OF TRUE AND FALSE IDEAS.
1. Truth and Falsehood properly belong to Propositions, not to Ideas.
Though truth and falsehood belong, in propriety of speech, only to
PROPOSITIONS: yet IDEAS are oftentimes termed true or false (as what
words are there that are not used with great latitude, and with some
deviation from their strict and proper significations?) Though I think
that when ideas themselves are termed true or false, there is still
some secret or tacit proposition, which is the foundation of that
denomination: as we shall see, if we examine the particular occasions
wherein they come to be called true or false. In all which we shall
find some kind of affirmation or negation, which is the reason of that
denomination. For our ideas, being nothing but bare APPEARANCES, or
perceptions in our minds, cannot properly and simply in themselves be
said to be true or false, no more than a single name of anything can be
said to be true or false.
2. Ideas and words may be said to be true, inasmuch as they really are
ideas and words.
Indeed both ideas and words may be said to be true, in a metaphysical
sense of the word truth; as all other things that any way exist are
said to be true, i.e. really to be such as they exist. Though in things
called true, even in that sense, there is perhaps a secret reference to
our ideas, looked upon as the standards of that truth; which amounts to
a mental proposition, though it be usually not taken notice of.
3. No Idea, as an Appearance in the Mind, either true or false.
But it is not in that metaphysical sense of truth which we inquire
here, when we examine, whether our ideas are capable of being true or
false, but in the more ordinary acceptation of those words: and so I
say that the ideas in our minds, being only so many perceptions or
appearances there, none of them are false; the idea of a centaur having
no more falsehood in it when it appears in our minds, than the name
centaur has falsehood in it, when it is pronounced by our mouths, or
written on paper. For truth or falsehood lying always in some
affirmation or negation, mental or verbal, our ideas are not capable,
any of them, of being false, till the mind passes some judgment on
them; that is, affirms or denies something of them.
4. Ideas referred to anything extraneous to them may be true or false.
Whenever the mind refers any of its ideas to anything extraneous to
them, they are then capable to be called true or false. Because the
mind, in such a reference, makes a tacit supposition of their
conformity to that thing; which supposition, as it happens to be true
or false, so the ideas themselves come to be denominated. The most
usual cases wherein this happens, are these following:
5. Other Men’s Ideas; real Existence; and supposed real Essences, are
what Men usually refer their Ideas to.
First, when the mind supposes any idea it has CONFORMABLE to that in
OTHER MEN’S MINDS, called by the same common name; v.g. when the mind
intends or judges its ideas of justice, temperance, religion, to be the
same with what other men give those names to.
Secondly, when the mind supposes any idea it has in itself to be
CONFORMABLE to some REAL EXISTENCE. Thus the two ideas of a man and a
centaur, supposed to be the ideas of real substances, are the one true
and the other false; the one having a conformity to what has really
existed, the other not. Thirdly, when the mind REFERS any of its ideas
to that REAL constitution and ESSENCE of anything, whereon all its
properties depend: and thus the greatest part, if not all our ideas of
substances, are false.
6. The cause of such Reference.
These suppositions the mind is very apt tacitly to make concerning its
own ideas. But yet, if we will examine it, we shall find it is chiefly,
if not only, concerning its ABSTRACT complex ideas. For the natural
tendency of the mind being towards knowledge; and finding that, if it
should proceed by and dwell upon only particular things, its progress
would be very slow, and its work endless; therefore, to shorten its way
to knowledge, and make each perception more comprehensive, the first
thing it does, as the foundation of the easier enlarging its knowledge,
either by contemplation of the things themselves that it would know, or
conference with others about them, is to bind them into bundles, and
rank them so into sorts, that what knowledge it gets of any of them it
may thereby with assurance extend to all of that sort; and so advance
by larger steps in that which is its great business, knowledge. This,
as I have elsewhere shown, is the reason why we collect things under
comprehensive ideas, with names annexed to them, into genera and
species; i.e. into kinds and sorts.
7. Names of things supposed to carry in them knowledge of their
essences.
