Volume I Part 22 (1/2)
17. Shame.
The pa.s.sions too have most of them, in most persons, operations on the body, and cause various changes in it; which not being always sensible, do not make a necessary part of the idea of each pa.s.sion. For SHAME, which is an uneasiness of the mind upon the thought of having done something which is indecent, or will lessen the valued esteem which others have for us, has not always blus.h.i.+ng accompanying it.
18. These Instances to show how our Ideas of the Pa.s.sions are got from Sensation and Reflection.
I would not be mistaken here, as if I meant this as a Discourse of the Pa.s.sions; they are many more than those I have here named: and those I have taken notice of would each of them require a much larger and more accurate discourse. I have only mentioned these here, as so many instances of modes of pleasure and pain resulting in our minds from various considerations of good and evil. I might perhaps have instanced in other modes of pleasure and pain, more simple than these; as the pain of hunger and thirst, and the pleasure of eating and drinking to remove them: the pain of teeth set on edge; the pleasure of music; pain from captious uninstructive wrangling, and the pleasure of rational conversation with a friend, or of well-directed study in the search and discovery of truth. But the pa.s.sions being of much more concernment to us, I rather made choice to instance in them, and show how the ideas we have of them are derived from sensation or reflection.
CHAPTER XXI.
OF POWER.
1. This Idea how got.
The mind being every day informed, by the senses, of the alteration of those simple ideas it observes in things without; and taking notice how one comes to an end, and ceases to be, and another begins to exist which was not before; reflecting also on what pa.s.ses within itself, and observing a constant change of its ideas, sometimes by the impression of outward objects on the senses, and sometimes by the determination of its own choice; and concluding from what it has so constantly observed to have been, that the like changes will for the future be made in the same things, by like agents, and by the like ways,--considers in one thing the possibility of having any of its simple ideas changed, and in another the possibility of making that change; and so comes by that idea which we call POWER. Thus we say, Fire has a power to melt gold, i. e.
to destroy the consistency of its insensible parts, and consequently its hardness, and make it fluid; and gold has a power to be melted; that the sun has a power to blanch wax, and wax a power to be blanched by the sun, whereby the yellowness is destroyed, and whiteness made to exist in its room. In which, and the like cases, the power we consider is in reference to the change of perceivable ideas. For we cannot observe any alteration to be made in, or operation upon anything, but by the observable change of its sensible ideas; nor conceive any alteration to be made, but by conceiving a change of some of its ideas.
2. Power, active and pa.s.sive.
Power thus considered is two-fold, viz. as able to make, or able to receive any change. The one may be called ACTIVE, and the other Pa.s.sIVE power. Whether matter be not wholly dest.i.tute of active power, as its author, G.o.d, is truly above all pa.s.sive power; and whether the intermediate state of created spirits be not that alone which is capable of both active and pa.s.sive power, may be worth consideration. I shall not now enter into that inquiry, my present business being not to search into the original of power, but how we come by the IDEA of it. But since active powers make so great a part of our complex ideas of natural substances, (as we shall see hereafter,) and I mention them as such, according to common apprehension; yet they being not, perhaps, so truly ACTIVE powers as our hasty thoughts are apt to represent them, I judge it not amiss, by this intimation, to direct our minds to the consideration of G.o.d and spirits, for the clearest idea of ACTIVE power.
3. Power includes Relation.
I confess power includes in it some kind of RELATION (a relation to action or change,) as indeed which of our ideas of what kind soever, when attentively considered, does not. For, our ideas of extension, duration, and number, do they not all contain in them a secret relation of the parts? Figure and motion have something relative in them much more visibly. And sensible qualities, as colours and smells, &c.
what are they but the powers of different bodies, in relation to our perception, &c.? And, if considered in the things themselves, do they not depend on the bulk, figure, texture, and motion of the parts? All which include some kind of relation in them. Our idea therefore of power, I think, may well have a place amongst other SIMPLE IDEAS, and be considered as one of them; being one of those that make a princ.i.p.al ingredient in our complex ideas of substances, as we shall hereafter have occasion to observe.
