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 An outline of Locke's Essay concerning h 
 
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 tine Cornell University Library. 
 
 There are no known copyright restrictions in 
 the United States on the use of the text. 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924031307394 
 
OCKE 
 

All rights reserved. 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 The publication of Locke's Essay Concern-, 
 ing Human Understanding marks an era in the 
 history of philosophy. Subsequent writers have 
 either developed the theories contained in it, or 
 made an attempt of their refutation. On Ber- 
 keley and Hume, the immediate successors of 
 Locke in philosophical speculations, his influence 
 was most remarkable. It may well be ques- 
 tioned whether Berkeley would have written the 
 Principles and the Dialogues if Locke had not 
 written the Essay ; and there can be no doubt 
 that Hume's Treatise and Enquiry were nothing 
 but a consistent carrying out of the negative 
 sides of his predecessors. An acquaintance 
 with the Lockiau system is, therefore, absolutely 
 necesjary for the better understanding of these 
 authors, whose works are often prescribed as 
 text-books for the Degree examinations by the 
 Indian Universities. In the following pages an 
 attempt has been made to give a clear and concise 
 exposition of the most salient points of the 
 Essay, together with a brief estimate of their 
 
11 
 
 merits and defects. I hare here to acknowledge 
 most thankfully my great indebtedness to the ex- 
 cellent monograph on Locke contributed to the 
 Philosophical classics series by Dr. A, C. Eraser, 
 the emeritus Professor of Logic and Metaphysics 
 in the University of Edinburgh, and also to Pro- 
 fessors Lewis and Fowler and other scholars and 
 critics of Locke, whose works I have consulted in 
 this connection with great profit. My best thanks 
 are also due to the Rev. G. Macalister, m. a., who 
 kindly looked over this pamphlet before its publi- 
 cation and made some valuable suggestions to me. 
 
 Jbtpore : 
 
 sanjiban ganguli. 
 
 The 28th February, 1896. 
 
 I have read this Essay on Locke with botli 
 pleasure and profit. In the suggestions I have 
 made I have confined myself entirely to verbal 
 criticism, the subject matter I have not touched 
 #** j^ jg a -wonder to me how a foreigner has 
 been able to use my native English so well in the 
 expression of abstruse ideas, 
 
 Jetpore 
 
 g. macalister. 
 The 22nd June, 1896. 
 
 ! 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 Page. 
 BOOK I.— 
 
 Innate Ideas ... ... ... ... ... 1 
 
 BOOK II.— 
 
 Obigin op knowledge and analtsis and classifica- 
 tion op ideas .,. ... ... ... ... 8 
 
 BOOK III.— 
 
 Words, thbie use and abuse ... ... ... 24 
 
 BOOK IV.— 
 
 . Knowledge and opinion ... ... ... ... 23 
 
 GENERAL REMARKS 29 
 
LOCKE. 
 
 BOOK I. 
 
 INNATE IDEAS. 
 
 Design of the Essay,— The 4e8igQ of the Essay, 
 as set forth by l40cl?e in the beginning of it, 
 is " to enquire into the origin, oertaii^ty, an4 
 extent of human knowledge, together with the 
 grounds and degrees of belief, opinion and assent," 
 He expressly excludes from his inquiry both 
 biological and ontological hypotheses. On the 
 one hand, " the physical considerations of mind," 
 such as Hobbes had pursued, or as has heeit, 
 subsequently developed in the psyQho-physiologi-< 
 cal and evolutionary schools of Hartley, Darwin 
 and Spencer, were entirely unknown to Iiockej 
 who like Descartes made consoiousijess the starting 
 point of his philosophy. In this connection, 
 Dugald Stewart has well remarked that in the 
 Essay there is qot a single passage savouring of 
 the anatomical theory or of the chemical labora- 
 tory. On the other band, the transcendental 
 criticism of experience, kiiowledge and the 
 uniyerse, whigh fiiidg au immaueat iuvisiblq 
 
2 LOCKE. 
 
 reason as the ultimate goal of philosophy, was 
 equally foreign to Logke, 
 
 Destructive and Constructive sides of the Essay — 
 Locke's Essay may be viewed on its two sides. 
 Firstly, the negative or destructive side of his 
 philosophy is contained in his attack against the 
 doctrine of innate ideas, proving that there 
 cannot be any such ideas " engraven on the 
 mind of man from his birth " prior to conscious 
 experience ; and secondly, the positive or construc- 
 tive side of the Essay is his doctrine that all our 
 knowledge is the product of experience. 
 
