Proofs

All the materials of thinking are derived either from our outward or inward feeling.

The mixture and composition of these belongs alone to the mind and will.

All our ideas are copies of our impressions. I have 2 proofs for this.

Proof 1

when we analyze our thoughts or ideas, however compounded or sublime, we always find that they resolve themselves into such simple ideas as were copied from a precedent feeling .

Even those ideas, which, at first view, seem the most wide of this origin, are found, upon a nearer scrutiny, to be derived from it.

The idea of God, as meaning an infinitely intelligent, wise, and good Being, arises from reflecting on the operations of our own mind, and augmenting, without limit, those qualities of goodness and wisdom. We may prosecute this enquiry to what length we please; where we shall always find, that every idea which we examine is copied from a similar impression.

Those who would assert that this position is not universally true nor without exception, have only one, and that an easy method of refuting it; by producing that idea, which, in their opinion, is not derived from this source. It will then be incumbent on us, if we would maintain our doctrine, to produce the impression, or lively perception, which corresponds to it.

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Proof 2

If it happen, from a defect of the organ, that a man is not susceptible of any species of sensation, we always find that he is as little susceptible of the correspondent ideas.

A blind man has no notion of colours.

A deaf man has no notion of sounds.

Restore either of them that sense in which he is deficient; by opening this new inlet for his sensations, you also open an inlet for the ideas.

He them finds no difficulty in conceiving these objects.

The case is the same, if the object, proper for exciting any sensation, has never been applied to the organ.

A Laplander or Negro has no notion of wine.

Though there are few or no instances of a like deficiency in the mind, where a person has never felt or is wholly incapable of a sentiment or passion that belongs to his species; yet we find the same observation to take place in a less degree.

A man of mild manners can form no idea of inveterate revenge or cruelty; nor can a selfish heart easily conceive the heights of friendship and generosity.

Other beings may possess many senses of which we can have no conception; because the ideas of them have never been introduced to us in the only manner by which an idea can have access to the mind, to wit, by the actual feeling and sensation.

16. There is, however, one contradictory phenomenon, which may prove that it is not absolutely impossible for ideas to arise, independent of their correspondent impressions.

The several distinct ideas of colour, which enter by the eye, or those of sound, which are conveyed by the ear, are really different from each other; though, at the same time, resembling.

Now if this be true of different colours, it must be no less so of the different shades of the same colour; and each shade produces a distinct idea, independent of the rest.

For if this should be denied, it is possible, by the continual gradation of shades, to run a colour insensibly into what is most remote from it;

if you will not allow any of the means to be different, you cannot, without absurdity, deny the extremes to be the same. Suppose, therefore, a person to have enjoyed his sight for 30 years, and to have become perfectly acquainted with colours of all kinds except one particular shade of blue, for instance, which it never has been his fortune to meet with.

Let all the different shades of that colour, except that single one, be placed before him, descending gradually from the deepest to the lightest; it is plain that he will perceive a blank, where that shade is wanting, and will be sensible that there is a greater distance in that place between the contiguous colours than in any other.

I think it possible for him to supply this deficiency from his own imagination.

This is proof that the simple ideas are not always, in every instance, derived from the correspondent impressions. Though this instance is so singular, that it is scarcely worth our observing, and does not merit that for it alone we should alter our general maxim.

All ideas, especially abstract ones, are naturally faint and obscure.

The mind has a slender hold of them.

They tend to be confounded with other resembling ideas.

When we have often employed any term, though without a distinct meaning, we are apt to imagine it has a determinate idea annexed to it.

On the contrary, all impressions, that is, all sensations, either outward or inward, are strong and vivid: the limits between them are more exactly determined: nor is it easy to fall into any error or mistake with regard to them.

When we entertain, therefore, any suspicion that a philosophical term is employed without any meaning or idea (as is but too frequent), we need but enquire, from what impression is that supposed idea derived? And if it be impossible to assign any, this will serve to confirm our suspicion.

By bringing ideas into so clear a light we may reasonably hope to remove all dispute, which may arise, concerning their nature and reality.1