john locke: an essay concerning human understanding

An Essay Concerning Human Understanding

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John Locke 

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Last updated Friday, March 7, 2014 at 22:36

 

Find Enlightenment

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Summary Contents

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Preface and Introduction

• 1. An Inquiry into the understanding, pleasant and useful.
• 2. Design.
• 3. Method.
• 4. Useful to know the extent of our comprehension.
• 5. Our capacity suited to our state and concerns.
• 6. Knowledge of our capacity a cure of scepticism and idleness.
• 7. Occasion of this essay.
• 8. What "Idea" stands for.

BOOK I: Neither Principles nor Ideas Are Innate

Chapter I: No Innate Speculative Principles

• 1. The way shown how we come by any knowledge, sufficient to prove...
• 2. General assent the great argument.
• 3. Universal consent proves nothing innate.
• 4. "What is, is," and "It is impossible for the same thing to be and...
• 5. Not on the mind naturally imprinted, because not known to...
• 6. That men know them when they come to the use of reason, answered.
• 7. Doubtful expressions, that have scarce any signification, go...
• 8. If reason discovered them, that would not prove them innate.
• 9. It is false that reason discovers them.
• 10. No use made of reasoning in the discovery of these two maxims.
• 11. And if there were, this would prove them not innate.
• 12. The coming to the use of reason not the time we come to know...
• 13. By this they are not distinguished from other knowable truths.
• 14. If coming to the use of reason were the time of their...
• 15. The steps by which the mind attains several truths.
• 16. Assent to supposed innate truths depends on having clear and...
• 17. Assenting as soon as proposed and understood, proves them not...
• 18. If such an assent be a mark of innate, then "that one and two...
• 19. Such less general propositions known before these universal...
• 20. "One and one equal to Two, &c.
• 21. These maxims not being known sometimes till proposed, proves...
• 22. Implicitly known before proposing, signifies that the mind is...
• 23. The argument of assenting on first hearing, is upon a false...
• 24. Not innate, because not universally assented to.
• 25. These maxims not the first known.
• 26. And so not innate.
• 27. Not innate, because they appear least where what is innate shows...
• 28. Recapitulation.

Chapter II: No Innate Practical Principles

• 1. No moral principles so clear and so generally received as the...
• 2. Faith and justice not owned as principles by all men.
• 3. Objection: "though men deny them in their practice, yet they...
• 4. Moral rules need a proof, ergo not innate.
• 5. Instance in keeping compacts.
• 6. Virtue generally approved, not because innate, but because...
• 7. Men's actions convince us that the rule of virtue is not their...
• 8. Conscience no proof of any innate moral rule.
• 9. Instances of enormities practised without remorse.
• 10. Men have contrary practical principles.
• 11. Whole nations reject several moral rules.
• 12. The generally allowed breach of a rule, proof that it is not...
• 13. If men can be ignorant of what is innate, certainty is not...
• 14. Those who maintain innate practical principles tell us not...
• 15. Lord Herbert's innate principles examined.
• 16. These five either not all, or more than all, if there are any.
• 17. The supposed marks wanting.
• 18. Of little use if they were innate.
• 19. Scarce possible that God should engrave principles in words of...
• 20. Objection, "innate principles may be corrupted," answered.
• 21. Contrary principles in the world.
• 22. How men commonly come by their principles.
• 23. Principles supposed innate because we do not remember when we...
• 24. How such principles come to be held.
• 25. Further explained.
• 26. A worship of idols.
• 27. Principles must be examined.

Chapter III: Other considerations concerning Innate Principles,

• 1. Principles not innate, unless their ideas be innate.
• 2. Ideas, especially those belonging to principles, not born with...
• 3. "Impossibility" and "identity" not innate ideas.
• 4. "Identity," an idea not innate.
• 5. What makes the same man? Nor let any one think that the questions...
• 6. Whole and part, not innate ideas.
• 7. Idea of worship not innate.
• 8. Idea of God not innate.
• 9. The name of God not universal or obscure in meaning.
• 10. Ideas of God and idea of fire.
• 11. Idea of God not innate.
• 12. Suitable to God's goodness, that all men should have an idea...
• 13. Ideas of God various in different men.
• 14. Contrary and inconsistent ideas of God under the same name.
• 15. Gross ideas of God.
• 16. Idea of God not innate although wise men of all nations come...
• 17. Odd, low, and pitiful ideas of God common among men.
• 18. If the idea of God be not innate, no other can be supposed...
• 19. Idea of substance not innate.
• 20. No propositions can be innate, since no ideas are innate.
• 21. No innate ideas in the memory.
• 22. Principles not innate, because of little use or little...
• 23. Difference of men's discoveries depends upon the different...
• 24. Men must think and know for themselves.
• 25. Whence the opinion of innate principles.
• 26. Conclusion.

BOOK II: Of Ideas

Chapter I: Of Ideas in general, and their Original

• 1. Idea is the object of thinking.
• 2. All ideas come from sensation or reflection.
• 3. The objects of sensation one source of ideas.
• 4. The operations of our minds, the other source of them.
• 5. All our ideas are of the one or the other of these.
• 6. Observable in children.
• 7. Men are differently furnished with these, according to the...
• 8. Ideas of reflection later, because they need attention.
• 9. The soul begins to have ideas when it begins to perceive.
• 10. The soul thinks not always; for this wants proofs.
• 11. It is not always conscious of it.
• 12. If a sleeping man thinks without knowing it, the sleeping and...
• 13. Impossible to convince those that sleep without dreaming, that...
• 14. That men dream without remembering it, in vain urged.
• 15. Upon this hypothesis, the thoughts of a sleeping man ought to be...
• 16. On this hypothesis, the soul must have ideas not derived from...
• 17. If I think when I know it not, nobody else can know it.
• 18. How knows any one that the soul always thinks? For if it be...
• 19. "That a man should be busy in thinking, and yet not retain it...
• 20. No ideas but from sensation and reflection, evident, if we...
• 21. State of a child in the mother's womb.
• 22. The mind thinks in proportion to the matter it gets from...
• 23. A man begins to have ideas when he first has sensation.
• 24. The original of all our knowledge.
• 25. In the reception of simple ideas, the understanding is for the...

Chapter II: Of Simple Ideas

• 1. Uncompounded appearances.
• 2. The mind can neither make nor destroy them.
• 3. Only the qualities that affect the senses are imaginable.

Chapter III: Of Simple Ideas of Sense

• 1. Division of simple ideas.
• 2. Few simple ideas have names.

Chapter IV: Idea of Solidity

• 1. We receive this idea from touch.
• 2. Solidity fills space.
• 3. Distinct from space.
• 4. From hardness.
• 5. On solidity depend impulse, resistance, and protrusion.
• 6. What solidity is.

Chapter V: Of Simple Ideas of Divers Senses

Chapter VI: Of Simple Ideas of Reflection

• 1. Simple ideas are the operations of mind about its other ideas.
• 2. The idea of perception, and idea of willing, we have from...