 Locke's disproof of innate ideas. — The existence 
 of certain universal principles, speculative as 
 well as practicali is adduced in proof ol Innate 
 Principles as implanted in the human mind from 
 its very origin. Such are the principles of iden- 
 tity, whatever is, is ; of contradiction, it is imr 
 possible for the same thing to be and not to be ; 
 and the moral principle of right and wrong. 
 Locke's disproof of these so-called innate princi- 
 ples divides itself into three parts, 
 
 1. Disproof of the universal speculative prin- 
 ciples. — (a) The speculative principles of Identity 
 and Contradiction are unknown to children and 
 
LOCKE. 3 
 
 uncultivated persons ; hence they cannot be 
 innate, for there can be no idea without conscious- 
 ness, fb) Then again, these principles, as univer- 
 sal propositions, are grasped by the mind long 
 after it grasps concrete or particular examples. 
 The fact is that the mere capacity for know- 
 ledge is innate, but thatj actual knowledge is 
 acquired. If the innateness of our -capacity 
 guarantee the innateness of our knowledge, then 
 all our knowledge without exception, and not 
 some of it, must be innate — a doctrine which has 
 never been seriously advocated by any philosopher. 
 2. Disproof of universal practical principles, 
 (a J Moral principles cannot be innate ; for (a) 
 they require to be proved and are referred by 
 different philosophers to different standards, such 
 as happiness, perfection, the will of God, &c. 
 (bj The practical principles of different n^ions 
 are often different and even contradictory. There 
 are savages in the world who commit the most 
 atrocious crimes under the notion of practising 
 their best virtues. The fact is that only desire of 
 happiness and aversion to pain are innate, but 
 moral ideas and principles are acquired. More- 
 over, principles cannot be innate because they 
 
4 LOCKE. 
 
 contaia abstract ideas such as identity, difference! 
 right, wrong, &c., which, far from being innate, 
 are acquired after considerable reflection. 
 
 3. Disproof of innate theological principles :— 
 The idea of God cannot be innate, because. 
 (■a>) some savages do not possess the idea, and 
 (b) different ideas of God are held by polythe- 
 ists and monotheists. God's existence is ration- 
 ally in.ferred from marks of wisdom and power 
 in the universe. 
 
 Criticism of Locke's refutation of innate ideas: — In 
 his polemic against Innate Ideas, Locke wholly 
 misunderstood the doctrine he was attacking. 
 No philosopher, before or after him, ever held 
 it in the sense as formulated by him. By In- 
 nate Ideas and Innate Principles he understands 
 that these ideas and principles are implanted in 
 the human mitid from its very origin ; that they 
 are like so many " characters stamped upon the 
 soul of a man, which it receives in its first being 
 and brings into the world with it" ; and that, 
 therefore, they should always be consciously rea- 
 lized by every man. It thus became an easy 
 task for him to show that even the self-evident, 
 aad demonstrable truths are not innate, for they 
 
LOCESI. 5 
 
 are not cdnsciously realized by infants, salvages 
 or idiots. His remarks, however, fall wide of 
 the mark, as the new interpretation put upon 
 Innate Ideas was entirely his own creation* 
 Descartes, his distinguished predecessor and the 
 father of the modern philosophy, did not certainly 
 hold it in this form. ' He had, indeed, said that 
 some of our ideas are innate. But by Innate 
 Idea he meant merely " a mental modification 
 which existing in the mind antecedently to all 
 experiencej possesses, hoyfGYer, only & potential 
 existence until on occasion of experience it is 
 (Sailed forth into actual consciousness. The chief 
 ground on which Descartes holds that certain 
 judgments are prior to' experience and native 
 to the mind, is the impossibility of deriving 
 them as universal from individual corporeal 
 movements, which, if eflScient, could give rise to 
 modifications merely individual."* In his reply 
 to Regins, Descartes say^ that ideas are called 
 innate in the same sense in Which we say that 
 generosity is innate in certain families, in others. 
 Certain diseases> as gout or gravel, not that, there- 
 fore the infants of theSe families labour utideir 
 
 wp— f ■■ ' — ' ^ ■' I ■ n I 
 
 * Veitcli's edition of Deeeartes note VI. 
 
