Philosophy

10/3/23, 5:48 PM Basic Page

https://go.view.usg.edu/d2l/le/content/2807452/viewContent/56407200/View 1/18

John Locke lived from 1632-1704. As you might recall from Unit 2, he wrote An

Essay Concerning Human Understanding in 1690.

In contrast to Descartes, Locke is an empiricist materialist. Empiricists believe

that knowledge comes from experience, not reason alone; and Materialists

believe that what is real is matter, substance outside the mind.

Locke gives a critique of Descartes’ innate ideas and rationalism. First, Locke

points out that innate ideas should be universal. If we did have innate principles

or ideas, we would all agree and have knowledge of them, but children and the

“mentally challenged” do not share these ideas. Instead, Locke describes the mind

as a blank slate at birth, a tabula rasa. Ideas are not innate, but they are imprinted

on our minds by experience. 

Book I:  Innate Notions

Excerpts from Chapter 1-3 of Book I. The full text can be retrieved at http://www.earlymoderntexts.com/authors/locke

Copyright © Jonathan Bennett 2017. All rights reserved.

Note: [Brackets] enclose editorial explanations. Small ·dots· enclose material that has been added, but can be read as though it

were part of the original text. Occasional •bullets, and also indenting of passages that are not quotations, are meant as aids to

grasping the structure of a sentence or a thought. Every four-point ellipsis . . . . indicates the omission of a brief passage that seems

to present more dif�culty than it is worth. Longer omissions are reported on, between [brackets], in normal-sized type. First

launched: July 2004 Last amended: August 2007

Questions to Consider

As you read, consider the following questions:

What kinds of experiences does Locke describe?

How do these experiences using senses connect to ideas in the mind?

Some assume that there are ideas that we all have from birth. What are Locke’s

examples of why we do not have those kinds of ideas?

Does Locke believe that the existence of things is connected to their physical form?

Making Connections

Locke emphasizes sensory experiences as a way to gain knowledge. He also describes objects as having qualities that make us think of their characteristics. Is this something that would be welcomed by Russell and his notion of questioning common sense reasoning and habits? Since Locke places so much trust in our senses, would Plato be concerned that his view is a “return to the Cave” and misleading shadows and images?

Listen

10/3/23, 5:48 PM Basic Page

https://go.view.usg.edu/d2l/le/content/2807452/viewContent/56407200/View 2/18

Chapter 1: Introduction

1. Since it is the understanding that sets man above all other animals and enables him to use and dominate them, it is

certainly worth our while to enquire into it. The understanding is like the eye in this respect: it makes us see and perceive

all other things but doesn’t look in on itself. To stand back from it and treat it as an object of study requires skill and hard

work Still, whatever dif�culties there may be in doing this, whatever it is that keeps us so much in the dark to ourselves, it

will be worthwhile to let as much light as possible in upon our minds, and to learn as much as we can about our own

understandings. As well as being enjoyable, this will help us to think well about other topics.

2. My purpose, therefore, is to enquire into •the origin, certainty, and extent of human knowledge, and also into the

grounds and degrees of belief, opinion, and assent. I shan’t involve myself with the biological aspects of the mind. For

example, I shan’t wrestle with the question of what alterations of our bodies lead to our having sensation through our

sense-organs or to our having any ideas in our understandings. Challenging and entertaining as these questions may be, I

shall by-pass them because they aren’t relevant to my project. All we need for my purposes is to consider the human

ability to think. My time will be well spent if by this plain, factual method I can explain how our understandings come to

have those notions of things that we have, and can establish ways of measuring how certainly we can know things, and of

evaluating the grounds we have for our opinions. Although our opinions are various, different, and often wholly

contradictory, we express them with great assurance and con�dence. Someone observing human opinions from the

outside—seeing how they con�ict with one another, and yet how fondly they are embraced and how stubbornly they are

maintained—might have reason to suspect that either there isn’t any such thing as truth or that mankind isn’t equipped to

come to know it.

3. So it will be worth our while to �nd where the line falls between opinion and knowledge, and to learn more about the

‘opinion’ side of the line. What I want to know is this: When we are concerned with something about which we have no

certain knowledge, what rules or standards should guide how con�dent we allow ourselves to be that our opinions are

right? Here is the method I shall follow in trying to answer that question. First, I shall enquire into the origin of those ideas

or notions—call them what you will—that a man observes and is conscious of having in his mind. How does the

understanding come to be equipped with them? Secondly, I shall try to show what knowledge the understanding has by

means of those ideas—how much of it there is, how secure it is, and how self-evident it is. I shall also enquire a little into

the nature and grounds of faith or opinion—that is, acceptance of something as true when we don’t know for certain that it

is true.

4. I hope that this enquiry into the nature of the understanding will enable me to discover what its powers are—how far

they reach, what things they are adequate to deal with, and where they fail us. If I succeed, that may have the effect of

persuading the busy mind of man •to be more cautious in meddling with things that are beyond its powers to understand;

•to stop when it is at the extreme end of its tether; and •to be peacefully reconciled to ignorance of things that turn out to

be beyond the reach of our capacities.

Perhaps then we shall stop pretending that we know every- thing, and shall be less bold in raising questions and getting

into confusing disputes with others about things to which our understandings are not suited—things of which we can’t

form any clear or distinct perceptions in our minds, or, as happens all too often, things of which we have no notions at all. If

we can �nd out what the scope of the understanding is, how far it is able to achieve certainty, and in what cases it can

only judge and guess, that may teach us to accept our limitations and to rest content with knowing only what our human

condition enables us to know.

Check Your Answer

Locke’s goal in writing the Essay Concerning Human Understanding was to:

(a) Make money from book sales.

(b) Investigate the origin, certainty and extent of knowledge.

(c) Revive the essay form of writing.

(d) Investigate the existence of innate ideas.

The correct answer is (b) Investigate the origin, certainty and extent of knowledge.

My purpose, therefore, is to enquire into the origin, certainty, and extent of human knowledge, and also into the

grounds and degrees of belief, opinion, and assent.

Test Your Knowledge

10/3/23, 5:48 PM Basic Page

https://go.view.usg.edu/d2l/le/content/2807452/viewContent/56407200/View 3/18

5. For, though the reach of our understandings falls far short of the vast extent of things, we shall still have reason to

praise God for the kind and amount of knowledge that he has bestowed on us, so far above all the rest of creation. Men

have reason to be well satis�ed with what God has seen �t to give them, since he has given them everything they need for

the •conveniences of life and the •forming of virtuous characters—that is, everything they need to discover how to

•thrive in this life and how to •�nd their way to a better one. . . . Men can �nd plenty of material for thought, and for a

great variety of pleasurable physical activities, if they don’t presumptuously complain about their own constitution and

throw away the blessings their hands are �lled with because their hands are not big enough to grasp everything. We

shan’t have much reason to complain of the narrowness of our minds if we will only employ them on topics that may be of

use to us; for on those they are very capable. . . .

6. When we know what our ·muscular· strength is, we shall have a better idea of what ·physical tasks· we can attempt with

hopes of success. And when we have thoroughly surveyed the powers of our own minds, and made some estimate of what

we can expect from them, we shan’t be inclined either •to sit still, and not set our thoughts to work at all, in despair of

knowing anything or •to question everything, and make no claim to any knowledge because some things can’t be

understood. It is very useful for the sailor to know how long his line is, even though it is too short to fathom all the depths

of the ocean. It is good for him to know that it is long enough to reach the bottom at places where he needs to know where

it is, and to caution him against running aground. . . .

7. This was what �rst started me on this Essay Concerning the Understanding. I thought that the �rst step towards

answering various questions that people are apt to raise ·about other things· was to take a look at our own

understandings, examine our own powers, and see to what they are �tted for. Till that was done (I suspected) we were

starting at the wrong end—letting our thoughts range over the vast ocean of being, as though there were no limits to what

we could understand, thereby spoiling our chances of getting a quiet and sure possession of truths that most concern us. . .

. If men consider the capacities of our understandings, discover how far our knowledge extends, and �nd the horizon that

marks off •the illuminated parts of things from •the dark ones, •the things we can understand from •the things we can’t,

then perhaps they would be more willing to accept their admitted ignorance of •the former, and devote their thought and

talk more pro�tably and satisfyingly to •the latter.

8. Before moving on, I must here at the outset ask you to excuse how frequently you will �nd me using the word ‘idea’ in

this book. It seems to be the best word to stand for whatever is the object of the understanding when a man thinks; I have

used it to express whatever is meant by ‘phantasm’, ‘notion’, ‘species’, or whatever it is that the mind can be employed

about in thinking; and I couldn’t avoid frequently using it. Nobody, I presume, will deny that there are such ideas in men’s

minds; everyone is conscious of them in himself, and men’s words and actions will satisfy him that they are in others. First,

then: How do they come into the mind?

Chapter 2: No Innate Speculative Principles in the Mind

1. Some people regard it as settled that there are in the understanding certain innate principles. These are conceived as

primary notions [= ‘�rst thoughts’]—letters printed on the mind of man, so to speak—which the soul [= ‘mind’; no religious

implications] receives when it �rst comes into existence, and that it brings into the world with it. I could show any fair-

minded reader that this is wrong if I could show (as I hope to do in the present work) how men can get all the knowledge

they have, and can arrive at certainty about some things, purely by using their natural faculties [= ‘capacities’, ‘abilities’],

without help from any innate notions or principles. Everyone will agree, presumably, that it would be absurd to suppose

that the ideas of colours are innate in a creature to whom God has given eyesight, which is a power to get those ideas

through the eyes from external objects. It would be equally unreasonable to explain our knowledge of various truths in

terms of innate ‘imprinting’ if it could just as easily be explained through our ordinary abilities to come to know things.

