Men can have no ideas of real essences.

19. Our nominal essences of substances not perfect collections of the properties that flow from their real essences.

20. Hence names independent of real essences.

21. But stand for such a collection of simple substances, as we have made the name stand for.

22. Our abstract ideas are to us the measures of the species we make: instance in that of man.

23. Species in animals not distinguished by generation.

24. Not by substantial forms.

25. The specific essences that are commonly made by men.

26. Therefore very various and uncertain in the ideas of different men.

27. Nominal essences of particular substances are undetermined by nature, and therefore various as men vary.

28. But not so arbitrary as mixed modes.

29. Our nominal essences of substances usually consist of a few obvious qualities observed in things.

30. Yet, imperfect as they thus are, they serve for common converse.

31. Essences of species under the same name very different in different minds.

32. The more general our ideas of substances are, the more incomplete and partial they are.

33. This all accommodated to the end of speech.

34. Instance in Cassowaries.

35. Men determine the sorts of substances, which may be sorted variously.

36. Nature makes the similitudes of substances.

37. The manner of sorting particular beings the work of fallible men, though nature makes things alike.

38. Each abstract idea, with a name to it, makes a nominal essence.

39. How genera and species are related to naming.

40. Species of artificial things less confused than natural.

41. Artificial things of distinct species.

42. Substances alone, of all our several sorts of ideas, have proper names.

43. Difficult to lead another by words into the thoughts of things stripped of those abstract ideas we give them.

44. Instances of mixed modes named kinneah and niouph.

46. Instances of a species of substance named Zahab.

48. The abstract ideas of substances always imperfect, and therefore various.

49. Therefore to fix their nominal species, a real essense is supposed.

50. Which supposition is of no use.

51. Conclusion.

collapse section

7.

Chapter VII Of Particles

1. Particles connect parts, or whole sentences together.

2. In right use of particles consists the art of well-speaking.

3. They show what relation the mind gives to its own thoughts.

4. They are all marks of some action or intimation of the mind.

5. Instance in but.

6. This matter of the use of particles but lightly touched here.

collapse section

8.

Chapter VIII Of Abstract and Concrete Terms

1. Abstract terms not predictable one of another, and why.

2. They show the difference of our ideas.

collapse section

9.

Chapter IX Of the Imperfection of Words

1. Words are used for recording and communicating our thoughts.

2. Any words will serve for recording.

3. Communication by words either for civil or philosophical purposes.

4. The imperfection of words is the doubtfulness or ambiguity of their signification, which is caused by the sort of ideas they stand for.

5. Natural causes of their imperfection, especially in those that stand for mixed modes, and for our ideas of substances.

6. The names of mixed modes doubtful.

7. Secondly, because they have no standards in nature.

8. Common use, or propriety not a sufficient remedy.

9. The way of learning these names contributes also to their doubtfulness.

10. Hence unavoidable obscurity in ancient authors.

11. Names of substances of doubtful signification, because the ideas they stand for relate to the reality of things.

12. Names of substances referred, to real essences that cannot be known.

13. To co-existing qualities, which are known but imperfectly.

14. Thirdly, to co-existing qualities which are known but imperfectly.

15. With this imperfection, they may serve for civil, but not well for philosophical use.

16. Instance, liquor.

17. Instance, gold.

18. The names of simple ideas the least doubtful.

19. And next to them, simple modes.

20. The most doubtful are the names of very compounded mixed modes and substances.

21. Why this imperfection charged upon words.

22. This should teach us moderation in imposing our own sense of old authors.

23. Especially of the Old and New Testament Scriptures.

collapse section

10.

