in the minds of the men of other nations. Where there was no such custom, there was no notion of any such actions; no use of such combinations of ideas as were united, and as it were tied together by those terms: and therefore in other countries there were no names for them.

And lan

§ 7. Hence also we may see the reason why languages constantly change, take guages up new and lay by old terms; because change. change of customs and opinions bringing with it new combinations of ideas, which it is necessary frequently to think on, and talk about, new names, to avoid long descriptions, are annexed to them, and so they become new species of complex modes. What a number of different ideas are by this means wrapt up in one short sound, and how much of our time and breath is thereby saved, any one will see, who will but take the pains to enumerate all the ideas that either reprieve or appeal stand for; and, instead of either of those names, use a periphrasis, to make any one understand their meaning.

§ 8. Though I shall have occasion to consider this more at large, when I come to treat of words and their use, yet I could not avoid to take thus much notice here of the names of mixed modes; which being fleeting and transient combinations of simple ideas, which have but a short existence any where but in the minds of men, and there too have no longer any existence than whilst they are thought on, have not so much anywhere the appearance of a constant and lasting existence as in their names: which are therefore, in this sort of ideas, very apt to be taken for the ideas themselves. For if we should inquire where the idea of a triumph or apotheosis exists, it is evident they could neither of them exist altogether anywhere in the things themselves, being actions that required time to their performance, and so could never all exist together and as to the minds of men, where the ideas

Mixed

modes,

where they

exist.

of these actions are supposed to be lodged, they have there too a very uncertain existence; and therefore we are apt to annex them to the names that excite them in us.

89. There are therefore three ways whereby we get the complex ideas of mixed modes. 1. By experience and observation of things themselves. Thus by seeing two men wrestle or fence, we get the idea of wrestling or fencing. 2. By invention, or voluntary putting together of several simple ideas in our own minds: so he that first invented printing or etching, had an idea of it in his mind before it ever existed. 3. Which is the most usual way, by explaining the names of actions we never saw, or notions we cannot see; and by enumerating, and thereby, as it were, setting before our imaginations all those ideas which go to the making them up, and are the constituent parts of them. For having by sensation and reflection stored our minds with simple ideas, and by use got the names that stand for them, we can by those means represent to another any complex idea we would have him conceive; so that it has in it no simple ideas but what he knows, and has with us the same name for. For all our complex ideas are ultimately resolvable into simple ideas, of which they are compounded and originally made up, though perhaps their immediate ingredients, as I may so say, are also complex ideas. Thus the mixed mode, which the word lie stands for, is made of these simple ideas: 1. Articulate sounds. 2. Certain ideas in the mind of the speaker. 3. Those words the signs of those ideas. 4. Those signs put together by affirmation or negation, otherwise than the ideas they stand for are in the mind of the speaker. I think I need not go any farther in the analysis of that complex idea we call a lie: what I have said is enough to show, that it is made up of simple ideas: and it could not be but an offensive tediousness to my reader, to trouble him with a more minute enumera

How we get the ideas of

mixed

modes.

tion of every particular simple idea that goes to this complex one; which, from what has been said, he cannot but be able to make out to himself. The same may be done in all our complex ideas whatsoever; which, however compounded and decompounded, may at last be resolved into simple ideas, which are all the materials of knowledge or thought we have, or can have. Nor shall we have reason to fear that the mind is hereby stinted to too scanty a number of ideas, if we consider what an inexhaustible stock of simple modes, number and figure alone afford us. How far then mixed modes which admit of the various combinations of different simple ideas, and their infinite modes, are from being few and scanty, we may easily imagine. So that before we have done, we shall see that nobody need be afraid he shall not have scope and compass enough for his thoughts to range in, though they be, as I pretend, confined only to simple ideas received from sensation or reflection, and their several combinations.

§ 10. It is worth our observing, which Motion, of all our simple ideas have been most thinking, modified, and had most mixed ideas made out of them, with names given to them; and those have been these three; thinking and motion (which are the two ideas which comprehend in them all action) and power, from whence these actions are conceived to flow. The simple ideas, I say, of thinking, motion, and power, have been those which have been most modified, and out of whose modifications have been made most complex modes, with names to them. For action being the great business of mankind, and the whole matter about which all laws are conversant, it is no wonder that the several modes of thinking and motion should be taken notice of, the ideas of them observed, and laid up in the memory, and have names assigned to them; without which, laws could be but ill made, or vice and disorder repressed. Nor could any commu

it

and power,

have been most modi

fied.

nication be well had amongst men, without such complex ideas, with names to them: and therefore men have settled names, and supposed settled ideas in their minds, of modes of action distinguished by their causes, means, objects, ends, instruments, time, place, and other circumstances, and also of their powers fitted for those actions: v. g. boldness is the power to speak or do what we intend, before others, without fear or disorder; and the Greeks call the confidence of speaking by a peculiar name, wapinoia: which power or ability in man, of doing any thing, when it has been acquired by frequent doing the same thing, is that idea we name habit; when it is forward, and ready upon every occasion to break into action, we call it disposition. Thus testiness is a disposition or aptness to be angry.

παῤῥησια:

To conclude: Let us examine any modes of action, v.g. consideration and assent, which are actions of the mind; running and speaking, which are actions of the body; revenge and murder, which are actions of both together; and we shall find them but so many collections of simple ideas, which together make up the complex ones signified by those names.

§ 11. Power being the source from whence all action proceeds, the substances wherein these powers are, when they exert this power into act, are called causes; and the substances which thereupon are produced, or the simple ideas which are introduced into any subject by the exerting of that power, are called effects. The efficacy whereby the new substance or idea is produced, is called, in the subject exerting that power, action; but in the subject wherein any simple idea is changed or produced, it is called passion: which efficacy, however various, and the effects almost infinite, yet we can, I think, conceive it, in intellectual agents, to be nothing else but modes of thinking and willing; in corporeal agents, nothing else but modifications of motion. I

Several words seeming to signify action, signify but the effect.

say, I think we cannot conceive it to be any other but these two for whatever sort of action, besides these, produces any effects, I confess myself to have no notion or idea of; and so it is quite remote from my thoughts, apprehensions, and knowledge; and as much in the dark to me as five other senses, or as the ideas of colours to a blind man and therefore many words, which seem to express some action, signify nothing of the action or modus operandi at all, but barely the effect, with some circumstances of the subject wrought on, or cause operating; v. g. creation, annihilation, contain in them no idea of the action or manner whereby they are produced, but barely of the cause, and the thing done. And when a countryman says the cold freezes water, though the word freezing seems to import some action, yet truly it signifies nothing but the effect, viz. that water that was before fluid is become hard and consistent, without containing any idea of the action whereby it is done.

§ 12. I think I shall not need to remark here, that though power and action make the greatest part of mixed modes, marked by names, and familiar in the. minds and mouths of men, yet other simple ideas, and their several combinations, are not excluded: much less, I think, will it be necessary for me to enumerate all the mixed modes, which have been settled, with names to them. That would be to make a dictionary of the greatest part of the words made use of in divinity, ethics, law, and politics, and several other sciences. All that is requisite to my present design is, to show what sort of ideas those are which I call mixed modes, how the mind comes by them, and that they are compositions made up of simple ideas got from sensation and reflection; which I suppose I have done.

END OF VOL. I.

Mixed

modes made

also of other

ideas.