Chapter XXXI Of Adequate and Inadequate Ideas 1. Adequate ideas are such as perfectly represent their archetypes. Of our real ideas, some are adequate, and some are inadequate. Those I call adequate, which perfectly represent those archetypes which the mind supposes them taken from: which it intends them to stand for, and to which it […]

Chapter III Of Simple Ideas of Sense 1. Division of simple ideas. The better to conceive the ideas we receive from sensation, it may not be amiss for us to consider them, in reference to the different ways whereby they make their approaches to our minds, and make themselves perceivable by us. First, then, There […]

Chapter XXIX Of Clear and Obscure, Distinct and Confused Ideas 1. Ideas, some clear and distinct, others obscure and confused. Having shown the original of our ideas, and taken a view of their several sorts; considered the difference between the simple and the complex; and observed how the complex ones are divided into those of […]

Chapter XXVIII Of Other Relations 1. Ideas of proportional relations. Besides the before-mentioned occasions of time, place, and causality of comparing or referring things one to another, there are, as I have said, infinite others, some whereof I shall mention. First, The first I shall name is some one simple idea, which, being capable of […]

Chapter XXVII Of Identity and Diversity 1. Wherein identity consists. Another occasion the mind often takes of comparing, is the very being of things, when, considering anything as existing at any determined time and place, we compare it with itself existing at another time, and thereon form the ideas of identity and diversity. When we […]

Chapter XXVI Of Cause and Effect, and other Relations 1. Whence the ideas of cause and effect got. In the notice that our senses take of the constant vicissitude of things, we cannot but observe that several particular, both qualities and substances, begin to exist; and that they receive this their existence from the due […]

Chapter XXV Of Relation 1. Relation, what. Besides the ideas, whether simple or complex, that the mind has of things as they are in themselves, there are others it gets from their comparison one with another. The understanding, in the consideration of anything, is not confined to that precise object: it can carry an idea […]

Chapter XXIV Of Collective Ideas of Substances 1. A collective idea is one idea. Besides these complex ideas of several single substances, as of man, horse, gold, violet, apple, &c., the mind hath also complex collective ideas of substances; which I so call, because such ideas are made up of many particular substances considered together, […]

Chapter XXIII Of our Complex Ideas of Substances 1. Ideas of particular substances, how made. The mind being, as I have declared, furnished with a great number of the simple ideas, conveyed in by the senses as they are found in exterior things, or by reflection on its own operations, takes notice also that a […]

Chapter XXII Of Mixed Modes 1. Mixed modes, what. Having treated of simple modes in the foregoing chapters, and given several instances of some of the most considerable of them, to show what they are, and how we come by them; we are now in the next place to consider those we call mixed modes; […]

Chapter XXI Of Power 1. This idea how got. The mind being every day informed, by the senses, of the alteration of those simple ideas it observes in things without; and taking notice how one comes to an end, and ceases to be, and another begins to exist which was not before; reflecting also on […]

Chapter XX Of Modes of Pleasure and Pain 1. Pleasure and pain, simple ideas. Amongst the simple ideas which we receive both from sensation and reflection, pain and pleasure are two very considerable ones. For as in the body there is sensation barely in itself, or accompanied with pain or pleasure, so the thought or […]

Chapter II Of Simple Ideas 1. Uncompounded appearances. The better to understand the nature, manner, and extent of our knowledge, one thing is carefully to be observed concerning the ideas we have; and that is, that some of them are simple and some complex. Though the qualities that affect our senses are, in the things […]

Chapter XIX Of the Modes of Thinking 1. Sensation, remembrance, contemplation, &c., modes of thinking. When the mind turns its view inwards upon itself, and contemplates its own actions, thinking is the first that occurs. In it the mind observes a great variety of modifications, and from thence receives distinct ideas. Thus the perception or […]

Chapter XVIII Other Simple Modes 1. Other simple modes of simple ideas of sensation. Though I have, in the foregoing chapters, shown how, from simple ideas taken in by sensation, the mind comes to extend itself even to infinity; which, however it may of all others seem most remote from any sensible perception, yet at […]

Chapter XVII Of Infinity 1. Infinity, in its original intention, attributed to space, duration, and number. He that would know what kind of idea it is to which we give the name of infinity, cannot do it better than by considering to what infinity is by the mind more immediately attributed; and then how the […]