Chapter X Of the Abuse of Words

1. Woeful abuse of words.

2. Words are often employed without any, or without clear ideas.

4. This occasioned by men learning names before they have the ideas the names belong to.

5. Unsteady application of them.

6. Thirdly Affected obscurity, as in the Peripatetick and other sects of philosophy.

7. Logic and dispute have much contributed to this.

8. Calling it "subtlety.

9. This learning very little benefits society.

10. But destroys the instruments of knowledge and communication.

11. As useful as to confound the sounds that the letters of the alphabet stand for.

12. This art has perplexed religion and justice.

13. And ought not to pass for learning.

14. Fourthly, by taking words for things.

15. Instance, in matter.

16. This makes errors lasting.

17. Fifthly, by setting them in the place of what they cannot signify.

18. V.g. Putting them for the real essences of substances.

19. Hence we think change of our complex ideas of substances not to change their species.

20. The cause of this abuse, a supposition of nature's working always regularly, in setting boundaries to species.

21. This abuse contains two false suppositions.

22. Sixthly by proceeding upon the supposition that the words we use have a certain and evident signification which other men cannot but understand.

23. The ends of language: First, to convey our ideas.

24. Seconly, To do it with quickness.

25. Thirdly, Therewith to convey the knowledge of things.

26. How men's words fail in all these: First, when used without any ideas.

27. Secondly, when complex ideas are without names annexed to them.

28. Thirdly, when the same sign is not put for the same idea.

29. Fourthly, when words are diverted from their common use.

30. Fifthly, when they are names of fantastical imaginations.

32. How men's words fail when they stand for substances.

33. How when they stand for modes and relations.

34. Seventhly, language is often abused by figurative speech.

collapse section

11.

Chapter XI Of the Remedies of the Foregoing Imperfections and Abuses of Words

1. Remedies are worth seeking.

2. Are not easy to find.

3. But yet necessary to those who search after truth.

4. Misuse of words the great cause of errors.

5. Has made men more conceited and obstinate.

6. Addicted to wrangling about sounds.

7. Instance, bat and bird.

First remedy: To use no word without an idea annexed to it.

9. Second remedy: To have distinct, determinate ideas annexed to words, especially in mixed modes.

10. And distinct and conformable ideas in words that stand for substances.

11. Third remedy: To apply words to such ideas as common use has annexed them to.

12. Fourth remedy: To declare the meaning in which we use them.

13. And that in three ways.

14. In simple ideas, either by synonymous terms, or by showing examples.

15. In mixed modes, by definition.

16. Morality capable of demonstration.

17. Definitions can make moral discourses clear.

18. And is the only way in which the meaning of mixed modes can be made known.

19. In substances, both by showing and by defining.

20. Ideas of the leading qualities of substances are best got by showing.

21. And can hardly be made known otherwise.

22. The Ideas of the powers of substances are best known by definition.

23. A reflection on the knowledge of corporeal things possessed by spirits separate from bodies.

24. Ideas of substances must be conformable to things.

25. Not easy to be made so.

26. Fifth remedy: To use the same word constantly in the same sense.

27. When not so used, the variation is to he explained.

collapse section

4.

Book IV Of Knowledge and Probability

collapse section

1.

Chapter I Of Knowledge in General

1. Our knowledge conversant about our ideas only.

2. Knowledge is the perception of the agreement or disagreement of two ideas.

3. This agreement or disagreement may be any of four sorts.

4. Of identity, or diversity in ideas.

5. Of abstract relations between ideas.

6. Of their necessary co-existence in substances.

7. Of real existence agreeing to any idea.

8. Knowledge is either actual or habitual.

9. Habitual knowledge is of two degrees.

collapse section

2.

Chapter II Of the Degrees of our Knowledge

1. Of the degrees, or differences in clearness, of our knowledge: 1. Intuitive.

2. II. Demonstrative.

3. Demonstration depends on clearly perceived proofs.

4. As certain, but not so easy and ready as intuitive knowledge.

5. The demonstrated conclusion not without doubt, precedent to the demonstration.

6. Not so clear as intuitive knowledge.

7. Each step in demonstrated knowledge must have intuitive evidence.

8. Hence the mistake, ex praecognitis, et praeconcessis.

9. Demonstration not limited to ideas of mathematical quantity.

10. Why it has been thought to be so limited.

11. Modes of qualities not demonstrable like modes of quantity.

12. Particles of light and simple ideas of colour.

13. The secondary qualities of things not discovered by demonstration.

14. III. Sensitive knowledge of the particular existence of finite beings without us.

15. Knowledge not always clear, where the ideas that enter into it are clear.

collapse section

3.

