fair advantage to religous and political leaders, by taking men from the use of their own reason and judgment. (I. 4; 24. 25.) There is not a scrap of direct evidence that Locke had Descartes in mind when he wrote his first book. If we take Descartes expositions of his own theory as given in his remarks on the Programme of Regius (XII-XIV) there is no essential disagreement between Descartes and Locke.1) What then, did Locke have in mind? He had in mind the empty verbalism and arrogant authority of the Schools; the Deism of Lord Herbert and his disciples, grounded upon innate principles, pretentious as the Athanasian Creed; the dogmatism of Hobbes, crystallizing the principles of politics into commands of God through the Leviathan; the common pulpit and political oratory declaring prejudices in the terms of immutable truth. Well might Locke speak of this theory as an "established opinion" and "received doctrine" in his day. Speaking of the first book of Locke's essay, Professor Fraser says, "It has been criticised as a metaphysical discussion about the existence of transcendental elements in human knowledge, like that at issue at the present day between empiricism and intellectualism. ... It is really to be read as an energetic argumentative protest against anything in human knowledge being supposed to be independant of rational criticism") That Locke was fighting the wind in this attack upon Scolasticism, and Dogmatism

1) The remark of Sir Wm. Hamilton. (Reid. p. 785.) is significant "Had Descartes and Locke expressed themselves on the subject of innate ideas and principles with due precision, both would have been found in harmony with each other, and with truth."

2) Ency. Brit. IX. Ed. Article, Locke. That Locke's emphasis at certain points is misleading is scarcely to be denied. He would probably say of the first book of his Essay what Malthus said of his own work on population, "It is probable that, having, found the bow too much bent one way, I was induced to bend it too much the other in order to make it straight." Professor Webb, "Intellectualism of Locke", p. 33, holds that Locke's "whole polemic against Innate Ideas, in fact, is a polemic against the doctrine that the existence of Ideas can be latent. "This expresses but as small part of the purpose of Locke's polemic.

in their political, ecclesiastical, and philosophical aspects, can only be maintained by those who are unacquainted with the age in which Locke lived. If this polemic had no meaning, it is difficult to explain why the storm of opposition centerd upon this one point. But, as we have already remarked, this book is no part of Locke's constructive system to which we now turn.

III. The Chronological Order of Ideas. Locke postulates the mind as tabula rasa, in the sense that anterior to experience, or to consciousness, it has no materials of knowledge, no ideas to think upon, (II, 9; 6, II. 1; 20, I. 4; 20.) "Our first enquiry then shall be, how ideas come into the mind. Whence has the mind all the materials of reason and of knowledge? All the materials of thinking and knowledge? I answer in one word, from experience." (I. 1; S. II. 1; 2.) But what is experience? This is the dif ficult term in Locke's philosophy. In respect to the mind it seems to follow the analogy of power as active and passive. The mind is, for the most part, passive in sensation and reflection. It is active "in the natural exercise of our faculties". (Works I. 465.) Viewed as a process in respect to ideas, experience shows three successive stages in time. "The senses first let in particular ideas, and furnish the yet empty cabinet; and the mind by degrees growing familiar with some of them, they are lodged in the memory, and names got to them. Afterward, the mind proceeding further, abstracts them, and by degrees learns the use of general names. In this manner the mind comes to be furnished with ideas and language, the materials about which to exercise its discursive faculty.") This is rough chronology, but it may serve for an introduction to the three stages in Locke's theory of the origin of ideas.

Sensation is the primary, and most fruitful source of

1) I, 2, 15, cf. IV, 17. 2. Compare the opening sentence of Kant's "Kritik der reinen Vernunft". Kant here follows Locke but falls into some obscurity by using the term 'Erfahrung' in two senses in the same sentence.

our ideas. It is that primitive capacity, or passive power of the mind, whereby the mind is fitted to receive the ideas or impressions made upon the senses by exterior objects. Such impressions are conducted through the nerves or animal spirits to the brain, and produce ideas. “I think that those things which we call sensible qualities are the simplest ideas we have, and the first objects of our understandings.') Through sensation, the mind, receives the ideas of all sensible qualities, such as heat, cold, soft, hard, bitter, sweet, extension, figure, motion, and rest. Consciousness synchronates with the first sensations, and is ante-natal. In this sense consciousness and sensation are identical and inseparable.2)