Chapter VII: Of Simple Ideas of both Sensation and Reflection

• 1. Ideas of pleasure and pain.
• 2. Mix with almost all our other ideas.
• 3. As motives of our actions.
• 4. An end and use of pain.
• 5. Another end.
• 6. Goodness of God in annexing pleasure and pain to our other ideas.
• 7. Ideas of existence and unity.
• 8. Idea of power.
• 9. Idea of succession.
• 10. Simple ideas the materials of all our knowledge.

Chapter VIII: Some further considerations concerning

• 1. Positive ideas from privative causes.
• 2. Ideas in the mind distinguished from that in things which gives...
• 3. We may have the ideas when we are ignorant of their physical...
• 4. Why a privative cause in nature may occasion a positive idea.
• 5. Negative names need not be meaningless.
• 6. Whether any ideas are due to causes really privative.
• 7. Ideas in the mind, qualities in bodies.
• 8. Our ideas and the qualities of bodies.
• 9. Primary qualities of bodies.
• 10. Secondary qualities of bodies.
• 11. How bodies produce ideas in us.
• 12. By motions, external, and in our organism.
• 13. How secondary qualities produce their ideas.
• 14. They depend on the primary qualities.
• 15. Ideas of primary qualities are resemblances; of secondary,...
• 16. Examples.
• 17. The ideas of the primary alone really exist.
• 18. The secondary exist in things only as modes of the primary.
• 19. Examples.
• 20. Pound an almond, and the clear white colour will be altered into...
• 21. Explains how water felt as cold by one hand may be warm to the...
• 22. An excursion into natural philosophy.
• 23. Three sorts of qualities in bodies.
• 24. The first are resemblances; the second thought to be...
• 25. Why the secondary are ordinarily taken for real qualities, and...
• 26. Secondary qualities twofold; first, immediately perceivable;...

Chapter IX: Of Perception

• 1. Perception the first simple idea of reflection.
• 2. Reflection alone can give us the idea of what perception is.
• 3. Arises in sensation only when the mind notices the organic...
• 4. Impulse on the organ insufficient.
• 5. Children, though they may have ideas in the womb, have none...
• 6. The effects of sensation in the womb.
• 7. Which ideas appear first, is not evident, nor important.
• 8. Sensations often changed by the judgment.
• 9. This judgment apt to be mistaken for direct perception.
• 10. How, by habit, ideas of sensation are unconsciously changed into...
• 11. Perception puts the difference between animals and vegetables.
• 12. Perception in all animals.
• 13. According to their condition.
• 14. Decay of perception in old age.
• 15. Perception the inlet of all materials of knowledge.

Chapter X: Of Retention

• 1. Contemplation.
• 2. Memory.
• 3. Attention, repetition, pleasure and pain, fix ideas.
• 4. Ideas fade in the memory.
• 5. Causes of oblivion.
• 6. Constantly repeated ideas can scarce be lost.
• 7. In remembering, the mind is often active.
• 8. Two defects in the memory, oblivion and slowness.
• 9. A defect which belongs to the memory of man, as finite.
• 10. Brutes have memory.

Chapter XI: Of Discerning, and other operations of the Mind

• 1. No knowledge without discernment.
• 2. The difference of wit and judgment.
• 3. Clearness done hinders confusion.
• 4. Comparing.
• 5. Brutes compare but imperfectly.
• 6. Compounding.
• 7. Brutes compound but little.
• 8. Naming.
• 9. Abstraction.
• 10. Brutes abstract not.
• 11. Brutes abstract not, yet are not bare machines.
• 12. Idiots and madmen.
• 13. Difference between idiots and madmen.
• 14. Method followed in this explication of faculties.
• 15. The true beginning of human knowledge.
• 16. Appeal to experience.
• 17. Dark room.

Chapter XII: Of Complex Ideas

• 1. Made by the mind out of simple ones.
• 2. Made voluntarily.
• 3. Complex ideas are either of modes, substances, or relations.
• 1. MODES.
• 2. SUBSTANCES.
• 3. RELATIONS.
• 4. Ideas of modes.
• 5. Simple and mixed modes of simple ideas.
• 6. Ideas of substances, single or collective.
• 7. Ideas of relation.
• 8. The abstrusest ideas we can have are all from two sources.

Chapter XIII: Complex Ideas of Simple Modes:-

• 1. Simple modes of simple ideas.
• 2. Idea of Space.
• 3. Space and extension.
• 4. Immensity.
• 5. Figure.
• 6. Endless variety of figures.
• 7. Place.
• 8. Place relative to particular bodies.
• 9. Place relative to a present purpose.
• 10. Place of the universe.
• 11. Extension and body not the same.
• 12. Extension not solidity.
• 13. The parts of space inseparable, both really and mentally.
• 14. The parts of space, immovable.
• 15. The definition of extension explains it not.
• 16. Division of beings into bodies and spirits proves not space...
• 17. Substance which we know not, no proof against space without...
• 18. Different meanings of substance.
• 19. Substance and accidents of little use in philosophy.
• 20. Sticking on and under-propping.
• 21. A vacuum beyond the utmost bounds of body.
• 22. The power of annihilation proves a vacuum.
• 23. Motion proves a vacuum.
• 24. The ideas of space and body distinct.
• 25. Extension being inseparable from body, proves it not the same.
• 26. Essences of things.
• 27. Ideas of space and solidity distinct.
• 28. Men differ little in clear, simple ideas.

Chapter XIV: Idea of Duration and its Simple Modes

• 1. Duration is fleeting extension.
• 2. Its idea from reflection on the train of our ideas.
• 3. Nature and origin of the idea of duration.
• 4. Proof that its idea is got from reflection on the train of our...
• 5. The idea of duration applicable to things whilst we sleep.
• 6. The idea of succession not from motion.
• 7. Very slow motions unperceived.
• 8. Very swift motions unperceived.
• 9. The train of ideas has a certain degree of quickness.
• 10. Real succession in swift motions without sense of succession.
• 11. In slow motions.
• 12. This train, the measure of other successions.
• 13. The mind cannot fix long on one invariable idea.
• 14. Proof.
• 15. The extent of our power over the succession of our ideas.
• 16. Ideas, however made, include no sense of motion.
• 17. Time is duration set out by measures.
• 18. A good measure of time must divide its whole duration into equal...
• 19. The revolutions of the sun and moon, the properest measures of...
• 20. But not by their motion, but periodical appearances.
• 21. No two parts of duration can be certainly known to be equal.
• 22. Time not the measure of motion.
• 23. Minutes, hours, days, and years not necessary measures of...
• 24. Our measure of time applicable to duration before time.
• 25. As we can measure space in our thoughts where there is no...
• 26. The assumption that the world is neither boundless nor...
• 27. Eternity.
• 28. Our measures of duration dependent on our ideas.
• 29. The duration of anything need not be co-existent with the motion...
• 30. Infinity in duration.
• 31. Origin of our ideas of duration, and of the measures of it.

