SECTION II.

Of the ORIGIN of IDEAS.

VERY one will readily allow, that there is a

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confiderable difference between the perceptions of the mind, when a man feels the pain of exceffive heat, or the pleasure of moderate warmth, and when he afterwards recalls to his memory this fenfation, or anticipates it by his imagination. These faculties may mimic or copy the perceptions of the fenfes; but they never can entirely reach the force and vivacity of the original fentiment. The utmost we fay of them, even when they operate with greatest vigour, is, that they reprefent their object in fo lively a manner, that we could almost fay we feel or fee it: But, except the mind be difordered by disease or madness, they never can arrive at such a pitch of vivacity, as to render thefe perceptions altogether undistinguishable. All the colours of poetry,

however fplendid, can never paint natural objects in such a manner as to make the description be taken for a real landskip. The moft lively thought is ftill inferior to the dulleft fenfation.

We may observe a like diftinction to run through all the other perceptions of the mind. A man, in a fit of anger, is actuated in a very different manner from one who only thinks of that emotion. If you tell me, that VOL. II.

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any perfon is in love, I eafily understand your meaning, and form a juft conception of his fituation; but never can mistake that conception for the real diforders and agitations of the paffion. When we reflect on our paft fentiments and affections, our thought is a faithful mirror, and copies its objects truly; but the colours which it employs are faint and dull, in comparison of those in which our original perceptions were clothed. It requires no nice difcernment or metaphyfical head to mark the diftinction between them.

Here therefore we may divide all the perceptions of the mind into two claffes or fpecies, which are diftinguished by their different degrees of force and vivacity. The lefs forcible and lively are commonly denominated THOUGHTS OF IDEAS. The other fpecies want a name in our language, and in most others; I fuppofe, because it was not requifite for any, but philofophical purposes, to rank them under a general term or appellation. Let us, therefore, use a little freedom, and call them IMPRESSIONS; employing that word in a fenfe fomewhat different from the ufual. By the term impreffion, then, I mean all our more lively perceptions, when we hear, or fee, or feel, or love, or hate, or defire, or will. And impreffions are distinguished from ideas, which are the lefs lively perceptions, of which we are conscious, when we reflect on any of those sensations or movements above mentioned.

Nothing, at first view, may feem more unbounded than the thought of man, which not only escapes all human power and authority, but is not even restrained within the limits of nature and reality. To form monfters, and join incongruous fhapes and appearances, cofts the imagination no more trouble than to conceive the most natural and familiar objects. And while the

body is confined to one planet, along which it creeps. with pain and difficulty; the thought can in an inftant transport us into the moft diftant regions of the universe ; or even beyond the universe, into the unbounded chaos, where nature is supposed to lie in total confufion. What never was feen, or heard of, may yet be conceived; nor is any thing beyond the power of thought, except what implies an abfolute contradiction.

But though our thought feems to poffefs this unbounded liberty, we shall find, upon a nearer examination, that it is really confined within very narrow limits, and that all this creative power of the mind amounts to no more than the faculty of compounding, transpofing, augmenting, or diminishing the materials afforded us by the fenfes and experience. When we think of a golden mountain, we only join two confiftent ideas, gold, and mountain, with which we were formerly acquainted. A virtuous horse we can conceive; because, from our own feeling, we can conceive virtue; and this we may unite to the figure and fhape of a horfe, which is an animal familiar to us. In fhort, all the materials of thinking are derived either from our outward or inward fentiment: The mixture and compofition of these belongs alone to the mind and will. Or, to exprefs myself in philofophical language, all our ideas or more feeble perceptions are copies of our impreffions or more lively ones.

To prove this, the two following arguments will, I hope, be fufficient. Firft, when we analyfe our thoughts or ideas, however compounded or fublime, we always find, that they refolve themselves into fuch fimple ideas as were copied from a precedent feeling or fentiment. Even thofe ideas, which, at first view, feem the most

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wide of this origin, are found, upon a nearer fcrutiny, to be derived from it. The idea of God, as meaning an infinitely intelligent, wife, and good Being, arifes from reflecting on the operations of our own mind, and augmenting, without limit, thofe qualities of goodness and wisdom. We may profecute this enquiry to what length we please; where we fhall always find, that every idea which we examine is copied from a fimilar impreffion. Those who would affert, that this pofition is not univerfally true nor without exception, have only one, and that an easy method of refuting it; by producing that idea, which, in their opinion, is not derived from this fource. It will then be incumbent on us, if we would maintain our doctrine, to produce the impreffion or lively perception, which correfponds to it.

Secondly. If it happen, from a defect of the organ, that a man is not susceptible of any species of sensation, we always find, that he is as little fufceptible of the correfpondent ideas. A blind man can form no notion of colours; a deaf man of founds. Reftore either of them that fenfe, in which he is deficient; by opening this new inlet for his fenfations, you also open an inlet for the ideas; and he finds no difficulty in conceiving these objects. The cafe is the fame, if the object, proper for exciting any fenfation, has never been applied to the organ. A LAPLANDER or NEGROE has no notion of the relish of wine. And though there are few or no inftances of a like deficiency in the mind, where a perfon has never felt or is wholly incapable of a fentiment or paffion, that belongs to his fpecies; yet we find the fame obfervation to take place in a lefs degree. A man of mild manners can form no idea of inveterate revenge or cruelty; nor can a felfish heart eafily conceive the heights of friendship and generofity. It is readily allowed, that

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