This account of the origin of every thing that exists in the mind differs from the simplicity of Hobbes’s system, and of the modern philosophy, in supposing that there is another distinct source of ideas, besides sensation, namely, reflection on the operations of our own minds. I confess this addition appears to me to be very awkwardly and inartificially made. For, in the first place, it is obvious to remark that in most at least, if not all the instances enumerated by the author, the operations themselves are the proper and immediate sources of our ideas, not this kind of reflection on them, which seems to be nothing but the repetition or recollection of the first conscious impression, the perception of a perception. For example, Mr. Locke includes among operations of our own minds ‘some sort of passions arising from our ideas,’ _i.e._ as he explains it, the sense of pleasure and pain. Now it is surely a little preposterous to make, not the original feeling itself, but the after consideration or reflection on that feeling, the source of our idea of pleasure or pain. In this sense, reflection must be the source of all our ideas, whether of external objects, or the operations of our own minds, for in the same sense it may be argued, that the first impression of a sensible object is not the source of the idea we have of it, till the soul comes to reflect on and consider that original impression. But it might be said with equal propriety, that we have one source of ideas, viz., sensation, and another source of ideas, viz. ideas. From the view which Mr. Locke has here taken of the subject, though the passions, or the satisfaction and uneasiness attending certain things are ranked among the operations of the mind, yet it is not quite clear whether we are supposed to have any consciousness of them or not; whether they are not as remote from any thing like perception, as the lifeless objects without us, till coming to be afterwards reflected on and taken notice of by the mind, they furnish the understanding with a new set of ideas. The same reasoning may be applied to the other operations of perception, thinking, &c. for it seems to me that the original act of perceiving or thinking is the source of my idea of those mental operations, just as the first impression of any sensible object is the source of my idea of that object. Not sensation and reflection, therefore, but sensation and the operations of our own minds are more properly the sources of our ideas, that is, these two furnish materials for our reflection. I should not have dwelt so long upon this distinction, which may be thought of little importance in itself, but that I believe it has led to most of the errors of the ‘Essay.’ For in consequence of separating the operations of the mind in a manner from the mind itself, and making them exist only as objects for its contemplation, Mr. Locke has been satisfied with considering those operations as acting upon the mind like external