Chapter XV: Ideas of Duration and Expansion, considered together

• 1. Both capable of greater and less.
• 2. Expansion not bounded by matter.
• 3. Nor duration by motion.
• 4. Why men more easily admit infinite duration than infinite...
• 5. Time to duration is as place to expansion.
• 6. Time and place are taken for so much of either as are set out...
• 7. Sometimes for so much of either as we design by measures taken...
• 8. They belong to all finite beings.
• 9. All the parts of extension are extension, and all the parts of...
• 10. Their parts inseparable.
• 11. Duration is as a line, expansion as a solid.
• 12. Duration has never two parts together, expansion altogether.

Chapter XVI: Idea of Number

• 1. Number the simplest and most universal idea.
• 2. Its modes made by addition.
• 3. Each mode distinct.
• 4. Therefore demonstrations in numbers the most precise.
• 5. Names necessary to numbers.
• 6. Another reason for the necessity of names to numbers.
• 7. Why children number not earlier.
• 8. Number measures all measureables.

Chapter XVII: Of Infinity

• 1. Infinity, in its original intention, attributed to space,...
• 2. The idea of finite easily got.
• 3. How we come by the idea of infinity.
• 4. Our idea of space boundless.
• 5. And so of duration.
• 6. Why other ideas are not capable of infinity.
• 7. Difference between infinity of space, and space infinite.
• 8. We have no idea of infinite space.
• 9. Number affords us the clearest idea of infinity.
• 10. Our different conceptions of the infinity of number contrasted...
• 11. How we conceive the infinity of space.
• 12. Infinite divisibility.
• 13. No positive idea of infinity.
• 14. How we cannot have a positive idea of infinity in quantity.
• 15. What is positive, what negative, in our idea of infinite.
• 16. We have no positive idea of an infinite duration.
• 17. No complete idea of eternal being.
• 18. No positive idea of infinite space.
• 19. What is positive, what negative, in our idea of infinite.
• 20. Some think they have a positive idea of eternity, and not of...
• 21. Supposed positive ideas of infinity, cause of mistakes.
• 22. All these are modes of ideas got from sensation and...

Chapter XVIII: Other Simple Modes

• 1. Other simple modes of simple ideas of sensation.
• 2. Simple modes of motion.
• 3. Modes of sounds.
• 4. Modes of colours.
• 5. Modes of tastes.
• 6. Some simple modes have no names.
• 7. Why some modes have, and others have not, names.

Chapter XIX: Of the Modes of Thinking

• 1. Sensation, remembrance, contemplation, &c.
• 2. Other modes of thinking.
• 3. The various degrees of attention in thinking.
• 4. Hence it is probable that thinking is the action, not the essence...

Chapter XX: Of Modes of Pleasure and Pain

• 1. Pleasure and pain, simple ideas.
• 2. Good and evil, what.
• 3. Our passions moved by good and evil.
• 4. Love.
• 5. Hatred.
• 6. Desire.
• 7. Joy is a delight of the mind, from the consideration of the...
• 8. Sorrow is uneasiness in the mind, upon the thought of a good...
• 9. Hope is that pleasure in the mind, which every one finds in...
• 10. Fear is an uneasiness of the mind, upon the thought of future...
• 11. Despair is the thought of the unattainableness of any good,...
• 12. Anger is uneasiness or discomposure of the mind, upon the...
• 13. Envy is an uneasiness of the mind, caused by the consideration...
• 14. What passions all men have.
• 15. Pleasure and pain, what.
• 16. Removal or lessening of either.
• 17. Shame.
• 18. These instances to show how our ideas of the passions are got...

Chapter XXI: Of Power

• 1. This idea how got.
• 2. Power, active and passive.
• 3. Power includes relation.
• 4. The clearest idea of active power had from spirit.
• 5. Will and understanding two powers in mind or spirit.
• 6. Faculties, not real beings.
• 7. Whence the ideas of liberty and necessity.
• 8. Liberty, what.
• 9. Supposes understanding and will.
• 10. Belongs not to volition.
• 11. Voluntary opposed to involuntary, not to necessary.
• 12. Liberty, what.
• 13. Necessity, what.
• 14. Liberty belongs not to the will.
• 15. Volition.
• 16. Powers, belonging to agents.
• 17. How the will, instead of the man, is called free.
• 18. This way of talking causes confusion of thought.
• 19. Powers are relations, not agents.
• 20. Liberty belongs not to the will.
• 21. But to the agent, or man.
• 22. In respect of willing, a man is not free.
• 23. How a man cannot be free to will.
• 24. Liberty is freedom to execute what is willed.
• 25. The will determined by something without it.
• 26. The ideas of liberty and volition must be defined.
• 27. Freedom.
• 28. What volition and action mean.
• 29. What determines the will.
• 30. Will and desire must not be confounded.
• 31. Uneasiness determines the will.
• 32. Desire is uneasiness.
• 33. The uneasiness of desire determines the will.
• 34. This is the spring of action.
• 35. The greatest positive good determines not the will, but...
• 36. Because the removal of uneasiness is the first step to...
• 37. Because uneasiness alone is present.
• 38. Because all who allow the joys of heaven possible, pursue them...
• 39. But any great uneasiness is never neglected.
• 40. Desire accompanies all uneasiness.
• 41. The most pressing uneasiness naturally determines the will.
• 42. All desire happiness.
• 43. Happiness and misery, good and evil, what they are.
• 44. What good is desired, what not.
• 45. Why the greatest good is not always desired.
• 46. Why not being desired, it moves not the will.
• 47. Due consideration raises desire.
• 48. The power to suspend the prosecution of any desire makes way for...
• 49. To be determined by our own judgment, is no restraint to...
• 50. The freest agents are so determined.
• 51. A constant determination to a pursuit of happiness no abridgment...
• 52. The necessity of pursuing true happiness the foundation of...
• 53. Power to suspend.
• 54. Government of our passions the right improvement of liberty.
• 55. How men come to pursue different, and often evil, courses.
• 56. All men seek happiness, but not of the same sort.
• 57. Power to suspend volition explains responsibility for ill...
• 58. Why men choose what makes them miserable.
• 59. The causes of this.
• 60. Our judgment of present good or evil always right.
• 61. Our wrong judgments have regard to future good and evil only.
• 62. From a wrong judgment of what makes a necessary part of their...
• 63. A more particular account of wrong judgments.
• 64. No one chooses misery willingly, but only by wrong judgment.
• 65. Men may err in comparing present and future.
• 66. Causes of our judging amiss when we compare present pleasure and...
• 67. Absent good unable to counterbalance present uneasiness.
• 68. Wrong judgment in considering consequences of actions.
• 1. When we judge that so much evil does not really depend on them as...
• 2. When we judge that, though the consequence be of that moment, yet...
• 69. Causes of this.
• 70. Wrong judgment of what is necessary to our happiness.
• 71. We can change the agreeableness or disagreeableness in things.
• 72. Preference of vice to virtue a manifest wrong judgment.
• 73. Recapitulation- liberty of indifferency.
• 74. Active and passive power, in motions and in thinking.
• 75. Summary of our original ideas.