Anyone who follows his own thoughts in the search of truth, and is led even slightly off the path of common beliefs, is

likely to be criticized for this; ·and I expect to be criticized for saying that none of our intellectual possessions are innate·.

So I shall present the reasons that made me doubt the truth of the innateness doctrine. That will be my excuse for my

mistake, if that’s what it is. Whether it is a mistake can be decided by those who are willing, as I am, to welcome truth

wherever they �nd it.

Check Your Answer

Locke believes that knowledge is possible, but rejects:

(a) Speculative philosophy

(b) Specious philosophy

(c) Innate ideas

(d) Immaterial ideas

Test Your Knowledge 

10/3/23, 5:48 PM Basic Page

https://go.view.usg.edu/d2l/le/content/2807452/viewContent/56407200/View 4/18

2. Nothing is more commonly taken for granted than that certain principles, both speculative [= ‘having to do with

what is the case’] and practical [= ‘having to do with morality, or what ought to be the case’] are accepted by all mankind.

Some people have argued that because these principles are (they think) universally accepted, they must have been

stamped onto the souls of men from the outset.

3. This argument from universal consent has a defect in it. Even if it were in fact true that all mankind agreed in accepting

certain truths, that wouldn’t prove them to be innate if universal agreement could be explained in some other way; and I

think it can.

4. Worse still, this argument from universal consent which is used to prove that there are innate principles can be turned

into a proof that there are none; because there aren’t any principles to which all mankind give universal assent. I shall

begin with speculative principles, taking as my example those much vaunted logical principles •‘Whatever is, is’ and ‘It is

impossible for the same thing to be and not to be’, which are the most widely thought to be innate. They are so �rmly and

generally believed to be accepted by everyone in the world that it may be thought strange that anyone should question

this. Yet I am willing to say that these propositions, far from being accepted by everyone, have never even been heard of

by a great part of mankind.

5. Children and idiots have no thought—not an inkling—of these principles, and that fact alone is enough to destroy the

universal assent that any truth that was genuinely innate would have to have. For it seems to me nearly a contradiction to

say that there are truths imprinted on the soul that it doesn’t perceive or understand—because if ‘imprinting’ means

anything it means making something be perceived: to imprint anything on the mind without the mind’s perceiving it seems

to me hardly intelligible. So if children and idiots have souls, minds, with those principles imprinted on them, they can’t

help perceiving them and assenting to them. Since they don’t do that, it is evident that the principles are not innately

impressed upon their minds. If they were naturally imprinted, and thus innate, how could they be unknown? To say that a

notion is imprinted on the mind, and that the mind is ignorant of it and has never paid attention to it, is to make this

impression nothing. No proposition can be said to be in the mind which it has never known or been conscious of. It may be

said that a proposition that the mind has never consciously known may be ‘in the mind’ in the sense that the mind

is capable of knowing it; but in that sense every true proposition that the mind is capable of ever assenting to may be said to be

‘in the mind’ and to be imprinted! Indeed, there could be ‘imprinted on’ someone’s mind, in this sense, truths that the person

never did and never will know. For a man may be capable of knowing, and indeed of knowing with certainty, many things

that he doesn’t in fact come to know at any time in his life. So if the mere ability to know is the natural impression

philosophers are arguing for, all the truths a man ever comes to know will have to count as innate; and this great doctrine

about ‘innateness’ will come down to nothing more than a very improper way of speaking, and not something that

disagrees with the views of those who deny innate principles. For nobody, I think, ever denied that the mind was capable

of knowing many truths. Those who think that •all knowledge is acquired ·rather than innate· also think that

•the capacity for knowledge is innate. If these words ‘to be in the understanding’ are used properly, they mean ‘to be

understood’. Thus, to be in the understanding and not be understood—to be in the mind and never be perceived—amounts

to saying that something is and is not in the mind or understanding. If therefore these two propositions, •‘Whatsoever is,

is’ and •‘It is impossible for the same thing to be and not to be’ are imprinted by nature, children cannot be ignorant of

them; infants and all who have souls must necessarily have them in their understandings, know the truth of them, and

assent to that truth.

The correct answer is (c) Innate ideas.

No innate ·speculative· principles in the mind 

Check Your Answer

Locke rejects the argument from universal consent that:

(a) Certainty is pure only from experience

(b) Universal agreement is positive proof

(c) Agreement does not prove idea are innate

(d) Agreement proves logical necessity

The correct answer is (c) Agreement does not prove idea are innate.

Test Your Knowledge 

10/3/23, 5:48 PM Basic Page

https://go.view.usg.edu/d2l/le/content/2807452/viewContent/56407200/View 5/18

6. To avoid this conclusion, it is usually answered that all men know and assent to these truths when they come to the use of

reason, and this is enough to prove the truths innate. I answer as follows. 

7. People who are in the grip of a prejudice don’t bother to look carefully at what they say; and so they will say things that

are suspect—indeed almost meaningless—and pass them off as clear reasons. The foregoing claim ·that innateness is

proved by assent-when-reason-is-reached·, if it is to be turned into something clear and applied to our present question,

must mean either 1 that as soon as men come to the use of reason these supposedly innate truths come to be known and

observed by them, or 2 that the use and exercise of men’s reason assists them in the discovery of these truths, making

them known with certainty. 

8. If they mean2 that by the use of reason men may discover these principles, and that this is suf�cient to prove them

innate, they must be arguing for this conclusion: 

Whatever truths reason can enable us to know for certain, and make us �rmly assent to, are all ·innate, i.e.· naturally

imprinted on the mind; 

on the grounds that universal assent proves innateness, and that all we mean by something’s being ‘universally assented

to’ in this context is merely that we can come to know it for sure, and be brought to assent to it, by the use of reason. This

line of thought wipes out the distinction between the maxims [= ‘basic axioms’] of the mathematicians and

the theorems they deduce from them; all must equally count as innate because they can all be known for certain through

the use of reason. 

9. How can people who take this view think that we need to use reason to discover principles that are supposedly innate?. .

. . We may as well think that the use of reason is necessary to make our eyes discover visible objects as that we need to have

(or to use) reason to make the understanding see what is originally engraved on it and cannot be in the understanding before

being noticed by it. ‘Reason shows us those truths that have been imprinted’—this amounts to saying that the use of

reason enables a man to learn what he already knew. 

10. ·In reply to my �nal remark in section 8·, it may be said that maxims and other innate truths are, whereas mathematical

demonstrations and other non-innate truths are not, assented to as soon as the question is put. I freely acknowledge that

maxims differ from mathematical demonstrations in this way: we grasp and assent to the latter only with the help of

reason, using proofs, whereas the former—the basic maxims—are embraced and assented to as soon as they are

understood, without the least reasoning. But so much the worse for the view that reason is needed for the discovery of

these general truths [= maxims], since it must be admitted that reasoning plays no part in their discovery. And I think those

who take this view ·that innate truths are known by reason· will hesitate to assert that the knowledge of the maxim that it

is impossible for the same thing to be and not to be is a deduction of our reason. For by making our knowledge of such a

principle depend on the labour of our thoughts they would be destroying that bounty of nature they seem so fond of. In all

reasoning we search and �ail around, having to take pains and stick to the problem. What sense does it make to suppose

that all this is needed to discover something that was imprinted ·on us· by nature? 

11. . . . .It is therefore utterly false that reason assists us in the knowledge of these maxims; and ·as I have also been

arguing·, if it were true it would prove that they are not innate! 

12. ·Of the two interpretations mentioned in section 7, I now come to the one labelled 1·. If by ‘knowing and assenting to

them when we come to the use of reason’ the innatists mean that this is when the mind comes to notice them, and that as

soon as children acquire the use of reason they come also to know and assent to these maxims, this also is •false and 

13. frivolous. •It is false because these maxims are obviously not in the mind as early as the use of reason. We observe

ever so many instances of the use of reason in children long before they have any knowledge of the maxim that it is

impossible for the same thing to be and not to be. Similarly with illiterate people and savages. . . .All that is left for these

innatists to claim is this·: Maxims or innate truths are never known or noticed before the use of reason, and may be

assented to at some time after that, but there is no saying when. But that is true of all other knowable truths; so it doesn’t

help to mark off innately known truths from others. 

