inward upon itself and observes its own actions about those ideas 

 it has from sense", 1 there arise ideas of reflection, such as those of 

 perception and willing. 



Admirable as were the method and aim with which Locke com- 

 menced, he did not succeed in advancing far without finding him- 

 self in inextricable difficulties. In trying to arrive at the actual 

 facts of experience he made certain presuppositions such as those 

 of external object, mind and the object producing in us simple ideas. 

 And these assumptions, coming at the first of his work, were bound 

 to lead to difficulties, and an outstanding example of these is seen in 

 the following. In the eighth chapter of the second book, Locke 

 makes a distinction between primary and secondary qualities. The 

 latter are colours, sounds, tastes, etc., and "are nothing in the 

 objects themselves but powers to produce various sensations in us 

 by their primary qualities". 2 The primary qualities, however, are 

 such as are utterly inseparable from every particle of perceived or 

 unperceived 3 matter. These qualities are solidity, extension, 

 movement, which, Locke claims, "do really exist in the bodies 

 themselves", 4 the ideas which we have of them being resemblances 

 only, whereas the secondary qualities, which are in us, are not 

 resemblances at all, being in the bodies only a power to produce 

 those sensations. Now, when Locke endeavours in the fourth book 

 to prove the knowledge of particular existences or objects, he reaps 

 the results of the presuppositions made in the earlier part of his 

 work. Sensitive knowledge, or knowledge of objects, he is led to 

 confess, is the least clear and certain of the three degrees of know- 

 ledge. 5 Having assumed that there are objects outside experience 

 in which reside certain primary qualities, and, having claimed that 

 all knowledge is derived from experience, it became utterly impos- 

 sible to prove that we know such external objects. By his very 

 definition they were placed outside the realm of knowledge. Indeed, 

 Locke had no right even to say that our ideas of the primary quali- 

 ties resemble the primary qualities, 6 for to predicate resemblance of 

 any two sets of data implies that both are in experience. Further, 

 even at the expense of being charged with punctiliousness, one might 



1 Book II, Ch. 6, Par. 1. 



2 Book II, Ch. 8, Par. 10. 



3 Cf. Book II, Ch. 8, Pars. 9 and 13. 



4 Book II, Ch. 8, Par. 15. 



5 Book IV, Ch. 2, Par. 14. 



6 Book II, Ch. 8, Par. 15. 



80 



