Fire may burn our bodies with no other effect than it does
a billet, unless the motion be continued to the brain, and there the
sense of heat, or idea of pain, be produced in the mind; wherein
consists actual perception.
4. Impulse on the organ insufficient. How often may a man observe in
himself, that whilst his mind is intently employed in the
contemplation of some objects, and curiously surveying some ideas that
are there, it takes no notice of impressions of sounding bodies made
upon the organ of hearing, with the same alteration that uses to be
for the producing the idea of sound? A sufficient impulse there may be
on the organ; but it not reaching the observation of the mind, there
follows no perception: and though the motion that uses to produce
the idea of sound be made in the ear, yet no sound is heard. Want of
sensation, in this case, is not through any defect in the organ, or
that the man's ears are less affected than at other times when he does
hear: but that which uses to produce the idea, though conveyed in by
the usual organ, not being taken notice of in the understanding, and
so imprinting no idea in the mind, there follows no sensation. So that
wherever there is sense or perception, there some idea is actually
produced, and present in the understanding.
5. Children, though they may have ideas in the womb, have none
innate.
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