flected on by itself, becoming also objects of its contemplation, are, as I have said, the original of all knowledge. Thus, the first capacity of the human intellect is that the mind is fitted to receive the impressions made on it; either through the senses by outward objects; or by its own operations when it reflects on them. This is the first step that a man makes towards the discovery of and the groundwork whereon to build all those notions which ever he shall have naturally in this world. All those sublime thoughts which tower above the clouds and reach as high as heaven itself, take their rise and footing here: in all that good extent wherein the mind wanders, in those remote speculations it may seem to be elevated with, it stirs not one jot beyond those ideas which sense or reflection have offered for its contemplation."

The close of this passage is an answer to the ontologists; not one, however, which they will accept. They deny that sensation and reflection are the only sources of materials. But we will

continue to hear Locke :

"When the understanding is once stored with these simple ideas, it has the power to repeat, compare, and unite them, even to an almost infinite variety, and so can make at pleasure new complex ideas.* But it is not in the power of the most exalted wit, or enlarged understanding, by any quickness or variety of thought, to invent or frame one new simple idea in the mind not taken in by the ways aforementioned."

This is very explicit—and, we believe, very true. If true, what becomes of Philosophy?

What does Dr. Whewell say to this? Is there any denial of the 'faculties' here?

CHAPTER VI.

ELEMENTS OF IDEALISM AND

SCEPTICISM IN

LOCKE.

THE passage last quoted naturally leads us to consider Locke's position in the great debate carried on respecting our knowledge of things per se.

Can we know things as they are? Descartes and his followers suppose that we can: their criterion is the clearness and distinctness of ideas.

Locke admirably said, "Distinct ideas of the several sorts of bodies that fall under the examination of our senses, perhaps we may have; but adequate ideas I suspect we have not of any one amongst them."

Our ideas, however clear, are never adequate; they are subjective. But Locke only went half way towards the conception of knowledge as purely subjective. He did not think that all our ideas were images, copies of external objects; but he expressly taught that our ideas of what he calls primary qualities, are resemblances of what really exist in bodies; adding, that "the ideas produced in us by secondary qualities have no resemblance of them at all. There is nothing like our ideas existing in the bodies themselves. They are, in the bodies we denominate from them, only a power to produce those sensations in us."

It is remarkable that the last sentence did not

lead him to the conclusion that all the qualities which we perceive in bodies are but the powers to produce sensations in us; and that it is we who attribute to the causes of these sensations a form analogous to their effects. He himself warned us "that so we may not think (as perhaps usually is done) that they (ideas) are exactly the images and resemblances of something inherent in the subject; most of those of sensation being in the mind no more the likeness of something existing without us than the names that stand for them are likenesses of our ideas, which yet upon hearing they are apt to excite in us." And elsewhere," it being no more impossible to conceive that God should annex such ideas to such motions (i. e. the motions of objects affecting the senses) with which they have no similitude than that he should annex the idea of pain to the motion of a piece of steel dividing our flesh, with which that idea hath no resemblance."

From these passages it will be seen how clearly Locke understood the subjective nature of one portion of our knowledge. His not carrying out the application of his principles to primary qualities, was owing perhaps to carelessness, or else to inveterate association having too firmly established the contrary in his mind.

Every one is willing to admit that colour, light, heat, perfume, taste, &c., are not qualities in the bodies which produce in us those effects; they are simply conditions of our sensibility when placed in certain relations with certain bodies.

But few are willing to admit—indeed only philosophers (accustomed as they are to undo their constant associations) can conceive the primary qualities, viz., extension, solidity, motion, and

number, to be otherwise than real qualities of bodies-copies of which are impressed upon us by the relation in which we stand to the bodies.

And yet these are no less subjective than the former. They do not belong at all to bodies, except as powers to produce in us the sensations. They are demonstrably as much the effects produced in us by objects, as the secondary qualities are; and the latter every one admits to be effects, and not copies.

Wherein lies the difference? wherein the difficulty of conceiving primary qualities not to belong to bodies?

In this the primary qualities are the invariable conditions of sensation. The secondary qualities are the variable conditions. We can have no perception of a body that is not extended, that is not solid (or the reverse), that is not simple or complex (number), that is not in motion or rest. These are invariable conditions. But this body is not necessarily of any particular colour, taste, scent, heat, or smoothness; it may be colourless, tasteless, scentless. These secondary qualities are all variable.

Consequently, the one set being invariable, have occasioned indissoluble associations in our minds, so that it is not only impossible for us to imagine a body, without at the same time imagining it as endowed with these primary qualities; but also we are irresistibly led to believe that the bodies we perceive do certainly possess those qualities quite independently of us. Hence it has been said that the Creator himself could not make a body without extension: for such a body is impossible. The phrase should be, "such a body it is impossible for

us to conceive." But our indissoluble associations are no standards of reality.

That we cannot conceive body without extension is true; but that, because we cannot conceive it, the contrary must be false, is preposterous. All our assertion in this matter can amount to is that knowledge must be subordinate to the conditions of our nature. These conditions are not conditions of things, but of our organizations.

If we had been so constituted as that all bodies should affect us with a degree of warmth, we should have been irresistibly led to conclude that warmth was a quality inherent in body; but because warmth varies with different bodies and at different times, there is no indissoluble association formed. And so of the rest.

To return to Locke: he has very well stated the nature of our knowledge of external things, though he excepts primary qualities. "It is evident," he says, "that the bulk, figure, and motion of several bodies about us, produce in us several sensations, as of colours, sounds, tastes, smells, pleasure, and pain, &c. These mechanical affections of bodies having no affinity at all with those ideas they produce in us (there being no conceivable connexion between any impulse of any sort of body, and any perception of a colour or smell which we find in our minds) we can have no distinct knowledge of such operations beyond our experience; and can reason about them no otherwise than as the effects produced by an infinitely wise Agent, which perfectly surpass our comprehensions."

He shortly after says, "The things that, as far as our observation reaches, we constantly find to