An Essay Concerning Humane Understanding Vol I The Epistle to the Reader
by John Locke
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 writing
it, thou wilt as little think thy money, as I do my pains, ill bestowed.
Mistake not this for a commendation of my work; nor conclude, because I
was pleased with the doing of it, that therefore I am fondly taken with
it now it is done. He that hawks at larks and sparrows has no less
sport, though a much less considerable quarry, than he that flies at
nobler game: and he is little acquainted with the subject of this
treatise--the UNDERSTANDING--who does not know that, as it is the most
elevated faculty of the soul, so it is employed with a greater and more
constant delight than any of the other. Its searches after truth are a
sort of hawking and hunting, wherein the very pursuit makes a great
part of the pleasure. Every step the mind takes in its progress towards
Knowledge makes some discovery, which is not only new, but the best too,
for the time at least.
For the understanding, like the eye, judging of objects only by its own
sight, cannot but be pleased with what it discovers, having less regret
for what has escaped it, because it is unknown. Thus he who has raised
himself above the alms-basket, and, not content to live lazily on scraps
of begged opinions, sets his own thoughts on work, to find and follow
truth, will (whatever he lights on) not miss the hunter's satisfaction;
every moment of his pursuit will reward his pains with some delight; and
he will have reason to think his time not ill spent, even when he cannot
much boast of any great acquisition.
This, Reader, is the entertainment of those who let loose their own
thoughts, and follow them in writing; which thou oughtest not to envy
them, since they afford thee an opportunity of the like diversion, if
thou wilt make use of thy own thoughts in reading. It is to them, if
they are thy own, that I refer myself: but if they are taken upon trust
from others, it is no great matter what they are; they are not following
truth, but some meaner consideration; and it is not worth while to be
concerned what he says or thinks, who says or thinks only as he is
directed by another. If thou judgest for thyself I know thou wilt judge
candidly, and then I shall not be harmed or offended, whatever be thy
censure. For though it be certain that there is nothing in this Treatise
of the truth whereof I am not fully persuaded, yet I consider myself as
liable to mistakes as I can think thee, and know that this book must
stand or fall with thee, not by any opinion I have of it, but thy own.
If thou findest little in it new or instructive to thee, thou art not to
blame me for it. It was not meant for those that had already mastered
this subject, and made a thorough acquaintance with their own
understandings; but for my own information, and the satisfaction of
a few friends, who acknowledged themselves not to have sufficiently
considered it.
Were it fit to trouble thee with the history of this Essay, I should
tell thee, that five or six friends meeting at my chamber, and
discoursing on a subject very remote from this, found themselves quickly
at a stand, by the difficulties that rose on every side. After we had
awhile puzzled ourselves, without coming any nearer a resolution of
those doubts which perplexed us, it came into my thoughts that we took
a wrong course; and that before we set ourselves upon inquiries of that
nature, it was necessary to examine our own abilities, and see what
OBJECTS our understandings were, or were not, fitted to deal with. This
I proposed to the company, who all readily assented; and thereupon
it was agreed that this should be our first inquiry. Some hasty and
undigested thoughts, on a subject I had never before considered, which
I set down against our next meeting, gave the first entrance into this
Discourse; which having been thus begun by chance, was continued by
intreaty; written by incoherent parcels; and after long intervals of
neglect, resumed again, as my humour or occasions permitted; and at
last, in a retirement where an attendance on my health gave me leisure,
it was brought into that order thou now seest it.
