tion; and hence it necessarily follows, that apprehension, accompanied with belief and knowledge, must go before simple apprehension, at least in the matters we are now speaking of. So that here, instead of saying that the belief or knowledge is got by putting together and com- paring the simple apprehensions, we ought rather to say that the simple apprehension is performed by resolving and analysing a natural and original judgment. And it is with the operations of the mind, in this case, as with natu- ral bodies, which are indeed compounded of simple prin- ciples or elements. Nature does not exhibit these elements separate, to be compounded by us; she exhibits them mixed and compounded in concrete bodies, and it is only by art and chemical analysis that they can be separated.
SECT. V.
Two Theories of the Nature of Belief refuted. Concltt* sionsfrom what hath been said.
BUT what is this belief or knowledge which accompanies sensation and memory? Every man knows what it is, but no man can define it. Does any man pretend to define sensation, or to define consciousness? It is happy indeed that no man does. And if no philosopher had attempted to define and explain belief, some paradoxes in philosophy, more incredible than ever were brought forth by the most abject superstition or the most frantic enthusiasm, had never seen the light. Of this kind surely is that modern discovery of the ideal philosophy, that sensation, memory, belief, and imagination, when they have the same object, are only different degrees of strength and vivacity in the idea. Suppose the idea to be that of a future state after death; one man believes it firmly; this means no more than that he hath a strong and lively idea of it: Another neither believes nor disbelieves; that is, he has a weak and faint idea. Suppose now a third person believes firmly that there is no such thing; I am at a loss to know o 2G OF THE HUMAN MIND. [CHAP. If.
whether his idea be faint or lively: if it is faint, then there may be a firm belief, where the idea is faint; if the idea is lively, then the belief of a future state and the belief of no future state must be one and the same. The same arguments that are used to prove that belief implies only a stronger idea of the object than simple apprehension might as well be used to prove that love implies only a stronger idea of the object than indifference. And then what shall we say of hatred, which must, upon this hypothesis, be a degree of love or a degree of indifference? If it should be said, that in love there is something more than an idea, to wit, an affection of the mind; may it not be said with equal reason, that in belief there is something more than an idea, to wit, an assent or persuasion of the mind.
But perhaps it may be thought as ridiculous to argue against this strange opinion as to maintain it. Indeed, if a man should maintain, that a circle, a square, and a tri- angle differ only in magnitude, and not in figure, I believe he would find nobody disposed either to believe him or argue against him; and yet I do not think it less shocking to common sense, to maintain, that sensation, memory, and imagination differ only in degree, and not in kind. I know it is said, that in a delirium, or in dreaming, men are apt to mistake one for the other. But does it follow from this, that men who are neither dreaming nor in a delirium cannot distinguish them? But how does a man know that he is not in a delirium? I cannot tell: neither can I tell how a man knows that he exists: but if any man seriously doubts whether he is in a delirium, I think it highly pro- bable that he is, and that it is time to seek for a cure, which I am persuaded he will not find in the whole system of logic.
I mentioned before Locke's notion of belief or know- ledge: he holds that it consists in a perception of the agreement or disagreement of ideas; and this he values himself upon as a very important discovery.
We shall have occasion afterwards to examine more particularly this grand principle of Locke's philosophy, and to show that it is one of the main pillars of modern SECT. V.] OF SMELLING. 27 scepticism, although he had no intention to make that use of it. At present let us only consider how it agrees with the instances of belief now under consideration; and whe- ther it gives any light to them. I believe that the sensa- tion I have exists; and that the sensation I remember, does not now exist, but did exist yesterday. Here, ac- cording to Locke's system, I compare the idea of a sensa- tion with the ideas of past and present existence: at one time that this idea agrees with that of present existence, but disagrees with that of past existence; but at another time it agrees with the idea of past existence, and dig- agrees with that of present existence. Truly these ideas seem to be very capricious in their agreements and dis- agreements.— Besides, I cannot from my heart conceive what is meant by either. I say a sensation exists, and I think I understand clearly what I mean. But you want to make the thing clearer, and for that end tell me, that there is an agreement between the idea of that sensation and the idea of existence. To speak freely, this conveys to me no light, but darkness; I can conceive no otherwise of it than as an odd and obscure circumlocution. I con- clude, then, that the belief which accompanies sensation and memory is a simple act of the mind, which cannot be defined. It is in this respect like seeing and hearing, which can never be so defined as to be understood by those who have not these faculties: and to such as have them, no definition can make these operations more clear than they are already. In like manner, every man that has any belief, and he must be a curiosity that has none, knows perfectly what belief is, but can never define nor explain it. I conclude also, that sensation, memory, and imagination, even where they have the same object, are operations of a quite different nature, and perfectly distin- guishable by those who are sound and sober. A man that is in danger of confounding them is indeed to be pitied; but whatever relief he may find from another art, he can find none from logic or metaphysic. I conclude further, that it is no less a part of the human constitution, to believe the present existence of our sensations, and to C2 28 OF THE HUMAN MIND. [CHAP. II.
