Part 10

Writers of Optics mistaken in their principles both in judging of magnitudes and distances.

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(M200) ’Tis evident yt wn the solitary man should be taught to speak, the words would give him no other new ideas (save only the sounds, and complex ideas which, tho’ unknown before, may be signified by language) beside wt he had before. If he had not, could not have, an abstract idea before, he cannot have it after he is taught to speak.

(M201) “Homo est homo,” &c. comes at last to Petrus est Petrus, &c. Now, if these identical propositions are sought after in the mind, they will not be found. There are no identical mental propositions. ’Tis all about sounds and terms.

(M202) Hence we see the doctrine of certainty by ideas, and proving by intermediate ideas, comes to nothing(152).

(M203) We may have certainty & knowledge without ideas, i.e. without other ideas than the words, and their standing for one idea, i.e. their being to be used indifferently.

(M204) It seems to me that we have no certainty about ideas, but only about words. ’Tis improper to say, I am certain I see, I feel, &c. There are no mental propositions form’d answering to these words, & in simple perception ’tis allowed by all there is no affirmation or negation, and consequently no certainty(153).

(M205) The reason why we can demonstrate so well about signs is, that they are perfectly arbitrary & in our power—made at pleasure.

(M206) The obscure ambiguous term _relation_, which is said to be the largest field of knowledge, confounds us, deceives us.

(M207) Let any man shew me a demonstration, not verbal, that does not depend on some false principle; or at best on some principle of nature, which is ye effect of God’s will, and we know not how soon it may be changed.

(M208) Qu. What becomes of the _æternæ veritates_? Ans. They vanish(154).

(M209) But, say you, I find it difficult to look beneath the words and uncover my ideas. Say I, Use will make it easy. In the sequel of my Book the cause of this difficulty shall be more clearly made out.

(M210) To view the deformity of error we need onely undress it.

(M211) “Cogito ergo sum.” Tautology. No mental proposition answering thereto.

(M212) Knowledge, or certainty, or perception of agreement of ideas—as to identity and diversity, and real existence, vanisheth; of relation, becometh merely nominal; of co-existence, remaineth. Locke thought in this latter our knowledge was little or nothing. Whereas in this only real knowledge seemeth to be found(155).

(M213) We must wth the mob place certainty in the senses(156).

’Tis a man’s duty, ’tis the fruit of friendship, to speak well of his friend. Wonder not therefore that I do wt I do.

(M214) A man of slow parts may overtake truth, &c. Introd. Even my shortsightedness might perhaps be aiding to me in this matter—’twill make me bring the object nearer to my thoughts. A purblind person, &c. Introd.

(M215) Locke to Limborch, &c. Talk of _judicium intellectus_ preceding the volition: I think _judicium_ includes volition. I can by no means distinguish these—_judicium_, _intellectus_, _indifferentia_, uneasiness to many things accompanying or preceding every volition, as e.g. the motion of my hand.

(M216) Qu. Wt mean you by my perceptions, my volitions? Both all the perceptions I perceive or conceive(157), &c. are mine; all the volitions I am conscious to are mine.

(M217) Homo est agens liberum. What mean they by _homo_ and _agens_ in this place?

(M218) Will any man say that brutes have ideas of Unity & Existence? I believe not. Yet if they are suggested by all the ways of sensation, ’tis strange they should want them(158).

(M219) It is a strange thing and deserves our attention, that the more time and pains men have consum’d in the study of philosophy, by so much the more they look upon themselves to be ignorant & weak creatures. They discover flaws and imperfections in their faculties wch other men never spy out. They find themselves under a necessity of admitting many inconsistent, irreconcilable opinions for true. There is nothing they touch with their hand, or behold with their eyes, but has its dark sides much larger and more numerous than wt is perceived, & at length turn scepticks, at least in most things. I imagine all this proceeds from, &c. Exord. Introd.(159)

(M220) These men with a supercilious pride disdain the common single information of sense. They grasp at knowledge by sheafs & bundles. (’Tis well if, catching at too much at once, they hold nothing but emptiness & air.) They in the depth of their understanding contemplate abstract ideas.

It seems not improbable that the most comprehensive & sublime intellects see more m.v.’s at once, i.e. that their visual systems are the largest.

Words (by them meaning all sorts of signs) are so necessary that, instead of being (wn duly us’d or in their own nature) prejudicial to the advancement of knowledge, or an hindrance to knowledge, without them there could in mathematiques themselves be no demonstration.

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Mem. To be eternally banishing Metaphisics, &c., and recalling men to Common Sense(160).

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(M221) We cannot conceive other minds besides our own but as so many selves. We suppose ourselves affected wth such & such thoughts & such and such sensations(161).

(M222) Qu. whether composition of ideas be not that faculty which chiefly serves to discriminate us from brutes? I question whether a brute does or can imagine a blue horse or chimera.

Naturalists do not distinguish betwixt cause and occasion. Useful to enquire after co-existing ideas or occasions.

(M223) Morality may be demonstrated as mixt mathematics.

(M224) Perception is passive, but this not distinct from idea. Therefore there can be no idea of volition.

Algebraic species or letters are denominations of denominations. Therefore Arithmetic to be treated of before Algebra.

2 crowns are called ten shillings. Hence may appear the value of numbers.

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.