This discontinued way of writing may have occasioned, besides others,
two contrary faults, viz., that too little and too much may be said in
it. If thou findest anything wanting, I shall be glad that what I have
written gives thee any desire that I should have gone further. If it
seems too much to thee, thou must blame the subject; for when I put pen
to paper, I thought all I should have to say on this matter would have
been contained in one sheet of paper; but the further I went the
larger prospect I had; new discoveries led me still on, and so it grew
insensibly to the bulk it now appears in. I will not deny, but possibly
it might be reduced to a narrower compass than it is, and that some
parts of it might be contracted, the way it has been writ in, by
catches, and many long intervals of interruption, being apt to cause
some repetitions. But to confess the truth, I am now too lazy, or too
busy, to make it shorter. I am not ignorant how little I herein consult
my own reputation, when I knowingly let it go with a fault, so apt to
disgust the most judicious, who are always the nicest readers. But they
who know sloth is apt to content itself with any excuse, will pardon me
if mine has prevailed on me, where I think I have a very good one. I
will not therefore allege in my defence, that the same notion, having
different respects, may be convenient or necessary to prove or
illustrate several parts of the same discourse, and that so it has
happened in many parts of this: but waiving that, I shall frankly avow
that I have sometimes dwelt long upon the same argument, and expressed
it different ways, with a quite different design. I pretend not to
publish this Essay for the information of men of large thoughts and
quick apprehensions; to such masters of knowledge I profess myself a
scholar, and therefore warn them beforehand not to expect anything here,
but what, being spun out of my own coarse thoughts, is fitted to men of
my own size, to whom, perhaps, it will not be unacceptable that I have
taken some pains to make plain and familiar to their thoughts some
truths which established prejudice, or the abstractedness of the ideas
themselves, might render difficult. Some objects had need be turned on
every side; and when the notion is new, as I confess some of these are
to me; or out of the ordinary road, as I suspect they will appear to
others, it is not one simple view of it that will gain it admittance
into every understanding, or fix it there with a clear and lasting
impression. There are few, I believe, who have not observed in
themselves or others, that what in one way of proposing was very
obscure, another way of expressing it has made very clear and
intelligible; though afterwards the mind found little difference in the
phrases, and wondered why one failed to be understood more than the
other. But everything does not hit alike upon every man's imagination.
We have our understandings no less different than our palates; and he
that thinks the same truth shall be equally relished by every one in the
same dress, may as well hope to feast every one with the same sort of
cookery: the meat may be the same, and the nourishment good, yet every
one not be able to receive it with that seasoning; and it must be
dressed another way, if you will have it go down with some, even of
strong constitutions. The truth is, those who advised me to publish it,
advised me, for this reason, to publish it as it is: and since I have
been brought to let it go abroad, I desire it should be understood by
whoever gives himself the pains to read it. I have so little affection
to be in print, that if I were not flattered this Essay might be of some
use to others, as I think it has been to me, I should have confined
it to the view of some friends, who gave the first occasion to it. My
appearing therefore in print being on purpose to be as useful as I may,
I think it necessary to make what I have to say as easy and intelligible
to all sorts of readers as I can. And I had much rather the speculative
and quick-sighted should complain of my being in some parts tedious,
than that any one, not accustomed to abstract speculations, or
prepossessed with different notions, should mistake or not comprehend my
meaning.
It will possibly be censured as a great piece of vanity or insolence in
me, to pretend to instruct this our knowing age; it amounting to little
less, when I own, that I publish this Essay with hopes it may be useful
to others. But, if it may be permitted to speak freely of those who
with a feigned modesty condemn as useless what they themselves write,
methinks it savours much more of vanity or insolence to publish a book
for any other end; and he fails very much of that respect he owes the
public, who prints, and consequently expects men should read, that
wherein he intends not they should meet with anything of use to
themselves or others: and should nothing else be found allowable in this
Treatise, yet my design will not cease to be so; and the goodness of my
intention ought to be some excuse for the worthlessness of my present.
It is that chiefly which secures me from the fear of censure, which
I expect not to escape more than better writers. Men's principles,
notions, and relishes are so different, that it is hard to find a book
which pleases or displeases all men. I acknowledge the age we live in is
not the least knowing, and therefore not the most easy to be satisfied.
If I have not the good luck to please, yet nobody ought to be offended
with me. I plainly tell all my readers, except half a dozen, this
Treatise was not at first intended for them; and therefore they need not
be at the trouble to be of that number. But yet if any one thinks fit to
be angry and rail at it, he may do it securely, for I shall find some
better way of spending my time than in such kind of conversation. I
shall always have the satisfaction to have aimed sincerely at truth
and usefulness, though in one of the meanest ways. The commonwealth
of learning is not at this time without master-builders, whose mighty
designs, in advancing the sciences, will leave lasting monuments to the
admiration of posterity: but every one must not hope to be a Boyle or
a Sydenham; and in an age that produces such masters as the great
Huygenius and the incomparable Mr. Newton, with some others of that
strain, it is ambition enough to be employed as an under-labourer in
clearing the ground a little, and removing some of the rubbish that
lies in the way to knowledge;--which certainly had been very much more
advanced in the world, if the endeavours of ingenious and industrious
men had not been much cumbered with the learned but frivolous use
of uncouth, affected, or unintelligible terms, introduced into the
sciences, and there made an art of, to that degree that Philosophy,
which is nothing but the true knowledge of things, was thought unfit or
incapable to be brought into well-bred company and polite conversation.
