laid upon it, was told, that now he touched the head,
and then the forehead, eyes, nose, &c., as his hand moved over the
parts of the picture on the cloth, without finding any the least
distinction: whereupon he cried out, that certainly that must needs be a
very admirable and divine piece of workmanship, which could represent to
them all those parts, where he could neither feel nor perceive anything.

13. Colours indefinable to the born-blind.

He that should use the word RAINBOW to one who knew all those colours,
but yet had never seen that phenomenon, would, by enumerating the
figure, largeness, position, and order of the colours, so well
define that word that it might be perfectly understood. But yet that
definition, how exact and perfect soever, would never make a blind
man understand it; because several of the simple ideas that make
that complex one, being such as he never received by sensation and
experience, no words are able to excite them in his mind.

14. Complex Ideas definable only when the simple ideas of which they
consist have been got from experience.

Simple ideas, as has been shown, can only be got by experience from
those objects which are proper to produce in us those perceptions. When,
by this means, we have our minds stored with them, and know the names
for them, then we are in a condition to define, and by definition to
understand, the names of complex ideas that are made up of them. But
when any term stands for a simple idea that a man has never yet had in
his mind, it is impossible by any words to make known its meaning to
him. When any term stands for an idea a man is acquainted with, but is
ignorant that that term is the sign of it, then another name of the
same idea, which he has been accustomed to, may make him understand
its meaning. But in no case whatsoever is any name of any simple idea
capable of a definition.

15. Fourthly, Names of simple Ideas of less doubtful meaning than those
of mixed modes and substances.

Fourthly, But though the names of simple ideas have not the help of
definition to determine their signification, yet that hinders not but
that they are generally less doubtful and uncertain than those of
mixed modes and substances; because they, standing only for one simple
perception, men for the most part easily and perfectly agree in their
signification; and there is little room for mistake and wrangling about
their meaning. He that knows once that whiteness is