14. Anyway, even if it were true that certain truths came to be known and assented to at precisely the time when men

acquire the use of reason, that wouldn’t prove them to be innate. To argue that it would do so is as •frivolous as the

premise of the argument is •false. [Locke develops that point at some length. How, he demands, can x’s innateness be

derived from the premise that a person �rst knows x when he comes to be able to reason? Why not derive something’s

innateness from its being �rst known only when a person comes to be able to speak? (Or, he might have added even more

mockingly, when a person �rst becomes able to walk? or to sing?) He allows some truth to the thesis that basic general

maxims are not known to someone who doesn’t yet have the use of reason, but he explains this in terms not of innateness

but rather of a theory of his own that he will develop later in the work. It rests on the assumption—which Locke doesn’t

Worse still, this argument from universal consent which is used to prove that there are innate principles can be

turned into a proof that there are none;

10/3/23, 5:48 PM Basic Page

https://go.view.usg.edu/d2l/le/content/2807452/viewContent/56407200/View 6/18

declare here—that to think a general maxim one must have general ideas, and that to express a general maxim one must be

able to use general words. Then:] The growth of reason in a person goes along with his becoming able to form general

abstract ideas, and to understand general names [= ‘words’]; so children usually don’t have such general ideas or learn the

·general· names that stand for them until after they have for a good while employed their reason on familiar and less

general ideas; and it is during that period that their talk and behaviour shows them to be capable of rational conversation. 

[Sections 15 and 16 continue with this theme. A typical passage is this, from section 16:] The later it is before anyone

comes to have those general ideas that are involved in ·supposedly innate· maxims, or to know the meanings of the

general words that stand for them, or to put together in his mind the ideas they stand for; the later also it will be before he

comes to assent to the maxims. . . . Those words and ideas are no more innate than is the idea of cat or of weasel. So the

child must wait until time and observation have acquainted him with them; and then he will be in a �t state to know the

truth of these maxims. 

17. . . . .Some people have tried to secure universal assent to the propositions they call maxims by saying they are generally

assented to as soon as they are proposed, and the terms they are proposed in are understood. . . . 

18. In answer to this, I ask whether prompt assent given to a proposition upon �rst hearing it and understanding the terms

really is a certain mark of an innate principle? If so, then we must classify as innate all such propositions, in which case the

innatists will �nd themselves plentifully supplied with innate principles—including various propositions about numbers

that everybody assents to at �rst hearing and understanding the terms. And not just numbers; for even the natural

sciences contain propositions that are sure to meet with assent as soon as they are understood: •Two bodies cannot be in

the same place ·at the same time· is a truth that a person would no more hesitate to accept than he would to accept •It is

impossible for the same thing to be and not to be, •White is not black, or •A square is not a circle. If assent at �rst hearing and

understanding the terms were a mark of innateness, we would have to accept as innate every •proposition in which

different ideas are denied one of another. We would have legions of innate propositions of this one sort, not to mention all

the others. . . . Now, I agree that a proposition is shown to be self-evident by its being promptly assented to by everyone

who hears it and understands its terms; but self-evidence comes not from innateness but from a different source which I

shall present in due course. There are plenty of self-evident propositions that nobody would be so fanciful as to claim to

be innate. 

19. Don’t say that the less general self-evident propositions— One and two are equal to three, Green is not red, and so on—

are accepted as the consequences of more general ones that are taken to be innate. Anyone who attends with care to

what happens in the understanding will certainly �nd that the less general propositions are known for sure, and �rmly

assented to, by people who are utterly ignorant of those more general maxims; so the former can’t be accepted on the

strength of the latter. 

[In section 20 Locke considers the claim that the less general self evident truths are not ‘of any great use’, unlike the more

general maxims that are called innate. He replies that no reason has been given for connecting usefulness to innateness,

and that in any case he is going to question whether the more general maxims are of any great use.] 

21. ·Here is another objection to inferring a proposition’s innateness from its being assented by anyone who hears it and

understands its terms·. Rather than this being a sign that the proposition is innate, it is really a proof that it isn’t. It is being

assumed that people who understand and know other things are ignorant of these ·self-evident and supposedly innate·

principles till they are proposed to them. But if they were innate, why would they need to be proposed in order to be

assented to? Wouldn’t their being in the understanding through a natural and original impression lead to their being

known even before being proposed? Or does proposing them print them more clearly in the mind than nature did? If so,

then a man knows such a proposition better after he has been thus taught it—·that is, had it clarifyingly ‘proposed’ to him·

—than he did before. This implies that these principles may be made more evident to us by others’ teaching than nature

has made them by impression; which deprives supposedly innate principles of their authority, and makes them un�t to be

the foundations of all our other knowledge, as they are claimed to be. . . . 

[Section 22 brie�y and unsympathetically discusses the suggestion that even before a man �rst has an innate maxim

‘proposed’ to him, he has an implicit knowledge of it.] 

[In section 23 Locke argues that the position he is now opposing—that a proposition counts as innate if it is  assented to

when �rst proposed and understood—looks plausible only because it is assumed that when the proposition is proposed

and made to be understood nothing new is learned; that assumption might lead Locke’s opponents to say that he was wrong

in section 21 to say that such propositions are taught. Against this he says:] In truth they are taught, and ·in such teaching

the pupils· do learn something they were ignorant of before. They have learned the terms and their meanings, neither of

which were born with them; and they have acquired the relevant ideas, which were not born with them any more than

their names were. [Locke then presents at some length his own view about what really happens when someone assents to

a self-evident proposition; all this will be developed further in Book II.] 

10/3/23, 5:48 PM Basic Page

https://go.view.usg.edu/d2l/le/content/2807452/viewContent/56407200/View 7/18

24. To conclude this argument about universal consent, I agree with these defenders of innate principles that if they are

innate they must have universal assent. (I can no more make sense of a truth’s being innate and yet not assented to than I can

of a man’s knowing a truth while being ignorant of it.) But it follows that they can’t be innate, because they are not

universally assented to, as I have shown. . . . 

25. It may be objected that I have been arguing from the thoughts of infants, drawing conclusions from what happens in

their understandings, whereas we really don’t know what their thoughts are. [Locke at some length just denies this,

claiming that we do know a good deal about the thoughts of children. The section ends thus:] The child certainly knows

that the wormseed or mustard it refuses is not the apple or sugar it cries for: this it is certainly and undoubtedly assured

of. But will anyone say that the child has this knowledge by virtue of the principle It is impossible for the same thing to be and

not to be? Someone who says that children join in these general abstract speculations with their sucking bottles and their

rattles can fairly be thought to have less sincerity and truth than an infant, even if he outdoes the child in his passion and

zeal for his opinion! 

[Section 26 winds up that whole line of argument.] 

[Section 27 advances a new argument. The innatist must allow that the truths innately implanted in our minds don’t

always present themselves to our consciousness, and he is forced to explain that this happens because our innately given

intellectual possessions may be smudged over, ‘corrupted by custom or borrowed opinions, by learning and education’.

But if that were right, those innate truths ‘should appear fairest and clearest’ in the minds of ‘children, idiots, savages, and

illiterate people’; yet in such people ‘we �nd no footsteps of them’.] One would think, according to the innatists’ principles,

that all these native beams of light (if they existed) would shine out most brilliantly in people who are not skilled in

concealing things, leaving us in no more doubt of their having them than we are of their loving pleasure and hating pain.

But alas, amongst children, idiots, savages, and the grossly illiterate, what general maxims are to be found? What universal

principles of knowledge? Their notions are few and narrow, borrowed only from the objects they have had most to do

with, and which have most frequently and strongly impressed themselves upon their senses. . . . 

28. I don’t know how absurd my position on this may seem to logicians; and probably most people will �nd it, on a �rst

hearing, hard to swallow. So I ask for a little truce with prejudice, and a holding off from of criticism, until I have been

heard out in the later parts of this Book. I am very willing to submit to better judgments. Since I impartially search after

truth, I shan’t mind becoming convinced that I have been too fond of my own notions; which I admit we are all apt to be

when application and study have excited our heads with them. . . . 

Chapter 3: No Innate Practical Principles

1. It is even more obvious that no practical [= ‘moral’] principles are universally assented to than that no speculative [=

‘non-moral’] principles are. It will be hard to �nd any moral rule that has as much claim to immediate universal assent as

‘What is, is’ or that is as obviously true as ‘It is impossible for the same thing to be and not to be.’ So the case against the

innateness of practical principles is even stronger. In saying this I don’t question their truth: the two kinds of principle are

equally true, but they are not equally self-evident. The speculative maxims of which I have written are self-evident; 

·you have only to bring them clearly before your mind to see that they are true·; but moral principles need to be supported

by reasons; you have to use your mind on them to become certain that they are true. This, however, doesn’t detract from

their truth or certainty. (Similarly, ‘The three angles of a triangle are equal to two right angles’ is not as evidently true as

‘The whole is bigger than a part’, nor so apt to be assented to at �rst hearing; but it is true and certain all the same.) Since

these moral rules can be demonstrated, it is our own fault if we don’t achieve certain knowledge of them. But the sheer

fact that •many men are ignorant of them, and the fact that •others come to them only gradually, are clear proofs that

moral rules are not something we can know without searching for them, and are therefore not innate. 

2. If you have the slightest knowledge of the history of mankind, or have looked beyond the four walls of your own home,

you must know that there are no moral principles that everyone assents to. Most people seem to agree about justice and

the keeping of contracts. Indeed, this principle is thought to be respected even amongst thieves and other villains: those

who have gone furthest towards losing their own humanity, it is said, still keep faith with another. So indeed they do; but

they observe principles of justice merely as rules of convenience within their own communities, not as innate moral laws.

It isn’t believable that someone who is ready to plunder or kill the next honest man he meets with acts fairly with his

fellow highwayman because he embraces justice as a moral principle! Justice and truth are the common ties of society; and

therefore even outlaws and robbers must keep faith and rules of fairness amongst themselves, for otherwise their gangs

will fall apart. But will anyone say that those who live by crime allow themselves to be guided by innate principles of truth

and justice? 

