Complex ideas are the creatures of the mind. Hence may appear the nature
of numbers. This to be deeply discuss’d.
I am better informed & shall know more by telling me there are 10,000 men,
than by shewing me them all drawn up. I shall better be able to judge of
the bargain you’d have me make wn you tell me how much (i.e. the name of
ye) money lies on the table, than by offering and shewing it without
naming. I regard not the idea, the looks, but the names. Hence may appear
the nature of numbers.
Children are unacquainted with numbers till they have made some progress
in language. This could not be if they were ideas suggested by all the
senses.
Numbers are nothing but names—never words.
Mem. Imaginary roots—to unravel that mystery.
Ideas of utility are annexed to numbers.
In arithmetical problems men seek not any idea of number. They only seek a
denomination. This is all can be of use to them.
Take away the signs from Arithmetic and Algebra, and pray wt remains?
These are sciences purely verbal, and entirely useless but for practice in
societies of men. No speculative knowledge, no comparing of ideas in
them(162).
Qu. whether Geometry may not properly be reckon’d amongst the mixt
mathematics—Arithmetic & Algebra being the only abstracted pure, i.e.
entirely nominal—Geometry being an application of these to points(163)?
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(M225) Locke of Trifling Propositions. [b. 4. c. 8] Mem. Well to observe &
con over that chapter.
(M226) Existence, Extension, &c. are abstract, i.e. no ideas. They are
words, unknown and useless to the vulgar.
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(M227) Sensual pleasure is the _summum bonum_. This the great principle of
morality. This once rightly understood, all the doctrines, even the
severest of the Gospels, may clearly be demonstrated.
(M228) Sensual pleasure, quâ pleasure, is good & desirable by a wise
man(164). But if it be contemptible, ’tis not quâ pleasure but quâ pain,
or cause of pain, or (which is the same thing) of loss of greater
pleasure.
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(M229) Wn I consider, the more objects we see at once the more distant
they are, and that eye which beholds a great many things can see none of
them near.
(M230) By _idea_ I mean any sensible or imaginable thing(165).
(M231) To be sure or certain of wt we do not actually perceive(166) (I say
perceive, not imagine), we must not be altogether passive; there must be a
disposition to act; there must be assent, wch is active. Nay, what do I
talk; there must be actual volition.
What do we demonstrate in Geometry but that lines are equal or unequal?
i.e. may not be called by the same name(167).
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(M232) I approve of this axiom of the Schoolmen, “Nihil est in intellectu
quod non prius fuit in sensu.”(168) I wish they had stuck to it. It had
never taught them the doctrine of abstract ideas.
(M233) “Nihil dat quod non habet,” or, the effect is contained in the
cause, is an axiom I do not understand or believe to be true.
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(M234) Whoever shall cast his eyes on the writings of old or new
philosophers, and see the noise is made about formal and objective Being,
Will, &c.
(M235) Absurd to argue the existence of God from his idea. We have no idea
of God. ’Tis impossible(169).
(M236) Cause of much errour & confusion that men knew not what was meant
by Reality(170).
(M237) Des Cartes, in Med. 2, says the notion of this particular wax is
less clear than that of wax in general; and in the same Med., a little
before, he forbears to consider bodies in general, because (says he) these
general conceptions are usually confused.
(M238) Des Cartes, in Med. 3, calls himself a thinking substance, and a
stone an extended substance; and adds that they both agree in this, that
they are substances. And in the next paragraph he calls extension a mode
of substance.
(M239) ’Tis commonly said by the philosophers, that if the soul of man
were self-existent it would have given itself all possible perfection.
This I do not understand.
(M240) Mem. To excite men to the pleasures of the eye & the ear, which
surfeit not, nor bring those evils after them, as others.
(M241) We see no variety or difference betwixt volitions, only between
their effects. ’Tis one Will, one Act—distinguished by the effects. This
Will, this Act, is the Spirit, i.e. operative principle, soul, &c. No
mention of fears and jealousies, nothing like a party.
(M242) Locke in his 4th Book(171), and Des Cartes in Med. 6, use the same
argument for the existence of objects, viz. that sometimes we see, feel,
&c. against our will.
(M243) While I exist or have any idea, I am eternally, constantly willing;
my acquiescing in the present state is willing.
