An Essay Concerning Humane Understanding, Volume 2: MDCXC, Based on the 2nd Edition, Books 3 and 4Locke, John
Philosophy
An Essay Concerning Humane Understanding, Volume 2: MDCXC, Based on the 2nd Edition, Books 3 and 4
Locke, John
Knowledge, Theory of -- Early works to 1800
Let us now also consider, after the same manner, the names of substances
in their first application. One of Adam's children, roving in the
mountains, lights on a glittering substance which pleases his eye. Home
he carries it to Adam, who, upon consideration of it, finds it to be
hard, to have a bright yellow colour, and an exceeding great weight.
These perhaps, at first, are all the qualities he takes notice of in it;
and abstracting this complex idea, consisting of a substance having that
peculiar bright yellowness, and a weight very great in proportion to its
bulk, he gives the name ZAHAB, to denominate and mark all substances
that have these sensible qualities in them. It is evident now, that,
in this case, Adam acts quite differently from what he did before, in
forming those ideas of mixed modes to which he gave the names KINNEAH
and NIOUPH. For there he put ideas together only by his own imagination,
not taken from the existence of anything; and to them he gave names to
denominate all things that should happen to agree to those his abstract
ideas, without considering whether any such thing did exist or not: the
standard there was of his own making. But in the forming his idea of
this new substance, he takes the quite contrary course; here he has
a standard made by nature; and therefore, being to represent that to
himself, by the idea he has of it, even when it is absent, he puts in no
simple idea into his complex one, but what he has the perception of from
the thing itself. He takes care that his idea be conformable to this
archetype, and intends the name should stand for an idea so conformable.
47.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account