An Essay Concerning Humane Understanding, Volume 1: MDCXC, Based on the 2nd Edition, Books 1 and 2Locke, John
Philosophy
An Essay Concerning Humane Understanding, Volume 1: MDCXC, Based on the 2nd Edition, Books 1 and 2
Locke, John
Knowledge, Theory of -- Early works to 1800
What I have said concerning colours and smells may be understood also
of tastes and sounds, and other the like sensible qualities; which,
whatever reality we by mistake attribute to them, are in truth nothing
in the objects themselves, but powers to produce various sensations in
us; and depend on those primary qualities, viz. bulk, figure, texture,
and motion of parts and therefore I call them SECONDARY QUALITIES.
15. Ideas of primary Qualities are Resemblances; of secondary, not.
From whence I think it easy to draw this observation,—that the ideas of
primary qualities of bodies are resemblances of them, and their
patterns do really exist in the bodies themselves, but the ideas
produced in us by these secondary qualities have no resemblance of them
at all. There is nothing like our ideas, existing in the bodies
themselves. They are, in the bodies we denominate from them, only a
power to produce those sensations in us: and what is sweet, blue, or
warm in idea, is but the certain bulk, figure, and motion of the
insensible parts, in the bodies themselves, which we call so.
16. Examples.
Flame is denominated hot and light; snow, white and cold; and manna,
white and sweet, from the ideas they produce in us. Which qualities are
commonly thought to be the same in those bodies that those ideas are in
us, the one the perfect resemblance of the other, as they are in a
mirror, and it would by most men be judged very extravagant if one
should say otherwise. And yet he that will consider that the same fire
that, at one distance produces in us the sensation of warmth, does, at
a nearer approach, produce in us the far different sensation of pain,
ought to bethink himself what reason he has to say—that this idea of
warmth, which was produced in him by the fire, is ACTUALLY IN THE FIRE;
and his idea of pain, which the same fire produced in him the same way,
is NOT in the fire. Why are whiteness and coldness in snow, and pain
not, when it produces the one and the other idea in us; and can do
neither, but by the bulk, figure, number, and motion of its solid
parts?
17. The ideas of the Primary alone really exist.
The particular bulk, number, figure, and motion of the parts of fire or
snow are really in them,—whether any one’s senses perceive them or no:
and therefore they may be called REAL qualities, because they really
exist in those bodies. But light, heat, whiteness, or coldness, are no
more really in them than sickness or pain is in manna. Take away the
sensation of them; let not the eyes see light or colours, nor the ear
hear sounds; let the palate not taste, nor the nose smell, and all
colours, tastes, odours, and sounds, AS THEY ARE SUCH PARTICULAR IDEAS,
vanish and cease, and are reduced to their causes, i.e. bulk, figure,
and motion of parts.
18. The secondary exist in things only as modes of the primary.
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