6 LOCKEr 
 
 those diseases" in the womb of the mother, 
 but because they are born with a certain, 
 disposition or faculty of contracting them. 
 Here Descartes was, infact, very near the 
 modern scientific explanation of innate ideas 
 propounded by the Evolutionary School, which 
 applies the term to "the inherited tenden* 
 cies and dispositions to think, feel or act in par- 
 ticular ways." Such tendencies are the outcome 
 of the experience of the race ; and in this sense, 
 Spencer would allow that moral and intellectual 
 principles, which are the result of a long course 
 of evolution iu the race, are intuitive to the 
 individual. 
 
 However mistaken in its scope Locke's 
 attack against Innate Ideas might have been, 
 it has undoubtedly done a great service to the 
 cause of truth by banishing many so-called 
 axiomatic propositions from the province of 
 philosophy, and subjecting all of them to be 
 examined by the light of our reason. When 
 rightly interpreted, his remarks amount to a 
 protest against a spirit which was handed down 
 from the scholastic age of philosophy — the spirit 
 of assuming principles and propositions on mere 
 
LOCEB. 7 
 
 authority, independent of rational criticism^ 
 Locke admits that there are self-evident anc 
 demonstrative truths, but he insists that instead 
 of accepting them on trust, we must have a pr? 
 vious personal rational perception of their sel 
 evidence and demonstration. By giving tt 
 epithet Innate to some of our ideas, which our 
 prejudice and ignorance incline us to assume, 
 we vainly seek to cover . our own weakness, 
 and create a presumption in favour of our 
 principles that they are axiomatic and above sus- 
 picion. But the mere use of a term can never justify 
 our errors. It simply makes us blindly assume 
 propositions without examination of their truth 
 and validity. The first book of the Essay ia, 
 therefore, infact " a revolt against the despotism 
 of dogmas" which disdain to be verified by facts 
 of experience, and an assertion of the rights of 
 understanding to examine the grounds of our 
 thoughts and ideas.* " It is a philosophical pro- 
 test of rational insight against the blind depend- 
 ence on authority ."t 
 
 •Fraser's Locke (Philosophical Classics seiies). 
 tAx^tiQl^ Locke in the Encyclopedia Britannica, 
 
BOOK ri. 
 
 POSITIVE OR constructive!. 
 Oeigin of knowledge and Analysis and Classification op ideas 
 Knowledge presupposes ideas .-—As there can 
 be no knowledge without idead and states of 
 consciousness, an investigation about knowledge 
 and its extent presupposes previous investiga- 
 tions about ideas ,and thoughts. Before enter- 
 ing, therefore, into the inquiry about knowledge, 
 which Locke deals with in the fourth book of his 
 essay, he first gives us a logical analysis of our 
 
 ideas and thoughts the simpler elements of our 
 
 knowledge., 
 
 Idea, its meaning's :— (l) Locke uses the word 
 idea in a very wide sense, applying it to every 
 thing which falls within our consciousness. " It 
 stands for whatever is the object of the un- 
 derstanding, when a man thinks ; it is used to 
 express whatever is meant by phantasm, notion, 
 species, or whatever it is which the mind can be 
 employed about in thinking."* Locke's " idea" is 
 thus synonymous with "notions," "thoughts," 
 " mental modifications," or " modes of conscious- 
 
 *Locke'a Essay, Bk. I,, Chap. I., IntToduGtion, 
 
LOCKE. 9 
 
 ttess;'* an i his philosophy will- be more consist'^ 
 ently interpreted, if "we adhere to this meaning 
 throughout But his expressions, are sometimes 
 loose and unguarded; and he often seems tO 
 Tise the term in the sense of mental representa- 
 •tion or image. This has created a confusion and 
 inconsistency in his philosophy. i Reid's argu- 
 ments against the Locbian doctrine are mainly 
 based upon the meaning of "idea" as " image ;** 
 but the force of his destructive criticism will be 
 greatly diminished if we substitute " knowledge 
 Qf" in places where Locke uses "the idea of." 
 
