Читать книгу An Essay Concerning Human Understanding / Ein Versuch über den menschlichen Verstand. Auswahlausgabe - John Locke - Страница 11

Of Ideas in general, and their Original

§ 1. EVERY Man being conscious to himself, That he thinks, and that which his Mind is employ’d about whilst thinking, being the Ideas, that are there, ’tis past doubt, that Men have in their Minds several Ideas, such as are those expressed by the words, Whiteness, Hardness, Sweetness, Thinking, Motion, Man, Elephant, Army, Drunkenness, and others: It is in the first place then to be enquired, How he comes by them? I know it is a received Doctrine, That Men have native Ideas, and original Characters stamped upon their Minds, in their very first Being. This Opinion I have at large examined already: and, I suppose, what I have said in the fore-going Book, will be much more easily admitted, when I have shewn, whence the Understanding may get all the Ideas it has, and by what ways and degrees they may come into the Mind; for which I shall appeal to every one’s own Observation and Experience.

§ 2. Let us then suppose the Mind to be, as we say, white Paper, void of all Characters, without any Ideas; How comes it to be furnished? Whence comes it by that vast store, which the busy and boundless Fancy of Man has painted on it, with an almost endless variety? Whence has it all the materials of Reason and Knowledge? To this I answer, in one word, From Experience: In that, all our Knowledge is founded; and from that it ultimately derives it self. Our Observation employ’d either about external, sensible Objects; or about the internal [94]Operations of our Minds, perceived and reflected on by our selves, is that, which supplies our Understandings with all the materials of thinking. These two are the Fountains of Knowledge, from whence all the Ideas we have, or can naturally have, do spring.

§ 3. First, Our Senses, conversant about particular sensible Objects, do convey into the Mind, several distinct Perceptions of things, according to those various ways, wherein those Objects do affect them: And thus we come by those Ideas, we have of Yellow, White, Heat, Cold, Soft, Hard, Bitter, Sweet, and all those which we call sensible qualities, which when I say the senses convey into the mind, I mean, they from external Objects convey into the mind what produces there those Perceptions. This great Source, of most of the Ideas we have, depending wholly upon our Senses, and derived by them to the Understanding, I call SENSATION.

§ 4. Secondly, The other Fountain, from which Experience furnisheth the Understanding with Ideas, is the Perception of the Operations of our own Minds within us, as it is employ’d about the Ideas it has got; which Operations, when the Soul comes to reflect on, and consider, do furnish the Understanding with another set of Ideas, which could not be had from things without: and such are, Perception, Thinking, Doubting, Believing, Reasoning, Knowing, Willing, and all the different actings of our own Minds; which we being conscious of, and observing in our selves, do from these receive into our Understandings, as distinct Ideas, as we do from Bodies affecting our Senses. This Source of Ideas, every Man has wholly in himself: [96]And though it be not Sense, as having nothing to do with external Objects; yet it is very like it, and might properly enough be call’d internal Sense. But as I call the other Sensation, so I call this REFLECTION, the Ideas it affords being such only, as the Mind gets by reflecting on its own Operations within it self. By REFLECTION then, in the following part of this Discourse, I would be understood to mean, that notice which the Mind takes of its own Operations, and the manner of them, by reason whereof, there come to be Ideas of these Operations in the Understanding. These two, I say, viz. External, Material things, as the Objects of SENSATION; and the Operations of our own Minds within, as the Objects of REFLECTION, are, to me, the only Originals, from whence all our Ideas take their beginnings. The term Operations here, I use in a large sence, as comprehending not barely the Actions of the Mind about its Ideas, but some sort of Passions arising sometimes from them, such as is the satisfaction or uneasiness arising from any thought.

§ 5. […] Let any one examine his own Thoughts, and throughly search into his Understanding, and then let him tell me, Whether all the original Ideas he has there, are any other than of the Objects of his Senses; or of the Operations of his Mind, considered as Objects of his REFLECTION: and how great a mass of Knowledge soever he imagines to be lodged there, he will, upon taking a strict view, see, that he has not any Idea in his Mind, but what one of these two have imprinted; though, perhaps, with infinite variety compounded and enlarged by the Understanding, as we shall see hereafter.

[98]§ 6. He that attentively considers the state of a Child, at his first coming into the World, will have little reason to think him stored with plenty of Ideas, that are to be the matter of his future Knowledge: […] But all that are born into the World being surrounded with Bodies, that perpetually and diversly affect them, variety of Ideas, whether care be taken of it or no, are imprinted on the Minds of Children. Light, and Colours, are busie at hand every where, when the Eye is but open; Sounds, and some tangible Qualities fail not to solicite their proper Senses, and force an entrance to the Mind; but yet, I think, it will be granted easily, That if a Child were kept in a place, where he never saw any other but Black and White, till he were a Man, he would have no more Ideas of Scarlet or Green, than he that from his Childhood never tasted an Oyster, or a Pine-Apple, has of those particular Relishes.

