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
For, to extend our thoughts a little further, the pressure which is
brought to explain the cohesion of bodies [*dropped line] considered,
as no doubt it is, finite, let any one send his contemplation to the
extremities of the universe, and there see what conceivable hoops, what
bond he can imagine to hold this mass of matter in so close a pressure
together; from whence steel has its firmness, and the parts of a
diamond their hardness and indissolubility. If matter be finite, it
must have its extremes; and there must be something to hinder it from
scattering asunder. If, to avoid this difficulty, any one will throw
himself into the supposition and abyss of infinite matter, let him
consider what light he thereby brings to the cohesion of body, and
whether he be ever the nearer making it intelligible, by resolving it
into a supposition the most absurd and most incomprehensible of all
other: so far is our extension of body (which is nothing but the
cohesion of solid parts) from being clearer, or more distinct, when we
would inquire into the nature, cause, or manner of it, than the idea of
thinking.
28. Communication of Motion by Impulse, or by Thought, equally
unintelligible.
Another idea we have of body is, THE POWER OF COMMUNICATION OF MOTION
BY IMPULSE; and of our souls, THE POWER OF EXCITING MOTION BY THOUGHT.
These ideas, the one of body, the other of our minds, every day’s
experience clearly furnishes us with: but if here again we inquire how
this is done, we are equally in the dark. For, in the communication of
motion by impulse, wherein as much motion is lost to one body as is got
to the other, which is the ordinariest case, we can have no other
conception, but of the passing of motion out of one body into another;
which, I think, is as obscure and inconceivable as how our minds move
or stop our bodies by thought, which we every moment find they do. The
increase of motion by impulse, which is observed or believed sometimes
to happen, is yet harder to be understood. We have by daily experience
clear evidence of motion produced both by impulse and by thought; but
the manner how, hardly comes within our comprehension: we are equally
at a loss in both. So that, however we consider motion, and its
communication, either from body or spirit, the idea which belongs to
spirit is at least as clear as that which belongs to body. And if we
consider the active power of moving, or, as I may call it, motivity, it
is much clearer in spirit than body; since two bodies, placed by one
another at rest, will never afford us the idea of a power in the one to
move the other, but by a borrowed motion: whereas the mind every day
affords us ideas of an active power of moving of bodies; and therefore
it is worth our consideration, whether active power be not the proper
attribute of spirits, and passive power of matter. Hence may be
conjectured that created spirits are not totally separate from matter,
because they are both active and passive. Pure spirit, viz.
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