ESSAY xll. 473 Other parts of his work, this author speaks in such a manner as though all our complex ideas of suhstances and mixed or com- plex modes, were formed by taking several simple ideas and joining them in one composition, to make a complex or com- pound idea : and though Mr Locke might not actually advert to it in those paragraphs, yet he must certainly grant that. we do as often obtain a clear knowledge of some compound or coin- !ilex beings by receiving them at first into the mind in all their complex nature, and afterwards separating them one from ano- ther. Let nie give an instance of both ways of acquiring com- plex ideas. If a child who is unacquainted with gold see a guinea at some distance, he receives perhaps only the idea of extension and yellowness ; bring it nearer to the light it appears round and shilling; nearer yet, and he beholds the stamp of the coin ; then touching it he finds it is hard, and taking it in his hand it is Leavy : thus by degrees he joins the ideas of ex- tended yellow, round, shining, the figure of a head, and hard- ness altogether, and learns what a guinea is ; this is the way of composition. But if a guinea he given at first into the hand of this child in a bright place, his ideas Of extension, yellow, round, shining, hard, heavy, &c. are impressed all at once as one com- plex idea on the mind ; and by separation of them, and con- sidering them distinct, he may come to clearer notionsof some of those single ideas; and by reason, observation, and com- parison, he finds what gold is, and what is a guinea This is the method of learning by division. The same thought may be applied to a city, a fleet, a srearm, a heap, a constellation, &c. supposing that the first idea the child has of a house, ship, ant, grain, star, be received in this complex manner by seeing many of them together. Thus cuthposition of simple ideas, and tlivi- Sion of complex ones, seem both to be used in the obtaining and increasing our knowledge of things, and enlarging our number of ideas. And it must be acknowledged that Mr. Locke allows this way of coming by some of our complex ideas (viz.) by sensation or observation of the several ideas at once in their complex state Or union, when he says, chap. 22. sect 2. " Several of them might be taken from observation and the existence nt several simple ideas so combined." And sect. 9. "'l'hus by seeing two Men Wrestle or fence we get the ideas of wrestling and fencing which are very complex modes." The author in his isth chapter, sect. 2. gives us. several instances of our ideas of simple modes, such as sliding, creep- ing, running, dancing, &(c. which perhaps may be as well called mixed modes as some which he mentions in his 22d chap- ter ; for even there, at the end of the 10th section, I think be makes running and speaking to bemixed modes ; hecalls them ti Ii¡a 11 011
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