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
Fourthly, That relation being the considering of one thing with another
which is extrinsical to it, it is evident that all words that
necessarily lead the mind to any other ideas than are supposed really
to exist in that thing to which the words are applied are relative
words: v.g.a MAN, BLACK, MERRY, THOUGHTFUL, THIRSTY, ANGRY, EXTENDED;
these and the like are all absolute, because they neither signify nor
intimate anything but what does or is supposed really to exist in the
man thus denominated; but FATHER, BROTHER, KING, HUSBAND, BLACKER,
MERRIER, &c., are words which, together with the thing they denominate,
imply also something else separate and exterior to the existence of
that thing.
11. All relatives made up of simple ideas.
Having laid down these premises concerning relation in general, I shall
now proceed to show, in some instances, how all the ideas we have of
relation are made up, as the others are, only of simple ideas; and that
they all, how refined or remote from sense soever they seem, terminate
at last in simple ideas. I shall begin with the most comprehensive
relation, wherein all things that do, or can exist, are concerned, and
that is the relation of CAUSE and EFFECT: the idea whereof, how derived
from the two fountains of all our knowledge, sensation and reflection,
I shall in the next place consider.
CHAPTER XXVI.
OF CAUSE AND EFFECT, AND OTHER RELATIONS.
1. Whence the Ideas of cause and effect got.
In the notice that our senses take of the constant vicissitude of
things, we cannot but observe that several particular, both qualities
and substances, begin to exist; and that they receive this their
existence from the due application and operation of some other being.
From this observation we get our ideas of CAUSE and EFFECT. THAT WHICH
PRODUCES ANY SIMPLE OR COMPLEX IDEA we denote by the general name,
CAUSE, and THAT WHICH IS PRODUCED, EFFECT. Thus, finding that in that
substance which we call wax, fluidity, which is a simple idea that was
not in it before, is constantly produced by the application of a
certain degree of heat we call the simple idea of heat, in relation to
fluidity in wax, the cause of it, and fluidity the effect. So also,
finding that the substance, wood, which is a certain collection of
simple ideas so called, by the application of fire, is turned into
another substance, called ashes; i. e., another complex idea,
consisting of a collection of simple ideas, quite different from that
complex idea which we call wood; we consider fire, in relation to
ashes, as cause, and the ashes, as effect. So that whatever is
considered by us to conduce or operate to the producing any particular
simple idea, or collection of simple ideas, whether substance or mode,
which did not before exist, hath thereby in our minds the relation of a
cause, and so is denominated by us.
2. Creation Generation, making Alteration.
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