 Experience, the origin of knowledge : Sensation 
 and Reflection :— Rejecting all innate hypotheses, 
 Locke supposes that the human mind has at 
 first no ideas in it. He compares it to a 
 tabula rasa void of ail characters. Ideas are 
 afterwards inscribed on it by the hand of experi- 
 ence, which Locke recognises as the only and 
 universal source of human knowledge. There 
 are two fountains of experience, Sensation and 
 Reflection. By Sensation is meant the perception 
 of the simple operations of the external objects 
 through the special senses; and by Reflection, 
 also termed the internal sense, the perception of 
 
IQ £QCCB. 
 
 the mternal operations of the soul iti thittking,, 
 bdieving, willing and so forth. In the reception of 
 ©ur sensations^ the mind is wholly passive. Ex- 
 ternal objects: furnish the urind with, the ideas of 
 sensible qualities ; and the mind furnishes the 
 understamding with the ideas of its own opera- 
 tions. 
 
 Is Locke a sensatianalist? — The guestioti has of- 
 ten been raised whether Locke is a sensationalist, 
 as his French followers Cbndilac and Diderot 
 assert him ta be ; or whether he has any thing 
 common with the intellectualistsj who find in the 
 mind itself an original source of our knowledge 
 supplying it with its native and necessary ele- 
 ments. The question has not, however, been, 
 nor can be, ckarly decided. For Locke expresses 
 himself on this point in such a loose manner 
 that his language can be strained in any way. 
 The mention of reflection as an original source 
 of ideas, distinct from sensation,, led. Mr. Stewart 
 and others to vindicate Locke's so-called "intsl- 
 lectualism." They thought that Locke would 
 mean " that the understanding is itself a source 
 of new ideas ; that all the simple ideas which are 
 necessarily implied in our intellectual operations 
 
of memory, imagination, reasoning, &c., are ulti- 
 mately to be referred to Reflection." Locke, 
 according to this class of his critics, is to be dis- 
 tinguished from the sensationalist schools of 
 philosophers. For he recognises two distinct 
 -Bourees of knowledge, while the sensationalists 
 found the ultimate source of it only in the im- 
 pressions of sense. "Our ideas" says Condilae, 
 '^are nothing more than transformed sensations." 
 Moreover, the French sensationalists derive from 
 eensations not only all our knowledge but 
 all our faculties. But in Locke's Essay there is 
 not the least idea of evolving the faculties out 
 of sensations. Nor did he, like the pure sensa- 
 tionalists, conceive that the mind itself was 
 developed out of the senses. 
 
 " But according to another class of his critics, 
 such as Hamilton, Knight, &c., Locke is a pure 
 sensationalist und Condilac's interpretation of his 
 doctrines is the only consistent and correct one. 
 In the reception of first ideas Locke consideirs 
 the mind as wholly passive. He believes it to be 
 originally a tabula rasa, and the &st impressions 
 must be conveyed to it fey the channels of 
 AensatioB. The mind may thereafter poDideir 
 
la LOCKE. 
 
 over the materials supplied by sensation, and 
 consider the operations of the mind , in perceiv- 
 ing external objects. It can thus form a new classi 
 of ideas called the ideas of reflection. But this 
 reflection cannot be said to be an independent 
 source of knowledge^ The origin of the ideas of 
 reflection must be wholly sought in sensation it- 
 self. Locke distinctly says " there appears not 
 to be any ideas in the mind before the senses 
 have conveyed any in," Moreover Locke's re- 
 flection does not pretend to explain the, intuitive 
 elements or rational implicates of knowledge ; 
 "It is conversant," says Sir W. Hamilton,. "only 
 with the contingent." No interpretation of Locks 
 can ever find in his reflection a revelation of 
 aught native or necessary to the mind. 
 
