that of fixedness, quite, without either actually joining to, or separating of it from, the rest in his mind, it is, I think, to be looked on as an inadequate and imperfect idea, rather than a false one; since though it contains not all the simple ideas that are united in nature, yet it puts none together but what do really exist together.

§19. Truth and falsehood always supposes affirmation or negation. Though in compliance with the ordinary way of speaking, I have shewn in what sense, and upon what ground, our ideas may be sometimes called true, or false; yet if we will look a little nearer into the matter in all cases, where any idea is called true, or false, it is from some judgment that the mind makes, or is supposed to make, that is true or false. For truth or falsehood, being never without some affirmation or negation, express or tacit, it is not to be found, but where <signs are joined or separated, according to the agreement or disagreement of the things they stand for. The signs we chiefly use, are either ideas, or words, wherewith we make either mental or verbal propositions. Truth lies in so joining or separating these representatives, as the things they stand for do in themselves agree or disagree; and falsehood in the contrary, as shall be more fully shewn hereafter.

20. Ideas in themselves neither true nor false.-Any idea then which we have in our minds, whether conformable or not to the existence of things, or to any idea in the minds of other men, cannot properly for this alone be called false. For these representations, if they have nothing in them but what is really existing in things without, cannot be thought false, being exact representations of something: nor yet, if they have any thing in them, differing from the reality of things, can they properly be said to be false representations, or ideas, of things they do not represent. But the mistake and falsehood is,

§ 21. But are false, first, when judged agreeable to another man's idea without being so. First, When the mind having any idea, it judges and concludes it the same that is in other men's minds, signified by the same name; or that it is conformable to the ordinary received signification or definition of that word, when indeed it is not: which is the most usual mistake in mixed modes, though other ideas also are liable to it.

§ 22. Secondly, when judged to agree to real existence, when they do not. Secondly, When it having a complex idea made up of such a collection of simple ones, as nature never puts together, it judges it to agree to a species of creatures really existing; as when it joins the weight of tin to the colour, fusibility, and fixedness of gold.

§23. Thirdly, when judged adequate without being so.-Thirdly, When in its complex idea, it has united a certain number of simple ideas, that do really exist together in some sort of creatures, but has also left out others, as much inseparable, it judges this to be a perfect complete idea of a sort of things which really it is not; v.g. having joined the idea of substance, yellow, malleable, most heavy, and fusible, it takes that complex idea to be the complete idea of gold, when yet its peculiar fixedness and solubility in aqua regia, are as inseparable from those other ideas or qualities of that body, as they are one from another.

§ 24. Fourthly, when judged to represent the real essence.Fourthly, The mistake is yet greater, when I judge, that this complex idea contains in it the real essence of any body existing; when at least it contains but some few of those properties which flow from its real essence and constitution, I say, only some few of those properties; for those properties consisting mostly in the active and passive powers it has, in reference to other things, all that are vulgarly known of any one body, and of which the complex idea of that kind of things is usually made, are but a very few, in comparison of what a man, that has several ways tried and examined it, knows of that one sort of things; and all that the most expert man knows, are but a few, in comparison of what are really in that body, and depend on its internal or essential constitution. The essence of a triangle, lies in a very little compass, consists in a very few ideas; three lines including a space, make up that essence: but the properties that flow from this essence, are more than can be easily known or enumerated. So I imagine it is in substances, their real essences lie in a little compass; though the properties flowing from that internal constitution, are endless.

25. Ideas, when false. To conclude, a man having no notion of any thing without him, but by the idea he has of it in his mind (which idea he has a power to call by what name he pleases), he may, indeed, make an idea neither answering the reality of things, nor agreeing to the ideas commonly signified by other people's words; but cannot make a wrong or false idea of a thing, which is no otherwise known to him, but by the idea he has of it: v. g. when I frame an idea of the legs, arms, and body of a man, and join to this a horse's head and neck, I do not make a false idea of any thing; because it represents nothing without me. But when I call it a man, or Tartar, and imagine it to represent some real being without me, or to be the same idea that others call by the same name, in either of these cases, I may

err.