(M244) The existence of any thing imaginable is nothing different from
imagination or perception(172). Volition or Will, Wch is not imaginable,
regard must not be had to its existence(?) ... First Book.
(M245) There are four sorts of propositions:—“Gold is a metal;” “Gold is
yellow;” “Gold is fixt;” “Gold is not a stone”—of which the first, second,
and third are only nominal, and have no mental propositions answering
them.
(M246) Mem. In vindication of the senses effectually to confute what Des
Cartes saith in the last par. of the last Med., viz. that the senses
oftener inform him falsely than truely—that sense of pain tells me not my
foot is bruised or broken, but I, having frequently observed these two
ideas, viz. of that peculiar pain and bruised foot go together, do
erroneously take them to be inseparable by a necessity of Nature—as if
Nature were anything but the ordinance of the free will of God(173).
(M247) Des Cartes owns we know not a substance immediately by itself, but
by this alone, that it is the subject of several acts. Ans. to 2d
objection of Hobbs.
(M248) Hobbs in some degree falls in with Locke, saying thought is to the
mind or himself as dancing to the dancer. Object.
(M249) Hobbs in his Object. 3 ridicules those expressions of the
scholastiques—“the will wills,” &c. So does Locke. I am of another
mind(174).
(M250) Des Cartes, in answer to Object. 3 of Hobbs, owns he is distinct
from thought as a thing from its modus or manner.
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(M251) Opinion that existence was distinct from perception of horrible
consequence. It is the foundation of Hobbs’s doctrine, &c.
(M252) Malbranch in his illustration(175) differs widely from me. He
doubts of the existence of bodies. I doubt not in the least of this.
(M253) I differ from Cartesians in that I make extension, colour, &c. to
exist really in bodies independent of our mind(176). All ye carefully and
lucidly to be set forth.
(M254) Not to mention the combinations of powers, but to say the
things—the effects themselves—do really exist, even wn not actually
perceived; but still with relation to perception(177).
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The great use of the Indian figures above the Roman shews arithmetic to be
about signs, not ideas—or at least not ideas different from the characters
themselves(178).
(M255) Reasoning there may be about things or ideas, or about actions; but
demonstration can be only verbal. I question, no matter &c.
(M256) Quoth Des Cartes, The idea of God is not made by me, for I can
neither add to nor subtract from it. No more can he add to or take from
any other idea, even of his own making.
(M257) The not distinguishing ’twixt Will and ideas is a grand mistake
with Hobbs. He takes those things for nothing which are not ideas(179).
(M258) Say you, At this rate all’s nothing but idea—mere phantasm. I
answer, Everything as real as ever. I hope to call a thing idea makes it
not the less real. Truly I should perhaps have stuck to the word thing,
and not mentioned the word idea, were it not for a reason, and I think a
good one too, which I shall give in the Second Book(180).
(M259) Idea is the object of thought. Yt I think on, whatever it be, I
call idea. Thought itself, or thinking, is no idea. ’Tis an act—i.e.
volition, i.e. as contradistinguished to effects—the Will.
(M260) Locke, in B. 4. c. 5, assigns not the right cause why mental
propositions are so difficult. It is not because of complex but because of
abstract ideas. Ye idea of a horse is as complex as that of fortitude. Yet
in saying the “horse is white” I form a mental proposition with ease. But
when I say “fortitude is a virtue” I shall find a mental proposition hard,
or not at all to be come at.
(M261) Pure intellect I understand not(181).
Locke is in ye right in those things wherein he differs from ye
Cartesians, and they cannot but allow of his opinions, if they stick to
their own principles or causes of Existence & other abstract ideas.
(M262) The properties of all things are in God, i.e. there is in the Deity
Understanding as well as Will. He is no blind agent, and in truth a blind
agent is a contradiction(182).
(M263) I am certain there is a God, tho’ I do not perceive Him—have no
intuition of Him. This not difficult if we rightly understand wt is meant
by certainty.
(M264) It seems that the Soul, taken for the Will, is immortal,
incorruptible.
(M265) Qu. whether perception must of necessity precede volition?
(M266) Error is not in the Understanding, but in the Will. What I
understand or perceive, that I understand. There can be no errour in this.
(M267) Mem. To take notice of Locke’s woman afraid of a wetting, in the
Introd., to shew there may be reasoning about ideas or things.
