sions into that incomprehensible inane. Nor will it be so strange
to think these few simple ideas sufficient to employ the quickest
thought or largest capacity if we consider how many words may be made
out of the various composition of twenty-four letters; or if, going one
step farther, we will but reflect on the variety of combinations that
may be made with barely one of the above-mentioned ideas, _viz._,
number, whose stock is inexhaustible. And what a large and immense field
doth extension alone afford the mathematicians!

_II.--Of Idea-Producing Qualities_

The power to produce any idea in our mind I call Quality of the subject
wherein that power is. Qualities are, first, such as are utterly
inseparable from the body in what state soever it be. These I call
original or primary qualities, which I think we may observe to produce
simple ideas in us, _viz._, solidity, extension, figure, motion or rest,
and number.

Secondly, such qualities which in truth are nothing in the objects
themselves, but powers to produce various sensations in us by their
primary qualities, _i.e._, by the bulk, figure, texture, and motion of
their insensible parts. These secondary qualities are colours, sounds,
tastes, etc. From whence I think it is easy to draw this observation:
that the ideas of primary qualities of bodies are resemblances of them,
but the ideas produced in us by the secondary qualities have no
resemblance in them at all.

If anyone will consider that the same fire that at one distance produces
in us the sensation of warmth does, at a nearer approach, produce in us
the far different sensation of pain, let him bethink himself what reason
he has to say that his idea of warmth, which was produced in him by
fire, is actually in the fire; and his idea of pain which the same fire
produced in him in the same way, is not in the fire. The particular
bulk, number, figure, and motion of the parts of fire or snow are really
in them, whether anyone's senses perceive them or not; and, therefore,
they may be called real qualities, because they really exist in those
bodies. But light, heat, whiteness, or coldness are no more really in
them than sickness or pain is in manna. Take away the sensation of them;
let not the eyes see light or colours, nor the ears hear sounds; let the
palate not taste, nor the nose smell; and all colours, tastes, odours,
and sounds, as they are such particular ideas, vanish and cease, and are
reduced to their