3. You may want to say that criminals accept those principles even though they don’t act on them. Well, I have always

thought that men's actions are the best guides to their thoughts. Furthermore, it is very strange and unreasonable to

suppose that there are innate practical principles that show up in what men think but don’t affect their behaviour. What

makes a principle practical (rather than speculative) is its bearing upon action. Something of a practical kind that is innate

in all mankind, and in�uences all our conduct, is a desire for happiness and an aversion to misery; but this has to do with

10/3/23, 5:48 PM Basic Page

https://go.view.usg.edu/d2l/le/content/2807452/viewContent/56407200/View 8/18

our •wants, not with our moral beliefs. I don’t deny that there are •natural tendencies imprinted on the minds of men, so

that from the moment we begin to perceive we like some things and dislike others; but that doesn’t mean that we have

innately in our minds anything amounting to principles of moral knowledge. . . . 

4. Another reason for doubting that there are any innate practical principles is that I think one can fairly ask for

a reason for any moral rule whatsoever. If such rules were innate, they would be self-evident: their truth could be seen

without any kind of proofs or reasons; and so the demand for a reason would be perfectly ridiculous and absurd. Someone

who asked why it is impossible for the same thing to be and not to be would be regarded as lacking in common sense, as

would someone who tried to answer him. That speculative principle needs no proof except its own self-evidence: anyone

who understands the words accepts the principle for its own sake, and if he doesn’t, nothing will change his mind. In

contrast with that, suppose someone hears for the �rst time ‘One should do as he would be done unto’, and understands

its meaning, might he not without any absurdity ask for a reason why? and ought not the person who proposes it be willing

to supply a reason? But if it were innate, it wouldn't need a reason and couldn’t be given one. Clearly, the truth of all these

moral rules depends on some underlying rules from which they must be deduced; and this could not be so if they were

innate, or even if they were merely self-evident. 

5. That men should keep their promises is certainly a great and undeniable rule in morality. But if •a Christian is asked why a

man must keep his word, he will answer: because God, who has the power of eternal life and death, requires him to. But if

•a follower of Hobbes is asked why, he will answer: because the public requires it, and the state will punish you if you

don’t. And if •one of the old philosophers had been asked, he would have answered: because breaking promises is

dishonest, below the dignity of a man, and opposite to virtue, which is the highest perfection of human nature. 

6. So men’s opinions concerning moral rules vary greatly, according to the different sorts of happiness they aim at. This

couldn’t be so if practical principles were innate, and imprinted in our minds immediately by the hand of God. I grant that

the existence of God is made clear to us in so many ways, and the obedience we owe him agrees so much with the light of

reason, that a great part of mankind proclaim the law of nature; but it can’t be denied that moral rules can be generally

approved of by people who don’t know that their true ground is—namely, the will and law of a God who sees men in the

dark, has in his hand rewards and punishments, and has power enough to call to account the proudest offender. God has

�rmly joined virtue and public happiness together, and made virtuous conduct necessary to the preservation of society,

and visibly bene�cial to everyone the virtuous man has any dealings with; so it isn’t surprising that each person should not

merely accept those rules but also recommend and praise them to other people whose observance of the rules is bound to

bring advantage to him. He may, out of self-interest rather than conviction, declare the sacredness of something that he

needs to have observed for his own security. This doesn’t detract from the moral and eternal obligation that these rules

evidently have; but it shows that the outward acknowledgment men pay to them in their words doesn’t prove that they

are innate principles. Indeed, it doesn’t even prove that men assent to them inwardly in their own minds as unbreakable

rules for their own conduct. . . . 

7. For if we don’t politely believe everything that men say, but take their actions to show what they think, we shall �nd that

they have no such inner respect for these rules, and are not so sure they are bound by them. . . . It may be urged that

men’s consciences help to prevent them from breaking the rules, showing that there is after all an internal sense of being

obliged by them. 

8. To which I answer that many men can come to assent to various moral rules in the same way that they come to the

knowledge of other things—without the rules being written on their hearts. And others may be led the same way by their

education, the company they keep, and the customs of their country. Such an assent to the rules, however it is come by,

will activate the conscience—which is nothing but our own opinion or judgment of the moral rightness or wrongness of

our own actions. And if conscience is a proof of innateness, contraries can be innate principles; because sometimes men

will conscientiously promote what others conscientiously avoid. 

9. But if those moral rules were innate, and stamped on men’s minds, I can’t see how anyone should ever con�dently and

serenely break them. ·Yet this happens constantly·. See an army sacking a town, and look for signs of the soldier’s

•obeying or •having some sense of moral principles, 

•feeling some touch of conscience over the outrages they are performing! Robberies, murders, rapes, are the sports of

men who are not threatened with punishment and censure. Have there not been whole nations, and those of the most

civilized people, amongst whom the exposing their children—leaving them in the �elds to die of hunger or from wild

beasts—has been the practice? [The section continues with a page and a half of even more disgusting examples.] 

10. Look carefully at the history of mankind, and scan the various tribes of men, looking without prejudice at their actions,

and you will be able to satisfy yourself that 

There is hardly a principle of morality to be named, or rule of virtue to be thought of, that is not somewhere in the world

slighted and condemned by the general fashion of whole societies of men who live by moral views and rules that are quite

opposite to those of others. 

10/3/23, 5:48 PM Basic Page

https://go.view.usg.edu/d2l/le/content/2807452/viewContent/56407200/View 9/18

An exception is provided by rules that are absolutely necessary to hold society together; but these too are commonly

�outed in relations between distinct societies. 

11. It may be objected that a rule’s being broken doesn’t prove that it is not known. I agree with this, in cases where men

break a moral law but don’t disown it, showing by their fear of shame, blame, or punishment that they still hold it in some

awe. But it is impossible to conceive that a whole nation of men should all publicly reject and renounce what every one of

them, certainly and infallibly, knew to be a law (as they must if it is naturally imprinted on their minds). . . . Whatever

practical principle is innate must be known to everyone to be just and good. It is therefore little less than a contradiction

to suppose that whole nations of men should, in both speech and action, unanimously and universally give the lie to what

every one of them knew for certain to be true, right, and good. So no practical rule can be supposed to be innate if in any

part of the world it is transgressed universally and with public approval or without disapproval. 

12. [Locke discusses, as a possible candidate for an innate moral rule, ‘Parents, preserve and cherish your children’, and

reverts to the section 9 topic of the widespread breaches of this rule. Then a quite different point:] •Parents, preserve your

children is so far from being an innate truth that it isn’t a truth at all: it is a •command, not a •proposition, so it cannot be

true or false. To make it capable of being assented to as true, we must turn it into some such proposition as •It is the duty of

parents to preserve their children. But what duty is cannot be understood without a law; and a law cannot be known or

supposed without a law-maker, or without reward and punishment. So it is impossible that this or any other practical

principle should be innate, i.e. be imprinted on the mind as a duty, without presupposing the innateness of the ideas

of God, of law, of obligation, of punishment, and of a life after this. . . . But these are so far from being innate that they are not

to be found clear and distinct in the mind of every studious or thinking man, let alone in the mind of every man who is ever

born. In my next chapter I shall show that the one of them that seems most likely to be innate—I mean the idea of God—is

not so. 

13. From what I have said I think we may safely conclude that no principle is innate if it is in any place generally allowed to

be broken, for it is impossible that men should con�dently and serenely break a rule that they know (and if it were innate

they would have to know) had been set by God, who would certainly punish any breach of it so severely as to make the

transgression a poor bargain. [In the remainder of this long section Locke elaborates this point: if a practical principle

were innate, men would have to know that it was set by God who would certainly punish breaches of it very severely; and

someone who knows that about a law will certainly be deterred from breaking it. He concludes with a different point:]

Don’t think that because I deny an innate law I hold that there are only man-made laws. There is a great deal of difference

between an •innate law·which I deny· and a •law of nature ·which I accept·, between •something imprinted on our minds

in their very origin and•something we can come to know of through the proper use of our natural faculties. There are two

extremes: •those who af�rm that there are innate laws, and •those who deny that any law can be known by the light of

nature, i.e. without the help of revelation; and I think they are both far from the truth. 

14. The way men differ in their practical principles is so obvious as to doom all attempts to identify any moral rules as

innate on the basis of their being generally accepted. I suspect that the supposition of such innate principles is merely an

irresponsible free-�oating opinion, because those who talk about them so con�dently don’t tell us which they are, as one

might reasonably expect them to do. . . . Since nobody, so far as I know, has yet ventured to give a catalogue of the innate

practical principles, their supporters can’t blame those of us who doubt that they exist. . . . Very many men are so far from

�nding any such innate moral principles in themselves that by denying freedom to mankind and thereby making men no

more than mere machines, they take away not only innate but all moral rules whatsoever, making it impossible for such

rules to be believed in by those who can’t conceive how anything except a free agent can be capable of a law. Upon that

ground, those who can’t reconcile morality with mechanism (which is hard to do) must necessarily reject all principles of

virtue. 

[In sections 15–19 Locke discusses a writing by Lord Herbert of Cherbury. After completing the previous sections, he

reports, he learned that Lord Herbert had given a list of innate principles and an account of the criteria by which they can

be classi�ed as innate. Locke says that not all the items on the list satisfy all the criteria, and that they are satis�ed by

plenty of things not on the list. Some are criticized as vague or ambiguous, some as trivial,etc.] 