4. The clearest Idea of active Power had from Spirit.
Of pa.s.sive power all sensible things abundantly furnish us with sensible ideas, whose sensible qualities and beings we find to be in continual flux. And therefore with reason we look on them as liable still to the same change. Nor have we of ACTIVE power (which is the more proper signification of the word power) fewer instances. Since whatever change is observed, the mind must collect a power somewhere able to make that change, as well as a possibility in the thing itself to receive it. But yet, if we will consider it attentively, bodies, by our senses, do not afford us so clear and distinct an idea of active power, as we have from reflection on the operations of our minds. For all power relating to action, and there being but two sorts of action whereof we have an idea, viz. thinking and motion, let us consider whence we have the clearest ideas of the powers which produce these actions. (1) Of thinking, body affords us no idea at all; it is only from reflection that we have that.
(2) Neither have we from body any idea of the beginning of motion. A body at rest affords us no idea of any active power to move; and when it is set in motion itself, that motion is rather a pa.s.sion than an action in it. For, when the ball obeys the motion of a billiard-stick, it is not any action of the ball, but bare pa.s.sion. Also when by impulse it sets another ball in motion that lay in its way, it only communicates the motion it had received from another, and loses in itself so much as the other received: which gives us but a very obscure idea of an ACTIVE power of moving in body, whilst we observe it only to TRANSFER, but not PRODUCE any motion. For it is but a very obscure idea of power which reaches not the production of the action, but the continuation of the pa.s.sion. For so is motion in a body impelled by another; the continuation of the alteration made in it from rest to motion being little more an action, than the continuation of the alteration of its figure by the same blow is an action. The idea of the BEGINNING of motion we have only from reflection on what pa.s.ses in ourselves; where we find by experience, that, barely by willing it, barely by a thought of the mind, we can move the parts of our bodies, which were before at rest. So that it seems to me, we have, from the observation of the operation of bodies by our senses, but a very imperfect obscure idea of ACTIVE power; since they afford us not any idea in themselves of the power to begin any action, either motion or thought. But if, from the impulse bodies are observed to make one upon another, any one thinks he has a clear idea of power, it serves as well to my purpose; sensation being one of those ways whereby the mind comes by its ideas: only I thought it worth while to consider here, by the way, whether the mind doth not receive its idea of active power clearer from reflection on its own operations, than it doth from any external sensation.
5. Will and Understanding two Powers in Mind or Spirit.
This, at least, I think evident,--That we find in ourselves a power to begin or forbear, continue or end several actions of our minds, and motions of our bodies, barely by a thought or preference of the mind ordering, or as it were commanding, the doing or not doing such or such a particular action. This power which the mind has thus to order the consideration of any idea, or the forbearing to consider it; or to prefer the motion of any part of the body to its rest, and vice versa, in any particular instance, is that which we call the WILL. The actual exercise of that power, by directing any particular action, or its forbearance, is that which we call VOLITION or WILLING. The forbearance of that action, consequent to such order or command of the mind, is called VOLUNTARY. And whatsoever action is performed without such a thought of the mind, is called INVOLUNTARY. The power of perception is that which we call the UNDERSTANDING. Perception, which we make the act of the understanding, is of three sorts:--1. The perception of ideas in our minds. 2. The perception of the: signification of signs. 3. The perception of the connexion or repugnancy, agreement or disagreement, that there is between any of our ideas. All these are attributed to the understanding, or perceptive power, though it be the two latter only that use allows us to say we understand.
6. Faculties not real beings.
These powers of the mind, viz. of perceiving, and of preferring, are usually called by another name. And the ordinary way of speaking is, that the understanding and will are two FACULTIES of the mind; a word proper enough, if it be used, as all words should be, so as not to breed any confusion in men's thoughts, by being supposed (as I suspect it has been) to stand for some real beings in the soul that performed those actions of understanding and volition. For when we say the WILL is the commanding and superior faculty of the soul; that it is or is not free; that it determines the inferior faculties; that it follows the dictates of the understanding, &c.,--though these and the like expressions, by those that carefully attend to their own ideas, and conduct their thoughts more by the evidence of things than the sound of words, may be understood in a clear and distinct sense--yet I suspect, I say, that this way of speaking of FACULTIES has misled many into a confused notion of so many distinct agents in us, which had their several provinces and authorities, and did command, obey, and perform several actions, as so many distinct beings; which has been no small occasion of wrangling, obscurity, and uncertainty, in questions relating to them.
7. Whence the Ideas of Liberty and Necessity.
Every one, I think, finds in HIMSELF a power to begin or forbear, continue or put an end to several actions in himself. From the consideration of the extent of this power of the mind over the actions of the man, which everyone finds in himself, arise the IDEAS of LIBERTY and NECESSITY.