OF COMPLEX IDEAS.
1. Made by the Mind out of simple Ones.
We have hitherto considered those ideas, in the reception whereof the
mind is only passive, which are those simple ones received from
sensation and reflection before mentioned, whereof the mind cannot make
one to itself, nor have any idea which does not wholly consist of them.
As simple ideas are observed to exist in several combinations united
together, so the mind has a power to consider several of them united
together as one idea; and that not only as they are united in external
objects, but as itself has joined them together. Ideas thus made up of
several simple ones put together, I call COMPLEX;—such as are beauty,
gratitude, a man, an army, the universe; which, though complicated of
various simple ideas, or complex ideas made up of simple ones, yet are,
when the mind pleases, considered each by itself, as one entire thing,
signified by one name.
2. Made voluntarily.
In this faculty of repeating and joining together its ideas, the mind
has great power in varying and multiplying the objects of its thoughts,
infinitely beyond what sensation or reflection furnished it with: but
all this still confined to those simple ideas which it received from
those two sources, and which are the ultimate materials of all its
compositions. For simple ideas are all from things themselves, and of
these the mind CAN have no more, nor other than what are suggested to
it. It can have no other ideas of sensible qualities than what come
from without [*dropped word] the senses; nor any ideas of other kind of
operations of a thinking substance, than what it finds in itself. But
when it has once got these simple ideas, it is not confined barely to
observation, and what offers itself from without; it can, by its own
power, put together those ideas it has, and make new complex ones,
which it never received so united.
3. Complex ideas are either of Modes, Substances, or Relations.
COMPLEX IDEAS, however compounded and decompounded, though their number
be infinite, and the variety endless, wherewith they fill and entertain
the thoughts of men; yet I think they may be all reduced under these
three heads:—1. MODES. 2. SUBSTANCES. 3. RELATIONS.
4. Ideas of Modes.
First, MODES I call such complex ideas which, however compounded,
contain not in them the supposition of subsisting by themselves, but
are considered as dependences on, or affections of substances;—such as
are the ideas signified by the words triangle, gratitude, murder, &c.
And if in this I use the word mode in somewhat a different sense from
its ordinary signification, I beg pardon; it being unavoidable in
discourses, differing from the ordinary received notions, either to
make new words, or to use old words in somewhat a new signification;
the later whereof, in our present case, is perhaps the more tolerable
of the two.
5. Simple and mixed Modes of Ideas.
Of these MODES, there are two sorts which deserve distinct
consideration:—
First, there are some which are only variations, or different
combinations of the same simple idea, without the mixture of any
other;—as a dozen, or score; which are nothing but the ideas of so many
distinct units added together, and these I call SIMPLE MODES as being
contained within the bounds of one simple idea.
Secondly, there are others compounded of simple ideas of several kinds,
put together to make one complex one;—v.g. beauty, consisting of a
certain composition of colour and figure, causing delight to the
beholder; theft, which being the concealed change of the possession of
anything, without the consent of the proprietor, contains, as is
visible, a combination of several ideas of several kinds: and these I
call MIXED MODES.
6. Ideas of Substances, single or collective.
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. Ideas of Relation.
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. The abstrusest Ideas we can have are all from two Sources.
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 further 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
reflection, being no other than what the mind, by the ordinary use of
its own faculties, employed about ideas received from objects of sense,
or from the operations it observes in itself about them, may, and does,
attain unto.
This I shall endeavour to show in the ideas we have of space, time, and
infinity, and some few others that seem the most remote, from those
originals.