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
A piece of manna of a sensible bulk is able to produce in us the idea
of a round or square figure; and by being removed from one place to
another, the idea of motion. This idea of motion represents it as it
really is in manna moving: a circle or square are the same, whether in
idea or existence, in the mind or in the manna. And this, both motion
and as figure, are really in the manna, whether we take notice of
primary, them or no: this everybody is ready to agree to. Besides,
manna, by the bulk, figure, texture, and motion of its parts, has a
power to produce the sensations of sickness, and sometimes of acute
pains or gripings in us. That these ideas of sickness and pain are NOT
in the manna, but effects of its operations on us, and are nowhere when
we feel them not; this also every one readily agrees to. And yet men
are hardly to be brought to think that sweetness and whiteness are not
really in manna; which are but the effects of the operations of manna,
by the motion, size, and figure of its particles, on the eyes and
palate: as the pain and sickness caused by manna are confessedly
nothing but the effects of its operations on the stomach and guts, by
the size, motion, and figure of its insensible parts, (for by nothing
else can a body operate, as has been proved): as if it could not
operate on the eyes and palate, and thereby produce in the mind
particular distinct ideas, which in itself it has not, as well as we
allow it can operate on the guts and stomach, and thereby produce
distinct ideas, which in itself it has not. These ideas, being all
effects of the operations of manna on several parts of our bodies, by
the size, figure, number, and motion of its parts;—why those produced
by the eyes and palate should rather be thought to be really in the
manna, than those produced by the stomach and guts; or why the pain and
sickness, ideas that are the effect of manna, should be thought to be
nowhere when they are not felt; and yet the sweetness and whiteness,
effects of the same manna on other parts of the body, by ways equally
as unknown, should be thought to exist in the manna, when they are not
seen or tasted, would need some reason to explain.
19. Examples.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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