20. It may be said that the innate principles of morality may be darkened in the minds of men, and eventually quite worn

out, by education and custom and the general opinion of the members of one’s society. If this is true it destroys the

argument from universal consent for the existence of innate principles, unless the members of this or that sect

regard their agreeing on something as ‘universal consent’. People do this, presuming themselves to be the only masters of

right reason, and throwing out the votes and opinions of the rest of mankind, as not worth taking into account. So this is

their argument: 

The principles that all mankind count as true are innate; those that men of right reason accept are the principles allowed

by all mankind; we and like-minded people are men of reason; therefore, since we agree, our principles are innate; 

which is a very clever way of arguing, and a short cut to infallibility! For without that ·absurd approach·, it will be very hard

to understand how there can be principles that all men agree on, though they are all blotted out of the minds of many men

by depraved custom, and bad education—that is principles that all men accept and many men deny! [In the remainder of

10/3/23, 5:48 PM Basic Page

https://go.view.usg.edu/d2l/le/content/2807452/viewContent/56407200/View 10/18

the section Locke elaborates this point.] 

[Sections 21–6 discuss the absolute con�dence that people have in the truth of certain doctrines—different doctrines in

different societies. Locke offers to explain this phenomenon, largely in terms of early education. In 23 he inserts a

connection between early education and the belief that there are innate principles: ‘When people who have been so

instructed grow up and re�ect on their own minds, they can’t �nd anything more ancient there than the opinions that they

were taught before their memory began to keep a record of the happenings in their lives or to note the time when any

new thing appeared to them. They can’t remember any source for those opinions, and that makes them sure that the

opinions were impressed on them by God and nature.’ In section 24: ‘There is scarcely anyone so �oating and super�cial in

his understanding that he doesn’t have some revered propositions that he takes to be the principles on which he bases his

reasonings, and by which he judges of truth and falsehood, right and wrong.’ In section 25 the topic is the effect of social

pressure in stopping people from examining the revered propositions critically. Near the end of 26:] Anyone who takes

any such supposed principles into his mind and regards them with the reverence usually paid to principles, never

venturing to examine them but getting the habit of believing them because they are to be believed, can be led by his

education and the fashions of his country to regard any absurdity as an innate principle. 

[In section 27 Locke contends that his explanation in the preceding sections seems to be the only one that can explain why

so many con�icting propositions are thought to be innate.] 

Book II:  Ideas

Excerpts from Chapter 1-7 of Book II. The full text can be retrieved at http://www.earlymoderntexts.com/authors/locke

Copyright © Jonathan Bennett 2017. All rights reserved.

Chapter 1: Ideas in General, and Their Origin

1. Everyone is conscious to himself that he thinks; and when thinking is going on, the mind is engaged with ideas that it

contains. So it’s past doubt that men have in their minds various ideas, such as are those expressed by the words

‘whiteness’, ‘hardness’, ‘sweetness’, ‘thinking’, ‘motion’, ‘man’, ‘elephant’, ‘army’, ‘drunkenness’, and others. The �rst question,

then, is how does he acquire these ideas? It is widely believed that men have ideas stamped upon their minds in their very

�rst being. My opposition to this in Book I will probably be received more favourably when I have shown where the

understanding can get all its ideas from—an account that I contend will be supported by everyone’s own observation and

experience. 

2. Let us then suppose the mind to have no ideas in it, to be like white paper with nothing written on it. How then does it

come to be written on? From where does it get that vast store which the busy and boundless imagination of man has

painted on it—all the materials of reason and knowledge? To this I answer, in one word, from experience. Our

understandings derive all the materials of thinking from observations that we make of •external objects that can be

perceived through the senses, and of •the internal operations of our minds, which we perceive by looking in at ourselves.

These two are the fountains of knowledge, from which arise all the ideas we have or can naturally have. 

3. First, our senses when applied to particular perceptible objects convey into the mind many distinct perceptions of

things, according to the different ways in which the objects affect them. That’s how we come by the ideas we have of

yellow, white, heat, cold, soft, hard, bitter, sweet, and all so on—the so-called ‘sensible qualities’. When I say the senses

convey ·these ideas· into the mind, ·I don’t mean this strictly and literally, because I don’t mean to say that an idea

actually travels across from the perceived object to the person’s mind. Rather· I mean that through the senses external

objects convey into the mind something that produces there those perceptions [= ‘ideas’]. This great source of most of the

ideas we have I call SENSATION. 

4. Secondly, the other fountain from which experience provides ideas to the understanding is the perception of the

operations of our own mind within us. This yields ideas that couldn’t be had from external things—ones such as ·the ideas

of· perception, thinking, doubting, believing, reasoning, knowing, willing, and all the different things that our minds do.

Being conscious of these actions of the mind and observing them in ourselves, our understandings get from them ideas

that are as distinct as the ones we get from bodies affecting our senses. Every man has this source of ideas wholly within

himself; and though it is not sense, because it has nothing to do with external objects, it is still very like sense, and might

properly enough be called ‘internal sense’. But along with calling the other ‘sensation’, I call this REFLECTION, because the

ideas it gives us can be had only by a mind re�ecting on its own operations within itself. By ‘re�ection’ then, in the rest of

this work, I mean the notice that the mind takes of what it is doing, and how. (I am here using ‘operations’ in a broad sense,

to cover not only the actions of the mind on its ideas but also passive states that can arise from them, such as is the

satisfaction or uneasiness arising from any thought.) So that’s my thesis: all our ideas take their beginnings from those two

sources—external material things as objects of sensation, and the operations of our own minds as objects of re�ection. 

5.. . . . When we have taken a full survey of •the ideas we get from these sources, and of their various modes,

combinations, and relations, we shall �nd they are •our whole stock of ideas; and that we have nothing in our minds that

didn’t come in one of these two ways. [Locke then challenges the reader to ‘search into his understanding’ and see

10/3/23, 5:48 PM Basic Page

https://go.view.usg.edu/d2l/le/content/2807452/viewContent/56407200/View 11/18

whether he has any ideas other than those of sensation and re�ection.] 

6. If you look carefully at the state of a newborn child, you’ll �nd little reason to think that he is well stocked with ideas

that are to be the matter of his future knowledge. He gets ideas gradually; and though the ideas of obvious and familiar

qualities imprint themselves before the memory begins to keep a record of when or how, ideas of unusual qualities are

different. Some of them come so late that most people can remember when they �rst had them. And if we had reason to,

we could arrange for child to be brought up in such a way as to have very few ideas, even ordinary ones, until he had grown

to manhood. In actuality children are born into the world surrounded by bodies that perpetually affect them so as to

imprint on their minds a variety of ideas: light and colours are busy everywhere, as long as the eyes are open; sounds and

some tangible qualities engage the senses appropriate to them, and force an entrance into the mind. But I think you’ll

agree that if a child were kept in a place where he never saw any colour but black and white till he was a man, he would

have no ideas of scarlet or green—any more than a person has an idea of the taste of oysters or of pineapples if he has

never actually tasted either. 

7. How many simple ideas a person has depends ·for ideas of sensation· on what variety there is among the external

objects that he perceives, and ·for ideas of re�ection· on how much he re�ects on the workings of his own mind. The

focussed intensity of the re�ection is relevant, because·: someone who contemplates the operations of his mind can’t help

having plain and clear ideas of them, he won’t have clear and distinct ideas of all the operations of his mind and everything

that happens in them unless he turns his thoughts that way and considers them attentively; any more than he can have ideas of

all the details of a landscape painting, or of the parts and motions of a clock, if he doesn’t look at it and focus his attention

on all the parts of it. The picture or clock may be so placed that he encounters them every day, but he’ll have only a

confused idea of all the parts they are made up of, until he applies himself with attention to consider each part separately. 

8. That’s why most children don’t get ideas of the operations of their own minds until quite late, and why some

people never acquire any very clear or perfect ideas of most of their mental operations. Their mental operations are there

all the time, like �oating visions; but until the understanding turns inward upon itself, re�ects on them, and makes them

the objects of its own thoughts, they won’t make deep enough impressions to leave in the person’s mind clear, distinct,

lasting ideas. Children enter the world surrounded by new things that constantly attract their senses, beckoning to a mind

that is eager to notice new things and apt to be delighted with the variety of changing objects. So the �rst years are

usually spent in looking outwards ·at the surroundings·; and so people grow up constantly attending to outward

sensation, re�ecting very little on what happens within them till they come to be of riper years—and some not even then. 

9. When does a man �rst have any ideas? That is the same as asking: when does a man begin to perceive? For having ideas

and perception are the same thing. I know that some philosophers hold that the soul [= ‘mind’; no religious

implications] always thinks, and that it has the actual perception of ideas in itself constantly as long as it exists. For them,

•actual thinking is as inseparable from•the soul as •actual extension is from •the body, which implies that the question

‘When do his ideas begin?’ is equivalent to ‘When does his soul begin?’. For on their view the soul and its ideas must begin

to exist both at the same time. as do body and its extension [= ‘its taking up space’]. 