If therefore we will warily attend to the motions of the mind, and
observe what course it usually takes in its way to knowledge, we shall
I think find, that the mind having got an idea which it thinks it may
have use of either in contemplation or discourse, the first thing it
does is to abstract it, and then get a name to it; and so lay it up in
its storehouse, the memory, as containing the essence of a sort of
things, of which that name is always to be the mark. Hence it is, that
we may often observe that, when any one sees a new thing of a kind that
he knows not, he presently asks, what it is; meaning by that inquiry
nothing but the name. As if the name carried with it the knowledge of
the species, or the essence of it; whereof it is indeed used as the
mark, and is generally supposed annexed to it.
8. How men suppose that their ideas must correspond to things, and to
the customary meanings of names.
But this ABSTRACT IDEA, being something in the mind, between the thing
that exists, and the name that is given to it; it is in our ideas that
both the rightness of our knowledge, and the propriety and
intelligibleness of our speaking, consists. And hence it is that men
are so forward to suppose, that the abstract ideas they have in their
minds are such as agree to the things existing without them, to which
they are referred; and are the same also to which the names they give
them do by the use and propriety of that language belong. For without
this double conformity of their ideas, they find they should both think
amiss of things in themselves, and talk of them unintelligibly to
others.
9. Simple Ideas may be false, in reference to others of the same Name,
but are least liable to be so.
First, then, I say, that when the truth of our ideas is judged of by
the conformity they have to the ideas which other men have, and
commonly signify by the same name, they may be any of them false. But
yet SIMPLE IDEAS are least of all liable to be so mistaken. Because a
man, by his senses and every day’s observation, may easily satisfy
himself what the simple ideas are which their several names that are in
common use stand for; they being but few in number, and such as, if he
doubts or mistakes in, he may easily rectify by the objects they are to
be found in. Therefore it is seldom that any one mistakes in his names
of simple ideas, or applies the name red to the idea green, or the name
sweet to the idea bitter: much less are men apt to confound the names
of ideas belonging to different senses, and call a colour by the name
of a taste, &c. Whereby it is evident that the simple ideas they call
by any name are commonly the same that others have and mean when they
use the same names.
10. Ideas of mixed Modes most liable to be false in this Sense.
Complex ideas are much more liable to be false in this respect; and the
complex ideas of MIXED MODES, much more than those of substances;
because in substances (especially those which the common and unborrowed
names of any language are applied to) some remarkable sensible
qualities, serving ordinarily to distinguish one sort from another,
easily preserve those who take any care in the use of their words, from
applying them to sorts of substances to which they do not at all
belong. But in mixed modes we are much more uncertain; it being not so
easy to determine of several actions, whether they are to be called
JUSTICE or CRUELTY, LIBERALITY or PRODIGALITY. And so in referring our
ideas to those of other men, called by the same names, ours may be
false; and the idea in our minds, which we express by the word JUSTICE,
may perhaps be that which ought to have another name.
11. Or at least to be thought false.
But whether or no our ideas of mixed modes are more liable than any
sort to be different from those of other men, which are marked by the
same names, this at least is certain. That this sort of falsehood is
much more familiarly attributed to our ideas of mixed modes than to any
other. When a man is thought to have a false idea of JUSTICE, or
GRATITUDE, or GLORY, it is for no other reason, but that his agrees not
with the ideas which each of those names are the signs of in other men.
12. And why.
The reason whereof seems to me to be this: That the abstract ideas of
mixed modes, being men’s voluntary combinations of such a precise
collection of simple ideas, and so the essence of each species being
made by men alone, whereof we have no other sensible standard existing
anywhere but the name itself, or the definition of that name; we having
nothing else to refer these our ideas of mixed modes to, as a standard
to which we would conform them, but the ideas of those who are thought
to use those names in their most proper significations; and, so as our
ideas conform or differ from THEM, they pass for true or false. And
thus much concerning the truth and falsehood of our ideas, in reference
to their names.