Vague and insignificant forms of speech, and abuse of language, have so
long passed for mysteries of science; and hard and misapplied words,
with little or no meaning, have, by prescription, such a right to be
mistaken for deep learning and height of speculation, that it will not
be easy to persuade either those who speak or those who hear them, that
they are but the covers of ignorance, and hindrance of true knowledge.
To break in upon the sanctuary of vanity and ignorance will be, I
suppose, some service to human understanding; though so few are apt to
think they deceive or are deceived in the use of words; or that the
language of the sect they are of has any faults in it which ought to be
examined or corrected, that I hope I shall be pardoned if I have in the
Third Book dwelt long on this subject, and endeavoured to make it
so plain, that neither the inveterateness of the mischief, nor the
prevalency of the fashion, shall be any excuse for those who will not
take care about the meaning of their own words, and will not suffer the
significancy of their expressions to be inquired into.
I have been told that a short Epitome of this Treatise, which was
printed in 1688, was by some condemned without reading, because INNATE
IDEAS were denied in it; they too hastily concluding, that if innate
ideas were not supposed, there would be little left either of the notion
or proof of spirits. If any one take the like offence at the entrance of
this Treatise, I shall desire him to read it through; and then I hope he
will be convinced, that the taking away false foundations is not to the
prejudice but advantage of truth, which is never injured or endangered
so much as when mixed with, or built on, falsehood. In the Second
Edition I added as followeth:--
The bookseller will not forgive me if I say nothing of this New Edition,
which he has promised, by the correctness of it, shall make amends for
the many faults committed in the former. He desires too, that it should
be known that it has one whole new chapter concerning Identity, and many
additions and amendments in other places. These I must inform my reader
are not all new matter, but most of them either further confirmation of
what I had said, or explications, to prevent others being mistaken in
the sense of what was formerly printed, and not any variation in me from
it.
I must only except the alterations I have made in Book II. chap. xxi.
What I had there written concerning Liberty and the Will, I thought
deserved as accurate a view as I am capable of; those subjects having
in all ages exercised the learned part of the world with questions and
difficulties, that have not a little perplexed morality and divinity,
those parts of knowledge that men are most concerned to be clear in.
Upon a closer inspection into the working of men's minds, and a stricter
examination of those motives and views they are turned by, I have found
reason somewhat to alter the thoughts I formerly had concerning that
which gives the last determination to the Will in all voluntary actions.
This I cannot forbear to acknowledge to the world with as much freedom
and readiness; as I at first published what then seemed to me to be
right; thinking myself more concerned to quit and renounce any opinion
of my own, than oppose that of another, when truth appears against it.
For it is truth alone I seek, and that will always be welcome to me,
when or from whencesoever it comes. But what forwardness soever I have
to resign any opinion I have, or to recede from anything I have writ,
upon the first evidence of any error in it; yet this I must own, that I
have not had the good luck to receive any light from those exceptions
I have met with in print against any part of my book, nor have, from
anything that has been urged against it, found reason to alter my sense
in any of the points that have been questioned. Whether the subject I
have in hand requires often more thought and attention than cursory
readers, at least such as are prepossessed, are willing to allow; or
whether any obscurity in my expressions casts a cloud over it, and
these notions are made difficult to others' apprehensions in my way of
treating them; so it is, that my meaning, I find, is often mistaken, and
I have not the good luck to be everywhere rightly understood.
Of this the ingenious author of the Discourse Concerning the Nature of
Man has given me a late instance, to mention no other. For the civility
of his expressions, and the candour that belongs to his order, forbid me
to think that he would have closed his Preface with an insinuation, as
if in what I had said, Book II. ch. xxvii, concerning the third rule
which men refer their actions to, I went about to make virtue vice and
vice virtue, unless he had mistaken my meaning; which he could not have
done if he had given himself the trouble to consider what the argument
was I was then upon, and what was the chief design of that chapter,
plainly enough set down in the fourth section and those following. For
I was there not laying down moral rules, but showing the original and
nature of moral ideas, and enumerating the rules men make use of in
moral relations, whether these rules were true or false: and pursuant
thereto I tell what is everywhere called virtue and vice; which "alters
not the nature of things," though men generally do judge of and
denominate their actions according to the esteem and fashion of the
place and sect they are of.
If he had been at the pains to reflect on what I had said, Bk. I. ch.
ii. sect. 18, and Bk. II. ch. xxviii. sect. 13, 14, 15 and 20, he would
have known what I think of the eternal and unalterable nature of right
and wrong, and what I call virtue and vice. And if he had observed that
in the place he quotes I only report as a matter of fact what OTHERS
call virtue and vice, he would not have found it liable to any great
exception. For I think I am not much out in saying that one of the rules
made use of in the world for a ground or measure of a moral relation
is--that esteem and reputation which several sorts of actions find
variously in the several societies of men, according to which they are
there called virtues or vices. And whatever authority the learned Mr.
