ces of his understanding. Even the most obvious truths may be overlooked, while the ideas they belong to are in our thoughts; a man may see two pair of horses without ever considering that they make four but if the mind had several faculties which were severally affected by the same ideas, since they must all be passive faculties, one would expect that whatever is present, and operates upon the mind, should equally affect them all. If it be said we overlook the judgment for want of reflecting, I would ask what else is reflecting besides turning the mental eye inwards, which is the same act in looking for judgments as for naked ideas of terms, and differs only in being directed to different objects.. Therefore while we speak of the mind, and not of the man, comprehending his body or finer organization, I can see no more reason to suppose one faculty for apprehending, another for judging, and another for reasoning, than to suppose one faculty for seeing blue, another for yellow, and another for scarlet.

37. When I make judgment a distinct idea from that of the terms, I do not mean that it may be separated from them so as to be discerned apart by itself, for one cannot judge without some ideas to judge upon, but this does not hinder its adding to the prospect exhibited by the terms alone: for there are ideas received by sensation, which cannot subsist without others, and nevertheless are really distinct from those whereon their subsistence depends. We cannot see motion without seeing somebody move, yet none will pretend our idea of motion is contained in that of the body, which we had complete while we saw it at rest; but when put in motion it presents a new idea it did not before, and we discern this new circumstance of motion by the same sense of vision wherewith we discern the body itself. So we may reflect on a cow and a sheep, without thinking whether one be larger than the other, and when we make this second reflection, though it cannot subsist without the former, it has something more for its object, nor does there need any other faculty to apprehend this additional object of the judgment, than that whereby we apprehend the subjects whereon it is passed.

38. But improvements in knowledge, as well by reason as experience, arise from the transferable nature of judgment: for the premises transfer their certainty to the conclusion, and particular facts transfer their degree of evidence to the opinion they tend to establish, until they grow into a certain experience. I do not reckon the translation made while we cannot assent to the conclusion, without contemplating the proofs: but when we can use it as a principle, and whenever we reflect upon it find the characteristic of truth associated with it in the same combination. This we

very frequently do, for we have many judgments to which we give an unreserved assent; we are sensible we learned them, though we cannot tell where, or when, or how we learned them. Nay, sometimes when we cannot recollect who told us of a thing, we know we must have heard it, somewhere and not dreamed it, by the strength of persuasion we find accompanying our idea.

Yet our judgment cannot all come to us this way, because we must have had some previously to our entering upon it; experience must have a beginning, and reason must have some principles to build upon, already known and assented to, before she goes to work upon them. We begin to judge very early, as early or rather a moment earlier than we begin to act, for we never act without an apprehension of expedience in the action: therefore the first judgment we ever made must precede the first action we ever performed, and consequently must precede all experience. we could have of our own power or the effects of it. The child does not try to throw off its swaddling clothes without a judgment that the pressure it feels comes from them, and that it may remove them by struggling. I do not propose this as the very earliest act of human life, but whatever you will suppose the earliest, was done for some end which the fancy represented as desirable and attainable. This first judgment, then, arose without any manner of proof, not even of prior experience, but was owing to the ideas springing up spontaneously in the infant fancy. Thus we see that that state of our finer organization, or whatever else one can assign for the mind to look upon in the suggestions of fancy, has a natural efficacy to excite a perception of judgments as well as of other ideas. One modification affects us with colors, another with sounds, another with remembrance, another with assent and whatever, whether mechanical or other causes, bring the organs into this disposition, they will have the like effect.Wherefore there is no absurdity in conceiving it possible in theory, that a man, by an immediate operation upon his organs disposing them into a proper state, may be brought to understand what he never learned, to remember what he never saw, to perceive truths instantaneously discoverable only by long investigations of reason, and to discern others clearly which no reason can investigate.

39. But how consistent soever this may appear in speculation, the possibility of a thing does not prove it actually true, and if we consult experience we shall find the contrary to be fact; all our knowledge being derived from those sources to which we commonly ascribe it, our senses, our memory, our reason, or the testimony and instruction of others. Therefore I am so far from imagining our judgments to proceed from any sudden irregular configura

tion of our organs, that perhaps I may be blamed for running into an opposite extreme; for I conceive that all our stores of knowledge, and skill in discerning between one thing and another, was acquired, not born with us, but learned by practice if we had judgments any other way than those above mentioned in our infancy, we have lost them, and possess nothing now which was not once a new acquisition. I have already declared my opinion concerning the judgment of the senses, that a grown person, on first coming to the use of any of them, would not receive the same information therefrom that we do; and that we attain our ideas of magnitude, figure, distance, and many other particulars, by having frequent intercourse among objects. And for judgments of the understanding, besides that they cannot be had before we arrive at the use of understanding, they for the most part consist in generals, which can be known only by experience of particulars founded on the evidence of the senses. There are some truths esteemed self-evident, because supposed to be assented to as soon as proposed but I question the fact, for I fancy one might meet with children who do not know that two and two make four, or that the whole cannot be contained in a part, after they clearly understand the meaning of the terms. We call them self-evident, because we discern them upon inspection, but so we do the figures and distances of bodies, which has been shown the effect of a skill attained by use. There is as necessary a connection between nine times four and thirtysix, as between twice two and four; and we find that butchers or market women, who have constantly used themselves to reckon by groats, judge of their several amounts upon inspection without staying to compute: therefore those ideas operate upon them in the manner of self-evident truths, which speak for themselves as soon as admitted into the reflection. They do not the like upon other persons who have not accustomed themselves to the like train of thinking: but all men have had some experience, and made some observation upon things daily occurring to their senses or reflection, from whence they gather that knowledge we style self-evident, because we know not its original, nor remember the time when we were without it.