believe the past existence of what we remember, than it is to believe that twice two make four. The evidence of sense, the evidence of memory, and the evidence of the necessary relations of things, are all distinct and original kinds of evidence, equally grounded on our constitution: none of them depends upon, or can be resolved into an- other. To reason against any of these kinds of evidence is absurd; nay, to reason for them is absurd. They are first principles; and such fall not within the province of Reason, but of Common Sense.
SECT. VI.
Apology for Metaphysical Absurdities. Sensation with- out a Sentient, a Consequence of the Theory of Ideas. Consequences of this strange Opinion.
HAVING considered the relation which the sensation of smelling bears to the remembrance and imagination of it, I proceed to consider, what relation it bears to a mind, or sentient principle. It is certain, no man can conceive or believe smelling to exist of itself, without a mind, or something that has the power of smelling, of which it is called a sensation, an operation, or feeling. Yet if any man should demand a proof, that sensation cannot be with- out a mind or sentient being, I confess that I can give none; and that to pretend to prove it seems to be almost as absurd as to deny it.
This might have been said without any apology before the Treatise of Human Nature appeared in the world. For till that time, no man, as far as I know, ever thought either of calling in question that principle, or of giving a reason for his belief of it. Whether thinking beings were of an ethereal or igneous nature, whether material or im- material, was variously disputed; but that thinking is an operation of some kind of being or other was always taken for granted, as a principle that could not possibly admit of doubt.
SECT. VI.] OF SMELLING. 29 However, since the author above mentioned, who is undoubtedly one of the most acute metaphysicians that this or any age hath produced, hath treated it as a vulgar prejudice, and maintained that the mind is only a suc- cession of ideas and impressions without any subject; his opinion, however contrary to the common apprehensions of mankind, deserves respect. I beg, therefore, once for all, that no offence may be taken at charging this or other metaphysical notions with absurdity, or with being con- trary to the common sense of mankind. No disparage- ment is meant to the understandings of the authors or maintainers of such opinions. Indeed, they commonly proceed, not from defect of understanding, but from an excess of refinement: the reasoning that leads to them often gives new light to the subject, and shows real genius and deep penetration in the author; and the premises do more than atone for the conclusion.
If tliere are certain principles, as I think there are, which the constitution of our nature leads us to believe, and which we are under a necessity to take for granted in the common concerns of life, without being able to give a reason for them; these are what we call the principles of common sense; and what is manifestly contrary to them is what we call absurd.
Indeed if it is true, and to be received as a principle of philosophy, That sensation and thought may be without a thinking being; it must be acknowledged to be the most wonderful discovery that this or any other age hath pro- duced. The received doctrine of ideas is the principle from which it is deduced, and of which indeed it seems to be a just and natural consequence. And it is probable, that it would not have been so late a discovery, but that it is so shocking and repugnant to the common apprehen- sions of mankind that it required an uncommon degree of philosophical intrepidity to usher it into the world. It is a fundamental principle of the ideal system, That every object of thought must be an impression, or an idea, that is, a faint copy of some preceding impression. This is a principle so commonly received that the author above 30 OF THE HUMAN MIND. [CHAP. II.
mentioned, although his whole system is built upon it, never offers the least proof of it. It is upon this principle, as a fixed point, that he erects his metaphysical engines, to overturn heaven and earth, body and spirit. And in- deed, in my apprehension, it is altogether sufficient for the purpose. For if impressions and ideas are the only objects of thought, then heaven and earth, and body and spirit, and every thing you please, must signify only impressions and ideas, or they must be words without any meaning. It seems, therefore, that this notion, however strange, is closely connected with the received doctrine of ideas, and we must either admit the conclusion, or call in question the premises.
