ESSAY III. 369 be occasioned by outward objects, yet we are in no great danger here of making a false judgment about them, and of imagining that these perceptions have any resemblance to those outward ob- jects which are the causes or occasions of them. No man thinks there is pain in the sword that wounds him and gives him pain. Pleasure and pain appear to be mere sensations, rather than pro- per ideas ; yet it is granted we can form an idea of them after- ward, by considering what those sensations are, or by reflecting on what we feel ? and thence we gain the ideas of hunger, thirst, pain, pleasure, BCc. which very sensations are the exemplars or patterns of'those ideas. 2. Another sort of perceptions which we obtain byunion with the body, are such as seem to be proper ideas rather than mere sensations, yet they have no real objects without, which are the proper exemplars of those ideas; there is no outward being which those ideas are like, and yet they seem to represent some outward originals or exemplars, and we are ready to sup- pose they have something from without that resembles them Such are the secondary and sensible qualities of bodies, viz. colours, sounds, tastes, smells, cold, heat, bçc. These have been abundantly proved by philosophers not to have any real existence . in outward objects, such as we perceive them ; and though we generally call them ideas because they seem to represent outward objects, yet really they are mere sensations which the God of na- ture has ordained to arise in us on occasion of some motions, strokes and impressions, which outward objects raise or form upon our organs of sense, and which are thence conveyed to the brain or common sensory. See Mr. Locke's excellent discourse on that subject, Essay, book II. chap. S. It is granted here, that the bulk or vulgar part of mankind aredeceived in passing a rash judgment, that there are such qua- lities in outward objects as resemble these ideas in themind; yet there is no inconvenience to human life arising from this mistake ; for all the valuable purposes in life are answered by these sensa- tions, since we have sufficient notice thereby what objects are the causes of them, whetherthese objects are real outward exemplars of them, and do resemble them or not. If I know that worm- wood will give me a bitter taste, and a bell will make a tinkling sound, I can judge as well how or when to use wormword or a bell, while I lie under this mistake, and while I suppose the wormwood itself to have the bitterness in it, and the bell itself to have the sound in it, as if I believed this sound and this bitter- ness to he only sensations in my mind, of which the bell and the wormwood are the causes or occasions. And as for persons of science and enquiry, there are ways and means of experiment and reasoning, whereby they may find out, and have actually found out this vulgar mistake ; and they are or may be convinced Vot. vui. A. a
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy OTcyMjk=