Chapter III Of the Extent of Human Knowledge

1. Extent of our knowledge.

First, It extends no further than we have ideas.

2. Secondly, It extends no further than we can perceive their agreement or disagreement.

3. Thirdly, Intuitive knowledge extends itself not to all the relations of all our ideas.

4. Fourthly, Nor does demonstrative knowledge.

5. Fifthly, Sensitive knowledge narrower than either.

6. Sixthly, Our knowledge, therefore, narrower than our ideas.

Whether Matter may not be made by God to think is more than man can know.

7. How far our knowledge reaches.

8. Firstly, Our knowledge of identity and diversity in ideas extends as far as our ideas themselves.

9. Secondly, Of their co-existence, extends only a very little way.

10. Because the connexion between simple ideas in substances is for the most part unknown.

11. Especially of the secondary qualities of bodies.

12. Because necessary connexion between any secondary and the primary qualities is undiscoverable by us.

13. We have no perfect knowledge of their primary qualities.

14. And seek in vain for certain and universal knowledge of unperceived qualities in substances.

15. Of repugnancy to co-exist, our knowledge is larger.

16. Our knowledge of the co-existence of powers in bodies extends but a very little way.

17. Of the powers that co-exist in spirits yet narrower.

18. Thirdly, Of relations between abstracted ideas it is not easy to say how far our knowledge extends.

Morality capable of demonstration.

19. Two things have made moral ideas to be thought incapable of demonstration: their unfitness for sensible representation, and their complexedness.

20. Remedies of our difficulties in dealing demonstratively with moral ideas.

21. Fourthly, Of the three real existences of which we have certain knowledge.

22. Our ignorance great.

23. First, One cause of our ignorance want of ideas.

I. Want of simple ideas that other creatures in other parts of the universe may have.

24. Want of simple ideas that men are capable of having, but have not, because of their remoteness.

25. Because of their minuteness.

26. Hence no science of bodies within our reach.

27. Much less a science of unembodied spirits.

28. Secondly, Another cause, want of a discoverable connexion between ideas we have.

30. Thirdly, A third cause, want of tracing our ideas.

31. Extent of human knowledge in respect to its universality.

collapse section

4.

Chapter IV Of the Reality of Knowledge

1. Objection. "Knowledge placed in our ideas may be all unreal or chimerical."

2. Answer: "Not so, where ideas agree with things.

3. But what shall be the criterion of this agreement?

4. As, First, all simple ideas are really conformed to things.

5. Secondly, All complex ideas, except ideas of substances, are their own archetypes.

6. Hence the reality of mathematical knowledge.

7. And of moral.

8. Existence not required to make abstract knowledge real.

9. Nor will it be less true or certain, because moral ideas are of our own making and naming.

10. Misnaming disturbs not the certainty of the knowledge.

11. Thirdly, Our complex ideas of substances have their archetypes without us; and here knowledge comes short.

12. So far as our complex ideas agree with those archetypes without us, so far our knowledge concerning substances is real.

13. In our inquiries about substances, we must consider ideas, and not confine our thoughts to names or species supposed set out by names.

14. Objection against a changeling being something between a man and beast, answered.

15. What will become of changelings in a future state?

17. Words and species.

18. Recapitulation.

collapse section

5.

Chapter V Of Truth in General

1. What truth is.

2. A right joining or separating of signs, i.e., either ideas or words.

3. Which make mental or verbal propositions.

4. Mental propositions are very hard to he treated of.

5. Mental and verbal propositions contrasted.

6. When mental propositions contain real truth, and when verbal.

7. Objection against verbal truth, that "thus it may all be chimerical.

8. Answered, "Real truth is about ideas agreeing to things.

9. Truth and falsehood in general.

10. General propositions to be treated of more at large.

11. Moral and metaphysical truth.

collapse section

6.