(M268) Say Des Cartes & Malbranch, God hath given us strong inclinations
to think our ideas proceed from bodies, or that bodies do exist. Pray wt
mean they by this? Would they have it that the ideas of imagination are
images of, and proceed from, the ideas of sense? This is true, but cannot
be their meaning; for they speak of ideas of sense as themselves
proceeding from, being like unto—I know not wt(183).
(M269) Cartesius per ideam vult omne id quod habet esse objectivum in
intellectu. V. Tract. de Methodo.
(M270) Qu. May there not be an Understanding without a Will?
(M271) Understanding is in some sort an action.
(M272) Silly of Hobbs, &c. to speak of the Will as if it were motion, with
which it has no likeness.
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(M273) Ideas of Sense are the real things or archetypes. Ideas of
imagination, dreams, &c. are copies, images, of these.
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(M274) My doctrines rightly understood, all that philosophy of Epicurus,
Hobbs, Spinosa, &c., which has been a declared enemy of religion, comes to
the ground.
(M275) Hobbs & Spinosa make God extended. Locke also seems to do the
same(184).
(M276) Ens, res, aliquid dicuntur termini transcendentales. Spinosa, p.
76, prop. 40, Eth. part 2, gives an odd account of their original. Also of
the original of all universals—Homo, Canis, &c.
(M277) Spinosa (vid. Præf. Opera Posthum.) will have God to be “omnium
rerum causa immanens,” and to countenance this produces that of St. Paul,
“in Him we live,” &c. Now this of St. Paul may be explained by my doctrine
as well as Spinosa’s, or Locke’s, or Hobbs’s, or Raphson’s(185), &c.
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(M278) The Will is _purus actus_, or rather pure spirit not imaginable,
not sensible, not intelligible, in no wise the object of the
understanding, no wise perceivable.
(M279) Substance of a spirit is that it acts, causes, wills, operates, or
if you please (to avoid the quibble yt may be made of the word “it”) to
act, cause, will, operate. Its substance is not knowable, not being an
idea.
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(M280) Why may we not conceive it possible for God to create things out of
nothing? Certainly we ourselves create in some wise whenever we imagine.
(M281) “Ex nihilo nihil fit.” This (saith Spinoza, Opera Posth. p. 464)
and the like are called _veritates æternæ_, because “nullam fidem habent
extra mentem.” To make this axiom have a positive signification, one
should express it thus: Every idea has a cause, i.e. is produced by a
Will(186).
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(M282) The philosophers talk much of a distinction ’twixt absolute &
relative things, or ’twixt things considered in their own nature & the
same things considered with respect to us. I know not wt they mean by
“things considered in themselves.” This is nonsense, jargon.
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(M283) It seems there can be no perception—no idea—without Will, seeing
there are no ideas so indifferent but one had rather have them than
annihilation, or annihilation than them. Or if there be such an equal
balance, there must be an equal mixture of pleasure and pain to cause it;
there being no ideas perfectly void of all pain & uneasiness, but wt are
preferable to annihilation.
Recipe in animum tuum, per cogitationem vehementem, rerum ipsarum, non
literarum aut sonorum imagines. Hobbs against Wallis.
’Tis a perfection we may imagine in superior spirits, that they can see a
great deal at once with the utmost clearness and distinction; whereas we
can only see a point(187).
Mem. Wn I treat of mathematiques to enquire into the controversy ’twixt
Hobbes and Wallis.
(M284) Every sensation of mine, which happens in consequence of the
general known laws of nature, & is from without, i.e. independent of my
will, demonstrates the being of a God, i.e. of an unextended, incorporeal
spirit, which is omnipresent, omnipotent, &c.
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(M285) I say not with J.S. [John Sergeant] that we _see_ solids. I reject
his “solid philosophy”—solidity being only perceived by touch(188).
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(M286) It seems to me that will and understanding—volitions and
ideas—cannot be separated, that either cannot be possibly without the
other.
(M287) Some ideas or other I must have, so long as I exist or will. But no
one idea or sort of ideas being essential(189).
(M288) The distinction between idea and ideatum I cannot otherwise
conceive than by making one the effect or consequence of dream, reverie,
imagination—the other of sense and the constant laws of nature.