13. As referred to Real Existence, none of our Ideas can be false but
those of Substances.
Secondly, as to the truth and falsehood of our ideas, in reference to
the real existence of things. When that is made the standard of their
truth, none of them can be termed false but only our complex ideas of
substances.
14. First, Simple Ideas in this Sense not false and why.
First, our simple ideas, being barely such perceptions as God has
fitted us to receive, and given power to external objects to produce in
us by established laws and ways, suitable to his wisdom and goodness,
though incomprehensible to us, their truth consists in nothing else but
in such appearances as are produced in us, and must be suitable to
those powers he has placed in external objects or else they could not
be produced in us: and thus answering those powers, they are what they
should be, true ideas. Nor do they become liable to any imputation of
falsehood, if the mind (as in most men I believe it does) judges these
ideas to be in the things themselves. For God in his wisdom having set
them as marks of distinction in things, whereby we may be able to
discern one thing from another, and so choose any of them for our uses
as we have occasion; it alters not the nature of our simple idea,
whether we think that the idea of blue be in the violet itself, or in
our mind only; and only the power of producing it by the texture of its
parts, reflecting the particles of light after a certain manner, to be
in the violet itself. For that texture in the object, by a regular and
constant operation producing the same idea of blue in us, it serves us
to distinguish, by our eyes, that from any other thing; whether that
distinguishing mark, as it is really in the violet, be only a peculiar
texture of parts, or else that very colour, the idea whereof (which is
in us) is the exact resemblance. And it is equally from that appearance
to be denominated blue, whether it be that real colour, or only a
peculiar texture in it, that causes in us that idea: since the name,
BLUE, notes properly nothing but that mark of distinction that is in a
violet, discernible only by our eyes, whatever it consists in; that
being beyond our capacities distinctly to know, and perhaps would be of
less use to us, if we had faculties to discern.
15. Though one Man’s Idea of Blue should be different from another’s.
Neither would it carry any imputation of falsehood to our simple ideas,
if by the different structure of our organs it were so ordered, that
THE SAME OBJECT SHOULD PRODUCE IN SEVERAL MEN’S MINDS DIFFERENT IDEAS
at the same time; v.g. if the idea that a violet produced in one man’s
mind by his eyes were the same that a marigold produced in another
man’s, and vice versa. For, since this could never be known, because
one man’s mind could not pass into another man’s body, to perceive what
appearances were produced by those organs; neither the ideas hereby,
nor the names, would be at all confounded, or any falsehood be in
either. For all things that had the texture of a violet, producing
constantly the idea that he called blue, and those which had the
texture of a marigold, producing constantly the idea which he as
constantly called yellow, whatever those appearances were in his mind;
he would be able as regularly to distinguish things for his use by
those appearances, and understand and signify those distinctions marked
by the name blue and yellow, as if the appearances or ideas in his mind
received from those two flowers were exactly the same with the ideas in
other men’s minds. I am nevertheless very apt to think that the
sensible ideas produced by any object in different men’s minds, are
most commonly very near and undiscernibly alike. For which opinion, I
think, there might be many reasons offered: but that being besides my
present business, I shall not trouble my reader with them; but only
mind him, that the contrary supposition, if it could be proved, is of
little use, either for the improvement of our knowledge, or conveniency
of life, and so we need not trouble ourselves to examine it.
16. Simple Ideas can none of them be false in respect of real
existence.
From what has been said concerning our simple ideas, I think it evident
that our simple ideas can none of them be false in respect of things
existing without us. For the truth of these appearances or perceptions
in our minds consisting, as has been said, only in their being
answerable to the powers in external objects to produce by our senses
such appearances in us, and each of them being in the mind such as it
is, suitable to the power that produced it, and which alone it
represents, it cannot upon that account, or as referred to such a
pattern, be false. Blue and yellow, bitter or sweet, can never be false
ideas: these perceptions in the mind are just such as they are there,
answering the powers appointed by God to produce them; and so are truly
what they are, and are intended to be. Indeed the names may be
misapplied, but that in this respect makes no falsehood in the ideas;
as if a man ignorant in the English tongue should call purple scarlet.