Chapter VI Of Universal Propositions: their Truth and Certainty

1. Treating of words necessary to knowledge.

2. General truths hardly to be understood, but in verbal propositions.

3. Certainty twofold--of truth and of knowledge.

4. No proposition can be certainly known to be true, where the real essence of each species mentioned is not known.

5. This more particularly concerns substances.

6. The truth of few universal propositions concerning substances is to be known.

7. Because necessary co-existence of simple ideas in substances can in few cases be known.

8. Instance in gold.

9. No discoverable necessary connexion between nominal essence of gold and other simple ideas.

10. As far as any such co-existence can be known, so far universal propositions may be certain. But this will go but a little way.

11. The qualities which make our complex ideas of substances depend mostly on external, remote, and unperceived causes.

12. Our nominal essences of substances furnish few universal propositions about them that are certain.

13. Judgment of probability concerning substances may reach further: but that is not knowledge.

14. What is requisite for our knowledge of substances.

15. Whilst our complex ideas of substances contain not ideas of their real constitutions, we can make but few general certain propositions concerning them.

16. Wherein lies the general certainty of propositions.

collapse section

7.

Chapter VII Of Maxims

1. Maxims or axioms are self-evident propositions.

2. Wherein that self-evidence consists.

3. Self-evidence not peculiar to received axioms.

4. As to identity and diversity, all propositions are equally self-evident.

5. In co-existence we have few self-evident propositions.

6. In other relations we may have many.

7. Concerning real existence, we have none.

8. These axioms do not much influence our other knowledge.

9. Because maxims or axioms are not the truths we first knew.

10. Because on perception of them the other parts of our knowledge do not depend.

11. What use these general maxims or axioms have.

12. Maxims, if care he not taken in the use of words, may prove contradictions.

13. Instance in vacuum.

14. But they prove not the existence of things without us.

15. They cannot add to our knowledge of substances, and their application to complex ideas is dangerous.

16. Instance in demonstrations about man, which can only be verbal.

17. Another instance.

18. A third instance.

19. Little use of these maxims in proofs where we have clear and distinct ideas.

20. Their use dangerous, where our ideas are not determined.

collapse section

8.

Chapter VIII Of Trifling Propositions

1. Some propositions bring no increase to our knowledge.

2. As, First,identical propositions.

How identical propositions are trifling.

4. Secondly, propositions in which a part of any complex idea is predicated of the whole.

5. As part of the definition of the term defined.

6. Instance, man and palfrey.

7. For this teaches but the signification of words.

8. But adds no real knowledge.

9. General propositions concerning substances are often trifling.

11. Thirdly, using words variously is trifling with them.

12. Marks of verbal propositions.

First, Predication in abstract.

13. A part of the definition predicated of any term.

collapse section

9.

Chapter IX Of our Threefold Knowledge of Existence

1. General propositions that are certain concern not existence.

2. A threefold knowledge of existence.

3. Our knowledge of our own existence is intuitive.

collapse section

10.

Chapter X Of our Knowledge of the Existence of a God

1. We are capable of knowing certainly that there is a God.

2. For man knows that he himself exists.

3. He knows also that nothing cannot produce a being; therefore something must have existed from eternity.

4. And that eternal Being must be most powerful.

5. And most knowing.

6. And therefore God.

7. Our idea of a most perfect Being, not the sole proof of a God.

8. Recapitulation--something from eternity.

9. Two sorts of beings, cogitative and incogitative.

10. Incogitative being cannot produce a cogitative being.

11. Therefore, there has been an eternal cogitative Being.

12. The attributes of the eternal cogitative Being.

13. Whether the eternal Mind may he also material or no.

14. Not material: first, because each particle of matter is not cogitative.

15. Secondly, because one particle alone of matter cannot be cogitative.

16. Thirdly, because a system of incogitative matter cannot be cogitative.

17. And that whether this corporeal system is in motion or at rest.

18. Matter not co-eternal with an eternal Mind.

19. Objection: Creation out of nothing.

collapse section

11.

Chapter XI Of our Knowledge of the Existence of Other Things

1. Knowledge of the existence of other finite beings is to be had only by actual sensation.

2. Instance: whiteness of this paper.

3. This notice by our senses, though not so certain as demonstration, yet may be called knowledge, and proves the existence of things without us.