Ideas seem to have something in their nature unfriendly to other existences. They were first introduced into phi- losophy in the humble character of images or representa- tives of things; and in this character they seemed not only to be inoffensive, but to serve admirably well for explain- ing the operations of the human understanding. But since men began to reason clearly and distinctly about them, they have by degrees supplanted their constituents, and undermined the existence of every thing but themselves. First, they discarded all secondary qualities of bodies; and it was found out by their means, that fire is not hot, nor snow cold, nor honey sweet: and in a word, that heat and cold, sound, colour, taste, and smell are nothing but ideas or impressions. Bishop Berkeley advanced them a step higher, and found out, by just reasoning, from the same principles, that extension, solidity, space, figure, and body are ideas, and that there is nothing in nature but ideas and spirits. But the triumph of ideas was com- pleted by the Treatise of Human Nature, which discards spirits also, and leaves ideas and impressions as the sole existences in the universe. What if, at last, having no- thing else to contend with, they should fall foul of one another, and leave no existence in nature at all? This would surely bring philosophy into danger; for what should we have left to talk or to dispute about?
However, hitherto these philosophers acknowledge the SECT. VI.] OF SMELLING. 31 existence of impressions and ideas; they acknowledge certain laws of attraction, or rules of precedence, accord- ing to which ideas and impressions range themselves in various forms, and succeed one another: but that they should belong to a mind, as its proper goods and chattels, this they have found to be a vulgar error. These ideas are as free and independent as the birds of the air, or as Epicurus's atoms when they pursued their journey in the vast inane. Shall we conceive them like the films of things in the Epicurean system.
Principio hoc dico, rerum simulacra vagari, Multa modis multis, in cunctas undique parteis Tenuia, quce facile inter sejunguntur in auris, Obvia cum veniunt. — LucR.
Or do they rather resemble Aristotle's intelligible species after they are shot forth from the object, and before they have yet struck upon the passive intellect? But why should we seek to compare them with any thing, since there is nothing in nature but themselves? They make the whole furniture of the universe; starting into existence, or out of it, without any cause; combining into parcels, which the vulgar call minds; and succeeding one another by fixed laws, without time, place, or author of those laws.
Yet, after all, these self-existent and independent ideas look pitifully naked and destitute when left thus alone in the universe, and seem, upon the whole, to be in a worse condition than they were, before. Des Cartes, Male- branche, and Locke, as they made much use of ideas, treated them handsomely, and provided them in decent accommodation; lodging them either in the pineal gland, or in the pure intellect, or even in the divine mind. They moreover clothed them with a commission, and made them representatives of things, which gave them some dignity and character. But the Treatise of Human Nature, though no less indebted to them, seems to have made but a bad return, by bestowing upon them this independent existence; since thereby they are turned out of house and 32 OF THE HUMAN MIND. [CHAP. II.
home, and set adrift in the world, without friend or con- nection, without a rag to cover their nakedness; and who knows but the whole system of ideas may perish by the indiscreet zeal of their friends to exalt them?
However this may be, it is certainly a most amazing discovery, that thought and ideas may be without any thinking being: — a discovery big with consequences which cannot easily be traced by those deluded mortals who think and reason in the common track. We were always apt to imagine, that thought supposed a thinker, and love a lover, and treason a traitor: but this, it seems, was all a mistake; and it is found out, that there may be treason without a traitor, and love without a lover, laws without a legislator, and punishment without a sufferer, succession without time, and motion without any thing moved, or space in which it may move: or if, in these cases, ideas are the lover, the sufferer, the traitor, it were to be wished that the author of this discovery had further condescended to acquaint us, whether ideas can converse together, and be under obligations of duty or gratitude to each other; whether they can make promises, and enter into leagues and covenants, and fulfil or break them, and be punished for the breach? If one set of ideas make a covenant, an- other breaks it, and a third is punished for it, there is reason to think that justice is no natural virtue in this system.
It seemed very natural to think that the Treatise of Human Nature required an Author, and a very ingenious one too; but now we learn that it is only a set of ideas which came together, and arranged themselves by certain associations and attractions.
After all, this curious system appears not to be fitted to the present state of human nature. How far it may suit some choice spirits, who are refined from the dregs of common sense, I cannot say. It is acknowledged, I think, that even these can enter into this system only in their most speculative hours, when they soar so high in pursuit of those self-existent ideas as to lose sight of all other things. But when they condescend to mingle again SECT. VI.] OF SMELLING. 33 with the human race, and to converse with a friend, a com- panion, or a fellow citizen, the ideal system vanishes; com- mon sense, like an irresistible torrent, carries them along; and, in spite of all their reasoning and philosophy, they believe their own existence, and the existence of other things.
