This
shows man's power, and its ways of operation, to be much the same in
the material and intellectual world. For the materials in both being
such as he has no power over, either to make or destroy, all that
man can do is either to unite them together, or to set them by one
another, or wholly separate them. I shall here begin with the first of
these in the consideration of complex ideas, and come to the other two
in their due places. As simple ideas are observed to exist in
several combinations united together, so the mind has a power to
consider several of them united together as one idea; and that not
only as they are united in external objects, but as itself has
joined them together. Ideas thus made up of several simple ones put
together, I call complex;- such as are beauty, gratitude, a man, an
army, the universe; which, though complicated of various simple ideas,
or complex ideas made up of simple ones, yet are, when the mind
pleases, considered each by itself, as one entire thing, and signified
by one name.
2. Made voluntarily. In this faculty of repeating and joining
together its ideas, the mind has great power in varying and
multiplying the objects of its thoughts, infinitely beyond what
sensation or reflection furnished it with: but all this still confined
to those simple ideas which it received from those two sources, and
which are the ultimate materials of all its compositions.
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