17. Secondly, Modes not false cannot be false in reference to essences
of things.
Secondly, neither can our complex ideas of modes, in reference to the
essence of anything really existing, be false; because whatever complex
ideas I have of any mode, it hath no reference to any pattern existing,
and made by nature; it is not supposed to contain in it any other ideas
than what it hath; nor to represent anything but such a complication of
ideas as it does. Thus, when I have the idea of such an action of a man
who forbears to afford himself such meat, drink, and clothing, and
other conveniences of life, as his riches and estate will be sufficient
to supply and his station requires, I have no false idea; but such an
one as represents an action, either as I find or imagine it, and so is
capable of neither truth nor falsehood. But when I give the name
FRUGALITY or VIRTUE to this action, then it may be called a false idea,
if thereby it be supposed to agree with that idea to which, in
propriety of speech, the name of frugality doth belong, or to be
conformable to that law which is the standard of virtue and vice.
18. Thirdly, Ideas of Substances may be false in reference to existing
things.
Thirdly, our complex ideas of substances, being all referred to
patterns in things themselves, may be false. That they are all false,
when looked upon as the representations of the unknown essences of
things, is so evident that there needs nothing to be said of it. I
shall therefore pass over that chimerical supposition, and consider
them as collections of simple ideas in the mind, taken from
combinations of simple ideas existing together constantly in things, of
which patterns they are the supposed copies; and in this reference of
them to the existence of things, they are false ideas:—(1) When they
put together simple ideas, which in the real existence of things have
no union; as when to the shape and size that exist together in a horse,
is joined in the same complex idea the power of barking like a dog:
which three ideas, however put together into one in the mind, were
never united in nature; and this, therefore, may be called a false idea
of a horse. (2) Ideas of substances are, in this respect, also false,
when, from any collection of simple ideas that do always exist
together, there is separated, by a direct negation, any other simple
idea which is constantly joined with them. Thus, if to extension,
solidity, fusibility, the peculiar weightiness, and yellow colour of
gold, any one join in his thoughts the negation of a greater degree of
fixedness than is in lead or copper, he may be said to have a false
complex idea, as well as when he joins to those other simple ones the
idea of perfect absolute fixedness. For either way, the complex idea of
gold being made up of such simple ones as have no union in nature, may
be termed false. But, if he leaves out of this his complex idea that of
fixedness quite, without either actually joining to or separating it
from the rest in his mind, it is, I think, to be looked on as an
inadequate and imperfect idea, rather than a false one; since, though
it contains not all the simple ideas that are united in nature, yet it
puts none together but what do really exist together.
19. Truth or Falsehood always supposes Affirmation or Negation.
Though, in compliance with the ordinary way of speaking, I have shown
in what sense and upon what ground our ideas may be sometimes called
true or false; yet if we will look a little nearer into the matter, in
all cases where any idea is called true or false, it is from some
JUDGMENT that the mind makes, or is supposed to make, that is true or
false. For truth or falsehood, being never without some affirmation or
negation, express or tacit, it is not to be found but where signs are
joined or separated, according to the agreement or disagreement of the
things they stand for. The signs we chiefly use are either ideas or
words; wherewith we make either mental or verbal propositions. Truth
lies in so joining or separating these representatives, as the things
they stand for do in themselves agree or disagree; and falsehood in the
contrary, as shall be more fully shown hereafter.
20. Ideas in themselves neither true nor false.
Any idea, then, which we have in our minds, whether conformable or not
to the existence of things, or to any idea in the minds of other men,
cannot properly for this alone be called false. For these
representations, if they have nothing in them but what is really
existing in things without, cannot be thought false, being exact
representations of something: nor yet if they have anything in them
differing from the reality of things, can they properly be said to be
false representations, or ideas of things they do not represent. But
the mistake and falsehood is:
21. But are false—1. When judged agreeable to another Man’s Idea,
without being so.
