Page:An Essay Concerning Humane Understanding - Locke (1690).djvu/53

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Very Man being conscious to himself, That he thinks, and that which his Mind is employ'd about whilst thinking, being the Ideas, that are there, 'tis past doubt, than Men have in their Minds several Ideas, such as are those expressed by the words, Whiteness, Hardness, Sweetness, Thinking, Motion, Man, Elephant, Army, Drunkenness, and others: It is in the first place then to be enquired, How he comes by them? I know it is a received Doctrine, That Men have native Ideas, and original Characters stamped upon their Minds, in their very first being. This Opinion I have at large examined already; and, I suppose, what I have said in the fore-going Book, will be much more easily admitted, when I have shewed, whence the Understanding may get all the Ideas it has, and by what ways and degrees they may come into the Mind; for which I shall appeal to every ones own Observation and Experience.

§. 2. Let us then suppose the Mind to be, as we say, white Paper, void of all Characters, without any Ideas; How comes it to be furnished? Whence comes it by that vast store, which the busie and boundless Fancy of Man has painted on it, with an almost endless variety? Whence has it all the materials of Reason and Knowledge? To this I answer, in one word, From Experience: In that, all our Knowledge is founded; and from that it ultimately derives it self. Our Observation employ'd either about external, sensible Objects; or about the internal Operations of our Minds, perceived and reflected on by our selves, is that, which supplies our Vnderstandings with all the materials of thinking. These two are the Fountains of Knowledge, from whence all the Ideas we have, or can naturally have, do spring.

§. 3. First, Our Senses, conversant about particular, sensible Objects, do convey into the Mind, several distinct Perceptions of things, according to those various ways, wherein those Objects do affect them: And thus we come by those Ideas, we have of Yellow, White, Heat, Cold, Soft, Hard, Bitter, Sweet, and all those which we call sensible qualities. This great Source, of most of the Ideas we have, depending wholly upon our Senses, and derived by them to our Understanding, I call SENSATION.

§. 4. Secondly, The other Fountain, from which Experience furnisheth the Understanding with Ideas, is the Perception of the Operations of our own Minds within us, as it is employ'd about the Idea's it has got; which Operations, when the Soul comes to reflect on, and consider, do furnish the Understanding with another sett of Ideas, which could not be had from things without; and such are, Perception, Thinking, Doubting, Believing, Rea-