Reflection is the second distinct source of our ideas; a source which "every man has wholly within himself" and which "furnishes us with another set of ideas that could not be had from things without". Reflection is a capacity of the mind "to receive the impressions made on it by its own operations, when it reflects on them". Such ideas are, perception, thinking, doubting, believing, willing, reasoning, and knowing. This seems to be the extent of reflection in Locke's system. He calls it an inner or internal sense. (II. 1; 4. 24. II. 11; 17.) The ideas of reflection are later than those of sensation; "it is pretty late before most children get ideas of the operations of their own minds". (II. 1; 8.) In reflection as in sensation the understanding is passive, or, for the most part passive. "Whether or no it will have these ideas or materials of knowledge, is not in its own power; for the objects of our senses do many of them obtrude their particular ideas upon our minds whether we will or no; and the operations of our minds will not let us be without some observed notions of them." (II. 1; 25.) From these two distinct sources, sensation and reflection, the understanding receives all the "materials of thinking" or "the materials

1) II. 1; 24. II. 8; 12. II. 1; 3. 9. 23. Common place Book. 1671. 2) II. 1; 20. 25, II. 9; 5. II. 27; 9.

Curtis, Locke's Ethical Philosophy.

3

about which to exercise its discursive faculty". Sensation and reflection account for all ideas received by the mind. They indicate the receptive power of the mind, which is "for the most part passive". To identify Locke with the sensational school would exclude this second independent source of ideas. This was recognised by Hartley, who followed Hobbes in the sensational theory. Hartley says, "All our most complex ideas arise from sensation, and reflection is not a distinct source, as Mr. Locke makes it."1) Yet Schwegler credits Locke's system with materialism, declaring also, “Nihil est in intellectu quod non fuerit in sensu", to be the watchword of Locke's position. His English translator, instead of correcting this patent error, only finds an opportunity to defend Hegel against Ueberweg.) Leibniz, we believe, was the first to foist this scholastic phrase upon Locke, and volunteer its correction by "nisi ipse intellectus". We remark first, the phrase is entirely irrelevant to Locke's doctrine; secondly, were it relevant, the restriction is meaningless. If the restriction be allowed any meaning, it means what Locke maintains, that sensation is not the source of all our ideas. Leibniz, after all, supposes that there is no radical disagreement between Locke and himself. "Ainsi je suis porté à croire que, dans le fonde, son sentiment sur ce point n'est pas different du mien ou plutôt du sentiment commun d'autant qu'il reconnaît deux sources de nos connaissances, les Sens et la Reflexion." (Nouveaux Essais. Avant Propos.) But Leibniz lays the foundation of a new source of error, namely, that of making Reflection, in Locke's system, take the place of the Intellect, which Locke's use of Reflection by no means allows. The attempt to

1) Observations on Man I. 360. Edition 1749.

*) Schwegler. Hist. of Philosophy transl. and annotated by J. H. Stirling 7th Ed. pp. 181. 144. Kirchner, correctly remarks of Locke; "Es ist nicht seine Schuld, dass die französischen Encyclopädisten seine Lehre zum Ausgangspunkt ihres Materialismus nahmen." Wörterbuch der Philos. Grundbegriffe. p. 321.

make Locke an advocate of sensationalism by resolving Reflection into sensation, as well as the attempt to enlarge the sphere of reflection so as to include the ideas of cause and effect, and all other relations are alike to be resisted.

Intellect is the third source of ideas recognised by Locke. The objectification of the ideas furnished by sensation and reflection is complete. The mind is for the most part passive. It observes these ideas, it perceives two distinct classes of ideas, one from without, the other from within. This observing subject having its operations from "powers intrinsical and proper to itself", (II. 1; 24) becomes in its activity a source of a new series of ideas which belong neither to sensation nor to reflection, but stand in certain relations to them. Thus Reid observes, "I think Mr. Locke, when he comes to speak of the ideas of relation, does not say that they are ideas of sensation and reflection, but only that they terminate in, and are concerned about, ideas of sensation and reflection." (Reid, Essay. VI.) Of what Reid here thinks, every student of Locke must be persuaded. Locke shows that sensation, reflection and relation stand for three different classes of ideas, and declares against his Critics, "I never denied that the mind could frame to itself ideas of relation, but have showed the quite contary in my chapters about relation." (Works I. 469.) Again, in replying to the strictures of the Bishop of Worcester, that if the idea of substance be grounded upon plain and evident reason, then we must allow an idea of substance that comes not in by sensation and reflection, Locke remarks; “I never said that the general idea of substance comes in by sensation and reflection, or that it is a simple idea of sensation or reflection,... for general ideas come not into the mind by sensation or reflection, but are the creatures or inventions of the understanding, as I think I have shown.") Again he asserts, "We must conceive a substratum. The

....

1) First Letter to Stillingfleet, Works I. 468. cf. H. U. III, 3. I.

4; 18. II. 23; 2 and 4.