10. How does •the soul’s beginning to exist relate to •the �rst rudiments of organization—or to the beginnings of life—in

the body? Before it, or at the same time, or later? I leave that question to be disputed by those who have thought harder

about it than I have. ·But I do have a view about how •the soul’s beginning to exist relates to •its �rst having ideas, or at

least to the view that the two must occur together because a soul can’t exist except when it has ideas·. I confess that I have

one of those dull souls that doesn’t perceive itself always to contemplate ideas; and I don’t think it’s any more necessary

Check Your Answers

Locke is an empiricist so for him there is nothing in the mind that is not �rst:

(a) In nature

(b) In urban thinking

(c) Innate ideas

(d) In the senses

The correct answer is (d) In the senses.

When we have taken a full survey of •the ideas we get from these sources, and of their various modes, combinations,

and relations, we shall �nd they are •our whole stock of ideas; and that we have nothing in our minds that didn’t

come in one of these two ways.

Test Your Knowledge 

10/3/23, 5:48 PM Basic Page

https://go.view.usg.edu/d2l/le/content/2807452/viewContent/56407200/View 12/18

for the soul always to think than for the body always to move. In my view, the perception of ideas is to the soul as motion is

to the body—not something that •is essential to it, but something that •it sometimes does. So even if thinking is an activity

that is uniquely appropriate to the soul, that doesn’t require us to suppose that the soul is always thinking, always in

action. Perhaps that is a gift possessed by God, ‘who never slumbers nor sleeps’ [Psalm 121:3], but it isn’t appropriate for

any �nite being, or at least not to the soul of man. We know by experience that we sometimes think; and from this we

validly infer that there is in us something—·some substance·—that is able to think; but whether that substance

perpetually thinks or not is a question we must answer on the basis of what experience informs us. To say that ·experience

is irrelevant because· actual thinking is essential to the soul and ·thus conceptually· inseparable from it, is to assume the

very thing that is in question. Such a claim needs to be supported by arguments, unless the claim is a self-evident

proposition—and I don’t think anyone will contend that The soul always thinks is self-evident. [The section continues with

mockery of people who purport to prove something by assuming it among the premises of their argument; and with a

reply to a critic who, misunderstanding something in the �rst edition of the Essay, had accused Locke of thinking that

when you are asleep your soul doesn’t exist.] 

11. I grant that the soul in a waking man is never without thought, because that’s what it is to be awake. But I suspect that

in sleeping without dreaming, the whole man is asleep—his mind as well as his body—so that in that state no thought is

occurring. If the soul thinks in a sleeping man without being conscious of it, I ask whether during such thinking •the soul

has any pleasure or pain, or any ability to be happy or miserable? I am sure •the man does not, any more than •the bed he

lies on has pleasure or pain. For to be happy or miserable without being conscious of it seems to me utterly inconsistent

and impossible. If you say that •the soul might be in any of those states while the body is sleeping, and •the unsleeping

man have no consciousness of them, I reply: In that case Socrates asleep and Socrates awake are not the same person, but

two persons. [Locke elaborates this in the remainder of section 11 and on through 12, relying on a view of his about

personal identity that he’ll develop more clearly and at greater length in xxvii.] 

13. Thus, I think, every drowsy nod shakes the doctrine of those who teach that the soul is always thinking! Anyway, those

who do at some time sleep without dreaming can never be convinced that their thoughts are for four hours busy without

their knowing of it; and if they are taken in the very act, waked in the middle of those sleeping thoughts, they can give no

account of it. 

14. It will perhaps be said that the soul thinks even in the soundest sleep but the memory doesn’t retain those thoughts. 

·This is utterly implausible·. . . . Who can imagine that most men, for several hours every day of their lives, think of

something of which they could remember nothing at all, even if they were asked in the middle of these thoughts? Most

men, I think, pass a great part of their sleep without dreaming. I knew a man who was bred a scholar, and had a pretty good

memory, who told me that he had never dreamed in his life till he had a fever at the age of twenty-�ve. Everyone will have

acquaintances who pass most of their nights without dreaming. 

15. To think often, and never to retain it so much as one moment, is a very useless sort of thinking. The soul in such a state

of thinking would be little better than a looking-glass which constantly receives a variety of images but retains none of

them; they disappear and vanish without leaving a trace; the looking-glass is never the better for such images, nor the soul

for such thoughts. ·We might also ask why it should be that all sleeping thoughts are forgotten, given that many waking

ones are remembered. Here is a possible answer to that·: 

In a waking man the materials of the body are used in thinking, and the memory of thoughts is retained by the impressions

that are made on the brain and the traces left there after such thinking; but in the thinking of the soul that isn’t perceived

in a sleeping man, the soul thinks apart, making no use of the organs of the body and so leaving no impressions on the

body and consequently no memory of such thoughts. 

. . . .I answer that whatever ideas the mind can receive and contemplate without the help of the body it can also—it is

reasonable to think—retain without the help of the body too. If not, then the soul gets little advantage by thinking. If •it

has no memory of its own thoughts; if •it can’t lay them up for its own use, and be able to recall them at need; if •it can’t

re�ect on what is past, and make use of its former experiences, reasonings, and contemplations— then •what does it

think for? Those who make the soul a thinking thing in this way don’t make it much nobler than do those (whom they

condemn) who claim it to be nothing but very �nely ground matter. Words written on dust that the �rst breath of wind

wipes out, or impressions made on a heap of atoms or bodily �uids, are every bit as useful and ennobling as the thoughts

of a soul that perish in thinking—thoughts that once out of sight are gone for ever and leave no memory of themselves

behind them. Nature never makes excellent things for trivial uses or for no use; and it’s hardly to be conceived that our

in�nitely wise creator should bring it about that something as admirable as the power of thinking—the power ·of ours·

that comes nearest to the excellence of his own incomprehensible being—is so idly and uselessly employed, at least a

quarter of the time, that it thinks constantly without remembering any of those thoughts, without doing any good to itself

or others or being any way useful to any other part of the creation. If you think about it, I doubt if you’ll �nd that the

motion of dull and senseless matter is ever, anywhere in the universe, made so little use of and so wholly thrown away. 

10/3/23, 5:48 PM Basic Page

https://go.view.usg.edu/d2l/le/content/2807452/viewContent/56407200/View 13/18

[In section16 Locke writes of thoughts that we do sometimes have in our sleep and remember after waking, pointing out

that they are mostly ‘extravagant and incoherent’. He says that his present opponents, faced with this evidence, will have

to say that the soul thinks better when employing the body that when thinking ‘apart’ from the body. He evidently thinks

that this is an intolerable conclusion.] 

[In sections 17–22 Locke continues to urge the empirical implausibility of the thesis that the soul always thinks, and the

unreasonable dogmatism of those who insist on it as necessarily true whatever experience may say. Much of the content

of these sections repeats things said earlier in the chapter. The discussion gradually moves over to Locke’s thesis that the

soul thinks only when it has ideas to think with, and to his view about how ideas are acquired. And so the chapter circles

back to where it was in section 9.] 

When does a man begin to have any ideas? I think the true answer is: when he �rst has some sensation. Since there appear

not to be any ideas in the mind before the senses have conveyed any in, I think that ideas in the understanding arise at the

same time as sensation. Sensation is •an impression or motion made in some part of the body that produces •some

perception in the understanding. It is about these impressions made on our senses by outward objects that the mind

seems �rst to employ itself in such operations as we call perception, remembering, consideration, reasoning, etc. 

23. In time the mind comes to re�ect on its own dealing with the ideas acquired from sensation, and thereby stores up a new

set of ideas that I call ideas of re�ection. . . . The �rst capacity of human intellect is that the mind is �tted to receive the

impressions made on it, either through the senses by outward objects, or by its own operations when it re�ects on them.

This is the �rst step a man makes towards the discovery of anything, and the basis on which to build all the notions he will

ever have naturally in this world. All those sublime thoughts that tower above the clouds and reach as high as heaven

itself take off from here. . . . 

24. In the getting of ideas the understanding is merely passive. It has no control over whether it will have these beginnings

—these materials,so to speak—of knowledge. For many of the objects of our senses shove their particular ideas into our

minds, whether we want them or not; and the operations of our minds won’t let us be without at least some obscure

notions of them. No man can be wholly ignorant of what he does when he thinks. The understanding can no more refuse

to have these simple ideas when they are offered to it, or alter them once they have been imprinted, or blot them out and

make new ones itself, than a mirror can refuse, alter, or obliterate the images or ideas that the objects placed in front of it

produce on its surface. . . . 

Chapter 2: Simple Ideas

1. To get a better grasp of what our knowledge is, how it comes about, and how far it reaches, we must carefully attend to

one fact about our ideas, namely that some of them are simple, and some complex. 

The qualities that affect our senses are intimately united and blended in the things themselves, but it is obvious that

the ideas they produce in the mind enter (via the senses) simple and unmixed. A single sense will often take in different

ideas from one object at one time—as when a man sees motion and colour together, or the hand feels softness and warmth

in a single piece of wax—and yet the simple ideas that are thus brought together in a single mind are as perfectly distinct

as those that come in by different senses. The •coldness and hardness a man feels in a piece of ice are as distinct ideas in

the mind as the •smell and whiteness of a lily, or as the •taste of sugar and smell of a rose. And nothing can be plainer to a

man than the clear and distinct perception he has of those simple ideas, each of which contains nothing but one uniform

appearance or conception in the mind, and is not distinguishable into different ideas. 

