Commonplace

I. Doctrine of abstraction of very evil consequence in all the sciences. Mem. Barrow’s remark. Entirely owing to language.

Locke greatly out in reckoning the recording our ideas by words amongst the uses and not the abuses of language.

I. Of great use & ye last importance to contemplate a man put into the world alone, with admirable abilitys, and see how after long experience he would know wthout words. Such a one would never think of genera and species or abstract general ideas.

I. Wonderful in Locke that he could, wn advanced in years, see at all thro’ a mist; it had been so long a gathering, & was consequently thick. This more to be admir’d than yt he did not see farther.

Identity of ideas may be taken in a double sense, either as including or excluding identity of circumstances, such as time, place, &c.

Mo. I am glad the people I converse with are not all richer, wiser, &c. than I. This is agreeable to reason; is no sin. ‘Tis certain that if the happyness of my acquaintance encreases, & mine not proportionably, mine must decrease. The not understanding this & the doctrine about relative good, discuss’d with French, Madden93, &c., to be noticed as 2 causes of mistake in judging of moral matters.

Mem. To observe (wn you talk of the division of ideas into simple and complex) that there may be another cause [pg 027]of the undefinableness of certain ideas besides that which Locke gives; viz. the want of names.

M. Mem. To begin the First Book94 not with mention of sensation and reflection, but instead of sensation to use perception or thought in general.

I. I defy any man to imagine or conceive perception without an idea, or an idea without perception.

E. Locke’s very supposition that matter & motion should exist before thought is absurd—includes a manifest contradiction.

Locke’s harangue about coherent, methodical discourses amounting to nothing, apply’d to the mathematicians.

They talk of determining all the points of a curve by an equation. Wt mean they by this? Wt would they signify by the word points? Do they stick to the definition of Euclid?

S. We think we know not the Soul, because we have no imaginable or sensible idea annex’d to that sound. This the effect of prejudice.

S. Certainly we do not know it. This will be plain if we examine what we mean by the word knowledge. Neither doth this argue any defect in our knowledge, no more than our not knowing a contradiction.

The very existence of ideas constitutes the Soul95.

S. Consciousness96, perception, existence of ideas, seem to be all one.

Consult, ransack yr understanding. Wt find you there besides several perceptions or thoughts? Wt mean you by the word mind? You must mean something that you perceive, or yt you do not perceive. A thing not perceived is a contradiction. To mean (also) a thing you do not perceive is a contradiction. We are in all this matter strangely abused by words.

Mind is a congeries of perceptions97. Take away perceptions [pg 028]and you take away the mind. Put the perceptions and you put the mind.

Say you, the mind is not the perception, not that thing which perceives. I answer, you are abused by the words “that a thing.” These are vague and empty words with us.

S. The having ideas is not the same thing with perception. A man may have ideas when he only imagines. But then this imagination presupposeth perception.

M. That wch extreamly strengthens us in prejudice is yt we think we see an empty space, which I shall demonstrate to be false in the Third Book98.

There may be demonstrations used even in Divinity. I mean in revealed Theology, as contradistinguish’d from natural; for tho’ the principles may be founded in faith, yet this hinders not but that legitimate demonstrations might be built thereon; provided still that we define the words we use, and never go beyond our ideas. Hence ’twere no very hard matter for those who hold episcopacy or monarchy to be established jure Divino to demonstrate their doctrines if they are true. But to pretend to demonstrate or reason anything about the Trinity is absurd. Here an implicit faith becomes us.

S. Qu. if there be any real difference betwixt certain ideas of reflection & others of sensation, e.g. betwixt perception and white, black, sweet, &c.? Wherein, I pray you, does the perception of white differ from white men….

I shall demonstrate all my doctrines. The nature of demonstration to be set forth and insisted on in the Introduction99. In that I must needs differ from Locke, forasmuch as he makes all demonstration to be about abstract ideas, wch I say we have not nor can have.

S. The understanding seemeth not to differ from its perceptions or ideas. Qu. What must one think of the will and passions?

E. A good proof that Existence is nothing without or [pg 029]distinct from perception, may be drawn from considering a man put into the world without company100.

E. There was a smell, i.e. there was a smell perceiv’d. Thus we see that common speech confirms my doctrine.

T. No broken intervals of death or annihilation. Those intervals are nothing; each person’s time being measured to him by his own ideas.

I. We are frequently puzzl’d and at a loss in obtaining clear and determin’d meanings of words commonly in use, & that because we imagine words stand for abstract general ideas which are altogether inconceivable.

I. “A stone is a stone.” This a nonsensical proposition, and such as the solitary man would never think on. Nor do I believe he would ever think on this: “The whole is equal to its parts,” &c.

E. Let it not be said that I take away existence. I only declare the meaning of the word, so far as I can comprehend it.

I. If you take away abstraction, how do men differ from beasts? I answer, by shape, by language. Rather by degrees of more and less.

Wt means Locke by inferences in words, consequences of words, as something different from consequences of ideas? I conceive no such thing.

I. N. B. Much complaint about the imperfection of language101.

M. But perhaps some man may say, an inert thoughtless Substance may exist, though not extended, moved, &c., but with other properties whereof we have no idea. But even this I shall demonstrate to be impossible, wn I come to treat more particularly of Existence.

Will not rightly distinguish’d from Desire by Locke—it seeming to superadd nothing to the idea of an action, but the uneasiness for its absence or non-existence.

S. Mem. To enquire diligently into that strange mistery, [pg 030]viz. How it is that I can cast about, think of this or that man, place, action, wn nothing appears to introduce them into my thoughts, wn they have no perceivable connexion with the ideas suggested by my senses at the present?

I. ‘Tis not to be imagin’d wt a marvellous emptiness & scarcity of ideas that man shall descry who will lay aside all use of words in his meditations.

M. Incongruous in Locke to fancy we want a sense proper to see substances with.

I. Locke owns that abstract ideas were made in order to naming.

M. The common errour of the opticians, that we judge of distance by angles102, strengthens men in their prejudice that they see things without and distant from their mind.

E. I am persuaded, would men but examine wt they mean by the word existence, they wou’d agree with me.

c. 20. s. 8. b. 4. of Locke makes for me against the mathematicians.