Chapter XVI Idea of Number 1. Number the simplest and most universal idea. Amongst all the ideas we have, as there is none suggested to the mind by more ways, so there is none more simple, than that of unity, or one: it has no shadow of variety or composition in it: every object our […]

Chapter XV Ideas of Duration and Expansion, considered together 1. Both capable of greater and less. Though we have in the precedent chapters dwelt pretty long on the considerations of space and duration, yet, they being ideas of general concernment, that have something very abstruse and peculiar in their nature, the comparing them one with […]

Chapter XIV Idea of Duration and its Simple Modes 1. Duration is fleeting extension. There is another sort of distance, or length, the idea whereof we get not from the permanent parts of space, but from the fleeting and perpetually perishing parts of succession. This we call duration; the simple modes whereof are any different […]

Chapter XIII Complex Ideas of Simple Modes:- and First, of the Simple Modes of the Idea of Space 1. Simple modes of simple ideas. Though in the foregoing part I have often mentioned simple ideas, which are truly the materials of all our knowledge; yet having treated of them there, rather in the way that […]

Chapter XII Of Complex Ideas 1. Made by the mind out of simple ones. We have hitherto considered those ideas, in the reception whereof the mind is only passive, which are those simple ones received from sensation and reflection before mentioned, whereof the mind cannot make one to itself, nor have any idea which does […]

Chapter XI Of Discerning, and other operations of the Mind 1. No knowledge without discernment. Another faculty we may take notice of in our minds is that of discerning and distinguishing between the several ideas it has. It is not enough to have a confused perception of something in general. Unless the mind had a […]

Chapter X Of Retention 1. Contemplation. The next faculty of the mind, whereby it makes a further progress towards knowledge, is that which I call retention; or the keeping of those simple ideas which from sensation or reflection it hath received. This is done two ways. First, by keeping the idea which is brought into […]

BOOK II Of Ideas Chapter I Of Ideas in general, and their Original 1. Idea is the object of thinking. Every man being conscious to himself that he thinks; and that which his mind is applied about whilst thinking being the ideas that are there, it is past doubt that men have in their minds […]

Chapter III Other considerations concerning Innate Principles, both Speculative and Practical 1. Principles not innate, unless their ideas be innate. Had those who would persuade us that there are innate principles not taken them together in gross, but considered separately the parts out of which those propositions are made, they would not, perhaps, have been […]

BOOK I Neither Principles nor Ideas Are Innate Chapter I No Innate Speculative Principles 1. The way shown how we come by any knowledge, sufficient to prove it not innate. It is an established opinion amongst some men, that there are in the understanding certain innate principles; some primary notions, koinai ennoiai, characters, as it […]

Chapter II No Innate Practical Principles 1. No moral principles so clear and so generally received as the forementioned speculative maxims. If those speculative Maxims, whereof we discoursed in the foregoing chapter, have not an actual universal assent from all mankind, as we there proved, it is much more visible concerning practical Principles, that they […]

AN ESSAY CONCERNING HUMAN UNDERSTANDING As thou knowest not what is the way of the Spirit, nor how the bones do grow in the womb of her that is with child: even so thou knowest not the works of God, who maketh all things. — Eccles. 11. 5. Quam bellum est velle confiteri potius nescire […]

Human Understanding John Locke 1690 AN ESSAY CONCERNING HUMAN UNDERSTANDING by John Locke TO THE RIGHT HONOURABLE LORD THOMAS, EARL OF PEMBROKE AND MONTGOMERY, BARRON HERBERT OF CARDIFF, LORD ROSS, OF KENDAL, PAR, FITZHUGH, MARMION, ST. QUINTIN, AND SHURLAND; LORD PRESIDENT OF HIS MAJESTY'S MOST HONOURABLE PRIVY COUNCIL; AND LORD LIEUTENANT OF THE COUNTY OF […]

An Essay Concerning Human Understanding EPISTLE TO THE READER I HAVE put into thy hands what has been the diversion of some of my idle and heavy hours. If it has the good luck to prove so of any of thine, and thou hast but half so much pleasure in reading as I had in […]