Check Your Answers

For Locke there are two kinds of ideas—ideas of sensation and:

(a) Ideas of re�ection

(b) Ideas innate to the mind

(c) Ideas that people are born with

(d) Ideas that come in dreams

The correct answer is (a) Ideas of re�ection.

In time the mind comes to re�ect on its own dealing with the ideas acquired from sensation, and thereby stores up a

new set of ideas that I call ideas of re�ection.

Test Your Knowledge 

10/3/23, 5:48 PM Basic Page

https://go.view.usg.edu/d2l/le/content/2807452/viewContent/56407200/View 14/18

2. These simple ideas, which are the materials of all our knowledge, are suggested and supplied to the mind only by

sensation and re�ection. Once the understanding has been stockedwith these simple ideas, it is able to repeat, compare,

and unite them, to an almost in�nite variety, and so can make new complex ideas as it will. But no-one, however quick and

clever, can invent one new simple idea thatwasn’t taken in by one of those two ways. Nor can any force of the

understanding destroy those that are there. Man’s power over this little world of his own understanding is much like his

power over the great world of visible things, where he can only compound and divide the materials that he �nds available

to him, and can’t do anything towards making the least particle of new matter, or destroying one atom of what already

exists. . . . 

3. God could have made a creature with organs different from ours, and more ways than our �ve senses to give the

understanding input from bodily things. But I don’t think any of us could imagine any qualities through which bodies could

come to our attention other than sounds, tastes, smells, and visible and tangible qualities. Had mankind been made with

only four senses, the qualities that are now the objects of the �fth sense would have been as far from our notice,

imagination, and conception as now any belonging to a sixth, seventh, or eighth sense can possibly be. (Actually, I think

that perhaps we do have six senses; but I have been following the usual count, which is �ve; it makes no difference to my

present line of thought.) Are there creatures in some other parts of this vast and stupendous universe who have more

senses than we do? Perhaps. If you consider the immensity of this structure, and the great variety that is to be found in

our little part of it, you may be inclined to think that there are somewhere different intelligent beings whose capacities

are as unknown to you as are the senses or understanding of a man to a worm shut up in one drawer of a desk. Such

variety and excellence would be suitable to the wisdom and power of our maker. 

Chapter 3: Ideas of One Sense

1. We shall get a better grasp of the ideas we receive from sensation if we classify them according to their different ways

of getting into our minds.

First, some come into our minds by one sense only. Secondly, others enter the mind by more senses than one. Thirdly, yet

others are had from re�ection only. Fourthly, some are suggested to the mind by all the ways of sensation and re�ection. 

We shall consider them separately, under these headings. 

First, some ideas are admitted through only one sense, which is specially adapted to receive them. Thus •light and colours

come in only by the eyes, all kinds of •noises, sounds, and tones only by the ears; the various •tastes and •smells by the

nose and palate. If these organs, or the nerves that are the channels along which they communicate with the brain,

become disordered so that they don’t perform their functions, the associated ideas have no door through which to enter,

no other way to bring themselves into view and be perceived by the understanding. 

The main ones belonging to touch are •heat and cold, and •solidity. Most of the others have to do with perceptible 

•texture, like smooth and rough, or with more or less �rm 

•hanging together of the parts, like hard and soft, tough and brittle. 

2. I needn’t enumerate all the simple ideas belonging to each sense. Indeed, I can’t do so because there are many more of

them than we have names for. Kinds of smell are at least as numerous as kinds of bodies in the world, and few of them

have names. We use ‘sweet’ and ‘stinking’ for them, but this amounts to little more than calling them pleasing or

displeasing; the smell of a rose differs greatly from that of a violet, though both are sweet. [Similarly—Locke goes on to say

—with tastes, and with colours and sounds.] In my account of simple ideas, therefore, I shall pick out only a few—mainly

ones that are most important for my overall enquiry. I shall also discuss some that tend to be overlooked, though they are

very frequently ingredients in our complex ideas. I think this is the case with solidity, which is my next topic. 

Chapter 4: Solidity

1. We receive the idea of solidity by the sense of touch. It arises from our experience of a body’s resisting the entrance of

any other body into the place it occupies. There is no idea that we receive more constantly from sensation than solidity.

Whether moving or at rest, we always feel something under us that supports us and stops us from sinking further

downwards; and we have daily experience of how, when holding a body between our two hands, the body absolutely

prevents the hands from touching one another. My name for the property whereby one body blocks two others from

touching is solidity. (Mathematicians use that term in a different sense, but mine is close enough to ordinary usage to be

acceptable. If you prefer to call the property impenetrability, go ahead; but I prefer solidity for two reasons. 

•It is close to common speech. •The term ‘impenetrability’ seems to refer not to the property itself but to a consequence

of it, and a negative one at that; whereas ‘solidity’ means something positive and points to the property itself, not a mere

consequence of it.) Solidity seems to be the idea that is most intimately connected with and essential to body. senses

notice it only in masses of matter that are big enough to cause a sensation in us; but once the mind has acquired this idea

10/3/23, 5:48 PM Basic Page

https://go.view.usg.edu/d2l/le/content/2807452/viewContent/56407200/View 15/18

from such large bodies, it traces the idea further and considers it (as well as shape) in the minutest particle of matter that

can exist. ·Not only can we not imagine matter without solidity, but· we cannot imagine solidity to exist anywhere except

in matter. 

2. Solidity is the idea [here = ‘quality’] of body whereby we conceive body to �ll space. The idea of �lling of space is this: we

imagine a space taken up by a solid substance which we conceive it to possess in such a way that all other solid substances

are excluded from it. . . . 

3. This resistance whereby a body keeps other bodies out of its space is so great that no force, however great, can

overcome it. All the bodies in the world, pressing a drop of water on all sides, can never overcome its resistance until it is

moved out of their way. This distinguishes our idea of solidity both from (a) pure space, which is not capable of resistance

or motion, and from (b) the ordinary idea of hardness. ·I shall deal with (a) now, and with (b) in the next section. My target

in (a) is Descartes, who held that whatever is extended is material, so that vacuum—understood as something extended

and immaterial—is conceptually impossible. I shall discuss this at length in xiii, merely sketching my case against it here·.

We can conceive two bodies at a distance as being able to meet and touch one another, without touching or displacing any

other solid thing. This, I think, gives us a clear idea of space without solidity. Can we not have the idea of one single body

moving without any other immediately taking its place? Clearly we can, for •the idea of motion in one body doesn’t

include •the idea of motion in another—any more than •the idea of squareness in one body includes •the idea of

squareness in another! I’m not asking whether in the actual state of the world it is physically possible for one body to move

while no others do; answering this either way would be taking a side on the debate over whether there is a vacuum. All I

am asking is whether we can have the idea of one body moving while no others do; and I think everyone will answer that

we can. If so, then the place the body leaves gives us the idea of pure space without solidity, into which any other body can

enter without being resisted and without displacing anything. If it is the case that when the piston in a pump is pulled up,

other matter has to take its place, that comes from the world’s being full, not from the mere ideas of space and solidity. . . .

The very fact that people argue about whether there actually is a vacuum shows that they have ideas of space without a

body. 

4. In contrast to solidity,. . . .hardness consists in a �rm cohesion of the parts of a mass of matter that is large enough to be

perceptible, so that the whole thing doesn’t easily change its shape. Indeed, we call things ‘hard’ or ‘soft’ only in relation to

the constitutions of our own bodies: we usually call a thing ‘hard’ if it will cause us pain sooner than change its shape by

the pressure of any part of our bodies; and ‘soft’ if an easy and unpainful touch by our bodies can make it change its shape. 

The difference between hard and soft has nothing to do with solidity: the hardest stone isn’t the least bit more solid than

water. The �at sides of two pieces of marble will more easily approach each other when there is only water between them

than when there is a diamond between them; but that is not because the parts of the diamond are more solid than those

of water. Rather, it is because the parts of the water, being more easily separable from each other, can easily slide out of

the way as the pieces of marble approach. If they could be kept from moving aside in that way, they would—just as much as

the diamond—for ever stop these two pieces of marble. . . . If you think nothing but hard bodies can keep your hands from

approaching one another, try that out with the air enclosed in a football. [Locke then describes an experiment con�rming

what he has been saying.] 

5. This idea of solidity marks off the extension of body from the extension of space. •The extension of body is just the

cohesion [= ‘holding together’] or continuity of solid, separable, movable parts; and •the extension of space is the

continuity of unsolid, inseparable, and immovable parts. 

It’s also because bodies are solid that they can bang into one another, resist one another, and change their shapes. Many

of us think we have clear and distinct ideas, and that we can think of •pure space, without anything in it that resists or is

pushed around by body. The idea of the distance between the opposite parts of a concave surface is just as

clear without as with the idea of solid parts between. And we also think we have an idea of •something that �lls space, and

can bump other bodies around or be bumped by them. If there are others who don’t have these two ideas distinct ·from

one another· but think they are just one idea, I don’t know how to talk with them, because they and I have the same idea

under different names or different ideas under the same name. . . . 

6. If anyone asks me what solidity is, I send him to his senses to be informed. Let him put a �int or a football between his

hands and then try to make the palms meet, and he’ll know. If he isn’t satis�ed with this explanation of what •solidity is, I

promise to tell him what it is when he tells me what •thinking is, or explains to me what •extension or •motion is—a

seemingly easier task. The simple ideas we have are such as experience teaches to us. If we try to go further than that, and

to make them clearer in our minds ·by giving verbal de�nitions·, we shall have no more success than we would if we tried

to tell a blind man what light and colours are, talking him into having ideas of them. I shall explain why this is so later on. 

