The account which this system gives of our judgment and belief concerning things is as far from the truth as the account it gives of our notions or simple apprehensions. It represents our senses as having no other office but that of furnishing the mind with notions or simple apprehen- sions of things; and makes our judgment and belief con- cerning those things to be acquired by comparing our no- tions together, and perceiving their agreements or disagree- ments.
We have shown, on the contrary, that every operation of the senses, in its very nature, implies judgment or be- lief as well as simple apprehension. Thus, when I feel the pain of the gout in my toe, I have not only a notion of pain, but a belief of its existence, and a belief of some disorder in my toe which occasions it; and this belief is not produced by comparing ideas, and perceiving their agreements and disagreements; it is included in the very nature of the sensation. When I perceive a tree before me, my faculty of seeing gives *me not only a notion or simple apprehension of the tree, but a belief of its existence, and of its figure, distance, and magnitude; and this judg- ment or belief is not got by comparing ideas, it is included in the very nature of the perception. We have taken notice of several original principles of belief in the course of this inquiry; and when other faculties of the mind are examined, we shall find more, which have not occurred in the examination of the five senses.
Such original and natural judgments are therefore a part 260 OF THE HUMAN MIND.
of that furniture which nature hath given to the human un- derstanding. They are the inspiration of the Almighty, no less than our notions or simple apprehensions. They serve to direct us in the common affairs of life, where our reasoning faculty would leave us in the dark. They are a part of our constitution, and all the discoveries of our reason are grounded upon them. They make up what is called the common sense of mankind; and what is mani- festly contrary to any of those first principles is what we call absurd. The strength of them is good sense, which is often found in those who are not acute in reasoning. A remarkable deviation from them, arising from a disorder in the constitution, is what we call lunacy; as when a man believes that he is made of glass. When a man suffers himself to be reasoned out of the principles of common sense, by metaphysical arguments, we may call this me- taphysical lunacy; which differs from the other species of the distemper in this, that it is not continued, but inter- mittent: it is apt to seize the patient in solitary and spe- culative moments; but when he enters into society, Com- mon Sense recovers her authority. A clear explication and enumeration of the principles of common sense is one of the chief desiderata in logic. We have only considered such of them as occurred in the examination of the five senses.
5. The last observation that I shall make upon the new system is, That, although it professes to set out in the way of reflection, and not of analogy, it hath retained some of the old analogical notions concerning the operations of the mind; particularly, That things which do not now exist in the mind itself can only be perceived, remembered, or ima- gined, by means of ideas or images of them in the mind, which are the immediate objects of perception, remem- brance, and imagination. This doctrine appears evidently to be boiTowed from the old system; which taught that external things make impressions upon the mind like the impression of a seal upon wax: that it is by means of those impressions that we perceive, remember, or imagine them; and that those impressions must resemble the things CHAP. VII.] CONCLUSION. 261 from which they are taken. When we form our notions of the operations of the mind by analogy, this way of con- ceiving them seems to be very natural, and offers itself to our thoughts: for as every thing which is felt must make some impression upon the body, we are apt to think, that every thing which is understood must make some impres- sion upon the mind.
From such analogical reasoning, this opinion of the ex- istence of ideas or images of things in the mind seems to have taken its rise, and to have been so universally re- ceived among philosophers. It was observed already, that Berkeley, in one instance, apostatizes from this prin- ciple of the new system, by affirming that we have no ideas of spirits, and that we can think of them immediately without ideas. But I know not whether in this he has had* any followers. There is some difference likewise among modern philosophers, with regard to the ideas or images by which we perceive, remember, or imagine sen- sible things. For though all agree in the existence of such images, they differ about their place; some placing them in a particular part of the brain, where the soul is thought to have her residence, and others placing them in the mind itself. Des Cartes held the first of these opi- nions; to which Newton seems likewise to have inclined; for he proposes this query in his Optics: " Annon senso- rium animalium est locus cui substantia sentiens adest, et in quern sensibiles rerum species per nervos et cerebrum deferunter, ut ibi, praesentes a praesente sentire possint?" But Locke seems to place the idea of sensible things in the mind: and that Berkeley, and the author of the Trea- tise of Human Nature, were of the same opinion, is evi- dent. The last makes a very curious application of this doctrine, by endeavouring to prove from it, That the mind either is no substance, or that it is an extended and divi- sible substance; because the ideas of extension cannot be in a subject which is indivisible and unextended.
I confess I think his reasoning in this, as in most cases, is clear and strong. For whether the idea of extension be only another name for extension itself, as Berkeley and his 262 OF THE HUMAN MIND.
author assert; or whether the idea of extension be an image and resemblance of extension, as Locke conceived; I appeal to any man of common sense, whether extension, or any image of extension, can be in an unextended and indivisible subject. But while I agree with him in his reasoning, I would make a different application of it. He takes it for granted, that there are ideas of extension in the mind; and hence infers, that if it is at all a substance, it must be an extended and divisible substance. On the contrary, I take it for granted, upon the testimony of com- mon sense, that my mind is a substance, that is, a perma- nent subject of thought; and my reason convinces me that it is an unextended and indivisible substance; and hence I infer, that there cannot be in it any thing that re- sembles extension. If this reasoning had occurred to Berkeley, it would probably have led him to acknowledge, that we may think and reason concerning bodies, without having ideas of them hi the mind as well as concerning spirits.
I intended to have examined more particularly and fully this doctrine of the existence of ideas or images of things in the mind, and likewise another doctrine, which is founded upon it, to wit, That judgment or belief is nothing but a perception of the agreement or disagreement of our ideas: but having already shown, through the course of this in- quiry, that the operations of the mind which we have ex- amined give no countenance to either of these doctrines, and in many things contradict them, I have thought it proper to drop this part of my design. It may be exe- cuted with more advantage if it is at all necessary, after inquiring into some other powers of the human under- standing.
Although we have examined only the five senses, and the principles of the human mind which are employed about them, or such as have fallen in our way in the course of this examination; we shall leave the further prosecution of this inquiry to future deliberation. The powers of memory, of imagination, of taste, of reasoning, of moral perception, the will, the passions, the affections, CHAP. VII.] CONCLUSION. 2G3 and all the active powers of the soul, present a vast and boundless field of philosophical disquisition, which the author of this inquiry is far from thinking himself able to survey with accuracy. Many authors of ingenuity, an- cient and modern, have made excursions into this vast ter- ritory, and have communicated useful observations: but there is reason to believe, that those who have pretended to give us a map of the whole, have satisfied themselves with a very inaccurate and incomplete survey. If Galileo had attempted a complete system of natural philosophy, he had, probably, done little service to mankind: but b^ confining himself to what was within his comprehension, he laid the foundation of a system of knowledge, which rises by degrees, and does honour to the human under- standing. Newton, building upon this foundation, and in like manner confining his inquiries to the law of gravita- tion and the properties of light, performed wonders. If he had attempted a great deal more, he had done a great deal less, and perhaps nothing at all. Ambitious of fol- lowing such great examples, with unequal steps, alas! and unequal force, we have attempted an inquiry only into one little corner of the human mind; that corner which seems to be most exposed to vulgar observation, and to be most easily comprehended; and yet, if we have delineated it justly, it must be acknowledged that the accounts hereto- fore given of it were very lame, and wide of the truth.
THE END.
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