from that gentle reprimand of your lordship's, for thinking my way of ideas, NEW, for want of looking into other men's thoughts, which appear in their books. Your lordship's words, as an acknowledgment of your instructions in the case, and as a warning to others, who will be so bold adventurers as to spin any thing barely out of their own thoughts, I shall set down at large: And they run thus: Whether you took this way of ideas from the modern philosopher, mentioned by you, is not at all material; but I intended no re flection upon you in it (for that you mean, by my commending you as a scholar of so great a master); I never meant to take from you the honour of your own inventions: and I do believe you when you say, That you wrote from your own thoughts, and the ideas you had there. But many things may seem new to one, who converses only with his own thoughts, which really are not so; as he may find, when he looks into the thoughts of other men, which appear in their books. And therefore, although I have a just esteem for the invention of such, who can spin volumes barely out of their own thoughts; yet I am apt to think, they would oblige the world more, if, after they have thought so much themselves, they would examine what thoughts others have had before them, concerning the same things: that so those may not be thought their own inventions which are common to themselves and others. If a man should try all the magnetical experiments himself, and publish them as his own thoughts, he might take himself to be the inventor of them: but he that examines and compares with them what Gilbert, and others have done before him, will not diminish the praise of his diligence, but may wish he had compared his thoughts with other men's; by which the world would receive greater advantage, although he had lost the honour of being an original. To alleviate my fault herein, I agree with your lordship, that many things may seem NEW, to one that converses only with his own thoughts, which really are not so; but I must crave leave to suggest to your lordship, that if in the spinning them out of his own thoughts, they seem new to him, he is certainly the inventor of them; and they may as justly be thought his own invention, as any one's; and he is as certainly the inventor of them, as any one who thought on them before him: the distinction of invention, or not invention, lying not in thinking first, or not first, but in borrowing, or not borrowing, our thoughts from another; and he to whom, spinning them out of his own thoughts, they seem new, could not certainly borrow them from another. So he truly invented printing in Europe, who without any communication with the Chinese, spun it out of his own thoughts; though it were ever so true, that the Chinese had the use of printing, nay, of printing in the very same way, among them, many ages before him. So that he that spins any thing out of his own thoughts, that seems new to him, cannot cease to think it his own invention, should he examine ever so far, what thoughts others have had before him, concerning the same thing, and should find by examining, that they had the same thoughts too. But what great obligation this would be to the world, or weighty cause of turning over and looking into books, I confess I do not see. The great end to me, in conversing with my own or other men's thoughts, in matters of speculation, is to find truth, without being much concerned whether my own spinning of it out of mine, or their spinning of it out of their own thoughts, helps me to it. And how little I affect the honour of an original, may be seen at that place of my book, where, if any where, that itch of vain-glory was likeliest to have shewn itself, had I been so over-run with it, as to need a cure. It is where I speak of certainty in these following words, taken notice of by your lordship, in another place: I think I have shewn wherein it is that certainty, real certainty consists, which whatever it was to others, was, I confess to me, heretofore, one of those desiderata, which I found great want of.' Here, my lord, however new this seemed to me, and the more so because possibly I had in vain hunted for it in the books of others; yet I spoke of it as new, only to myself: leaving others in the undisturbed possession of what, either by invention, or reading, was theirs before; without assuming to myself any other honour, but that of my own ignorance, till that time, if others before had shewn wherein certainty lay. And yet, my lord, if I had, upon this occasion, been forward to assume to myself the honour of an original, I think I had been pretty safe in it; since I should have had your lordship for my guarantee and vindicator in that point, who are pleased to call it new; and, as such, to write against it. And truly, my lord, in this respect, my book has had very unlucky stars, since it hath had the misfortune to displease your lordship, with many things in it, for their novelty; as new way of reasoning; new hy pothesis about reason; new sort of certainty; new lerms; new way of ideas; new method of certainty; &c. And yet in other places, your lordship seems to think it worthy in me of your lordship's reflection, for saying, but what others have said before; as where I say, In the different make of men's tempers, and application of their thoughts, some arguments prevail more on one, and some on another, for the confirmation of the same truth.' Your lordship asks, What is this different from what all men of understanding have said? Again, I take it, your lordship meant not these words for a commendation of my book, where you say, But if no more be meant by The simple ideas that come in by sensation, or ' reflection, and their being the foundation of our knowledge,' but that our notions of things come in, either from our senses or the exercise of our minds: as there is nothing extraordinary in the discovery, so your lordship is far enough from opposing that, wherein you think all mankind are agreed. And again, But what need all this great noise about ideas and certainty, true and real certainty by ideas; if, after all, it comes only to this, that our ideas only represent to us such things, from whence we bring arguments to prove the truth of things? But, the world hath been strangely amused with ideas of late; and we have been told that strange things might be done by the help of ideas; and yet these ideas, at last, come to be only common notions of things, which we must make use of in our reasoning. And to the like purpose in other places. Whether, therefore, at last, your lordship will resolve that it is new or no; or more faulty by its being new, must be left to your lordship. This I find by it, that my book cannot avoid being condemned on the one side or the other, nor do I see a possibility to help it If there be readers that like only new thoughts; or, on the other side, others that can bear nothing but what can be justified by received authorities in print; I must desire them to make themselves amends in that part which they like, for the displeasure they receive in the other; but if any should be so exact, as to find fault with both, truly, I know not well what to say to them. The case is a plain case, the book is all over naught, and there is not a sentence in it, that is