254 Human Understanding. 



these ideas, numerous as they are, solely 

 from external objects. 



Refection is the mind's perception of 

 its own faculties and operations. Thus 

 by reflection we acquire the ideas of 

 thinking, doubting, believing, &c. which 

 are the different intellectual operations 

 represented to us by our consciousness. 



A proper consideration of these two 

 sources of our thoughts will give us a clear 

 and distinct view of the nature of the mind 

 and the first steps it takes in the path of 

 knowledge. The mind thus stored with 

 its original notices of things, has a power 

 of combining,moclifying,and placing them 

 in an infinite variety of lights, by which 

 means it is enabled to multiply the objects 

 of its perception, and finds itself possessed 

 of an inexhaustible stock of materials for 

 refit ction and reasoning. And it is to be 

 particularly observed, that amongour nu- 

 merous discoveries, and the infinite vari- 

 ety of our conceptions, we are unable to 

 find one original idea, which is not deri- 

 ved from sensation or reflection ; or one 

 complex idea, which is not composed of 

 these original ones. 



The ideas with which the mind is thus 



