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554 Vindication of Locke’s Effay on the Human Underftanding. [July 25 
ther fimple or complex, whether fenfible or 
intelieGtual ; jut as he ufes idea for 
*¢ whatever is the fubje€t of the mind in 
thinking ;"’* and not limited to its original 
import of afenfibleimage. Reminifcence, 
the Inquirer fays, i8 abfradtion ; but 
I think Feminifcente is very different 
from abfrafion. AbftraGtion is. an att 
of judgment and will. Tn reminifcence 
we are not neceflarily or always exerting 
either. We are frequently paffive ; and 
the defectivenefs of the imagery arifes 
from want of force of reminifcence, and 
nat from choice or felection. 
And as to the term refleGion, Locke 
explains it to mean, the ‘* recollected per- 
ception of the fenfations or operations of 
ourown mind within us ;"*+ which, he 
fays, might properly, be called izternal 
Jfenje.. But many of thefe a&s of mind 
could not be calied abjfracdtion. The. 
term ufed by Locke is, theretore, at once “ 
the moft complete and the moft correét. 
But if the terms be not reprehenfble 
which Locke has employed, is the affer- 
tion itfelf correct? Do the ideas which 
we receive from /éx/ation prefent them- 
telves to the mind fimple and unmixt ; or 
ig it true that to abftraét ideas, and not 
to thofe af direét fenfation, this fimplicity 
belongs ? 
My anfwer will be, fimple ideas of fen- 
fation do certainly exift. No act of the 
mind can farther decompofe them, or add 
to the fimplicity of the original fenfation. 
Aind is it not plain to experience, and 
afcertainable by every perfon’s own con- 
{fcioufne!s, that our ideasdo not enter the 
mind fimple and unmixt? If my eyes 
are fhut, I receive the idea of the fmell of 
a rofe ; and if I fee the rofe, I have the 
fenfation of its {mell equaliy unconfound- 
ed; and, even in fenfations from the 
fame fenfe, form -bas ro refemblance to 
colour, hardnefs ‘or foftnefs to heat, S&c. 
E fee nothing, therefore, if all this, which 
wants precifion, or in any way neede cer- 
rection in Locke. 
The beft and moft campiete jultice to 
Locke, and to this queftion, will be done 
by quoting his own words.{ ‘* Though 
the qualities that affect our fenfes, are, in 
the things themfelyes, fo united and 
blended, that there is no {eparation, no 
diftance, between them, yet itis plain the 
ideas they produce in the mind, enter by 
the fenfes fimple and unmixt. For though 
the fight and touch often take in, from the 
fame objet, at.the fame time, different 
ideas—as a man fees at once motion and 
colour, teels foftnefs and warmth in the 
fame piece of wax—yet the fimple ideas 
thus united in the fame fubjeét, are as per= 
fectly diftiné& as thofethat come in by the 
different fenfes, as, the fmell and whiteneis 
of a lily, the tafte of fugar, aitd the finell 
of arofe. And there can be nothing 
plainer toa man than the clear and diftinct 
perceptions he has of thofe fimplesideas, 
which, being each in itfelf uncompounded, 
contains in it nothing but one uniform ap- 
pearance or conception in the mind, and ia 
not difingu'thed into different ideas.” 
Nothing. cam be clearer or more con- 
vincing. Words are not capable of more 
preciéon and more luminous dittinétnels. 
The mind, therefore, does receive imme- 
diately by its fenfes fimple ideas; and 
Locke was not wrong in this, 
And as to abftraét ideas, they are fim- 
ple or complex, according as their object. 
But the Inquirer, in his very Introduc- 
tion, in his zeal to attack and overturn: 
this fabric of Locke, forgets his own 
ground, in order to ramble.after innate . 
ideas ae 
Locke does not deny there may be ideas 
as early as our firft fenfations ; for a fimple 
idea is a recollecled fenfation. Locke, 
therefore, admitting we have. fenfations 
which are with us from our birth, and 
fome, probably, even before our birth,* 
admits we have, in that fenfe, innate 
ideas. But the innate ideas which he 
combated and overthrew, were fuppofed 
to be pre-exiftent+ to the excitement of 
them in our perception by the exterior 
agency ef proper organs or caufes. Now 
if there were fuch, a blind man might. 
fee colours, though blind from birth ; and 
one born d-af might continue fo, and yet 
hear founds. I ufe the term exterior or- 
gans, in conformity to the popular lan- 
guage and to the fyftem of Locke, not as 4 
correét expreflion of my own opinion or 
fyftem. ) 
Locke does not deny, that when we 
have a /enfation we have a perception; on 
the contrary, he afhyms it.t— Modern 
philofophers of note have, very incorreét-: 
ly, I think, gone farther, and faid much 
of fenfations exilting, though unperceived. 
Such unperceived fenlations are twin- 
filters to the old tribe of innate ideas. 
The Inquirer might probably have 
taken a better inftance of one of our ear- 
_* Beil. chvi. § 21—24. 
+ B. i.7 ch. il. § I=—5e 3 
i Ps B. i. ch i. $ 5s 4 
; y lief 
