Concerning the simple ideas
of Sensation, it is to be considered,- that whatsoever is so
constituted in nature as to be able, by affecting our senses, to cause
any perception in the mind, doth thereby produce in the
understanding a simple idea; which, whatever be the external cause
of it, when it comes to be taken notice of by our discerning
faculty, it is by the mind looked on and considered there to be a real
positive idea in the understanding, as much as any other whatsoever;
though, perhaps, the cause of it be but a privation of the subject.
2. Ideas in the mind distinguished from that in things which gives
rise to them. Thus the ideas of heat and cold, light and darkness,
white and black, motion and rest, are equally clear and positive ideas
in the mind; though, perhaps, some of the causes which produce them
are barely privations, in those subjects from whence our senses derive
those ideas. These the understanding, in its view of them, considers
all as distinct positive ideas, without taking notice of the causes
that produce them: which is an inquiry not belonging to the idea, as
it is in the understanding, but to the nature of the things existing
without us. These are two very different things, and carefully to be
distinguished; it being one thing to perceive and know the idea of
white or black, and quite another to examine what kind of particles
they must be, and how ranged in the superficies, to make any object
appear white or black.
Pages:
152
153
154
155
156
157
158
159
160
161
162
163
164
165
166
167
168
169
170
171
172
173
174
175
176