Читать книгу An Essay Concerning Human Understanding / Ein Versuch über den menschlichen Verstand. Auswahlausgabe - John Locke - Страница 41

Of Adequate and Inadequate Ideas

§ 1. OF our real Ideas some are Adequate, and some are Inadequate. Those I call Adequate, which perfectly represent those Archetypes, which the Mind supposes them taken from; which it intends them to stand for, and to which it refers them. Inadequate Ideas are such, which are but a partial, or incomplete representation of those Archetypes to which they are referred. Upon which account it is plain,

§ 2. First, That all our simple Ideas are adequate. Because being nothing but the effects of certain Powers in Things, fitted and ordained by GOD, to produce such Sensations in us, they cannot but be correspondent, and adequate to those Powers: And we are sure they agree to the reality of Things. For if Sugar produce in us the Ideas, which we call Whiteness, and Sweetness, we are sure there is a power in Sugar to produce those Ideas in our Minds, or else they could not have been produced by it. […]

§ 3. Secondly, Our complex Ideas of Modes, being voluntary Collections of simple Ideas, which the Mind puts together, without reference to any real Archetypes, or standing Patterns, [370]existing any where, are, and cannot but be adequate Ideas. Because they not being intended for Copies of Things really existing, but for Archetypes made by the Mind, to rank and denominate Things by, cannot want any thing; they having each of them that combination of Ideas, and thereby that perfection which the Mind intended they should: So that the Mind acquiesces in them, and can find nothing wanting. […] But in our Ideas of Substances, it is otherwise. For there desiring to copy Things, as they really do exist; and to represent to our selves that Constitution, on which all their Properties depend, we perceive our Ideas attain not that Perfection we intend: We find they still want something, we should be glad were in them; and so are all inadequate. But mixed Modes and Relations, being Archetypes without Patterns, and so having nothing to represent but themselves, cannot but be adequate, every thing being so to itself. […]

[…]

§ 5. […] these complex Ideas of Modes, when they are referred by the Mind, and intended to correspond to the Ideas in the Mind of some other intelligent Being, expressed by the Names we apply to them, they may be very deficient, wrong, and inadequate. Because they agree not to that, which the Mind designs to be their Archetype, and Pattern: In which respect only, any Idea of Modes can be wrong, imperfect, or inadequate. And on this account, our Ideas of mixed Modes are the most liable to be faulty of any other; but this refers more to proper Speaking, than knowing right.

§ 6. Thirdly, What Ideas we have of Substances, I have above shewed: Now those Ideas have in the Mind a double [372]reference: 1. Sometimes they are referred to a supposed real Essence of each Species of Things. 2. Sometimes they are only design’d to be Pictures and Representations in the Mind, of Things that do exist, by Ideas of those qualities that are discoverable in them. In both which ways, these Copies of those Originals, and Archetypes, are imperfect and inadequate.

First, it is usual for Men to make the Names of Substances, stand for Things, as supposed to have certain real Essences, whereby they are of this or that Species: And names standing for nothing but the Ideas, that are in Men’s Minds, they must constantly referr their Ideas to such real Essences, as to their Archetypes. […] And yet if you demand, what those real Essences are, ’tis plain Men are ignorant, and know them not. From whence it follows, that the Ideas they have in their Minds, being referred to real Essences as to Archetypes which are unknown, must be so far from being adequate, that they cannot be supposed to be any representation of them at all. The complex Ideas we have of Substances, are, as it has been shewn, certain Collections of simple Ideas, that have been observed or supposed constantly to exist together. But such a complex Idea cannot be the real Essence of any Substance; for then the Properties we discover in that Body, would depend on that complex Idea, and be deducible from it, and their necessary connexion with it be known; as all Properties of a Triangle depend on, and as far as they are discoverable, are deducible from the complex Idea of three Lines, including a Space. But it is plain, that in our complex Ideas of Substances, are not [374]contained such Ideas, on which all the other Qualities, that are to be found in them, do depend. […]

[…]

§ 8. Secondly, Those who, neglecting that useless Supposition of unknown real Essences, whereby they are distinguished, endeavour to copy the Substances, that exist in the World, by putting together the Ideas of those sensible Qualities, which are found co-existing in them, though they come much nearer a likeness of them, than those who imagine, they know not what real specifick Essences; yet they arrive not at perfectly adequate Ideas of those Substances […]. The simple Ideas whereof we make our complex ones of Substances, are all of them (bating only the Figure and Bulk of some sorts) Powers; which being Relations to other Substances, we can never be sure that we know all the Powers, that are in any one Body, till we have tried what Changes it is fitted to give to, or receive from other Substances, in their several ways of application: which being impossible to be tried upon any one Body, much less upon all, it is impossible we should have adequate Ideas of any Substance, made up of a Collection of all its Properties.

[…]

§ 12. Thus the Mind has three sorts of abstract Ideas, or nominal Essences:

First, Simple Ideas, which are ἔκτυπα, or Copies; but yet certainly adequate. Because being intended to express nothing but the power in Things to produce in the Mind such a [376]Sensation, that Sensation, when it is produced, cannot but be the Effect of that Power. […]

§ 13. Secondly, The complex Ideas of Substances are Ectypes, Copies too; but not perfect ones, not adequate: Which is very evident to the Mind, in that it plainly perceives, that whatever Collection of simple Ideas it makes of any Substance that exists, it cannot be sure, that it exactly answers all that are in that Substance. […]

§ 14. Thirdly, Complex Ideas of Modes and Relations, are Originals, and Archetypes; are not Copies, nor made after the Pattern of any real Existence, to which the Mind intends them to be conformable, and exactly to answer. […] The Ideas therefore of Modes and Relations, cannot but be adequate.