§ 7. Men then come to be furnished with fewer or more simple Ideas from without, according as the Objects, they converse with, afford greater or less variety; and from the Operation of their Minds within, according as they more or less reflect on them. […]

§ 8. And hence we see the Reason, why ’tis pretty late, before most Children get Ideas of the Operations of their own Minds; and some have not any very clear, or perfect Ideas of the greatest part of them all their Lives. Because, though they pass there continually; yet like floating Visions, they make not deep Impressions enough, to leave in the Mind clear distinct lasting Ideas, till the Understanding turns inwards upon it self, reflects on its own Operations, and makes them the Object of its own Contemplation. […]

[100]§ 9. To ask, at what time a Man has first any Ideas, is to ask, when he begins to perceive; having Ideas, and Perception being the same thing. I know it is an Opinion, that the Soul always thinks, and that it has the actual Perception of Ideas in it self constantly, as long as it exists; and that actual thinking is as inseparable from the Soul, as actual Extension is from the Body; which if true, to enquire after the beginning of a Man’s Ideas, is the same, as to enquire after the beginning of his Soul. For by this Account, Soul and its Ideas, as Body and its Extension, will begin to exist both at the same time.

§ 10. […] I confess my self, to have one of those dull Souls, that doth not perceive it self always to contemplate Ideas, nor can conceive it any more necessary for the Soul always to think, than for the Body always to move; the perception of Ideas being (as I conceive) to the Soul, what motion is to the Body, not its Essence, but one of its Operations […]. We know certainly by Experience, that we sometimes think, and thence draw this infallible Consequence, That there is something in us, that has a Power to think: But whether that Substance perpetually thinks, or no, we can be no farther assured, than Experience informs us. For to say, that actual thinking is essential to the Soul, and inseparable from it, is to beg, what is in Question, and not to prove it by Reason; which is necessary to be done, if it be not a self-evident Proposition […].

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[102]§ 12. The Soul, during sound Sleep, thinks, say these Men. Whilst it thinks and perceives, it is capable certainly of those of Delight or Trouble, as well as any other Perceptions; and it must necessarily be conscious of its own Perceptions. But it has all this apart: The sleeping Man, ’tis plain, is conscious of nothing of all this. Let us suppose then the Soul of Castor, whilst he is sleeping, retired from his Body, which is no impossible Supposition for the Men I have here to do with, who so liberally allow Life, without a thinking Soul to all other Animals. These Men cannot then judge it impossible, or a contradiction, That the Body should live without the Soul; nor that the Soul should subsist and think, or have Perception, even Perception of Happiness or Misery, without the Body. Let us then, as I say, suppose the Soul of Castor separated, during his Sleep, from his Body, to think apart. Let us suppose too, that it chuses for its Scene of Thinking, the Body of another Man, v. g. Pollux, who is sleeping without a Soul: For if Castor’s Soul can think whilst Castor is asleep, what Castor is never conscious of, ’tis no matter what Place it chuses to think in. We have here then the Bodies of two Men with only one Soul between them, which we will suppose to sleep and wake by turns; and the Soul still thinking in the waking Man, whereof the sleeping Man is never conscious, has never the least Perception. I ask then, Whether Castor and Pollux, thus, with only one Soul between them, which thinks and perceives in one, what the other is never conscious of, nor is concerned for, are not two as distinct Persons, as Castor and Hercules; or, as Socrates and Plato were? And [104]whether one of them might not be very happy, and the other very miserable? Just by the same Reason, they make the Soul and the Man two Persons, who make the Soul think apart, what the Man is not conscious of. For, I suppose, no body will make Identity of Persons, to consist in the Soul’s being united to the very same numerical Particles of matter: For if that be necessary to Identity, ’twill be impossible, in that constant flux of the Particles of our Bodies, that any Man should be the same Person, two days, or two moments together.

§ 13. Thus, methinks, every drowsy Nod shakes their Doctrine, who teach, That the Soul is always thinking. […]

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§ 24. […] the first capacity of Humane Intellect, is, That the mind is fitted to receive the Impressions made on it; either, through the Senses, by outward Objects; or by its own Operations, when it reflects on them. This is the first step a Man makes towards the Discovery of any thing, and the Groundwork, whereon to build all those Notions, which ever he shall have naturally in this World. All those sublime Thoughts, which towre above the Clouds, and reach as high as Heaven it self, take their Rise and Footing here: In all that great Extent wherein the mind wanders, in those remote Speculations, it may seem to be elevated with, it stirs not one jot beyond those Ideas, which Sense or Reflection, have offered for its Contemplation.

§ 25. In this Part, the Understanding is meerly passive; and whether or no, it will have these Beginnings, and as it were materials of Knowledge, is not in its own Power. For the Objects [106]of our Senses, do, many of them, obtrude their particular Ideas upon our minds, whether we will or no: And the Operations of our minds, will not let us be without, at least some obscure Notions of them. No Man, can be wholly ignorant of what he does, when he thinks. These simple Ideas, when offered to the mind, the Understanding can no more refuse to have, nor alter, when they are imprinted, nor blot them out, and make new ones in it self, than a mirror can refuse, alter, or obliterate the images or Ideas, which, the Objects set before it, do therein produce. As the Bodies that surround us, do diversly affect our Organs, the mind is forced to receive the Impressions; and cannot avoid the Perception of those Ideas that are annexed to them.