 Classification of ideas.— Ideas are broadly di- 
 vided into simple and complex. Simple idea* 
 are those unanalysable phenomena that enter into 
 the niind by Sensation and Reflection. These are 
 the materials of all our knowledge. The mind is 
 wholly passive in their reception, and can neither 
 make nor unmake any of them. But this does 
 not mean that the mind must first receive the 
 simple ideas in a.11 their simplicity ; for thea© 
 
ideas are found to exist united together, and 
 different senses, such as sight and touch, often 
 take in from the same object different ideas at 
 ' the same time. Simple ideas of Sensation are of 
 two sorts, (1) those formed by one sense, as! 
 colours by sight, sound by hearing, solidarity orij 
 impenetrability by touch; and (2) those formec ! 
 by more senses than one, such as extension, figtire ,'. 
 motion and rest by both sight and touch. Simph j 
 ideas of Reflection are those of peroeption ' or 
 thinking and volition or ^willing. There are some 
 mixed simple ideas that enter into the mind by 
 both Sensation and Reflection, such as pleasure, 
 pain, unity, existence, &c. Complex ideas are 
 those that are compounded of the simple ones. 
 The mind can make them in infinite variety by 
 combining the simple ideas, or comparing any ^jwo 
 ideas, whether simple or complex, or abstracting 
 Bon^e of the ideas from those that always ac 
 company them in their real existence. Complex 
 jdeas may be redijced under three heads ; Modes, 
 Substances, and Relations. The following giveg 
 a tabular view of the classification of ideas ;— 
 
u 
 
 EOCKB. 
 
 IDEAS 
 
 ' 1 
 
 ejMPLB OB UNAKAiiYSABLB COMPLEX OE AlfALY3ABl<B 
 
 P U B B 
 
 I 
 
 OP SBNSATIOil 
 
 OP BEpI/ECTION 
 
 Sisgle sense: 
 e. ,g., oqIoup, 
 beat, sound, 
 taste, siaell 
 (secondary 
 
 Commoa 
 to different 
 senses e.g., 
 Bstension, 
 figure, rest, 
 motion, &b., 
 (primary 
 qi^alities.) 
 
 Thinking 
 and its pro- 
 cess such as 
 •believing, 
 dofibting, 
 reasoning, 
 knowing, S(q, 
 
 ~\ 
 
 Volition 
 and its 
 operations. 
 
 Mixed (i. e. of 
 both Sensatioii 
 andBeflection): 
 
 «. g., pleasure smd 
 
 pain, existence, 
 
 lenity, &c. 
 
 Substances conceived 
 as substratum or sup- 
 port to aggregates ot 
 sensible c^uaiUti^g, 
 
 Belations, i, e., ideas 
 arising from eompar- 
 Ing of ideas with one 
 another, e.g., identity, 
 difference, co-exist, 
 ence, succession apd 
 cause and efiept. 
 
 Modes : i. e., complex 
 ideas which cannot 
 enbsistby themselves, 
 but .be conceived "a^ 
 dependencies on, Qr af- 
 fections of substitncesj 
 e. g., modes of num- 
 ber, space, .duration, 
 motion, colovr, taste, 
 
 Distinction between Primary and Secondary 
 
 Qualities :-^Primary Qualitiesf spatial bulk, figure, 
 motion, <&cj, — Ideas of primary qualities are 
 copies of them as they exist in objects. Secondary 
 qualities (colour, sound, taste, smell, &c.) are mere 
 
LOCKE. 15 
 
 sensations. Qor ideas .of secondary qualities do 
 not resemble their sources which are the modifi- 
 eations of bulk, figure, nxotion, &c« (the pirimary 
 qualities ®f .objects), The priaiaTy qaalities liW 
 in tbingSr tbe secondary qualities, lie in ourselre^ 
 
 Complex ideas. — The question of mental de- 
 Telopfnent or genesis is not raised by Locke. It is 
 wrong to attribute to him, as Cpusin does^ the 
 doctrine that the mind proceeds from the simple 
 and the individual to the complex and the general. 
 Idfact, Locke simply finds that our ideas are some 
 of them analyzable and complex, and others 
 unanalyzable or simple; bat he does not mean that 
 our complex ideas are chronologically posterior 
 to simple ideas. Locke, however, held that the 
 child's experiences are individual and concrete, 
 whether they be simple or complex, and that 
 general and abstract ideas are subsequently ac- 
 quired through abstraction and tbe logical pro- 
 cesses of the Understanding. 
 