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(M289) Dico quod extensio non concipitur in se et per se, contra quam
dicit Spinoza in Epist. 2a ad Oldenburgium.
(M290) My definition of the word God I think much clearer than those of
Des Cartes & Spinoza, viz. “Ens summe perfectum & absolute infinitum,” or
“Ens constans infinitis attributis, quorum unumquodque est
infinitum(190).”
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’Tis chiefly the connexion betwixt tangible and visible ideas that
deceives, and not the visible ideas themselves.
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(M291) But the grand mistake is that we know not what we mean by “we,” or
“selves,” or “mind,” &c. ’Tis most sure & certain that our ideas are
distinct from the mind, i.e. the Will, the Spirit(191).
(M292) I must not mention the understanding as a faculty or part of the
mind. I must include understanding & will in the word Spirit—by which I
mean all that is active. I must not say that the understanding diners not
from the particular ideas, or the will from particular volitions.
(M293) The Spirit, the Mind, is neither a volition nor an idea.
(M294) I say there are no causes (properly speaking) but spiritual,
nothing active but Spirit. Say you, This is only verbal; ’tis only
annexing a new sort of signification to the word cause, & why may not
others as well retain the old one, and call one idea the cause of another
which always follows it? I answer, If you do so I shall drive you into
many absurditys: you cannot avoid running into opinions you’ll be glad to
disown, if you stick firmly to that signification of the word Cause.
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(M295) In valuing good we reckon too much on the present & our own.
(M296) There be two sorts of pleasure. The one is ordained as a spur or
incitement to somewhat else, & has a visible relation and subordination
thereto; the other is not. Thus the pleasure of eating is of the former
sort, of musick of the later sort. These may be used for recreation, those
not but in order to their end.
(M297) Three sorts of useful knowledge—that of Coexistence, to be treated
of in our Principles of Natural Philosophy; that of Relation, in
Mathematiques; that of Definition, or inclusion, or words (which perhaps
differs not from that of relation), in Morality(192).
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(M298) Will, understanding, desire, hatred, &c., so far forth as they are
acts or active, differ not. All their difference consists in their
objects, circumstances, &c.
(M299) We must carefully distinguish betwixt two sorts of causes—physical
& spiritual.
(M300) The physical may more properly be called occasions. Yet (to comply)
we may call them causes—but then we must mean causes yt do nothing.
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(M301) According to Locke, we must be in an eternal uneasiness so long as
we live, bating the time of sleep or trance, &c.; for he will have even
the continuance of an action to be in his sense an action, & so requires a
volition, & this an uneasiness.
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(M302) I must not pretend to promise much of demonstration. I must cancell
all passages that look like that sort of pride, that raising of
expectation in my friend.
(M303) If this be the case, surely a man had better not philosophize at
all: no more than a deformed person ought to cavil to behold himself by
the reflex light of a mirrour.
(M304) Or thus, like deformed persons who, having beheld themselves by the
reflex light of a mirrour, are displeased with their diseases.
(M305) What can an idea be like but another idea? We can compare it with
nothing else—a sound like a sound, a colour like a colour.
(M306) Is it not nonsense to say a smell is like a thing which cannot be
smelt, a colour is like a thing wh cannot be seen?
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(M307) Bodies exist without the mind, i.e. are not the mind, but distinct
from it. This I allow, the mind being altogether different therefrom(193).
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(M308) Certainly we should not see motion if there was no diversity of
colours.
(M309) Motion is an abstract idea, i.e. there is no such idea that can be
conceived by itself.
(M310) Contradictions cannot be both true. Men are obliged to answer
objections drawn from consequences. Introd.
(M311) The Will and Volition are words not used by the vulgar. The learned
are bantered by their meaning abstract ideas.
Speculative Math, as if a man was all day making hard knots on purpose to
unty them again.
Tho’ it might have been otherwise, yet it is convenient the same thing wch
is M.V. should be also M.T., or very near it.
(M312) I must not give the soul or mind the scholastique name “pure act,”
but rather pure spirit, or active being.
(M313) I must not say the Will or Understanding are all one, but that they
are both abstract ideas, i.e. none at all—they not being even _ratione_
different from the Spirit, _quâ_ faculties, or active.
(M314) Dangerous to make idea & thing terms convertible(194). That were
the way to prove spirits are nothing.
