OF DISCERNING, AND OTHER OPERATIONS OF THE MIND.
1. No Knowledge without Discernment.
Another faculty we may take notice of in our minds is that of
DISCERNING and DISTINGUISHING between the several ideas it has. It is
not enough to have a confused perception of something in general.
Unless the mind had a distinct perception of different objects and
their qualities, it would be capable of very little knowledge, though
the bodies that affect us were as busy about us as they are now, and
the mind were continually employed in thinking. On this faculty of
distinguishing one thing from another depends the evidence and
certainty of several, even very general, propositions, which have
passed for innate truths;—because men, overlooking the true cause why
those propositions find universal assent, impute it wholly to native
uniform impressions; whereas it in truth depends upon this clear
discerning faculty of the mind, whereby it PERCEIVES two ideas to be
the same, or different. But of this more hereafter.
2. The Difference of Wit and Judgment.
How much the imperfection of accurately discriminating ideas one from
another lies, either in the dulness or faults of the organs of sense;
or want of acuteness, exercise, or attention in the understanding; or
hastiness and precipitancy, natural to some tempers, I will not here
examine: it suffices to take notice, that this is one of the operations
that the mind may reflect on and observe in itself. It is of that
consequence to its other knowledge, that so far as this faculty is in
itself dull, or not rightly made use of, for the distinguishing one
thing from another,—so far our notions are confused, and our reason and
judgment disturbed or misled. If in having our ideas in the memory
ready at hand consists quickness of parts; in this, of having them
unconfused, and being able nicely to distinguish one thing from
another, where there is but the least difference, consists, in a great
measure, the exactness of judgment, and clearness of reason, which is
to be observed in one man above another. And hence perhaps may be given
some reason of that common observation,—that men who have a great deal
of wit, and prompt memories, have not always the clearest judgment or
deepest reason. For WIT lying most in the assemblage of ideas, and
putting those together with quickness and variety, wherein can be found
any resemblance or congruity, thereby to make up pleasant pictures and
agreeable visions in the fancy; JUDGMENT, on the contrary, lies quite
on the other side, in separating carefully, one from another, ideas
wherein can be found the least difference, thereby to avoid being
misled by similitude, and by affinity to take one thing for another.
This is a way of proceeding quite contrary to metaphor and allusion;
wherein for the most part lies that entertainment and pleasantry of
wit, which strikes so lively on the fancy, and therefore is so
acceptable to all people, because its beauty appears at first sight,
and there is required no labour of thought to examine what truth or
reason there is in it. The mind, without looking any further, rests
satisfied with the agreeableness of the picture and the gaiety of the
fancy. And it is a kind of affront to go about to examine it, by the
severe rules of truth and good reason; whereby it appears that it
consists in something that is not perfectly conformable to them.
3. Clearness alone hinders Confusion.
To the well distinguishing our ideas, it chiefly contributes that they
be CLEAR and DETERMINATE. And when they are so, it will not breed any
confusion or mistake about them, though the senses should (as sometimes
they do) convey them from the same object differently on different
occasions, and so seem to err. For, though a man in a fever should from
sugar have a bitter taste, which at another time would produce a sweet
one, yet the idea of bitter in that man’s mind would be as clear and
distinct from the idea of sweet as if he had tasted only gall. Nor does
it make any more confusion between the two ideas of sweet and bitter
that the same sort of body produces at one time one, and at another
time another idea by the taste, than it makes a confusion in two ideas
of white and sweet, or white and round, that the same piece of sugar
produces them both in the mind at the same time. And the ideas of
orange-colour and azure, that are produced in the mind by the same
parcel of the infusion of lignum nephritium, are no less distinct ideas
than those of the same colours taken from two very different bodies.
4. Comparing.
The COMPARING them one with another, in respect of extent, degrees,
time, place, or any other circumstances, is another operation of the
mind about its ideas, and is that upon which depends all that large
tribe of ideas comprehended under RELATION; which, of how vast an
extent it is, I shall have occasion to consider hereafter.
5. Brutes compare but imperfectly.
How far brutes partake in this faculty, is not easy to determine. I
imagine they have it not in any great degree, for, though they probably
have several ideas distinct enough, yet it seems to me to be the
prerogative of human understanding, when it has sufficiently
distinguished any ideas, so as to perceive them to be perfectly
different, and so consequently two, to cast about and consider in what
circumstances they are capable to be compared. And therefore, I think,
beasts compare not their ideas further than some sensible circumstances
annexed to the objects themselves. The other power of comparing, which
may be observed in men, belonging to general ideas, and useful only to
abstract reasonings, we may probably conjecture beasts have not.