Lowde places in his Old English Dictionary, I daresay it nowhere tells
him (if I should appeal to it) that the same action is not in credit,
called and counted a virtue, in one place, which, being in disrepute,
passes for and under the name of vice in another. The taking notice that
men bestow the names of 'virtue' and 'vice' according to this rule of
Reputation is all I have done, or can be laid to my charge to have done,
towards the making vice virtue or virtue vice. But the good man does
well, and as becomes his calling, to be watchful in such points, and to
take the alarm even at expressions, which, standing alone by themselves,
might sound ill and be suspected.
'Tis to this zeal, allowable in his function, that I forgive his citing
as he does these words of mine (ch. xxviii. sect. II): "Even the
exhortations of inspired teachers have not feared to appeal to common
repute, Philip, iv. 8;" without taking notice of those immediately
preceding, which introduce them, and run thus: "Whereby even in the
corruption of manners, the true boundaries of the law of nature, which
ought to be the rule of virtue and vice, were pretty well preserved. So
that even the exhortations of inspired teachers," &c. By which words,
and the rest of that section, it is plain that I brought that passage
of St. Paul, not to prove that the general measure of what men called
virtue and vice throughout the world was the reputation and fashion of
each particular society within itself; but to show that, though it were
so, yet, for reasons I there give, men, in that way of denominating
their actions, did not for the most part much stray from the Law of
Nature; which is that standing and unalterable rule by which they ought
to judge of the moral rectitude and gravity of their actions, and
accordingly denominate them virtues or vices. Had Mr. Lowde considered
this, he would have found it little to his purpose to have quoted this
passage in a sense I used it not; and would I imagine have spared the
application he subjoins to it, as not very necessary. But I hope this
Second Edition will give him satisfaction on the point, and that this
matter is now so expressed as to show him there was no cause for
scruple.
Though I am forced to differ from him in these apprehensions he has
expressed, in the latter end of his preface, concerning what I had said
about virtue and vice, yet we are better agreed than he thinks in what
he says in his third chapter (p. 78) concerning "natural inscription and
innate notions." I shall not deny him the privilege he claims (p. 52),
to state the question as he pleases, especially when he states it so as
to leave nothing in it contrary to what I have said. For, according
to him, "innate notions, being conditional things, depending upon the
concurrence of several other circumstances in order to the soul's
exerting them," all that he says for "innate, imprinted, impressed
notions" (for of innate IDEAS he says nothing at all), amounts at last
only to this--that there are certain propositions which, though the
soul from the beginning, or when a man is born, does not know, yet
"by assistance from the outward senses, and the help of some previous
cultivation," it may AFTERWARDS come certainly to know the truth of;
which is no more than what I have affirmed in my First Book. For I
suppose by the "soul's exerting them," he means its beginning to know
them; or else the soul's 'exerting of notions' will be to me a very
unintelligible expression; and I think at best is a very unfit one
in this, it misleading men's thoughts by an insinuation, as if these
notions were in the mind before the 'soul exerts them,' i. e. before
they are known;--whereas truly before they are known, there is nothing
of them in the mind but a capacity to know them, when the 'concurrence
of those circumstances,' which this ingenious author thinks necessary
'in order to the soul's exerting them,' brings them into our knowledge.
P. 52 I find him express it thus: 'These natural notions are not so
imprinted upon the soul as that they naturally and necessarily exert
themselves (even in children and idiots) without any assistance from the
outward senses, or without the help of some previous cultivation.' Here,
he says, they 'exert themselves,' as p. 78, that the 'soul exerts them.'
When he has explained to himself or others what he means by 'the soul's
exerting innate notions,' or their 'exerting themselves;' and what that
'previous cultivation and circumstances' in order to their being exerted
are--he will I suppose find there is so little of controversy between
him and me on the point, bating that he calls that 'exerting of notions'
which I in a more vulgar style call 'knowing,' that I have reason to
think he brought in my name on this occasion only out of the pleasure he
has to speak civilly of me; which I must gratefully acknowledge he has
done everywhere he mentions me, not without conferring on me, as some
others have done, a title I have no right to.