Chapter XXII: Of Mixed Modes

• 1. Mixed modes, what.
• 2. Made by the mind.
• 3. Sometimes got by the explication of their names.
• 4. The name ties the parts of mixed modes into one idea.
• 5. The cause of making mixed modes.
• 6. Why words in one language have none answering in another.
• 7. And languages change.
• 8. Mixed modes, where they exist.
• 9. How we get the ideas of mixed modes.
• 10. Motion, thinking, and power have been most modified.
• 11. Several words seeming to signify action, signify but the effect.
• 12. Mixed modes made also of other ideas than those of power and...

Chapter XXIII: Of our Complex Ideas of Substances

• 1. Ideas of particular substances, how made.
• 2. Our obscure idea of substance in general.
• 3. Of the sorts of substances.
• 4. No clear or distinct idea of substance in general.
• 5. As clear an idea of spiritual substance as of corporeal...
• 6. Our ideas of particular sorts of substances.
• 7. Their active and passive powers a great part of our complex ideas...
• 8. And why.
• 9. Three sorts of ideas make our complex ones of corporeal...
• 10. Powers thus make a great part of our complex ideas of particular...
• 11. The now secondary qualities of bodies would disappear, if we...
• 12. Our faculties for discovery of the qualities and powers of...
• 13. Conjecture about the corporeal organs of some spirits.
• 14. Our specific ideas of substances.
• 15. Our ideas of spiritual substances, as clear as of bodily...
• 16. No idea of abstract substance either in body or spirit.
• 17. Cohesion of solid parts and impulse, the primary ideas...
• 18. Thinking and motivity the primary ideas peculiar to spirit.
• 19. Spirits capable of motion.
• 20. Proof of this.
• 21. God immoveable, because infinite.
• 22. Our complex idea of an immaterial spirit and our complex idea of...
• 23. Cohesion of solid parts in body as hard to be conceived as...
• 24. Not explained by an ambient fluid.
• 25. We can as little understand how the parts cohere in extension,...
• 26. The cause of coherence of atoms in extended substances...
• 27. The supposed pressure brought to explain cohesion is...
• 28. Communication of motion by impulse, or by thought, equally...
• 29. Summary.
• 30. Our idea of spirit and our idea of body compared.
• 31. The notion of spirit involves no more difficulty in it than that...
• 32. We know nothing of things beyond our simple ideas of them.
• 33. Our complex idea of God.
• 34. Our complex idea of God as infinite.
• 35. God in his own essence incognisable.
• 36. No ideas in our complex ideas of spirits, but those got from...
• 37. Recapitulation.

Chapter XXIV: Of Collective Ideas of Substances

• 1. A collective idea is one idea.
• 2. Made by the power of composing in the mind.
• 3. Artificial things that are made up of distinct substances are our...

Chapter XXV: Of Relation

• 1. Relation, what.
• 2. Ideas of relations without correlative terms, not easily...
• 3. Some seemingly absolute terms contain relations.
• 4. Relation different from the things related.
• 5. Change of relation may be without any change in the things...
• 6. Relation only betwixt two things.
• 7. All things capable of relation.
• 8. Our ideas of relations often clearer than of the subjects...
• 9. Relations all terminate in simple ideas.
• 10. Terms leading the mind beyond the subject denominated, are...
• 11. All relatives made up of simple ideas.

Chapter XXVI: Of Cause and Effect, and other Relations

• 1. Whence the ideas of cause and effect got.
• 2. Creation, generation, making, alteration.
• 3. Relations of time.
• 4. Some ideas of time supposed positive and found to be relative.
• 5. Relations of place and extension.
• 6. Absolute terms often stand for relations.

Chapter XXVII: Of Identity and Diversity

• 1. Wherein identity consists.
• 2. Identity of substances.
• 3. Principium Individuationis.
• 4. Identity of vegetables.
• 5. Identity of animals.
• 6. The identity of man.
• 7. Idea of identity suited to the idea it is applied to.
• 8. Same man.
• 9. Personal identity.
• 10. Consciousness makes personal identity.
• 11. Personal identity in change of substance.
• 12. Personality in change of substance.
• 13. Whether in change of thinking substances there can be one...
• 14. Whether, the same immaterial substance remaining, there can be...
• 15. The body, as well as the soul, goes to the making of a man.
• 16. Consciousness alone unites actions into the same person.
• 17. Self depends on consciousness, not on substance.
• 18. Persons, not substances, the objects of reward and punishment.
• 19. Which shows wherein personal identity consists.
• 20. Absolute oblivion separates what is thus forgotten from the...
• 21. Difference between identity of man and of person.
• 22. But is not a man drunk and sober the same person? why else is he...
• 23. Consciousness alone unites remote existences into one person.
• 24. Not the substance with which the consciousness may be united.
• 25. Consciousness unites substances, material or spiritual, with the...
• 26. "Person" a forensic term.
• 27. Suppositions that look strange are pardonable in our...
• 28. The difficulty from ill use of names.
• 29. Continuance of that which we have made to he our complex idea of...

Chapter XXVIII: Of Other Relations

• 1. Ideas of proportional relations.
• 2. Natural relation.
• 3. Ideas of instituted or voluntary relations.
• 4. Ideas of moral relations.
• 5. Moral good and evil.
• 6. Moral rules.
• 7. Laws.
• 8. Divine law the measure of sin and duty.
• 9. Civil law the measure of crimes and innocence.
• 10. Philosophical law the measure of virtue and vice.
• 11. The measure that men commonly apply to determine what they...
• 12. Its enforcement is commendation and discredit.
• 13. These three laws the rules of moral good and evil.
• 14. Morality is the relation of voluntary actions to these rules.
• 15. Moral actions may be regarded either absolutely, or as ideas...
• 16. The denominations of actions often mislead us.
• 17. Relations innumerable, and only the most considerable here...
• 18. All relations terminate in simple ideas.
• 19. We have ordinarily as clear a notion of the relation, as of...
• 20. The notion of relation is the same, whether the rule any...

Chapter XXIX: Of Clear and Obscure, Distinct and Confused Ideas

• 1. Ideas, some clear and distinct, others obscure and confused.
• 2. Clear and obscure explained by sight.
• 3. Causes of obscurity.
• 4. Distinct and confused, what.
• 5. Objection.
• 6. Confusion of ideas is in reference to their names.
• 7. Defaults which make this confusion.
• 8. Their simple ones jumbled disorderly together.
• 9. Their simple ones mutable and undetermined.
• 10. Confusion without reference to names, hardly conceivable.
• 11. Confusion concerns always two ideas.
• 12. Causes of confused ideas.
• 13. Complex ideas may be distinct in one part, and confused in...
• 14. This, if not heeded, causes confusion in our arguings.
• 15. Instance in eternity.
• 16. Infinite divisibility of matter.

Chapter XXX: Of Real and Fantastical Ideas

• 1. Ideas considered in reference to their archetypes.
• 2. Simple ideas are all real appearances of things.
• 3. Complex ideas are voluntary combinations.
• 4. Mixed modes and relations, made of consistent ideas, are real.
• 5. Complex ideas of substances are real, when they agree with the...

