136 CLASSES OF IDEAS. SECT. XV. i. 



and can experience at the fame time many irritative 

 ideas of furrounding bodies, which we do not at- 

 tend to, as mentioned in Section VII. 3. 2. But 

 thofe ideas which belong 1 to the fame fenfe, feem to 

 be more ealliy combined into fynchronous tribes, 

 than thofe which were jiot received by the fame 

 fenfe, as we. can more eafily think of the whitenefs 

 and figure of a lump of fugar at the fame time, 

 than the whitenefs and fweetnefs of it. 



2. As thefe ideas, or fenfual motions, are thus 

 excited with greater or lefs degrees of combination; 

 fo we have a power, when we repeat them either 

 by our volition or fenfation, to increafe or diminifh 

 this degree of combination, that is, to form com- 

 pounded ideas from thofe, which were more fim- 

 ple ; and abftract ones from thofe, which, were 

 more complex, when they were firft excited ; that 

 is, we can repeat a part or the whole of thofe fen- 

 fual motions, which did conflitute our ideas of 

 perception ; and the repetition of which now con- 

 flitutes our ideas of recollection, or of imagina- 

 tion. 



3. Thofe ideas, which we repeat without change 

 of the quantity of that combination, with which 

 we firft received them, are called complex ideas, as 

 when you recollect Weftminfter Abbey, or the pla- 

 net Saturn : but it muft be obferved, that thefe 

 complex ideas, thus re-excited by volition, fenfa- 

 tion, or aflbciation, are feldom perfect copies of 

 their correfpondent perceptions, except in Our 

 dreams, where other external objects do not de- 

 tract our attention. 



4. Thofe ideas, which are more complex than 

 the natural objects that firit excited them, have 

 been called compounded ideas, as when we think 

 of a fphinx, or griffin, 



5, And 



