Page:A Brief History of Modern Philosophy.djvu/95

 connected for two generations, as tutor, secretary and friend. At the fall of the Earl, Locke went to Holland, where he composed his most important works and likewise participated in the preparations for the revolution. He returned to England with William of Orange, and helped to formulate the policies of the new administration. He spent his last years in rural solitude. a. In Locke’s terminology idea represents everything with which we are occupied when engaged in thought. Some have supposed that certain ideas, especially the idea of God and the logical and moral principles, are innate, but experience shows that children, primitive races and the illiterate possess nothing more than particular and sensible ideas. There are men who have no idea of God and no real ideas of morality. Some of our ideas are natural, i.e. such as have been acquired through experience by means of our native faculty; but even these are not innate. Locke attributes the doctrine of innate ideas to human indolence, which shrinks from the labor involved in exploring the origin of ideas. All ideas, all the elements of consciousness originate from two sources: external experience (sensation) and internal experience (reflection). In external experience a physical impression produces a sensation (perception) in the soul; in internal experience we observe the activity of our own mind in elaborating the sensations received from without.

In the acquisition of simple ideas consciousness is for the most part passive. Simple external ideas are of two kinds: ideas of primary and of secondary qualities. The primary qualities can be attributed to the external objects themselves; such are solidity, extension, figure, mobility. Secondary qualities belong only to our ideas,