6. Compounding.
The next operation we may observe in the mind about its ideas is
COMPOSITION; whereby it puts together several of those simple ones it
has received from sensation and reflection, and combines them into
complex ones. Under this of composition may be reckoned also that of
ENLARGING, wherein, though the composition does not so much appear as
in more complex ones, yet it is nevertheless a putting several ideas
together, though of the same kind. Thus, by adding several units
together, we make the idea of a dozen; and putting together the
repeated ideas of several perches, we frame that of a furlong.
7. Brutes compound but little.
In this also, I suppose, brutes come far short of man. For, though they
take in, and retain together, several combinations of simple ideas, as
possibly the shape, smell, and voice of his master make up the complex
idea a dog has of him, or rather are so many distinct marks whereby he
knows him; yet I do not think they do of themselves ever compound them,
and make complex ideas. And perhaps even where we think they have
complex ideas, it is only one simple one that directs them in the
knowledge of several things, which possibly they distinguish less by
their sight than we imagine. For I have been credibly informed that a
bitch will nurse, play with, and be fond of young foxes, as much as,
and in place of her puppies, if you can but get them once to suck her
so long that her milk may go through them. And those animals which have
a numerous brood of young ones at once, appear not to have any
knowledge of their number; for though they are mightily concerned for
any of their young that are taken from them whilst they are in sight or
hearing, yet if one or two of them be stolen from them in their
absence, or without noise, they appear not to miss them, or to have any
sense that their number is lessened.
8. Naming.
When children have, by repeated sensations, got ideas fixed in their
memories, they begin by degrees to learn the use of signs. And when
they have got the skill to apply the organs of speech to the framing of
articulate sounds, they begin to make use of words, to signify their
ideas to others. These verbal signs they sometimes borrow from others,
and sometimes make themselves, as one may observe among the new and
unusual names children often give to things in the first use of
language.
9. Abstraction.
The use of words then being to stand as outward mark of our internal
ideas, and those ideas being taken from particular things, if every
particular idea that we take up should have a distinct name, names must
be endless. To prevent this, the mind makes the particular ideas
received from particular objects to become general; which is done by
considering them as they are in the mind such appearances,—separate
from all other existences, and the circumstances of real existence, as
time, place, or any other concomitant ideas. This is called
ABSTRACTION, whereby ideas taken from particular beings become general
representatives of all of the same kind; and their names general names,
applicable to whatever exists conformable to such abstract ideas. Such
precise, naked appearances in the mind, without considering how,
whence, or with what others they came there, the understanding lays up
(with names commonly annexed to them) as the standards to rank real
existences into sorts, as they agree with these patterns, and to
denominate them accordingly. Thus the same colour being observed to-day
in chalk or snow, which the mind yesterday received from milk, it
considers that appearance alone, makes it a representative of all of
that kind; and having given it the name WHITENESS, it by that sound
signifies the same quality wheresoever to be imagined or met with; and
thus universals, whether ideas or terms, are made.
10. Brutes abstract not.
If it may be doubted whether beasts compound and enlarge their ideas
that way to any degree; this, I think, I may be positive in,—that the
power of abstracting is not at all in them; and that the having of
general ideas is that which puts a perfect distinction betwixt man and
brutes, and is an excellency which the faculties of brutes do by no
means attain to. For it is evident we observe no footsteps in them of
making use of general signs for universal ideas; from which we have
reason to imagine that they have not the faculty of abstracting, or
making general ideas, since they have no use of words, or any other
general signs.
11. Brutes abstract not, yet are not bare machines.
Nor can it be imputed to their want of fit organs to frame articulate
sounds, that they have no use or knowledge of general words; since many
of them, we find, can fashion such sounds, and pronounce words
distinctly enough, but never with any such application. And, on the
other side, men who, through some defect in the organs, want words, yet
fail not to express their universal ideas by signs, which serve them
instead of general words, a faculty which we see beasts come short in.
And, therefore, I think, we may suppose, that it is in this that the
species of brutes are discriminated from man: and it is that proper
difference wherein they are wholly separated, and which at last widens
to so vast a distance. For if they have any ideas at all, and are not
bare machines, (as some would have them,) we cannot deny them to have
some reason. It seems as evident to me, that they do reason, as that
they have sense; but it is only in particular ideas, just as they
received them from their senses. They are the best of them tied up
within those narrow bounds, and have not (as I think) the faculty to
enlarge them by any kind of abstraction.