4. Confirmed by concurrent reasons:--First, because we cannot have ideas of sensation but by the inlet of the senses.

5. Secondly, Because we find that an idea from actual sensation, and another from memory, are very distinct perceptions.

6. Thirdly, because pleasure or pain, which accompanies actual sensation, accompanies not the returning of those ideas without the external objects.

7. Fourthly, because our senses assist one another's testimony of the existence of outward things, and enable us to predict.

8. This certainty is as great as our condition needs.

9. But reaches no further than actual sensation.

10. Folly to expect demonstration in everything.

11. Past existence of other things is known by memory.

12. The existence of other finite spirits not knowable, and rests on faith.

13. Only particular propositions concerning concrete existences are knowable.

14. And all general propositions that are known to be true concern abstract ideas.

collapse section

12.

Chapter XII Of the Improvement of our Knowledge

1. Knowledge is not got from maxims.

2. (The occasion of that opinion.

3. But from comparing clear and distinct ideas.

4. Dangerous to build upon precarious principles.

5. To do so is no certain way to truth.

6. But to compare clear, complete ideas, under steady names.

7. The true method of advancing knowledge is by considering our abstract ideas.

8. By which morality also may he made clearer.

9. Our knowledge of substances is to be improved, not by contemplation of abstract ideas, but only by experience.

10. Experience may procure us convenience, not science.

11. We are fitted for moral science, but only for probable interpretations of external nature.

12. In the study of nature we must beware of hypotheses and wrong principles.

13. The true use of hypotheses.

14. Clear and distinct ideas with settled names, and the finding of those intermediate ideas which show their agreement or disagreement, are the ways to enlarge our knowledge.

15. Mathematics an instance of this.

collapse section

13.

Chapter XIII Some Further Considerations Concerning our Knowledge

1. Our knowledge partly necessary, partly voluntary.

2. The application of our faculties voluntary; but, they being employed, we know as things are, not as we please.

3. Instance in numbers.

4. Instance in natural religion.

collapse section

14.

Chapter XIV Of Judgment

1. Our knowledge being short, we want something else.

2. What use to be made of this twilight state.

3. Judgment, or assent to probability, supplies our want of knowledge.

4. Judgement is the presuming things to be so, without perceiving it.

collapse section

15.

Chapter XV Of Probability

1. Probability is the appearance of agreement upon fallible proofs.

2. It is to supply our want of knowledge.

3. Being that which makes us presume things to be true, before we know them to be so.

4. The grounds of probability are two: conformity with our own experience, or the testimony of others' experience.

5. In this, all the arguments pro and con ought to be examined, before we come to a judgment.

6. Probable arguments capable of great variety.

collapse section

16.

Chapter XVI Of the Degrees of Assent

1. Our assent ought to be regulated by the grounds of probability.

2. These cannot always be actually in view; and then we must content ourselves with the remembrance that we once saw ground for such a degree of assent.

3. The ill consequence of this, if our former judgments were not rightly made.

4. The right use of it, mutual charity and forbearance, in a necessary diversity of opinions.

5. Probability is either of sensible matter of fact, capable of human testimony, or of what is beyond the evidence of our senses.

6. The concurrent experience of all other men with ours, produces assurance approaching to knowledge.

7. Unquestionable testimony, and our own experience that a thing is for the most part so, produce confidence.

8. Fair testimony, and the nature of the thing indifferent, produce unavoidable assent.

9. Experience and testimonies clashing infinitely vary the degrees of probability.

10. Traditional testimonies, the further removed the less their proof becomes.

11. Yet history is of great use.

12. In things which sense cannot discover, analogy is the great rule of probability.

13. One case where contrary experience lessens not the testimony.

14. The bare testimony of divine revelation is the highest certainty.

collapse section

17.

Chapter XVII Of Reason

1. Various significations of the word "reason.

2. Wherein reasoning consists.

3. Reason in its four degrees.

4. Whether syllogism is the great instrument of reason: first cause to doubt this.

Men can reason well who cannot make a syllogism.

Syllogism does not discover ideas, or their connexions.

The connexion must be discovered before it can be put into syllogisms.