Chapter 5: Simple Ideas of Different Senses

The ideas we get by more than one sense are of space, or extension, shape, rest, and motion; for these are perceivable by

sight and touch. And we can receive and convey into our minds the ideas of bodies’ extension, shape, motion, and rest

both by seeing and feeling. I shall have more to say about these later. 

10/3/23, 5:48 PM Basic Page

https://go.view.usg.edu/d2l/le/content/2807452/viewContent/56407200/View 16/18

Chapter 6: Simple Ideas of Re�ection

1. After receiving ideas from outside, the mind looks in upon itself and observes its own dealings with the ideas it already

has, and that gives it further ideas that are as �t to have a role in its thinking as any of those it received from outward

things. 

2. The main things the mind does, encountered so often that everyone who wants to can �nd them in himself, are

perception or thinking, and volition or willing. 

The power of thinking is called the understanding, and the power of volition is called the will; and these two powers or

abilities in the mind are called ‘faculties’. I shall later discuss some of the modes [= ‘special kinds’] of these simple ideas of

re�ection, such as remembrance, discerning, reasoning, judging, knowledge, faith. 

Chapter 7: Simple Ideas of Both Sensation and Re�ection

1. Some other simple ideas convey themselves into the mind by all the ways of sensation and re�ection—namely 

pleasure or delight, and its opposite: 

pain or uneasiness power 

existence unity. 

2. Nearly every other idea, whether of sensation or re�ection, is accompanied by either delight or uneasiness. And almost

any state of our senses caused from outside ourselves, and any thought of our mind within, can produce pleasure or pain

in us. By the terms ‘pleasure’ and ‘pain’ I signify whatever delights or displeases us, whether it arises from the thoughts of

our minds or anything operating on our bodies. For whether we call it ‘satisfaction’, ‘delight’, ‘pleasure’, ‘happiness’, etc. on

the one side; or ‘uneasiness’, ‘trouble’, ‘pain’, ‘torment’, ‘anguish’, ‘misery’, etc. on the other; they are merely different

degrees of the same thing, and belong to the ideas of pleasure and pain, delight or uneasiness, these being the names I

shall most commonly use for those two sorts of ideas. 

3. The in�nite wise author of our being has given us •the power to move or not move certain parts of our bodies, and

through those movements to move other neighbouring bodies. And he has also given to our mind •a power often to

choose which of its ideas it will think of, and which line of enquiry to pursue with consideration and attention. That is why

he—·God·—has seen �t to accompany various thoughts and various sensations with a perception of delight. If delight

were wholly separated from all our outward sensations and inward thoughts, we would have no reason to prefer one

thought or action to another, prefer negligence to attention, or prefer movement to rest. And so we would neither stir our

bodies nor employ our minds, but let our thoughts drift along without direction or design. . . . A man in that state, however

equipped with understanding and will, would be a very idle, inactive creature, and pass his time in a lazy, lethargic dream. .

. . 

4. Pain is as effective as pleasure in making us active, because we will work as hard to avoid pain as to get pleasure. It is

interesting to note that pain is often produced by the same objects and ideas as produce pleasure in us. . . . Heat is very

agreeable to us in one degree, but becomes extraordinarily painful when the temperature goes up a little. And the most

pleasant of all perceptible things, light itself, causes a very painful sensation if its intensity is too great for our eyes. This

shows the wisdom of our maker: when any object acts so intensely on our sense organs that it threatens to damage their

delicate structures, pain warns us to withdraw before the organ is so damaged as to become useless. There is evidence

that this is what pain is for. Although great light is insufferable to our eyes, yet the highest degree of darkness does them

no harm and isn’t accompanied by pain. In contrast with that: we are given pain by excess of cold as well as of heat,

because the two extremes are equally destructive to the bodily condition that is necessary for the preservation of life and

the proper functioning of the body. It is the condition of having a moderate degree of warmth—or, if you will, a motion of

the imperceptible parts of our bodies that is not too fast and not too slow. 

[Section 5 suggests another reason, a theological one, why ‘God has scattered up and down various levels of pleasure and

pain in all the things that surround and affect us’. Section 6 gives a theological reason for discussing this.] 

7. Existence and unity are two other ideas that are suggested to the understanding by every object outside us and every

idea within. When ideas are in our minds, we consider them as being actually there, i.e. as existing; and whatever we can

consider as one thing, whether a real being or an idea, suggests to the understanding the idea of unity, ·i.e. oneness·.

8. Power is another simple idea that we receive from sensation and re�ection. For we get the idea of power in two ways:

•by observing in ourselves that we can at pleasure move various parts of our bodies that were at rest, and •by our

constantly observing through our senses the effects that natural bodies can have on one another.

9. Another idea that is suggested by our senses but is more constantly offered to us by what happens in our minds, is the

idea of succession. If we look into ourselves and re�ect on what we observe there, we’ll �nd our ideas following one

another with no interruptions throughout our waking hours.

10/3/23, 5:48 PM Basic Page

https://go.view.usg.edu/d2l/le/content/2807452/viewContent/56407200/View 17/18

10. I think that these are all—or anyway the most important—of the mind’s simple ideas, out of which all its other

knowledge is made. They are all received through sensation and re�ection.

Don’t think that sensation and re�ection are too narrow to supply all the materials of the capacious mind of man, which

takes its �ight beyond the stars, roaming beyond the world of matter out into incomprehensible empty space. It won’t

seem so strange to think that these few simple ideas suf�ce for the quickest thought, or largest mental capacity, if we

consider how many words we can make by putting together various selections from twenty-four letters, or if we consider

how the mathematicians can get an inexhaustible and truly in�nite stock of material out of just one of the simple ideas I

have mentioned, namely number. [In fact Locke hasn’t mentioned it yet. It will be the topic of xvi.]

More on Locke's Ideas

Sensation and Re�ection

Where do ideas come from, in Locke’s empiricism and materialism?

All ideas arise from either sensation of external objects, or re�ection on operations of the mind.

Sensation is a direct sensory experience – empirical experience, use of the senses.

Re�ection is remembered sensation, remembered prior experiences.

There are two types of ideas in Locke’s theory: simple and complex. A simple idea could be thought of as one

attribute of an object, as in its color or its size. A complex idea would be the object itself. All objects are complex

ideas made up of many simple ideas. For example, the complex idea of a table is made up of many simple ideas:

Flatness

Light brown-ness

Four-legged-ness

Stable to put things on

All of these ideas add up to a table!



Primary and Secondary Qualities

Locke responds to Descartes again, by reinterpreting one of his own examples. In the case of wax, we would say that

the wax has two different kinds of “qualities.” Primary qualities, that are necessary for it to be wax, and secondary

qualities that are variable or optional. (Wax is still wax even if we dye it a different color, for example.)

This is Locke’s distinction between Primary and Secondary Qualities:

Qualities are powers of objects to produce ideas in us. (Notice that this gives much power to the objects when we

see a table we can’t help but think of its qualities automatically.)

There are two types of qualities, primary and secondary.

Primary qualities actually resemble the object and reside in it, as in �gure, motion, extension. These could be

said to be the object’s real qualities, and are necessary for the object to be what it is.

Example: A snowball has the power to give us the ideas of round and white.

Secondary qualities are ideas that do not really resemble the object in itself, they are actually just ideas in us,

dependent on us as perceivers (color, sound, taste.)

Example: Heat of �re – some �nd merely a pleasant warmth in a �re, others get too close and feel pain, so must

be in us, a secondary quality.

Part of how Locke makes his counterargument against Descartes is by making distinctions between different

characteristics of things that Descartes did not make. Descartes has different types of ideas (innate, adventitious,

�ctitious) but Locke has different qualities within the items we experience that give us ideas and experiences



10/3/23, 5:48 PM Basic Page

https://go.view.usg.edu/d2l/le/content/2807452/viewContent/56407200/View 18/18

Pro Tip: When writing content, it is a great practice to �rst write content in a document, such as Microsoft Word. It allows stakeholders to easily

collaborate and track changes to content. It also allows you to spot spelling and grammar errors early on.

When pasting text from a Word document into the HTML editor, however, some of the document’s text styling will copy over. This will clash with the

styles that are carefully crafted for this template. So, we recommend to paste the text without formatting.

For basic editing, please check Brightspace Help: Format HTML course content.

For more study and to test your knowledge, please take the Unit 3 Self Assessment - Descartes (not graded).

(simple and complex, primary and secondary).

Locke on Substance

Substance? It exists, but Locke knows not what it is! A snowball truly is round (primary quality) but need not

necessarily be white (secondary quality). The underlying substance – he knows not what it is. (In Locke’s time there

was not yet a coherent theory of atoms or molecules. That’s what he would have needed here).

Other philosophers like George Berkeley agree with Locke on Empiricism but are critical of Locke for copping out

on the substance issue.



For more study and to test your knowledge, please take the Unit 3 Self Assessment - Locke (not graded).

 To paste text without formatting, you can use Ctrl+Shift+V (Cmd+Shift+V on Mac) to paste copied text as unformatted text to HTML editor.