First, when the mind having any idea, it JUDGES and concludes it the
same that is in other men’s minds, signified by the same name; or that
it is conformable to the ordinary received signification or definition
of that word, when indeed it is not: which is the most usual mistake in
mixed modes, though other ideas also are liable to it.
22. Secondly, When judged to agree to real Existence, when they do not.
(2) When it having a complex idea made up of such a collection of
simple ones as nature never puts together, it JUDGES it to agree to a
species of creatures really existing; as when it joins the weight of
tin to the colour, fusibility, and fixedness of gold.
23. Thirdly, When judged adequate, without being so.
(3) When in its complex idea it has united a certain number of simple
ideas that do really exist together in some sort of creatures, but has
also left out others as much inseparable, it JUDGES this to be a
perfect complete idea of a sort of things which really it is not; v.g.
having joined the ideas of substance, yellow, malleable, most heavy,
and fusible, it takes that complex idea to be the complete idea of
gold, when yet its peculiar fixedness, and solubility in AQUA REGIA,
are as inseparable from those other ideas, or qualities, of that body
as they are one from another.
24. Fourthly, When judged to represent the real Essence.
(4) The mistake is yet greater, when I JUDGE that this complex idea
contains in it the real essence of any body existing; when at least it
contains but some few of those properties which flow from its real
essence and constitution. I say only some few of those properties; for
those properties consisting mostly in the active and passive powers it
has in reference to other things, all that are vulgarly known of any
one body, of which the complex idea of that kind of things is usually
made, are but a very few, in comparison of what a man that has several
ways tried and examined it knows of that one sort of things; and all
that the most expert man knows are but a few, in comparison of what are
really in that body, and depend on its internal or essential
constitution. The essence of a triangle lies in a very little compass,
consists in a very few ideas: three lines including a space make up
that essence: but the properties that flow from this essence are more
than can be easily known or enumerated. So I imagine it is in
substances; their real essences lie in a little compass, though the
properties flowing from that internal constitution are endless.
25. Ideas, when called false.
To conclude, a man having no notion of anything without him, but by the
idea he has of it in his mind, (which idea he has a power to call by
what name he pleases,) he may indeed make an idea neither answering the
reason of things, nor agreeing to the idea commonly signified by other
people’s words; but cannot make a wrong or false idea of a thing which
is no otherwise known to him but by the idea he has of it: v.g. when I
frame an idea of the legs, arms, and body of a man, and join to this a
horse’s head and neck, I do not make a false idea of anything; because
it represents nothing without me. But when I call it a MAN or TARTAR,
and imagine it to represent some real being without me, or to be the
same idea that others call by the same name; in either of these cases I
may err. And upon this account it is that it comes to be termed a false
idea; though indeed the falsehood lies not in the idea, but in that
tacit mental proposition, wherein a conformity and resemblance is
attributed to it which it has not. But yet, if, having framed such an
idea in my mind, without thinking either that existence, or the name
MAN or TARTAR, belongs to it, I will call it MAN or TARTAR, I may be
justly thought fantastical in the naming; but not erroneous in my
judgment; nor the idea any way false.
26. More properly to be called right or wrong.
Upon the whole matter, I think that our ideas, as they are considered
by the mind,—either in reference to the proper signification of their
names; or in reference to the reality of things,—may very fitly be
called RIGHT or WRONG ideas, according as they agree or disagree to
those patterns to which they are referred. But if any one had rather
call them true or false, it is fit he use a liberty, which every one
has, to call things by those names he thinks best; though, in propriety
of speech, TRUTH or FALSEHOOD will, I think, scarce agree to them, but
as they, some way or other, virtually contain in them some mental
proposition. The ideas that are in a man’s mind, simply considered,
cannot be wrong; unless complex ones, wherein inconsistent parts are
jumbled together. All other ideas are in themselves right, and the
knowledge about them right and true knowledge; but when we come to
refer them to anything, as to their patterns and archetypes then they
are capable of being wrong, as far as they disagree with such
archetypes.