CHAPTER III. 329 I. Sensible or corporeal ideas, are derived originally front our senses, and from the communication which the soul has with the animal body in this present state ; such are the notions we frame of all colours, sounds, tastes, figurés or shapes, and mo- tions: for our senses, being conversant about particular sen- sible objects, become the occasions of several distinct percep- tions in the mind, and thus we come by the ideas of yellow, white, heat, cold, soft, liard, bitter, sweet, and all those which we call sensible qualities. All the ideas which we have of body and the sensible modes and properties that belong to it, seem to be derived from sensation. And howsoever these may be treasured up in the memory; and by the work of fancy may be increased, diminished, com- pounded, divided, and diversified, (which we are ready to call our invention) yet they all derive their first nature and being from something that has been let into our minds by one or other of our senses. If I think of a golden mountain, or a sea of liquid fire, yet the single ideas of sea, fire, mountain, and gold, came into my thoughts at first by sensation ; the mind has only com- pounded them. II.* Spiritual or intellectual ideas are those which we gain by reflecting on the nature and actions of our own souls, and turning our thoughts within ourselves, and observing what is transacted in our own minds. Such are the ideas we have of thought, assent, dissent, judging, reason, knowledge, under- standing, will, love, fear, hope. By sensation the soul contemplates things, as it were, out of itself, and gains corporeal representations or sensible ideas: by reflection the soul contemplates itself and things within itself, and by this means it gains spiritual ideas, or representations of things intellectual. Here it maybe noted, though the first original of these two sorts of ideas, namely, sensible and spiritual, may be entirely owing to these two principles, sensation and reflection, yet thè recollection and fresh excitation of them may be owing to a thou- sand other occasions and occurrences of life. We could never inform a man who was born blind or deaf, what we mean by the words yellow ideas red, or by the words loud or shrill, nor con- vey any just of these things to his mind, by all the powers of language, unless he has experienced those sensations of sound and colour ; nor could we ever gain the ideas of thought, judgment, reason, doubting, hoping, &c. by all the words that man could invent without turning our thoughts inward upon the actions of our own souls. Yet when once we have attained Here the word " spiritual" is used in a mere natural, and not in a re- ligious sense.
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