Thus, the power of drawing iron is
one of the ideas of the complex one of that substance we call a
loadstone; and a power to be so drawn is a part of the complex one
we call iron: which powers pass for inherent qualities in those
subjects. Because every substance, being as apt, by the powers we
observe in it, to change some sensible qualities in other subjects, as
it is to produce in us those simple ideas which we receive immediately
from it, does, by those new sensible qualities introduced into other
subjects, discover to us those powers which do thereby mediately
affect our senses, as regularly as its sensible qualities do it
immediately: v.g. we immediately by our senses perceive in fire its
heat and colour; which are, if rightly considered, nothing but
powers in it to produce those ideas in us: we also by our senses
perceive the colour and brittleness of charcoal, whereby we come by
the knowledge of another power in fire, which it has to change the
colour and consistency of wood. By the former, fire immediately, by
the latter, it mediately discovers to us these several powers; which
therefore we look upon to be a part of the qualities of fire, and so
make them a part of the complex idea of it. For all those powers
that we take cognizance of, terminating only in the alteration of some
sensible qualities in those subjects on which they operate, and so
making them exhibit to us new sensible ideas, therefore it is that I
have reckoned these powers amongst the simple ideas which make the
complex ones of the sort? of substances; though these powers
considered in themselves, are truly complex ideas.
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