ke their rise and footing here: in all
that great extent wherein the mind wanders, in those remote speculations
it may seem to be elevated with, it stirs not one jot beyond those ideas
which SENSE or REFLECTION have offered for its contemplation.

25. In the Reception of simple Ideas, the Understanding is for the most
part passive.

In this part the understanding is merely passive; and whether or no it
will have these beginnings, and as it were materials of knowledge, is
not in its own power. For the objects of our senses do, many of them,
obtrude their particular ideas upon our minds whether we will or not;
and the operations of our minds will not let us be without, at least,
some obscure notions of them. No man can be wholly ignorant of what he
does when he thinks. These simple ideas, when offered to the mind,
the understanding can no more refuse to have, nor alter when they are
imprinted, nor blot them out and make new ones itself, than a mirror can
refuse, alter, or obliterate the images or ideas which the objects
set before it do therein produce. As the bodies that surround us
do diversely affect our organs, the mind is forced to receive the
impressions; and cannot avoid the perception of those ideas that are
annexed to them.

CHAPTER II.

OF SIMPLE IDEAS.

1. Uncompounded Appearances.

The better to understand the nature, manner, and extent of our
knowledge, one thing is carefully to be observed concerning the ideas we
have; and that is, that some of them, are SIMPLE and some COMPLEX.

Though the qualities that affect our senses are, in the things
themselves, so united and blended, that there is no separation, no
distance between them; yet it is plain, the ideas they produce in the
mind enter by the senses simple; and unmixed. For, though the sight and
touch often take in from the same object, at the same time, different
ideas;--as a man sees at once motion and colour; the hand feels softness
and warmth in the same piece of wax: yet the simple ideas thus united
in the same subject, are as perfectly distinct as those that come in by
different senses. The coldness and hardness which a man feels in a piece
of ice being as distinct ideas in the mind as the smell and whiteness
of a lily; or as the taste of sugar, and smell of a rose. And there is
nothing can be plainer to a man than the clear and distinct perception
he has of those simple ideas; which, being each in itself uncompounded,
contains in i