(1) Combining several simple ideas into one compound one; and thus all complex ideas are made.This shows man's power, and its ways of operation, to be much the same in the material and intellectual world. For the materials in both being such as he has no power over, either to make or destroy, all that man can do is either to unite them together, or to set them by one another, or wholly separate them. I shall here begin with the first of these in the consideration of complex ideas, and come to the other two in their due places. As simple ideas are observed to exist in several combinations united together, so the mind has a power to consider several of them united together as one idea; and that not only as they are united in external objects, but as itself has joined them together. Ideas thus made up of several simple ones put together, I call complex; such as are beauty, gratitude, a man, an army, the universe; which, though complicated of various simple ideas, or complex ideas made up of simple ones, yet are, when the mind pleases, considered each by itself, as one entire thing, and signified by one name.
(2) The second is bringing two ideas, whether simple or complex, together, and setting them by one another, so as to take a view of them at once, without uniting them into one; by which way it gets all its ideas of relations.
(3) The third is separating them from all other ideas that accompany them in their real existence: this is called abstraction: and thus all its general ideas are made.
2. Made voluntarily.
In this faculty of repeating and joining
together its ideas, the mind has great power in varying and
multiplying the objects of its thoughts, infinitely beyond what
sensation or reflection furnished it with: but all this still confined
to those simple ideas which it received from those two sources, and
which are the ultimate materials of all its compositions. For simple
ideas are all from things themselves, and of these the mind can have
no more, nor other than what are suggested to it. It can have no other
ideas of sensible qualities than what come from without by the senses;
nor any ideas of other kind of operations of a thinking substance,
than what it finds in itself But when it has once got these simple
ideas, it is not confined barely to observation, and what offers
itself from without; it can, by its own power, put together those
ideas it has, and make new complex ones, which it never received so
united.
3. Complex ideas are either of modes, substances, or relations.
COMPLEX IDEAS, however compounded and decompounded, though their
number be infinite, and the variety endless, wherewith they fill and
entertain the thoughts of men; yet I think they may be all reduced
under these three heads:
4. Ideas of modes.
First, Modes I call such complex ideas which,
however compounded, contain not in them the supposition of
subsisting by themselves, but are considered as dependences on, or
affections of substances; such as are the ideas signified by the
words triangle, gratitude, murder, etc. And if in this I use the word
mode in somewhat a different sense from its ordinary signification,
I beg pardon; it being unavoidable in discourses, differing from the
ordinary received notions, either to make new words, or to use old
words in somewhat a new signification; the later whereof, in our
present case, is perhaps the more tolerable of the two.
5. Simple and mixed modes of simple ideas.
Of these modes, there are
two sorts which deserve distinct consideration:
First, there are some which are only variations, or different combinations of the same simple idea, without the mixture of any other; as a dozen, or score; which are nothing but the ideas of so many distinct units added together, and these I call simple modes as being contained within the bounds of one simple idea.
Secondly, there are others compounded of simple ideas of several kinds, put together to make one complex one; v.g. beauty, consisting of a certain composition of colour and figure, causing delight to the beholder; theft, which being the concealed change of the possession of anything, without the consent of the proprietor, contains, as is visible, a combination of several ideas of several kinds: and these I call mixed modes.
6. Ideas of substances, single or collective.
Secondly, the ideas of
Substances are such combinations of simple ideas as are taken to
represent distinct particular things subsisting by themselves; the
supposed or confused idea of substance, such as it is, is always the
first and chief Thus if to substance be joined the simple idea of a
certain dull whitish colour, with certain degrees of weight, hardness,
ductility, and fusibility, we have the idea of lead; and a combination
of the ideas of a certain sort of figure, with the powers of motion,
thought and reasoning, joined to substance, the ordinary idea of a
man. Now of substances also, there are two sorts of ideas: one of
single substances, as they exist separately, as of a man or a sheep;
the other of several of those put together, as an army of men, or
flock of sheep- which collective ideas of several substances thus
put together are as much each of them one single idea as that of a man
or an unit.
7. Ideas of relation.
Thirdly, the last sort of complex ideas is
that we call Relation, which consists in the consideration and
comparing one idea with another.
Of these several kinds we shall treat in their order.
8. The abstrusest ideas we can have are all from two sources.
If
we trace the progress of our minds, and with attention observe how
it repeats, adds together, and unites its simple ideas received from
sensation or reflection, it will lead us further than at first perhaps
we should have imagined. And, I believe, we shall find, if we warily
observe the originals of our notions, that even the most abstruse
ideas, how remote soever they may seem from sense, or from any
operations of our own minds, are yet only such as the understanding
frames to itself, by repeating and joining together ideas that it
had either from objects of sense, or from its own operations about
them: so that those even large and abstract ideas are derived from
sensation or reflection, being no other than what the mind, by the
ordinary use of its own faculties, employed about ideas received
from objects of sense, or from the operations it observes in itself
about them, may, and does, attain unto.
This I shall endeavour to show in the ideas we have of space, time, and infinity, and some few others that seem the most remote, from those originals.