There are so many instances of this, that I think it justice to my
reader and myself to conclude, that either my book is plainly enough
written to be rightly understood by those who peruse it with that
attention and indifferency, which every one who will give himself the
pains to read ought to employ in reading; or else that I have written
mine so obscurely that it is in vain to go about to mend it. Whichever
of these be the truth, it is myself only am affected thereby; and
therefore I shall be far from troubling my reader with what I think
might be said in answer to those several objections I have met with, to
passages here and there of my book; since I persuade myself that he who
thinks them of moment enough to be concerned whether they are true or
false, will be able to see that what is said is either not well founded,
or else not contrary to my doctrine, when I and my opposer come both to
be well understood.
If any other authors, careful that none of their good thoughts should be
lost, have published their censures of my Essay, with this honour done
to it, that they will not suffer it to be an essay, I leave it to the
public to value the obligation they have to their critical pens, and
shall not waste my reader's time in so idle or ill-natured an employment
of mine, as to lessen the satisfaction any one has in himself, or gives
to others, in so hasty a confutation of what I have written.
The booksellers preparing for the Fourth Edition of my Essay, gave me
notice of it, that I might, if I had leisure, make any additions or
alterations I should think fit. Whereupon I thought it convenient to
advertise the reader, that besides several corrections I had made here
and there, there was one alteration which it was necessary to mention,
because it ran through the whole book, and is of consequence to be
rightly understood. What I thereupon said was this:--
CLEAR and DISTINCT ideas are terms which, though familiar and frequent
in men's mouths, I have reason to think every one who uses does not
perfectly understand. And possibly 'tis but here and there one who gives
himself the trouble to consider them so far as to know what he himself
or others precisely mean by them. I have therefore in most places chose
to put DETERMINATE or DETERMINED, instead of CLEAR and DISTINCT, as more
likely to direct men's thoughts to my meaning in this matter. By
those denominations, I mean some object in the mind, and consequently
determined, i. e. such as it is there seen and perceived to be. This, I
think, may fitly be called a determinate or determined idea, when such
as it is at any time objectively in the mind, and so determined there,
it is annexed, and without variation determined, to a name or articulate
sound, which is to be steadily the sign of that very same object of the
mind, or determinate idea.
To explain this a little more particularly. By DETERMINATE, when applied
to a simple idea, I mean that simple appearance which the mind has in
its view, or perceives in itself, when that idea is said to be in it:
by DETERMINED, when applied to a complex idea, I mean such an one as
consists of a determinate number of certain simple or less complex
ideas, joined in such a proportion and situation as the mind has before
its view, and sees in itself, when that idea is present in it, or should
be present in it, when a man gives a name to it. I say SHOULD be,
because it is not every one, nor perhaps any one, who is so careful of
his language as to use no word till he views in his mind the precise
determined idea which he resolves to make it the sign of. The want of
this is the cause of no small obscurity and confusion in men's thoughts
and discourses.
I know there are not words enough in any language to answer all the
variety of ideas that enter into men's discourses and reasonings. But
this hinders not but that when any one uses any term, he may have in his
mind a determined idea, which he makes it the sign of, and to which he
should keep it steadily annexed during that present discourse. Where he
does not, or cannot do this, he in vain pretends to clear or distinct
ideas: it is plain his are not so; and therefore there can be expected
nothing but obscurity and confusion, where such terms are made use of
which have not such a precise determination.
Upon this ground I have thought determined ideas a way of speaking less
liable to mistakes, than clear and distinct: and where men have got such
determined ideas of all that they reason, inquire, or argue about, they
will find a great part of their doubts and disputes at an end; the
greatest part of the questions and controversies that perplex mankind
depending on the doubtful and uncertain use of words, or (which is the
same) indetermined ideas, which they are made to stand for. I have made
choice of these terms to signify, (1) Some immediate object of the mind,
which it perceives and has before it, distinct from the sound it uses as
a sign of it. (2) That this idea, thus determined, i.e. which the mind
has in itself, and knows, and sees there, be determined without any
change to that name, and that name determined to that precise idea. If
men had such determined ideas in their inquiries and discourses, they
would both discern how far their own inquiries and discourses went, and
avoid the greatest part of the disputes and wranglings they have with
others.
Besides this, the bookseller will think it necessary I should advertise
the reader that there is an addition of two chapters wholly new; the one
of the Association of Ideas, the other of Enthusiasm. These, with some
other larger additions never before printed, he has engaged to print by
themselves, after the same manner, and for the same purpose, as was done
when this Essay had the second impression.
In the Sixth Edition there is very little added or altered. The greatest
part of what is new is contained in the twenty-first chapter of the
second book, which any one, if he thinks it worth while, may, with a
very little labour, transcribe into the margin of the former edition.