Page:The Works of John Locke - 1823 - vol 01.djvu/232

 156 § 6. Secondly, The ideas of substances are such combinations of simple ideas as are taken to represent distinct particular things subsisting by themselves; in which the supposed or confused idea of substance, such as it is, is always the first and chief. Thus if to substance be joined the simple idea of a certain dull whitish colour, with certain degrees of weight, hardness, ductility, and fusibility, we have the idea of lead, and a combination of the ideas of a certain sort of figure with the powers of motion. Thought and reasoning, joined to substance, make the ordinary idea of a man. Now of substances also there are two sorts of ideas; one of single substances, as they exist separately, as of a man, or a sheep; the other of several of those put together, as an army of men, or flock of sheep: which collective ideas of several substances thus put together, are as much each of them one single idea, as that of a man, or an unit.

§ 7. Thirdly, The last sort of complex ideas is that we call relation, which consists in the consideration and comparing one idea with another. Of these several kinds we shall treat in their order.

§ 8. If we trace the progress of our minds, and with attention observe how it repeats, adds together, and unites its simple ideas received from sensation or reflection, it will lead us farther than at first perhaps we should have imagined. And I believe we shall find, if we warily observe the originals of our notions, that even the most abstruse ideas, how remote soever they may seem from sense, or from any operations of our own minds, are yet only such as the understanding frames to itself by repeating and joining together ideas, that it had either from objects of sense, or from its own operations about them: so that those even large and abstract ideas are derived from sensation or