Locke's use of the word 'idea' is, as the reader will perceive, different from ours. He uses the word, as he says, which 'serves best to stand for whatsoever is the object of the understanding when a man thinks.' 'I have used it,' he adds, 'to express whatever is meant by _phantasm_, _notion_, _species_, or whatever it is to which the mind can be employed about in thinking.' It might be shown that this separation of the _mind itself_ from the ideal _objects_ about which it is employed in thinking, may lead to very erroneous results. But it may suffice to observe that we use the word _Ideas_, in the manner already explained, to express that element, supplied by the mind itself, which must be combined with Sensation in order to produce knowledge. For us, Ideas are not Objects of Thought, but rather Laws of Thought. Ideas are not synonymous with Notions; they are Principles which give to our Notions whatever they contain of truth. But our use of the term _Idea_ will be more fully explained hereafter. {35} _Sect._ 7.--_Subjective and Objective._ THE Fundamental Antithesis of Philosophy of which I have to speak has been brought into great prominence in the writings of modern German philosophers, and has conspicuously formed the basis of their systems. They have indicated this antithesis by the terms _subjective_ and _objective_. According to the technical language of old writers, a thing and its qualities are described as _subject_ and _attributes_; and thus a man's faculties and acts are attributes of which he is the _subject_. The mind is the _subject_ in which ideas inhere. Moreover, the man's faculties and acts are employed upon external _objects_; and from objects all his sensations arise. Hence the part of a man's knowledge which belongs to his own mind, is _subjective_: that which flows in upon him from the world external to him, is _objective_. And as in man's contemplation of nature, there is always some act of thought which depends upon himself, and some matter of thought which is independent of him, there is, in every part of his knowledge, a subjective and an objective element. The combination of the two elements, the subjective or ideal, and the objective or observed, is necessary, in order to give us any insight into the laws of nature. But different persons, according to their mental habits and constitution, may be inclined to dwell by preference upon the one or the other of these two elements. It may perhaps interest the reader to see this difference of intellectual character illustrated in two eminent men of genius of modern times, Göthe and Schiller.