Chapter XXXI: Of Adequate and Inadequate Ideas

• 1. Adequate ideas are such as perfectly represent their...
• 2. Simple ideas all adequate.
• 3. Modes are all adequate.
• 4. Modes, in reference to settled names, may be inadequate.
• 5. Because then meant, in propriety of speech, to correspond to...
• 6. Ideas of substances, as referred to real essences, not...
• 7. Because men know not the real essences of substances.
• 8. Ideas of substances, when regarded as collections of their...
• 9. Their powers usually make up our complex ideas of substances.
• 10. Substances have innumerable powers not contained in our...
• 11. Ideas of substances, being got only by collecting their...
• 12. Simple ideas, ektupa, and adequate.
• 13. Ideas of substances are ektupa, and inadequate.
• 14. Ideas of modes and relations are archetypes and cannot be...

Chapter XXXII: Of True and False Ideas

• 1. Truth and falsehood properly belong to propositions, not to...
• 2. Ideas and words may be said to be true, inasmuch as they really...
• 3. No idea, as an appearance in the mind, either true or false.
• 4. Ideas referred to anything extraneous to them may be true or...
• 5. Other men's ideas; real existence; and supposed real essences,...
• 6. The cause of such reference.
• 7. Names of things supposed to carry in them knowledge of their...
• 8. How men suppose that their ideas must correspond to things, and...
• 9. Simple ideas may be false, in reference to others of the same...
• 10. Ideas of mixed modes most liable to be false in this sense.
• 11. Or at least to be thought false.
• 12. And why.
• 13. As referred to real existence, none of our ideas can be false...
• 14. Simple ideas in this sense not false, and why.
• 15. Though one man's idea of blue should be different from...
• 16. Simple ideas can none of them be false in respect of real...
• 17. Modes not false cannot be false in reference to essences of...
• 18. Ideas of substances may be false in reference to existing...
• 19. Truth or falsehood always supposes affirmation or negation.
• 20. Ideas in themselves neither true nor false.
• 21. But are false- when judged agreeable to another man's idea,...
• 22. When judged to agree to real existence, when they do not.
• 23. When judged adequate, without being so.
• 24. When judged to represent the real essence.
• 25. Ideas, when called false.
• 26. More properly to be called right or wrong.

Chapter XXXIII: Of the Association of Ideas

• 1. Something unreasonable in most men.
• 2. Not wholly from self-love.
• 3. Not from education.
• 4. A degree of madness found in most men.
• 5. From a wrong connexion of ideas.
• 6. This connexion made by custom.
• 7. Some antipathies an effect of it.
• 8. Influence of association to be watched educating young...
• 9. Wrong connexion of ideas a great cause of errors.
• 10. An instance.
• 11. Another instance.
• 12. A third instance.
• 13. Why time cures some disorders in the mind, which reason cannot...
• 14. Another instance of the effect of the association of ideas.
• 15. More instances.
• 16. A curious instance.
• 17. Influence of association on intellectual habits.
• 18. Observable in the opposition between different sects of...
• 19. Conclusion.

BOOK III: Of Words

Chapter I: Of Words or Language in General

• 1. Man fitted to form articulate sounds.
• 2. To use these sounds as signs of ideas.
• 3. To make them general signs.
• 4. To make them signify the absence of positive ideas.
• 5. Words ultimately derived from such as signify sensible ideas.
• 6. Distribution of subjects to be treated of.

Chapter II: Of the Signification of Words

• 1. Words are sensible signs, necessary for communication of ideas.
• 2. Words, in their immediate signification, are the sensible signs...
• 3. Examples of this.
• 4. Words are often secretly referred first to the ideas supposed...
• 5. To the reality of things.
• 6. Words by use readily excite ideas of their objects.
• 7. Words are often used without signification, and why.
• 8. Their signification perfectly arbitrary, not the consequence of a...

Chapter III: Of General Terms

• 1. The greatest part of words are general terms.
• 2. That every particular thing should have a name for itself is...
• 3. And would be useless, if it were possible.
• 4. A distinct name for every particular thing, not fitted for...
• 5. What things have proper names, and why.
• 6. How general words are made.
• 7. Shown by the way we enlarge our complex ideas from infancy.
• 8. And further enlarge our complex ideas, by still leaving out...
• 9. General natures are nothing but abstract and partial ideas of...
• 10. Why the genus is ordinarily made use of in definitions.
• 11. General and universal are creatures of the understanding, and...
• 12. Abstract ideas are the essences of genera and species.
• 13. They are the workmanship of the understanding, but have their...
• 14. Each distinct abstract idea is a distinct essence.
• 15. Several significations of the word "essence.
• 16. Constant connexion between the name and nominal essence.
• 17. Supposition, that species are distinguished by their real...
• 18. Real and nominal essence the same in simple ideas and modes,...
• 19. Essences ingenerable and incorruptible.
• 20. Recapitulation.

Chapter IV: Of the Names of Simple Ideas

• 1. Names of simple ideas, modes, and substances, have each something...
• 2. Names of simple ideas, and of substances intimate real existence.
• 3. Names of simple ideas and modes signify always both real and...
• 4. Names of simple ideas are undefinable.
• 5. If all names were definable, it would be a process in...
• 6. What a definition is.
• 7. Simple ideas, why undefinable.
• 8. Instances: scholastic definitions of motion.
• 9. Modern definitions of motion.
• 10. Definitions of light.
• 11. Simple ideas, why undefinable, further explained.
• 12. The contrary shown in complex ideas, by instances of a statue...
• 13. Colours indefinable to the born-blind.
• 14. Complex ideas definable only when the simple ideas of which they...
• 15. Names of simple ideas of less doubtful meaning than those of...
• 16. Simple ideas have few ascents in linea praedicamentali.
• 17. Names of simple ideas not arbitrary, but perfectly taken from...

Chapter V: Of the Names of Mixed Modes and Relations

• 1. Mixed modes stand for abstract ideas, as other general names.
• 2. First, The abstract ideas they stand for are made by the...
• 3. Secondly, made arbitrarily, and without patterns.
• 4. How this is done.
• 6. Instances: murder, incest, stabbing.
• 7. But still subservient to the end of language, and not made at...
• 8. Whereof the intranslatable words of divers languages are a proof.
• 9. This shows species to be made for communication.
• 10. In mixed modes it is the name that ties the combination of...
• 11. Suitable to this, we find that men speaking of mixed modes,...
• 12. For the originals of our mixed modes, we look no further than...
• 13. Their being made by the understanding without patterns, shows...
• 14. Names of mixed modes stand always for their real essences, which...
• 15. Why their names are usually got before their ideas.
• 16. Reason of my being so large on this subject.