Indeed, it is happy they do so; for if they should carry their closet belief into the world, the rest of mankind would consider them as diseased, and send them to an infirmary. Therefore, as Plato required certain previous qualifications of those who entered his school, I think it would be prudent for the doctors of this ideal philosophy to do the same, and to refuse admittance to every man who is so weak as to imagine that he ought to have the same belief in solitude and in company, or that his prin- ciples ought to have any influence upon his practice: for this philosophy is like a hobby-horse, which a man in bad health may ride in his closet, without hurting his reputa- tion; but if he should take him abroad" with him to church, or to the exchange, or to the playhouse, his heir would immediately call a jury and seize his estate.
SECT. VII.
The Conception and Belief of a Sentient Being, or Mind, is suggested by our Constitution. The Notion of Relations not always got by comparing the related Ideas.
LEAVING this philosophy, therefore, to those who have occasion for it, and can use it discreetly as a chamber exercise, we may still inquire, how the rest of mankind, and even the adepts themselves, except in some solitary moments, have got so strong and irresistible a belief, that thought must have a subject, and be the act of some think- ing being: how every man believes himself to be some- thing distinct from his ideas and impressions; something which continues the same identical self when all his ideas c3 34 OF THE HUMAN MIND. [CHAP. II.
and impressions are changed. It is impossible to trace the origin of this opinion in history: for all languages have it interwoven in their original construction. All nations have always believed it. The constitution of all laws and governments, as well as the common transactions of life, suppose it.
It is no less impossible for any man to recollect when he himself came by this notion; for, as far back as we can remember, we were already in possession of it, and as fully persuaded of our own existence, and the existence of other things, as that one and one make two. It seems therefore, that this opinion preceded all reasoning, and ex- perience, and instruction; and this is the more probable, because we could not get it by any of these means. It appears then to be an undeniable fact, that from thought or sensation, all mankind, constantly and invariably, from the first dawning of reflection, do infer a power or faculty of thinking, and a permanent being or mind to which that faculty belongs; and that we as invariably ascribe all the various kinds of sensation and thought we are conscious of to one individual mind or self.
But by what rules of logic we make these inferences it is impossible to show; nay, it is impossible to show how our sensations and thoughts can give us the very notion and conception either of a mind or of a faculty. The faculty of smelling is something very different from the actual sensation of smelling; for the faculty may remain when we have no sensation. And the mind is no less different from the faculty; for it continues the same indi- vidual being when that faculty is lost. Yet this sensation suggests to us both a faculty and a mind; and not only suggests the notion of them, but creates a belief of their existence; although it is impossible to discover, by reason, any tie or connection between one and the other.
What shall we say, then? Either those inferences which we draw from our sensations, namely, the existence of a mind, and of powers or faculties belonging to it, are prejudices of philosophy or education, mere fictions of the mind, which a wise man should throw off as he does the SECT. VII.] OF SMELLING. 3o belief of fairies; or they are judgments of nature, judg- ments not got by comparing ideas, and perceiving agree- ments and disagreements, but immediately inspired by our constitution.
If this last is the case, as I apprehend it is, it will be impossible to shake off those opinions, and we must yield to them at last, though we struggle hard to get rid of them. And if we could, by a determined obstinacy, shake off the principles of our nature, this is not to act the philosopher, but the fool or the madman. It is incumbent upon those who think that these are not natural principles, to show, in the first place, how we can otherwise get the notion of a mind and its faculties; and then to show, how we come to deceive ourselves into the opinion that sensation cannot be without a sentient being.
It is the received doctrine of philosophers, that our notions of relations can only be got by comparing the related ideas: but, in the present case, there seems to be an instance to the contrary. It is not by having first the notions of mind and sensation, and then comparing them together, that we perceive the one to have the relation of a subject or substratum, and the other that of an act or operation; on the contrary, one of the related things, to wit, sensation, suggests to us both the corelate and the relation.
I beg leave to make use of the word suggestion, be- cause I know not one more proper to express a poMrer of the mind, which seems entirely to have escaped the notice of philosophers, and to which we owe many of our simple notions which are neither impressions nor ideas, as well as many original principles of belief. I shall endeavour to illustrate, by an example, what I understand by this word. We all know, that a certain kind of sound suggests imme- diately to the mind a coach passing in the street; and not only produces the imagination, but the belief, that a coach is passing. Yet there is here no comparing of ideas, no perception of agreements or disagreements, to produce this belief; nor is there the least similitude between the sound 36 OF THE HUMAN MIND. [CHAP. II.
we hear and the coach we imagine and believe to be passing.