 Locke's main thesis in the Second Book is 
 that all our ideas have their origin in concrete 
 phenomenal experience, whether external or 
 internal ; and in corroboration of his view hp 
 
16 lOCKIl. 
 
 brings forward certain cori^plex ideas, such aS 
 the ideas of infinity, substance, causality^ &cl, 
 which are usually considered as ioftate, but which 
 
 he seeks to establish or ground on experience* 
 These may bo called crucial or test instances^ 
 
 Idea of Infinity as' applied to space and time: — 
 ■Though infinite space is invisible and infinit'e 
 duration cannot be realized in our finite conscious- 
 ness, still we are soniehow obliged to lose our 
 
 positive idea of finite space in the negative idea\ 
 of immensity, and our positive idea of finite dura- 
 tion in the negative idea of eternity, Why 
 we are thus obliged to add to this perception 
 of external and internal sense, Locte does not 
 explain or discuss at all. He calls these 
 metaphysical ideas obscure, indeterminate, nega- 
 tive, and accounts for them psychologically by 
 supposing that the mind goes on removing the 
 idea of limit from the concrete spaces and time 
 of our experience. 
 
 Substance ; — Here also Locke speaks of the 
 idea as obscure, and thinks it is made up of some 
 thing plus support to qualities. Whether it be 
 'because we are accustomed to find many qualities 
 
L.OCKK. 17 
 
 together, or whether there is some other cause 
 at work, we are compelled to supply a support 
 for the aggregation of a number of qualities. Al- 
 though neither external nor internal experience 
 gives us this conception of substance, and although 
 we have no distinct idea of it, still we think that 
 it exists, and is the support of the qualities. It 
 .is, iiilfact, the idea of an uncertain supposition, 
 we know. not what, underlying phenomena, but 
 iijcapable of being itself phenomenalized. In 
 JiOcl^e's view God, if He had so willed, might 
 have endowed material substance with the power 
 of thinking. He, however, recognises the dis- 
 tinction between material and spiritual substances, 
 
 ' Personal Identity :— Locke's treatment of per- 
 sonal Identity is somewhat vague and incohfr»' 
 rent. He accepted it as a fact but was quite' 
 puzzled as to its explanation owing to the 
 breaks and intervals of our conscious life. He 
 however resolves it after all into the continuity 
 6f our consciousness by the aid of memory. A 
 man has th6 consciousness of a certain mental 
 state, wherewith is connected the remembrance 
 of a certain anterior state, which was also con- 
 nected with an anterior state and so on. In this 
 
18 LOCKE. 
 
 way, lie i^ connected with his boyhood by a re- 
 gular series of transmitted acta of consciousness. 
 "As far as this consciousness can be extended 
 backwards to any past action or thought, so far 
 reaches the identity of that person." According 
 to Locke, this consciousness alone constitutes per- 
 sonal identity, irrespective of the spiritual subs- 
 tance underlying it. He distinctly says that the- 
 question of personal identity has no concera 
 with the identity or sameness of spiritual subs- 
 tance. It consisting solely in consciousness, as 
 long as the same consciousness is preserved, so 
 long will there be the sameness of person, no 
 matter whether the spiritual substance be the 
 same or not, " If the same consciousness," he says, 
 " ean be transferred from one thinking substance to 
 another it will be possible that two thinking 
 substances make but one person."* This view of 
 personal identity is far from being a satisfactory 
 one. It is but an easy step from it to Hume's 
 doctrine that the mind itself is a bundle of ideas 
 and impressions, and that personal identity is an 
 illusion engendered by " the smooth aad unin- 
 terrupted progress of thought." It has, there- 
 
 •Locke'« Es8»7, Bk, II, Chap. 27. 
 
LOCKE.- 19 
 
 fore, been gravely objected to by many eminent 
 philosopberSi as it plainly, contradicts, one of 
 the simplest facts of our, consciousness. Personal 
 identity is presupposed in consciousness, just aa 
 truth is presupposed in knowledge. Conscious' 
 nessdoes not create it,, but simply discovers it as 
 already realized in its very act. 
 