Chapter VI: Of the Names of Substances

• 1. The common names of substances stand for sorts.
• 2. The essence of each sort of substance is our abstract idea to...
• 3. The nominal and real essence different.
• 4. Nothing essential to individuals.
• 5. The only essences perceived by us in individual substances are...
• 6. Even the real essences of individual substances imply potential...
• 7. The nominal essence bounds the species for us.
• 8. The nature of species, as formed by us.
• 9. Not the real essence, or texture of parts, which we know not.
• 10. Not the substantial form, which we know less.
• 11. That the nominal essence is that only whereby we distinguish...
• 12. Of finite spirits there are probably numberless species, in a...
• 13. The nominal essence that of the species, as conceived by us,...
• 14. Difficulties in the supposition of a certain number of real...
• 15. A crude supposition.
• 16. Monstrous births.
• 17. Are monsters really a distinct species? Thirdly, It ought to...
• 18. Men can have no ideas of real essences.
• 19. Our nominal essences of substances not perfect collections of...
• 20. Hence names independent of real essences.
• 21. But stand for such a collection of simple substances, as we have...
• 22. Our abstract ideas are to us the measures of the species we...
• 23. Species in animals not distinguished by generation.
• 24. Not by substantial forms.
• 25. The specific essences that are commonly made by men.
• 26. Therefore very various and uncertain in the ideas of different...
• 27. Nominal essences of particular substances are undetermined by...
• 28. But not so arbitrary as mixed modes.
• 29. Our nominal essences of substances usually consist of a few...
• 30. Yet, imperfect as they thus are, they serve for common converse.
• 31. Essences of species under the same name very different in...
• 32. The more general our ideas of substances are, the more...
• 33. This all accommodated to the end of speech.
• 34. Instance in Cassowaries.
• 35. Men determine the sorts of substances, which may be sorted...
• 36. Nature makes the similitudes of substances.
• 37. The manner of sorting particular beings the work of fallible...
• 38. Each abstract idea, with a name to it, makes a nominal...
• 39. How genera and species are related to naming.
• 40. Species of artificial things less confused than natural.
• 41. Artificial things of distinct species.
• 42. Substances alone, of all our several sorts of ideas, have proper...
• 43. Difficult to lead another by words into the thoughts of things...
• 44. Instances of mixed modes named kinneah and niouph.
• 45. These words, kinneah and niouph, by degrees grew into common...
• 46. Instances of a species of substance named Zahab.
• 47. This piece of matter, thus denominated zahab by Adam, being...
• 48. The abstract ideas of substances always imperfect, and therefore...
• 49. Therefore to fix their nominal species, a real essense is...
• 50. Which supposition is of no use.
• 51. Conclusion.

Chapter VII: Of Particles

• 1. Particles connect parts, or whole sentences together.
• 2. In right use of particles consists the art of well-speaking.
• 3. They show what relation the mind gives to its own thoughts.
• 4. They are all marks of some action or intimation of the mind.
• 5. Instance in "but.
• 6. This matter of the use of particles but lightly touched here.

Chapter VIII: Of Abstract and Concrete Terms

• 1. Abstract terms not predictable one of another, and why.
• 2. They show the difference of our ideas.

Chapter IX: Of the Imperfection of Words

• 1. Words are used for recording and communicating our thoughts.
• 2. Any words will serve for recording.
• 3. Communication by words either for civil or philosophical...
• 4. The imperfection of words is the doubtfulness or ambiguity of...
• 5. Natural causes of their imperfection, especially in those that...
• 6. The names of mixed modes doubtful.
• 7. Secondly, because they have no standards in nature.
• 8. Common use, or propriety not a sufficient remedy.
• 9. The way of learning these names contributes also to their...
• 10. Hence unavoidable obscurity in ancient authors.
• 11. Names of substances of doubtful signification, because the ideas...
• 12. Names of substances referred, to real essences that cannot be...
• 13. To co-existing qualities, which are known but imperfectly.
• 14. Thirdly, to co-existing qualities which are known but...
• 15. With this imperfection, they may serve for civil, but not well...
• 16. Instance, liquor.
• 17. Instance, gold.
• 18. The names of simple ideas the least doubtful.
• 19. And next to them, simple modes.
• 20. The most doubtful are the names of very compounded mixed modes...
• 21. Why this imperfection charged upon words.
• 22. This should teach us moderation in imposing our own sense of old...
• 23. Especially of the Old and New Testament Scriptures.

Chapter X: Of the Abuse of Words

• 1. Woeful abuse of words.
• 2. Words are often employed without any, or without clear ideas.
• 3. II.
• 4. This occasioned by men learning names before they have the...
• 5. Unsteady application of them.
• 6. III.
• 7. Logic and dispute have much contributed to this.
• 8. Calling it "subtlety.
• 9. This learning very little benefits society.
• 10. But destroys the instruments of knowledge and communication.
• 11. As useful as to confound the sounds that the letters of the...
• 12. This art has perplexed religion and justice.
• 14. IV.
• 15. Instance, in matter.
• 16. This makes errors lasting.
• 17. V.
• 18. V.
• 19. Hence we think change of our complex ideas of substances not...
• 20. The cause of this abuse, a supposition of nature's working...
• 21. This abuse contains two false suppositions.
• 22. VI.
• 23. The ends of language: First, to convey our ideas.
• 24. To do it with quickness.
• 25. Therewith to convey the knowledge of things.
• 26. How men's words fail in all these: First, when used without...
• 27. When complex ideas are without names annexed to them.
• 28. When the same sign is not put for the same idea.
• 29. When words are diverted from their common use.
• 30. When they are names of fantastical imaginations.
• 31. Summary.
• 32. How men's words fail when they stand for substances.
• 33. How when they stand for modes and relations.
• 34. Seventhly, language is often abused by figurative speech.

Chapter XI: Of the Remedies of the Foregoing Imperfections

• 1. Remedies are worth seeking The natural and improved imperfections...
• 2. Are not easy to find.
• 3. But yet necessary to those who search after truth.
• 4. Misuse of words the great cause of errors.
• 5. Has made men more conceited and obstinate.
• 6. Addicted to wrangling about sounds.
• 7. Instance, bat and bird.
• 8. Remedies.
• 9. Second remedy: To have distinct, determinate ideas annexed to...
• 10. And distinct and conformable ideas in words that stand for...
• 11. Third remedy: To apply words to such ideas as common use has...
• 12. Fourth remedy: To declare the meaning in which we use them.
• 13. And that in three ways.
• 14. I.
• 15. II.
• 16. Morality capable of demonstration.
• 17. Definitions can make moral discourses clear.
• 18. And is the only way in which the meaning of mixed modes can be...
• 19. III.
• 20. Ideas of the leading qualities of substances are best got by...
• 21. And can hardly be made known otherwise.
• 22. The Ideas of the powers of substances are best known by...
• 23. A reflection on the knowledge of corporeal things possessed by...
• 24. IV Ideas of substances must be conformable to things.
• 25. Not easy to be made so.
• 26. V.
• 27. When not so used, the variation is to he explained.

BOOK IV: Of Knowledge and Probability

Chapter I: Of Knowledge in General

• 1. Our knowledge conversant about our ideas only.
• 2. Knowledge is the perception of the agreement or disagreement of...
• 3. This agreement or disagreement may be any of four sorts.
• 4. Of identity, or diversity in ideas.
• 5. Of abstract relations between ideas.
• 6. Of their necessary co-existence in substances.
• 7. Of real existence agreeing to any idea.
• 8. Knowledge is either actual or habitual.
• 9. Habitual knowledge is of two degrees.