not, either for its antiquity or novelty, to be condemned, and so there is a short end of it. From your lordship, indeed, in particular, I can hope for something better; for your lordship thinks the general design of it so good, that that, I flatter myself, would prevail on your lordship to preserve it from the fire. But as to the way, your lordship thinks, I should have taken to prevent the having it thought my invention, when it was common to me with others, it unluckily so fell out, in the subject of my Essay of Human Understanding, that I could not look into the thoughts of other men to inform myself. For my design being, as well as I could to copy nature, and to give an account of the operations of the mind in thinking; I could look into nobody's understanding but my own, to see how it wrought; nor have a prospect into other men's minds, to view their thoughts there; and observe what steps and motions they took, and by what gradations they proceeded in their acquainting themselves with truth, and their advance in knowledge: what we find of their thoughts in books, is but the result of this, and not the progress and working of their minds, in coming to the opinions or conclusions they set down and published. All therefore, that I can say of my book, is, that it is a copy of my own mind, in its several ways of operation. And all that I can say for the publishing of it is, that I think the intellectual faculties are made, and operate alike in most men; and that some, that I shewed it to before I published it, liked it so well, that I was confirmed in that opinion. And therefore, if it should happen, that it should not be so, but that some men should have ways of thinking, reasoning, or arriving at certainty, different from others, and above those that I find my mind to use and acquiesce in, I do not see of what use my book can be to them. I can only make it my humble request, in my own name, and in the name of those that are of my size, who find their minds work, reason, and know in the same low way that mine does, that those men of a more happy genius would shew us the way of their nobler flights, and particularly would discover to us their shorter or surer way to certainty, than by ideas, and the observing their agreement or disagreement. Your lordship adds, But now, it seems, nothing is intelligible but what suits with the new way of ideas. My lord, The new way of ideas, and the old way of speaking intelligibly* was always and ever will be the same: and if I may take the liberty to declare my sense of it, herein it consists: 1. That a man use no words, but such as he makes the signs of certain determined objects of his mind in thinking, which he can make known to another. 2. Next, that he use the same word steadily for the sign of the same immediate object of his mind in thinking. 3. That he join those words together in proportions, according to the grammatical rules of that language he speaks in. 4. That he unite those sentences in a coherent discourse. Thus, and thus only, I humbly conceive, any one may preserve himself from the confines and suspicion of jargon, whether he pleases to call those immediate objects of his mind, which his words do, or should stand for, ideus or no. * Mr. Locke's Third Letter to the Bishop of Worcester. CHA P. II. No Innate Principles in the Mind. §. 1. IT is an established opinion amongst The way some men, that there are in the understand- shewn how ing certain innate principles; some primary we come by notions, xovala, characters, as it were, ledge, suffiany knowstamped upon the mind of man, which the cient to soul receives in its very first being; and prove it not brings into the world with it. It would be innate. sufficient to convince unprejudiced readers of the falseness of this supposition, if I should only shew (as I hope I shall in the following parts of this discourse) how men, barely by the use of their natural faculties, may attain to all the knowledge they have, without the help of any innate impressions; and may arrive at certainty, without any such original notions or principles. For I imagine any one will easily grant, that it would be impertinent to suppose, the ideas of colours innate in a creature, to whom God hath given sight, and a power to receive them by the eyes, from external objects and no less unreasonable would it be to attribute several truths to the impressions of nature, and innate characters, when we may observe in ourselves faculties, fit to attain as easy and certain knowledge of them, as if they were originally imprinted on the mind. But because a man is not permitted without censure to follow his own thoughts in the search of truth, when they lead him ever so little out of the common road; I shall set down the reasons, that made me doubt of the truth of that opinion, as an excuse for my mistake, if I be in one; which I leave to be considered by those, who, with me, dispose themselves to embrace truth, wherever they find it. §. 2. There is nothing more commonly General astaken for granted, than that there are cer- sent the tain principles, buth speculative and prac- great argu ment. tical (for they speak of both) universally agreed upon by all mankind which therefore, they argue, must needs be constant impressions, which the souls of men receive in their first beings, and which they bring into the world with them, as necessarily and really as they do any of their inherent faculties. consent Universal §. 3. This argument, drawn from universal consent, has the misfortune in it, that proves no- if it were true in matter of fact, that there thing inwere certain truths, wherein all mankind agreed, it would not prove them innate, if there can be any other way shewn, how men may come to that universal agreement, in the things they do consent in; which I presume may be done. nate. "What is, is;" and, "it is im possible for the same thing to be, and not to be," not assented to. §. 4. But, which is worse, this argument of universal consent, which is made use of to prove innate principles, seems to me a demonstration that there are none such; because there are none to which all mankind give an universal assent. I shall begin with the speculative, and instance in those maguniversally nified principles and demonstration; "whatsoever is, is;" and, "it is impossible for the same thing to be, and not to be;" which, of all others, I think have the most allowed title to innate. These have so settled a reputation of maxims universally received, that it will, no doubt, be thought strange, if any one should seem to question it. But yet I take liberty to say, that these propositions are so far from having an universal assent, that there are great part of mankind to whom they are not so much as known, Not on the mind naturally imprinted, be cause not §. 5. For, first, it is evident, that all children and idiots have not the least apprehension or thought of them; and the want of that is enough to destroy that universal assent, which must needs be the necessary concomitant of all innate truths: it seeming to me near a contradiction, to say, that there are truths imprinted on the soul, which it perceives or understands not; imprinting, if it signify any thing, being nothing else, but the making certain truths to be per known to children, idiots, &c. |