Secondly, Because observing the faculties of the mind, how they
operate about simple ideas,- which are usually, in most men's minds,
much more clear, precise, and distinct than complex ones,- we may
the better examine and learn how the mind extracts, denominates,
compares, and exercises, in its other operations about those which are
complex, wherein we are much more liable to mistake.
Thirdly, Because these very operations of the mind about ideas
received from sensations, are themselves, when reflected on, another
set of ideas, derived from that other source of our knowledge, which I
call reflection; and therefore fit to be considered in this place
after the simple ideas of sensation. Of compounding, comparing,
abstracting, &c., I have but just spoken, having occasion to treat
of them more at large in other places.
15. The true beginning of human knowledge. And thus I have given a
short, and, I think, true history of the first beginnings of human
knowledge;- whence the mind has its first objects; and by what steps
it makes its progress to the laying in and storing up those ideas, out
of which is to be framed all the knowledge it is capable of: wherein I
must appeal to experience and observation whether I am in the right:
the best way to come to truth being to examine things as really they
are, and not to conclude they are, as we fancy of ourselves, or have
been taught by others to imagine.
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