Chapter II: Of the Degrees of our Knowledge

• 1. Of the degrees, or differences in clearness, of our knowledge: 1.
• 2. II.
• 3. Demonstration depends on clearly perceived proofs.
• 4. As certain, but not so easy and ready as intuitive knowledge.
• 5. The demonstrated conclusion not without doubt, precedent to the...
• 6. Not so clear as intuitive knowledge.
• 7. Each step in demonstrated knowledge must have intuitive evidence.
• 8. Hence the mistake, ex praecognitis, et praeconcessis.
• 9. Demonstration not limited to ideas of mathematical quantity.
• 10. Why it has been thought to be so limited.
• 11. Modes of qualities not demonstrable like modes of quantity.
• 12. Particles of light and simple ideas of colour.
• 13. The secondary qualities of things not discovered by...
• 14. Sensitive knowledge of the particular existence of finite beings...
• 15. Knowledge not always clear, where the ideas that enter into it...

Chapter III: Of the Extent of Human Knowledge

• 1. Extent of our knowledge.
• 2. It extends no further than we can perceive their agreement or...
• 3. Intuitive knowledge extends itself not to all the relations of...
• 4. Nor does demonstrative knowledge.
• 5. Sensitive knowledge narrower than either.
• 6. Our knowledge, therefore, narrower than our ideas.
• 7. How far our knowledge reaches.
• 8. Our knowledge of identity and diversity in ideas extends as far...
• 9. Of their co-existence, extends only a very little way.
• 10. Because the connexion between simple ideas in substances is...
• 11. Especially of the secondary qualities of bodies.
• 12. Because necessary connexion between any secondary and the...
• 13. We have no perfect knowledge of their primary qualities.
• 14. And seek in vain for certain and universal knowledge of...
• 15. Of repugnancy to co-exist, our knowledge is larger.
• 16. Our knowledge of the co-existence of powers in bodies extends...
• 17. Of the powers that co-exist in spirits yet narrower.
• 18. Of relations between abstracted ideas it is not easy to say...
• 19. Two things have made moral ideas to be thought incapable of...
• 20. Remedies of our difficulties in dealing demonstratively with...
• 21. Of the three real existences of which we have certain knowledge.
• 22. Our ignorance great.
• 23. One cause of our ignorance want of ideas.
• 24. Want of simple ideas that men are capable of having, but have...
• 25. Because of their minuteness.
• 26. Hence no science of bodies within our reach.
• 27. Much less a science of unembodied spirits.
• 28. Another cause, want of a discoverable connexion between ideas we...
• 29. Instances.
• 30. A third cause, want of tracing our ideas.
• 31. Extent of human knowledge in respect to its universality.

Chapter IV: Of the Reality of Knowledge

• 1. Objection.
• 2. Answer: "Not so, where ideas agree with things.
• 3. But what shall be the criterion of this agreement? It is...
• 4. As all simple ideas are really conformed to things.
• 5. All complex ideas, except ideas of substances, are their own...
• 6. Hence the reality of mathematical knowledge.
• 7. And of moral.
• 8. Existence not required to make abstract knowledge real.
• 9. Nor will it be less true or certain, because moral ideas are of...
• 10. Misnaming disturbs not the certainty of the knowledge.
• 11. Our complex ideas of substances have their archetypes without...
• 12. So far as our complex ideas agree with those archetypes...
• 13. In our inquiries about substances, we must consider ideas, and...
• 14. Objection against a changeling being something between a man and...
• 15. What will become of changelings in a future state? But,...
• 16. Monsters.
• 17. Words and species.
• 18. Recapitulation.

Chapter V: Of Truth in General

• 1. What truth is.
• 2. A right joining or separating of signs, i.
• 3. Which make mental or verbal propositions.
• 4. Mental propositions are very hard to he treated of.
• 5. Mental and verbal propositions contrasted.
• 6. When mental propositions contain real truth, and when verbal.
• 7. Objection against verbal truth, that "thus it may all be...
• 8. Answered, "Real truth is about ideas agreeing to things.
• 9. Truth and falsehood in general.
• 10. General propositions to be treated of more at large.
• 11. Moral and metaphysical truth.

Chapter VI: Of Universal Propositions: their Truth and Certainty

• 1. Treating of words necessary to knowledge.
• 2. General truths hardly to be understood, but in verbal...
• 3. Certainty twofold- of truth and of knowledge.
• 4. No proposition can be certainly known to be true, where the...
• 5. This more particularly concerns substances.
• 6. The truth of few universal propositions concerning substances...
• 7. Because necessary co-existence of simple ideas in substances...
• 8. Instance in gold.
• 9. No discoverable necessary connexion between nominal essence of...
• 10. As far as any such co-existence can be known, so far universal...
• 11. The qualities which make our complex ideas of substances...
• 12. Our nominal essences of substances furnish few universal...
• 13. Judgment of probability concerning substances may reach further:...
• 14. What is requisite for our knowledge of substances.
• 15. Whilst our complex ideas of substances contain not ideas of...
• 16. Wherein lies the general certainty of propositions.

Chapter VII: Of Maxims

• 1. Maxims or axioms are self-evident propositions.
• 2. Wherein that self-evidence consists.
• 3. Self-evidence not peculiar to received axioms.
• 4. I.
• 5. II.
• 6. III.
• 7. IV.
• 8. These axioms do not much influence our other knowledge.
• 9. Because maxims or axioms are not the truths we first knew.
• 10. Because on perception of them the other parts of our knowledge...
• 11. What use these general maxims or axioms have.
• 12. Maxims, if care he not taken in the use of words, may prove...
• 13. Instance in vacuum.
• 14. But they prove not the existence of things without us.
• 15. They cannot add to our knowledge of substances, and their...
• 16. Instance in demonstrations about man, which can only be...
• 17. Another instance.
• 18. A third instance.
• 19. Little use of these maxims in proofs where we have clear and...
• 20. Their use dangerous, where our ideas are not determined.

Chapter VIII: Of Trifling Propositions

• 1. Some propositions bring no increase to our knowledge.
• 2. I.
• 3. Examples.
• 4. II.
• 5. As part of the definition of the term defined.
• 6. Instance, man and palfrey.
• 7. For this teaches but the signification of words.
• 8. But adds no real knowledge.
• 9. General propositions concerning substances are often trifling.
• 10. And why.
• 11. Thirdly, using words variously is trifling with them.
• 12. Marks of verbal propositions.
• 13. A part of the definition predicated of any term.

Chapter IX: Of our Threefold Knowledge of Existence

• 1. General propositions that are certain concern not existence.
• 2. A threefold knowledge of existence.
• 3. Our knowledge of our own existence is intuitive.