12. Idiots and Madmen.
How far idiots are concerned in the want or weakness of any, or all of
the foregoing faculties, an exact observation of their several ways of
faultering would no doubt discover. For those who either perceive but
dully, or retain the ideas that come into their minds but ill, who
cannot readily excite or compound them, will have little matter to
think on. Those who cannot distinguish, compare, and abstract, would
hardly be able to understand and make use of language, or judge or
reason to any tolerable degree; but only a little and imperfectly about
things present, and very familiar to their senses. And indeed any of
the forementioned faculties, if wanting, or out of order, produce
suitable defects in men’s understandings and knowledge.
13. Difference between Idiots and Madmen.
In fine, the defect in naturals seems to proceed from want of
quickness, activity, and motion in the intellectual faculties, whereby
they are deprived of reason; whereas madmen, on the other side, seem to
suffer by the other extreme. For they do not appear to me to have lost
the faculty of reasoning, but having joined together some ideas very
wrongly, they mistake them for truths; and they err as men do that
argue right from wrong principles. For, by the violence of their
imaginations, having taken their fancies for realities, they make right
deductions from them. Thus you shall find a distracted man fancying
himself a king, with a right inference require suitable attendance,
respect, and obedience: others who have thought themselves made of
glass, have used the caution necessary to preserve such brittle bodies.
Hence it comes to pass that a man who is very sober, and of a right
understanding in all other things, may in one particular be as frantic
as any in Bedlam; if either by any sudden very strong impression, or
long fixing his fancy upon one sort of thoughts, incoherent ideas have
been cemented together so powerfully, as to remain united. But there
are degrees of madness, as of folly; the disorderly jumbling ideas
together is in some more, and some less. In short, herein seems to lie
the difference between idiots and madmen: that madmen put wrong ideas
together, and so make wrong propositions, but argue and reason right
from them; but idiots make very few or no propositions, and reason
scarce at all.
14. Method followed in this explication of Faculties.
These, I think, are the first faculties and operations of the mind,
which it makes use of in understanding; and though they are exercised
about all its ideas in general, yet the instances I have hitherto given
have been chiefly in simple ideas. And I have subjoined the explication
of these faculties of the mind to that of simple ideas, before I come
to what I have to say concerning complex ones, for these following
reasons:—
First, Because several of these faculties being exercised at first
principally about simple ideas, we might, by following nature in its
ordinary method, trace and discover them, in their rise, progress, and
gradual improvements.
Secondly, Because observing the faculties of the mind, how they operate
about simple ideas,—which are usually, in most men’s minds, much more
clear, precise, and distinct than complex ones,—we may the better
examine and learn how the mind extracts, denominates, compares, and
exercises, in its other operations about those which are complex,
wherein we are much more liable to mistake. Thirdly, Because these very
operations of the mind about ideas received from sensations, are
themselves, when reflected on, another set of ideas, derived from that
other source of our knowledge, which I call reflection; and therefore
fit to be considered in this place after the simple ideas of sensation.
Of compounding, comparing, abstracting, &c., I have but just spoken,
having occasion to treat of them more at large in other places.
15. The true Beginning of Human Knowledge.
And thus I have given a short, and, I think, true HISTORY OF THE FIRST
BEGINNINGS OF HUMAN KNOWLEDGE;—whence the mind has its first objects;
and by what steps it makes its progress to the laying in and storing up
those ideas, out of which is to be framed all the knowledge it is
capable of: wherein I must appeal to experience and observation whether
I am in the right: the best way to come to truth being to examine
things as really they are, and not to conclude they are, as we fancy of
ourselves, or have been taught by others to imagine.
16. Appeal to Experience.
To deal truly, this is the only way that I can discover, whereby the
IDEAS OF THINGS are brought into the understanding. If other men have
either innate ideas or infused principles, they have reason to enjoy
them; and if they are sure of it, it is impossible for others to deny
them the privilege that they have above their neighbours. I can speak
but of what I find in myself, and is agreeable to those notions, which,
if we will examine the whole course of men in their several ages,
countries, and educations, seem to depend on those foundations which I
have laid, and to correspond with this method in all the parts and
degrees thereof.
17. Dark Room.
I pretend not to teach, but to inquire; and therefore cannot but
confess here again,—that external and internal sensation are the only
passages I can find of knowledge to the understanding. These alone, as
far as I can discover, are the windows by which light is let into this
DARK ROOM. For, methinks, the understanding is not much unlike a closet
wholly shut from light, with only some little openings left, to let in
external visible resemblances, or ideas of things without: which, would
they but stay there, and lie so orderly as to be found upon occasion,
it would very much resemble the understanding of a man, in reference to
all objects of sight, and the ideas of them.
These are my guesses concerning the means whereby the understanding
comes to have and retain simple ideas, and the modes of them, with some
other operations about them.
I proceed now to examine some of these simple ideas and their modes a
little more particularly.