Use of syllogism.

Not the only way to detect fallacies.

Another cause to doubt whether syllogism be the only proper instrument of reason, in the discovery of truth.

5. Syllogism helps little in demonstration, less in probability.

6. Serves not to increase our knowledge, but to fence with the knowledge we suppose we have.

7. Other helps to reason than syllogism should be sought.

8. We can reason about particulars; and the immediate object of all our reasonings is nothing but particular ideas.

9. Our reason often fails us.

10. Because our ideas are often obscure or imperfect.

11. Because we perceive not intermediate ideas to show conclusions.

12. Because we often proceed upon wrong principles.

13. Because we often employ doubtful terms.

14. Our highest degree of knowledge is intuitive, without reasoning.

15. The next is got by reasoning.

16. To supply the narrowness of demonstrative and intuitive knowledge we have nothing but judgment upon probable reasoning.

17. Intuition, Demonstration, Judgment

18. Consequences of words, and consequences of ideas.

19. Four sorts of arguments.

20. Argumentum ad ignorantiam.

21. Argumentum ad hominem.

22. Argumentum adjudicium.

23. Above, contrary, and according to reason.

24. Reason and faith not opposite, for faith must be regulated by reason.

collapse section

18.

Chapter XVIII Of Faith and Reason, and their Distinct Provinces

1. Necessary to know their boundaries.

2. Faith and reason, what, as contradistinguished.

3. First, No new simple idea can be conveyed by traditional revelation.

4. Secondly, Traditional revelation may make us know propositions knowable also by reason, but not with the same certainty that reason doth.

5. Even original revelation cannot be admitted against the clear evidence of reason.

6. Traditional revelation much less.

7. Thirdly, Things above reason are, when revealed, the proper matter of faith.

8. Or not contrary to reason, if revealed, are matter of faith; and must carry it against probable conjectures of reason.

9. Revelation in matters where reason cannot judge, or but probably, ought to be hearkened to.

10. In matters where reason can afford certain knowledge, that is to be hearkened to.

11. If the boundaries be not set between faith and reason, no enthusiasm or extravagancy in religion can be contradicted.

collapse section

19.

Chapter XIX Of Enthusiasm

1. Love of truth necessary.

2. A forwardness to dictate another's beliefs, from whence.

3. Force of enthusiasm, in which reason is taken away.

4. Reason and revelation.

5. Rise of enthusiasm.

6. Enthusiastic impulse.

7. What is meant by enthusiasm.

8. Enthusiasm accepts its supposed illumination without search and proof.

9. Enthusiasm how to be discovered.

10. The supposed internal light examined.

11. Enthusiasm fails of evidence, that the proposition is from God.

12. Firmness of persuasion no Proof that any proposition is from God.

13. Light in the mind, what.

14. Revelation must be judged of by reason.

15. Belief no proof of revelation.

16. Criteria of a divine revelation.

collapse section

20.

Chapter XX Of Wrong Assent, or Error

1. Causes of error, or how men come to give assent contrary to probability.

2. First cause of error, want of proofs.

3. Objection. "What shall become of those who want proofs?" Answered.

4. People hindered from inquiry.

5. Second cause of error, want of skill to use proofs.

6. Third cause of error, want of will to use them.

7. Fourth cause of error, wrong measures of Probability.

8. I. Doubtful propositions taken for principles.

9. Instilled in childhood.

10. Of irresistible efficacy.

11. II. Received hypotheses.

12. III. Predominant passions.

13. Two means of evading probabilities: I. Supposed fallacy latent in the words employed.

14. Supposed unknown arguments for the contrary.

15. What probabilities naturally determine the assent.

16. Where it is in our power to suspend our judgment.

17. IV. Authority.

18. Not so many men in errors as is commonly supposed.

collapse section

21.

Chapter XXI Of the Division of the Sciences

1. Science may be divided into three sorts.

2. First, Physica.

3. Secondly, Practica.

4. Thirdly, Σημειωτική.

5. This is the first and most general division of the objects of our understanding.

collapse section

Collapse All | Expand All expand section

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, yellow 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.