Page:An Essay Concerning Humane Understanding - Locke (1690).djvu/55

RV 39 (Chap I.) he would have no more Ideas of Scarlet or Green, than he that from his Childhood never tasted an Oyster, or a Pine-Apple, has of those particular Relishes.

§. 7. Men then come to be furnished, with sewer or more simple Ideas from without, according as the Objects, they converse with afford greater or lesser variety; and from the Operation of their Minds within, according as they more or less reflect on them. For, though he that contemplates the Operations of his Mind, cannot but have plain and clear Ideas of them; yet unless he turn his Thoughts that way, and considers them attentively, he will no more have clear and distinct Ideas of all the Operations of his Mind, and all that may be observed therein, than he will have all the particular Ideas of any Landscape, or of the Parts and Motions of a Clock, who will not turn his Eyes to it, and with attention heed all the Parts of it. The Picture, or Clock may be so placed, that they may come in his way every Day; but yet he will have but a confused Idea of all the Parts they are made up of, till he applies himself with attention, to consider them each in particular.

§. 8. And hence we see the Reason, why 'tis pretty late before most Children get Ideas of the Operations of their own Minds; and some have not any very clear, or perfect Ideas of the greatest part of them all their Lives. Because, though they pass there continually; yet like floating Visions, they make not deep Impressions enough, to leave in the Mind clear and distinct, lasting Ideas, till the Understanding turn inwards upon its self, and reflect on its own Operations, and make them the Object of its own Contemplation. Whereas Children at their first coming into the World, seek particularly after nothing, but what may ease their Hunger, or other Pain: but take all other Objects as they come, are generally pleased with all new ones, that are not painful; and so growing up in a constant attention to outward Sensations, seldom make any considerable Reflection on what passes within them, till they come to be of riper Years; and some scarce ever at all.

§. 9. To ask, at what time a Man has first any Ideas, is to ask, when he begins to perceive, having Ideas and Perception being the same thing. I know it is an Opinion, that the Soul always thinks, and that it has the actual Perception of Ideas in its self constantly, as long as it exists; and that actual thinking is as inseparable from the Soul, as actual Extension is from the Body; which if true, to enquire after the beginning of a Man's Idea's, is the same, as to enquire after the beginning of his Soul. For by this Account, Soul and Ideas, as Body and Extension, will begin to exist both at the same time.

§. 10. But whether the Soul be supposed to exist antecedent to, or coeval with, or some time after the first Rudiments of Organisation, or the beginnings of Life in the Body, I leave to be disputed by those, who have better thought of that matter. I confess my self, to have one of those dull Souls, that doth not perceive it self always to contemplate its Ideas, nor can conceive it any more necessary for the Soul always to think, than for the Body always to move: the perception of Idea's, being (as I conceive) to the Soul, what motion is to the Body, not its Essence, but Operation: And therefore, though thinking be supposed never so much the proper Action of the Soul; yet it is not necessary, to suppose, that it should be always thinking, always in Action. That, perhaps, is the Privilege of the infinite Author and Preserver of all things, who never slumbers nor sleeps; but is not competent to any finite Being, at least not to the Soul of Man. We know certainly by Experience, that we sometimes