I70 SECTIONAL ADDRESSES 



could be resolved and an inquiry into the material out of which it arose 

 might lead one to much the same catalogue of stones and beams, so a 

 logical analysis of knowledge into its elements seemed to have the same 

 issue as an inquiry into the beginnings of knowledge. That which is 

 simple in its content is easily confused with that which is simple in its 

 origin. It is this confusion which lays Book II of Locke's Essay open to 

 much misunderstanding. Having in Book I denied that mind is possessed 

 of ideas at birth, and having claimed that all knowledge is founded upon, 

 and derived from, experience, Locke seems by his account of the ' simple 

 ideas ' of sensation and reflection and of the ' complex ideas ' built upon 

 them to be offering a psychological constructive theory of knowledge. 



There is much of great psychological value in this second book : his 

 frequent appeal to concrete illustrations, his references to children and 

 animals, the famous citation of Molineux's problem whether a man whose 

 sight was only restored to him in adult life would be able to distinguish 

 by sight between a sphere and a cube. The book also contains his 

 striking chapter on retention, vivid through its analogies but of paramount 

 importance for psychology by reason of the statement added in the 

 second edition : ' This laying up of our ideas in the repository of the 

 memory signifies no more but this, that the mind has a power in many 

 cases to revive perceptions which it has once had with this additional 

 perception annexed to them, that it has had them before, and in this sense 

 it is that our ideas are said to be in our memories, when indeed they are 

 actually nowhere ; but only there is an ability in the mind when it will 

 to revive them again, and as it were paint them anew on itself, though 

 some with more, some with less difficulty ; some more lively, and others 

 more obscurely ' (II. x. 2). Here there is a glimpse of a conception 

 which might have done much to correct the atomism encouraged by the 

 * blank paper ' and ' cabinet ' metaphors in other passages. 



When mind is compared with an empty cabinet which is furnished by 

 the simple ideas of sensation and reflection, simple ideas are being treated 

 as the psychological origin of knowledge. When, on the other hand, 

 Locke tells us that simple ideas are unanalysable, are not distinguishable 

 into different ideas, and are those in which men agree when they clear away 

 verbal misunderstanding, we have simple ideas as the materials of know- 

 ledge in the logical sense. If we look at the simple ideas listed together, 

 we find the same confusion : the items ' colour,' ' sound,' ' pleasure,' 

 ' pain ' might be interpreted as psychologically simple, but what of the 

 items ' existence,' ' unity,' ' power,' ' succession ' ? 



We are told of the idea of unity, ' Amongst all the ideas we have, as 

 there is none suggested to the mind by more ways, so there is none more 

 simple, than that of unity, or one : it has no shadow of variety or com- 

 position in it : every idea our senses are employed about, every idea in 

 our understandings, every thought of our minds, brings this idea along 

 with it.' The simplicity of ' one ' or ' unity ' lies in its content rather 

 than its origin. It may be logically implied by every single idea, but this 

 does not explain how we come to reach the idea of unity. Similar 

 difficulties are found in Locke's account of succession, duration and 

 space. Prof. Ward wrote, ' Locke hopelessly confuses time as perceived 



