Nor let any one think these too narrow bounds for the capacious mind
of man to expatiate in, which takes its flight further than the stars,
and cannot be confined by the limits of the world; that extends its
thoughts often even beyond the utmost expansion of Matter, and makes
excursions into that incomprehensible Inane. I grant all this, but
desire any one to assign any simple idea which is not received from
one of those inlets before mentioned, or any complex idea not made out
of those simple ones. Nor will it be so strange to think these few
simple ideas sufficient to employ the quickest thought, or largest
capacity; and to furnish the materials of all that various
knowledge, and more various fancies and opinions of all mankind, if we
consider how many words may be made out of the various composition
of twenty-four letters; or if, going one step further, we will but
reflect on the variety of combinations that may be made with barely
one of the above-mentioned ideas, viz. number, whose stock is
inexhaustible and truly infinite: and what a large and immense field
doth extension alone afford the mathematicians?
Chapter VIII
Some further considerations concerning
our Simple Ideas of Sensation
1. Positive ideas from privative causes.
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