40. From what has been observed above, it may be justly doubted whether, strictly speaking, we have any such thing as first principles of reason, but what we deem so are accessions of knowledge derived from some channel whose source we cannot disI do not remark this with a view to depreciate such knowledge or lessen our dependence upon it in all the uses of life: for I think where we find a thing command our assent as soon as proposed, agreed to by mankind in general, and we can see nothing

cover.

in all our stores of experience suggesting a possibility of its being untrue, we may build upon it as upon a sure foundation as well of our conduct as of our reasonings. But my design tends to show that nothing is above being made the subject of examination when an opening offers: for those commonly esteemed first principles may be often traced to some higher origin, and several of them not unfrequently to one and the same. Therefore the more a man thinks, especially upon points of morality, he will find his principles the fewer, but of more extensive influence; for many of those he looked upon as such at first, will resolve themselves into conclusions from the few that remain. By this means his reasonings will grow more clear and uniform, and his improvements greater, for by tracing points of knowledge, generally received, up their channels, he may discern how they came to prevail with mankind, and thence learn to deduce others from the same stream with equal effect and certainty. May I then be permitted, in the sequel of these inquiries, to question whether several things be evident in themselves, or good or right in themselves, which are commonly reputed such? Not with an intention to overthrow them, but with an endeavor to discover why they are evident, and why they are good or right: nor shall I do this wantonly, or unless I apprehend some advantage will accrue from the attempt. But as I do not pretend always to penetrate quite to the fountain head, shall content myself with stopping at postulata, which I apprehend nobody will deny me, whenever finding it impracticable or needless to go further.

CHAP. XII.

IMAGINATION AND UNDERSTANDING.

We have observed at our entrance upon these inquiries, that a compound may have properties resulting from the composition which do not belong to the parts singly whereof it consists. Therefore, though the mind, taken in the strict and philosophical sense, possesses only two faculties, the active and the perceptive, this does not hinder but that the mind, in the vulgar and grosser acceptation, may possess a greater variety of faculties, such as discerning, remembering, thinking, studying, contemplating, and a multitude of others: which are but different modes or species of perception, varying according to the state of the ideas there are to be perceived, and are all reducible under two general classes,

Imagination and Understanding; neither of them born with us, but acquired by use and practice, and the latter growing out of the former. We come into the world a mere blank, void of all inscription whatsoever. Sensation first begins the writing, and our internal sense or reflection increases the stock, which runs into various assortments, and produces other ideas different from the root whereout they spring; whence we quickly become provided with store of assemblages, associations, trains, and judg

ments.

These stores, together with the repository containing them, we may style the imagination, the very word implying so much; for being derived from image, which is the same as idea, it imports the receptacle of ideas. And whatever number of them is excited by external objects, or presented by the mechanical workings of our animal spirits, or other causes, I call an act of imagination or scene exhibited thereby. I know that imagination is applied in common discourse to ideas purely imaginary, having no existence in truth and nature, such as a Cyclops, a Chimera, the enchanted island of Circe, or whimsical Adventures of Pantagruel. But we find rhetoricians and critics extending the term to pictures of real originals drawn in the mind by descriptions of scenes actually existing, or occurrences actually happening. Mr. Addison, in his essay on the pleasures of imagination, treats of those conveyed by the works of art and nature. Therefore I shall not offend against propriety, by taking the word in the largest sense, as comprehending every representation to the mind, whether of things real or fantastical, either brought into view by some sensation, or starting up of their own accord.

Among these ideas, some being more engaging than the rest, attract the notice particularly to themselves: the mental eye singles them out from the whole scene exhibited before it, sees them in a stronger light, holds them longer in view, and thereby gives occasion to their introducing more of their own associates than, they could have done in the rapidity of their natural course. This operation of the notice being frequently repeated, at length becomes itself an object of our observation, and thus we discover a power we have of heightening the color of our ideas, of changing or directing their course by the application of our notice and the exercise of this power I take to be what is commonly meant by an act of the Understanding.

2. Thus there are three ways in which ideas are made to affect us; by mechanical causes, when either sensible objects excite them, or the working of our animal spirits throws them up; by the notice being drawn to fix upon some appearing eminently