It is true that this suggestion is not natural and original; it is the result of experience and habit. But I think it appears, from what hath been said, that there are natural suggestions; particularly, that sensation suggests the no- tion of present existence, and the belief that what we per- ceive or feel does now exist; that memory suggests the notion of past existence, and the belief that what we re- member did exist in time, past; and that our sensations and thoughts do also suggest the notion of a mind, and the belief of its existence, and of its relation to our thoughts. By a like natural principle it is, that a beginning of exist- ence, or any change in nature, suggests to us the notion of a cause, and compels our belief of its existence. And in like manner, as shall be shown when we come to the sense of touch, certain sensations of touch, by the constitution of our nature, suggest to us extension, solidity, and mo- tion, which are nowise like to sensations, although they have been hitherto confounded with them.
SECT. VIII.
There is a Quality or Virtue in Bodies, which we call their Smell. How this is connected in the Imagina- tion with the Sensation.
have considered smell as signifying a sensation, feel- ing, or impression upon the mind; and, in this sense, it can only be in a mind, or sentient being: but it is evident, that mankind give the name of smell much more frequently to something which they conceive to be external, and to be a quality of body: they understand something by which it does not at all infer a mind; and have not the least difficulty in conceiving the air perfumed with aro- matic odours in the deserts of Arabia, or in some unin- habited island, where the human foot never trod. Every SECT. VIII.] OF SMELLING. 37 sensible day-labourer hath as clear a notion of this, and as full a conviction of the possibility of it, as he hath of his own existence; and can no more doubt of the one than of the other.
Suppose that such a man meets with a modern philoso- pher, and wants to be informed, what smell in plants is. The philosopher tells him, that there is no smell in plants, nor in any thing but in the mind; that it is impossible there can be smell but in a mind; and that all this hath been demonstrated by modern philosophy. The plain man will, no doubt, be apt to think him merry: but if he finds that he is serious, his next conclusion will be, that he Li mad; or that philosophy, like magic, puts men into a new world, and gives them different faculties from com- mon men: and thus philosophy and common sense are set at variance. But who is to blame for it? In my opinion the philosopher is to blame. For if he means by smell what the rest of mankind most commonly mean, he is cer- tainly mad. But if he puts a different meaning upon the word, without observing it himself or giving warning to others, he abuses language, and disgraces philosophy, without doing any service to truth: as if a man should exchange the meaning of the words daughter and cow, and then endeavour to prove to his plain neighbour, that his cow is his daughter, and his daughter his cow.
.1 believe there is not much more wisdom in many of those paradoxes of the ideal philosophy, which to plain sensible men appear to be palpable absurdities, but with the adepts pass for profound discoveries. I resolve, for my own part, always to pay a great regard to the dictates of common sense, and not to depart from them without absolute necessity; and therefore I am apt to think, that there is really something in the rose or lily, which is by the vulgar called smell, and which continues to exist when it is not smelled: and shall proceed to inquire what this is; how we come by the notion of it; and what relation this quality or virtue of smell hath to the sensation, which we have been obliged to call by the same name, for want of another.
38 OF THE HUMAN MIND. [CHAP. II.
Let us therefore suppose, as before, a person beginning to exercise the sense of smelling: a little experience will discover to him, that the nose is the organ of this sense, and that the air, or something in the air, is a medium of it. And rinding by further experience, that when a rose is near, he has a certain sensation; when it is removed, the sensation is gone; he finds a connection in nature betwixt the rose and this sensation. The rose is considered as a cause, occasion, or antecedent of the sensation; the sen- sation as an effect or consequent of the presence of the rose; they are associated in the mind, and constantly found conjoined in the imagination.
But here it deserves our notice, that although the sensa- tion may seem more closely related to the mind its subject, or to the nose its organ; yet neither of these connections operate so powerfully upon the imagination, as its connec- tion with the rose its concomitant. The reason of this seems to be, that its connection with the mind is more general, and no way distinguisheth it from other smells, or even from tastes, sounds, and other kinds of sensations. The relation it hath to the organ is likewise general, and doth not distinguish it from other smells: but the connection it hath with the rose is special and constant; by which means they become almost inseparable in the imagination, in like manner as thunder and lightning, freezing and cold.
SECT. IX.
That there is a Principle in Human Nature, from which the Notion of this, as well as all other Natural Virtues or Causes, is derived.
IN order to illustrate further how we come to conceive a quality or virtue in the rose, which we call smell, and what this smell is, it is proper to observe, that the mind begins very early to thirst after principles which may direct it in the exertion of its powers. The smell of a SECT. IX.] OF SMELLING. 39