(M315) Qu. whether _veritas_ stands not for an abstract idea?
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(M316) ’Tis plain the moderns must by their own principles own there are
no bodies, i.e. no sort of bodies without the mind, i.e. unperceived.
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(M317) Qu. whether the Will can be the object of prescience or any
knowledge?
(M318) If there were only one ball in the world, it could not be moved.
There could be no variety of appearance.
According to the doctrine of infinite divisibility, there must be some
smell of a rose, v. g. at an infinite distance from it.
(M319) Extension, tho’ it exist only in the mind, yet is no property of
the mind. The mind can exist without it, tho’ it cannot without the mind.
But in Book II. I shall at large shew the difference there is betwixt the
Soul and Body or extended being.
(M320) ’Tis an absurd question wch Locke puts, whether man be free to
will?
Mem. To enquire into the reason of the rule for determining questions in
Algebra.
It has already been observed by others that names are nowhere of more
necessary use than in numbering.
(M321) I will grant you that extension, colour, &c. may be said to be
without the mind in a double respect, i.e. as independent of our will, and
as distinct from the mind.
(M322) Certainly it is not impossible but a man may arrive at the
knowledge of all real truth as well without as with signs, had he a memory
and imagination most strong and capacious. Therefore reasoning & science
doth not altogether depend upon words or names(195).
(M323) I think not that things fall out of necessity. The connexion of no
two ideas is necessary; ’tis all the result of freedom, i.e. ’tis all
voluntary(196).
(M324) If a man with his eyes shut imagines to himself the sun &
firmament, you will not say _he_ or _his mind_ is the sun, or is extended,
tho’ neither sun or firmament be without mind.
(M325) ’Tis strange to find philosophers doubting & disputing whether they
have ideas of spiritual things or no. Surely ’tis easy to know. Vid. De
Vries(197), _De Ideis Innatis_, p. 64.
(M326) De Vries will have it that we know the mind agrees with things not
by idea but sense or conscientia. So will Malbranch. This a vain
distinction.
August 28th, 1708. The Adventure of the [Shirt?].
It were to be wished that persons of the greatest birth, honour, &
fortune, would take that care of themselves, by education, industry,
literature, & a love of virtue, to surpass all other men in knowledge &
all other qualifications necessary for great actions, as far as they do in
quality & titles; that princes out of them might always chose men fit for
all employments and high trusts. Clov. B. 7.
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One eternity greater than another of the same kind.
In what sense eternity may be limited.
(M327) Whether succession of ideas in the Divine intellect?
(M328) Time is the train of ideas succeeding each other.
Duration not distinguish’d from existence.
Succession explain’d by before, between, after, & numbering.
Why time in pain longer than time in pleasure?
Duration infinitely divisible, time not so.
(M329) The same τὸ νῦν not common to all intelligences.
Time thought infinitely divisible on account of its measure.
Extension not infinitely divisible in one sense.
Revolutions immediately measure train of ideas, mediately duration.
(M330) Time a sensation; therefore onely in ye mind.
Eternity is onely a train of innumerable ideas. Hence the immortality of
ye soul easily conceiv’d, or rather the immortality of the person, that of
ye soul not being necessary for ought we can see.
Swiftness of ideas compar’d with yt of motions shews the wisdom of God.
Wt if succession of ideas were swifter, wt if slower?
(M331) Fall of Adam, use of idolatry, use of Epicurism & Hobbism, dispute
about divisibility of matter, &c. expounded by material substances.
Extension a sensation, therefore not without the mind.
(M332) In the immaterial hypothesis, the wall is white, fire hot, &c.
Primary ideas prov’d not to exist in matter; after the same manner yt
secondary ones are prov’d not to exist therein.
Demonstrations of the infinite divisibility of extension suppose length
without breadth, or invisible length, wch is absurd.
(M333) World wthout thought is _nec quid_, _nec quantum_, _nec quale_, &c.
(M334) ’Tis wondrous to contemplate ye World empty’d of all intelligences.
Nothing properly but Persons, i.e. conscious things, do exist. All other
things are not so much existences as manners of ye existence of
persons(198).
Qu. about the soul, or rather person, whether it be not compleatly known?
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Infinite divisibility of extension does suppose the external existence of
extension; but the later is false, ergo ye former also.