And upon this account it is, that it comes to be termed a false idea; though, indeed, the falsehood lies not in the idea, but in that tacit mental proposition, wherein a conformity and resemblance is attributed to it, which it has not. But yet, if having framed such an idea in my mind, without thinking either that existence, or the name of man or Tartar, belongs to it, I will call it a man or Tartar, I may be justly thought fantastical in the naming; but not erroneous in my judgment; nor the idea any way false.

§ 26. More properly to be called right or wrong.-Upon the whole matter, I think, that our ideas, as they are considered by the mind, either in reference to the proper signification of their names, or in reference to the reality of things, may very fitly be called right or wrong ideas, according as they agree or disagree to those patterns to which they are referred. But if any one had rather call them true, or false, it is fit he use a liberty, which every one has, to call things by those names he thinks best; though in propriety of speech, truth or falsehood, will, I think, scarce agree to them, but as they, some way or other, virtually contain in them some mental proposition. The ideas that are in a man's mind, simply considered, cannot be wrong unless complex ones, wherein inconsistent parts are jumbled together. All our ideas are in

themselves right; and the knowledge about them, right and true knowledge: but when we come to refer them to any thing, as to their patterns and archetypes, then they are capable of being wrong, as far as they disagree with such archetypes.

CHAP. XXXIII.

OF THE ASSOCIATION OF IDEAS.

§ 1. Something unreasonable in most men.—There is scarce any one that does not observe something that seems odd to him, and is in itself really extravagant in the opinions, reasonings, and actions of other men, The least flaw of this kind, if at all different from his own, every one is quick-sighted enough to espy in another, and will, by the authority of reason, forwardly condemn, though he be guilty of much greater unreasonableness in his own tenets and conduct, which he never perceives, and will very hardly, if at all, be convinced of.

§ 2. Not wholly from self-love.-This proceeds not wholly from self-love, though that has often a great hand in it. Men of fair minds, and not given up to the overweening of self-flattery, are frequently guilty of it; and in many cases one with amazement hears the arguings, and is astonished at the obstinacy, of a worthy man, who yields not to the evidence of reason, though laid before him as clear as daylight.

§ 3. Not from education. This sort of unreasonableness is usually imputed to education and prejudice, and for the most part truly enough, though that reaches not to the bottom of the disease, nor shews distinctly enough whence it rises, or wherein it lies. Education is often rightly assigned for the cause, and prejudice is a good general name for the thing itself: but yet, I think, he ought to look a little farther, who would trace this sort of madness to the root it springs from, and so explain it, as to shew whence this flaw has its original in very sober and rational minds, and wherein it consists.

§ 4. A degree of madness.—I shall be pardoned for calling it by so harsh a name as madness, when it is considered, that opposition to reason deserves that name, and is really madness; and there is scarce a man so free from it, but that, if he should always, on all occasions, argue or do as in some cases he constantly does, would not be thought fitter for bedlam, than civil conversation. I do not here mean when he is under the power of an unruly passion, but in the steady calm course of his life. That which will yet more apologize for this harsh name, and ungrateful imputation on the greatest part of mankind, is, that inquiring a little by-the-by into the nature of madness, b. 2. c. 11. § 13, I found it to spring from the very same root, and to depend on the very same cause, we are here speaking of. This consideration of the thing itself at a time when I thought not the least on the subject which I am now treating of, suggested it to me. And, if this be a weakness to which all men are so liable; if this be a taint which so universally infects mankind, the greater care should be taken to lay it open under its due name, thereby to excite the greater care in its prevention

and cure.

§ 5. From a wrong connexion of ideas.-Some of our ideas have a natural correspondence and connexion one with another: it is the office and excellency of our reason to trace these, and hold them together in that union and correspondence which is founded in their peculiar beings. Besides this, there is another connexion of ideas wholly owing to chance or custom; ideas that in themselves are not at all of kin, come to be so united in some men's minds, that it is very hard to separate them; they always keep in company, and the one no sooner at any time comes into the understanding, but its associate appears with it; and if they are more than two, which are thus united, the whole gang, always inseparable, shew themselves together.

