Descartes Versus Locke

S. 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 them162.

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 points163?

Mo. Locke of Trifling Propositions. [b. 4. c. 8] Mem. Well to observe & con over that chapter.

E. Existence, Extension, &c. are abstract, i.e. no ideas. They are words, unknown and useless to the vulgar.

Mo. 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.

Mo. Sensual pleasure, quâ pleasure, is good & desirable by a wise man164. 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.

I. 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.

I. By idea I mean any sensible or imaginable thing165.

M. S. To be sure or certain of wt we do not actually perceive166 (I say perceive, not imagine), we must not be altogether [pg 048]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 name167.

I. M. 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.

S. G. “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.

E. 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.

G. Absurd to argue the existence of God from his idea. We have no idea of God. ‘Tis impossible169.

M. E. Cause of much errour & confusion that men knew not what was meant by Reality170.

I. 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.

M. S. 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.

S. ‘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.

Mo. Mem. To excite men to the pleasures of the eye & the ear, which surfeit not, nor bring those evils after them, as others.

S. 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.

M. Locke in his 4th Book171, 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.

S. While I exist or have any idea, I am eternally, constantly willing; my acquiescing in the present state is willing.

E. The existence of any thing imaginable is nothing different from imagination or perception172. Volition or Will, Wch is not imaginable, regard must not be had to its existence(?) … First Book.

Mo. There are 4r sorts of propositions:

1. “Gold is a metal”
2. “Gold is yellow”
3. “Gold is fixt”
4. “Gold is not a stone”

1-3 are only nominal, and have no mental propositions answering them.

M. 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 God173.

M. S. Descartes 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.

S. Hobbs falls in with Locke, saying thought is to the mind or himself as dancing to the dancer. Object.

S. Hobbs in his Object. 3 ridicules those expressions of [pg 050]the scholastiques—“the will wills,” &c. So does Locke. I am of another mind174.

S. Descartes, in answer to Object. 3 of Hobbs, owns he is distinct from thought as a thing from its modus or manner.

E. S. Opinion that existence was distinct from perception of horrible consequence. It is the foundation of Hobbs’s doctrine, &c.

M. P. E. Malbranch in his illustration175 differs widely from me. He doubts of the existence of bodies. I doubt not in the least of this.

P. I differ from Cartesians in that I make extension, colour, &c. to exist really in bodies independent of our mind176. All ye carefully and lucidly to be set forth.

M. P. 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 perception177.

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 themselves178.

M. N. Reasoning there may be about things or ideas, or about actions; but demonstration can be only verbal. I question, no matter &c.

G. Descartes: 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.

S. The not distinguishing ’twixt Will and ideas is a grand mistake with Hobbs. He takes those things for nothing which are not ideas179.

M. 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 [pg 051]the word idea, were it not for a reason, and I think a good one too, which I shall give in the Second Book180.