Chapter X: Of our Knowledge of the Existence of a God

• 1. We are capable of knowing certainly that there is a God.
• 2. For man knows that he himself exists.
• 4. And that eternal Being must be most powerful.
• 5. And most knowing.
• 6. And therefore God.
• 7. Our idea of a most perfect Being, not the sole proof of a God.
• 8. Recapitulation- something from eternity.
• 9. Two sorts of beings, cogitative and incogitative.
• 10. Incogitative being cannot produce a cogitative being.
• 11. Therefore, there has been an eternal cogitative Being.
• 12. The attributes of the eternal cogitative Being.
• 13. Whether the eternal Mind may he also material or no.
• 14. Not material: first, because each particle of matter is not...
• 15. II.
• 16. III.
• 17. And that whether this corporeal system is in motion or at...
• 18. Matter not co-eternal with an eternal Mind.
• 19. Objection: "Creation out of nothing.

Chapter XI: Of our Knowledge of the Existence of Other Things

• 1. Knowledge of the existence of other finite beings is to be had...
• 2. Instance: whiteness of this paper.
• 3. This notice by our senses, though not so certain as...
• 4. I.
• 5. II.
• 6. III.
• 7. IV.
• 8. This certainty is as great as our condition needs.
• 9. But reaches no further than actual sensation.
• 10. Folly to expect demonstration in everything.
• 11. Past existence of other things is known by memory.
• 12. The existence of other finite spirits not knowable, and rests on...
• 13. Only particular propositions concerning concrete existences...
• 14. And all general propositions that are known to be true concern...

Chapter XII: Of the Improvement of our Knowledge

• 1. Knowledge is not got from maxims.
• 2. (The occasion of that opinion.
• 3. But from comparing clear and distinct ideas.
• 4. Dangerous to build upon precarious principles.
• 5. To do so is no certain way to truth.
• 6. But to compare clear, complete ideas, under steady names.
• 7. The true method of advancing knowledge is by considering our...
• 8. By which morality also may he made clearer.
• 9. Our knowledge of substances is to be improved, not by...
• 10. Experience may procure us convenience, not science.
• 11. We are fitted for moral science, but only for probable...
• 12. In the study of nature we must beware of hypotheses and wrong...
• 13. The true use of hypotheses.
• 14. Clear and distinct ideas with settled names, and the finding...
• 15. Mathematics an instance of this.

Chapter XIII: Some Further Considerations Concerning our Knowledge

• 1. Our knowledge partly necessary, partly voluntary.
• 2. The application of our faculties voluntary; but, they being...
• 3. Instance in numbers.
• 4. Instance in natural religion.

Chapter XIV: Of Judgment

• 1. Our knowledge being short, we want something else.
• 2. What use to be made of this twilight state.
• 3. Judgment, or assent to probability, supplies our want of...
• 4. Judgement is the presuming things to be so, without perceiving...

Chapter XV: Of Probability

• 1. Probability is the appearance of agreement upon fallible...
• 2. It is to supply our want of knowledge.
• 3. Being that which makes us presume things to be true, before we...
• 4. The grounds of probability are two: conformity with our own...
• 5. In this, all the arguments pro and con ought to be examined,...
• 6. Probable arguments capable of great variety.

Chapter XVI: Of the Degrees of Assent

• 1. Our assent ought to be regulated by the grounds of probability.
• 2. These cannot always be actually in view; and then we must content...
• 3. The ill consequence of this, if our former judgments were not...
• 4. The right use of it, mutual charity and forbearance, in a...
• 5. Probability is either of sensible matter of fact, capable of...
• 6. The concurrent experience of all other men with ours, produces...
• 7. II.
• 8. III.
• 9. Experience and testimonies clashing infinitely vary the degrees...
• 10. Traditional testimonies, the further removed the less their...
• 11. Yet history is of great use.
• 12. In things which sense cannot discover, analogy is the great rule...
• 13. One case where contrary experience lessens not the testimony.
• 14. The bare testimony of divine revelation is the highest...

Chapter XVII: Of Reason

• 1. Various significations of the word "reason".
• 2. Wherein reasoning consists.
• 3. Reason in its four degrees.
• 4. Whether syllogism is the great instrument of reason: first...
• 5. Syllogism helps little in demonstration, less in probability.
• 6. Serves not to increase our knowledge, but to fence with the...
• 7. Other helps to reason than syllogism should be sought.
• 8. We can reason about particulars; and the immediate object of...
• 9. Our reason often fails us.
• 10. II.
• 11. III.
• 12. IV.
• 13. V.
• 14. Our highest degree of knowledge is intuitive, without reasoning.
• 15. The next is got by reasoning.
• 16. To supply the narrowness of demonstrative and intuitive...
• 17. Intuitive knowledge is the perception of the certain agreement...
• 18. Consequences of words, and consequences of ideas.
• 19. Four sorts of arguments.
• 20. II.
• 21. III.
• 22. IV.
• 23. Above, contrary, and according to reason.
• 24. Reason and faith not opposite, for faith must be regulated by...

Chapter XVIII: Of Faith and Reason, and their Distinct Provinces

• 1. Necessary to know their boundaries.
• 2. Faith and reason, what, as contradistinguished.
• 3. No new simple idea can be conveyed by traditional revelation.
• 4. Traditional revelation may make us know propositions knowable...
• 5. Even original revelation cannot be admitted against the clear...
• 6. Traditional revelation much less.
• 7. Things above reason are, when revealed, the proper matter of...
• 8. Or not contrary to reason, if revealed, are matter of faith;...
• 9. Revelation in matters where reason cannot judge, or but probably,...
• 10. In matters where reason can afford certain knowledge, that is to...
• 11. If the boundaries be not set between faith and reason, no...

Chapter XIX: Of Enthusiasm

• 1. Love of truth necessary.
• 2. A forwardness to dictate another's beliefs, from whence.
• 3. Force of enthusiasm, in which reason is taken away.
• 4. Reason and revelation.
• 5. Rise of enthusiasm.
• 6. Enthusiastic impulse.
• 7. What is meant by enthusiasm.
• 8. Enthusiasm accepts its supposed illumination without search and...
• 9. Enthusiasm how to be discovered.
• 10. The supposed internal light examined.
• 11. Enthusiasm fails of evidence, that the proposition is from...
• 12. Firmness of persuasion no Proof that any proposition is from...
• 13. Light in the mind, what.
• 14. Revelation must be judged of by reason.
• 15. Belief no proof of revelation.
• 16. Criteria of a divine revelation.

Chapter XX: Of Wrong Assent, or Error

• 1. Causes of error, or how men come to give assent contrary to...
• 2. First cause of error, want of proofs.
• 3. Objection.
• 4. People hindered from inquiry.
• 5. Second cause of error, want of skill to use proofs.
• 6. Third cause of error, want of will to use them.
• 7. Fourth cause of error, wrong measures of Probability.
• 8. I.
• 9. Instilled in childhood.
• 10. Of irresistible efficacy.
• 11. II.
• 12. III.
• 13. Two means of evading probabilities: I.
• 14. Supposed unknown arguments for the contrary.
• 15. What probabilities naturally determine the assent.
• 16. Where it is in our power to suspend our judgment.
• 17. IV.
• 18. Not so many men in errors as is commonly supposed.

Chapter XXI: Of the Division of the Sciences

• 1. Science may be divided into three sorts.
• 2. Physica.
• 3. Practica.
• 4. Semeiotike.
• 5. This is the first and most general division of the objects of our...