§6. This connexion how made.-This strong combination of ideas, not allayed by nature, the mind makes in itself either voluntarily, or by chance; and hence it comes in different men to be very different, according to their different inclinations, education, interests, &c. Custom settles habits of thinking in the understanding, as well as of determining in the will, and of motions in the body; all which seem to be but trains of motion in the animal spirits, which once set agoing, continue in the same steps they have been used to, which by often treading, are worn into a smooth path, and the motion in it becomes easy, aud, as it were, natural. As far as we can comprehend thinking, thus ideas seem to be produced in our minds; or if they are not, this may serve to explain their following one another in an habitual train, when once they are put into their tract, as well as it does to explain such motions of the body. A musician used to any tune, will find, that let it but once begin in his head, the ideas of the several notes of it will follow one another orderly in his understanding, without any care or attention, as regularly as his fingers move orderly over the keys of the organ to play out the tune he has begun, though his unattentive thoughts be elsewhere a wandering. Whether the natural cause of these ideas, as well as of that regular dancing of his fingers, be the motion of his animal spirits, I will not determine, how probable soever by this instance it appears to be so, but this may help us a little to conceive of intellectual habits, and of the tying together of ideas.

§7. Some antipathies an effect of it.-That there are such associations of them made by custom in the minds of most men, I think nobody will question, who has well considered himself or others; and to this, perhaps, might be justly attributed most of the sympathies and antipathies observable in men, which work as strongly, and produce as regular effects, as if they were natural, and are, therefore, called so, though they, at first, had no other original, but the accidental connexion of two ideas, which either the strength of the first impression, or future indulgence, so united, that they always afterward keep company together in that man's mind, as if they were but one idea. I say, most of the antipathies, I do not say all, for some of them are truly natural, depend upon our original constitution, and are born with us; but a great part of those which are counted natural, would have been known to be from unheeded, though, perhaps, early impressions, or wanton fancies at first, which would have been acknowledged the original of them, if they had been warily observed. A grown person surfeiting

with honey, no sooner hears the name of it, but his fancy immediately carries sickness and qualms to his stomach, and he cannot bear the very idea of it; other ideas of dislike, and sickness, and vomiting, presently accompany it, and he is disturbed, but he knows from whence to date this weakness, and can tell how he got this indisposition; had this happened to him by an over-dose of honey, when a child, all the same effects would have followed, but the cause would have been mistaken, and the antipathy counted natural.

§ 8. I mention this, not out of any great necessity there is in this present argument, to distinguish nicely between natural and acquired antipathies, but I take notice of it for another purpose, viz. that those who have children, or the charge of their education, would think it worth their while, diligently to watch, and carefully to prevent, the undue connexion of ideas in the minds of young people. This is the time most susceptible of lasting impressions; and though those relating to the health of the body, are, by discreet people, minded and fenced against; yet I am apt to doubt, that those which relate more peculiarly to the mind, and terminate in the understanding, or passions, have been much less heeded than the thing deserves; nay, those relating purely to the understanding, have, as I suspect, been, by most men, wholly

overlooked.

§ 9. A great cause of errors.-This wrong connexion in our minds of ideas, in themselves loose and independent one of another, has such an influence, and is of so great force to set us awry in our actions, as well moral as natural passions, reasonings, and notions themselves; that, perhaps, there is not any one thing that deserves more to be looked after. § 10. Instances. The ideas of goblins and sprights, have really no more to do with darkness than light; yet let but a foolish maid inculcate these often on the mind of a child, and raise them there together, possibly he shall never be able to separate them again so long as he lives; but darkness shall ever afterward bring with it those frightful ideas, and they shall be so joined, that he can no more bear the one than the other.

§ 11. A man receives a sensible injury from another, thinks on the man and that action over and over, and by ruminating on them strongly, or much in his mind, so cements those two ideas together, that he makes them almost one; never thinks on the man, but the pain and displeasure he suffered, comes into his mind with it, so that he scarce distinguishes them, but has as much aversion for the one as the other. Thus hatreds are often begotten from slight and innocent occasions, and quarrels propagated and continued in the world.

12. A man has suffered pain or sickness in any place; he saw his friend die in such a room; though these have in nature nothing to do with one another, yet when the idea of the place occurs to his mind, it brings (the impression being once made) that of the pain and displeasure with it, he confounds them in his mind, and can as little bear the one as the other.

§ 13. Why time cures some disorders in the mind, which reason cannot. When this combination is settled, and whilst it lasts, it is not in the power of reason to help us, and relieve us from the effects of it.