BOOK II
Of Ideas
Chapter I
Of Ideas in general, and their Original
1. Idea is the object of thinking. Every man being conscious to
himself that he thinks; and that which his mind is applied about
whilst thinking being the ideas that are there, it is past doubt
that men have in their minds several ideas,- such as are those
expressed by the words whiteness, hardness, sweetness, thinking,
motion, man, elephant, army, drunkenness, and others: it is in the
first place then to be inquired, How he comes by them?
I know it is a received doctrine, that men have native ideas, and
original characters, stamped upon their minds in their very first
being. This opinion I have at large examined already; and, I suppose
what I have said in the foregoing Book will be much more easily
admitted, when I have shown whence the understanding may get all the
ideas it has; and by what ways and degrees they may come into the
mind;- for which I shall appeal to every one's own observation and
experience.
2. All ideas come from sensation or reflection. Let us then
suppose the mind to be, as we say, white paper, void of all
characters, without any ideas:- How comes it to be furnished? Whence
comes it by that vast store which the busy and boundless fancy of
man has painted on it with an almost endless variety? Whence has it
all the materials of reason and knowledge? To this I answer, in one
word, from EXPERIENCE.
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