necessarily his conception of an idea. If the mind is an empty cabinet, 

 ideas must be .of a nature to be contained in it in some way : or if the 

 mind is a plastic medium, the idea must be a modification of it or an 

 imprint upon it. Thus by assuming the nature of mind Locke has by 

 implication also assumed the nature of ideas. 



Also in Locke's conception of mind is bound up his conception of 

 the real outer world. For Locke conceives the mind to be a passive 

 medium, and ideas to be^jere modifications or imprints. The modifi- 

 cations can then only arise, if some active principle operates upon the 

 mind to modify it. This active principle is matter or body. Thus it 

 appears that when Locke made his original assumption of the nature 

 of the mind, he likewise assumed the nature of the idea and of body. 

 These three constitute the whole of Locke's reality. 



The solution of Locke's problem, the statement of the nature, 

 certainty and extent of human knowledge is a direct logical deduction 

 from his conceptions of mind, matter and idea. And these we have 

 found to be bound up together in his conception of mind. The mind 

 can, by assumption, concern itself only with ideas; knowledge is a 

 mental function ; knowledge must concern itself only with ideas. Thus, 

 the extent of knowledge. As knowledge is not an idea nor a group of 

 ideas, it must be of the relationship of ideas. Thus the nature of 

 knowledge. As the mind perceives the relationships of ideas with 

 different degrees of directness, different degrees of clearness or cer- 

 tainty result. Thus the explanation of the degrees of certainty of 

 human knowledge. 



The same method of assumption and deduction is revealed in 

 Locke's theory of "real knowledge." He assumes that some ideas 

 copy or resemble reality and some do not; and that we can know 

 which do copy and which do not. This assumption is not grounded 

 on experience and Locke did not investigate to determine its validity. 

 From this assumption it follows in Locke's reasoning, that some knowl- 

 edge is real or reveals to us the nature of real existence. 



We conclude from this examination that Locke's method of think- 

 ing consists in making an assumption and drawing out the 

 natural implications of that assumption. Locke assumes the mind to 

 be a plastic medium; it follows that ideas are modifications or imprints 

 and that some active principle operates to produce them. Knowledge 

 being a mental function, must concern itself with ideas and be limited 

 by the number of ideas and their relationships. 



The theory thus derived, has some peculiarities to be noted. The 

 mind which is assumed to exist is like no thing in experience which 

 we can examine and determine the qualities of. Therefore we can 

 infer nothing as to its nature. Neither was such a mind discovered 



[7] 