 Power and Causality. — In the 26th Chapter of 
 the Second Book Locke accounts for cause. 
 We constantly observe that qualities and finite 
 substances begin to exist, and receive their exist- 
 ence from other beings, which produce them or 
 have the power to bring on them changes. See- 
 ing, for instance, that " in the substance, we call 
 wax, fluidity is constantly produced by the appli- 
 cation of a certain degree of heat, we somehow come 
 to think of heat as the cause and fluidity as the 
 effect." Locke nowhere explains this somehoWf. 
 the rational necessity of the principle of causa- 
 lity in the interpretation of the facts of this uni- 
 verse. He simply ascribes the origin of our 
 idea of causation to an experience of sensible 
 changes which one body produces on another, 
 as fire upon wax ; but he does not explain hots'- ' 
 these sensible changes are produced, and why ■ 
 
20 iOCKB, 
 
 we are forced to thiak of the causal nexus as uni- 
 versal and necessary. Atiy thing, so far as cons- 
 tant observation tells us, might have been the 
 cause of any thing; no finite number of instances 
 of observed sequence can guarantee its universa- 
 lity. The idea of cause depends upon that of 
 power which Locke tries, but fails, to account 
 for in the 21st Chapter. Locke's definition of a 
 cause is evidently question-begging. The power 
 to produce is the point requiring explanation aa 
 it is not the object of perception: but Locke 
 mainly assumes it. Our idea of power is, however, 
 vaguely referred by him to reflection, since we 
 get it through consciousness of our voluntary 
 agency: but this tiiought is not developed in his 
 Essay. 
 
 Treedom of Will :— Locke's , position with re- 
 gard to Freedom of Will is obscure and vacil- 
 lating. While he traces power and causality to 
 reflection and our consciousness of free agency, 
 and while he also acknowledges personal respon- 
 sibility as grounded upon the freedom, he at the 
 same time held that our volitions are themselves 
 subject to the law of causality ; ifli other words, 
 our motives are rigidly deterfljined by causes 
 
LOCIKS. 21' 
 
 inherent in ourselvea and our suri?.otm,4Ings. The 
 fact is, we are free ageats because we act accordiagi 
 tiO our own raotivea, and becaijse there is no ex- 
 ternal compulsion or constrant. He defines li-, 
 berty as " the power a man haa to dp. or forbeai; 
 doing according to the determinations of the Will." 
 A man is, therefore, fr«e, if his actions follow 
 his mental motives ; he is not freei when any 
 thing ex<ternal to him fprbidg the action so mov- 
 ed, In this sense alone Locke vindicated free- 
 dom. But so far as the motives are concerned,; 
 he was a determiniat** He also hints, but very 
 obscurely, that all changes in the universe are 
 referred by inexplicable instinct in us to a power 
 
 *The deterministic position of Locke is thus illustrated by Voltaire :— 
 " It is proposed to yon to ride on horseback, it is absolutely necessary for 
 yon to make a choice, for it is very clear that you must either go or not ; 
 there is no medium, you must absolutely do the one or the other. So 
 far it ia demonstrated that the Will is not free. You will get on horse- 
 back ? why ? Because I will do so an iguoramous will say : This reply 
 is an absurdity, nothing can be done without reason or cause. Yonr 
 Will, then is caused by what ?- The, agreeable idea which is presented to 
 your brain,; the predominant anfi determined idea;, but, you will say, 
 cannot I resist an idea which predominates over m«. No, for what 
 would be, the cause of yonr resistance ? An idea by which your Will is 
 swaypd still more despotically. You receive your ifleas, and then, re- 
 ceive your Will. Yon Will then necessarily; consequently the word 
 liberty belongs not to the Will in any sense. 
 
22 LOCKE,: 
 
 like the creativre power of which we are ConSdionsi 
 in ourselves. 
 
 Moral Rslations :— In morality, Locke belongs 
 to the Utilitarian School, and, like all its advo- 
 cates, he contends that we have neither any 
 innate moral priociple, nor a distinct innate moral 
 faculty that recognises right and Wrong indepen- 
 dent of pleasure or pain. The rules of morality 
 differ in men according to circumstances ; and 
 the same action, which Is considered as moral 
 in one country, h set aside as immoral in another. 
 Our moral sentiments are the product of educa- 
 tion, custom and the association of ideas. Good or 
 evil are ultimately resolvable into pleasure or 
 pain or that which occasions pleasure or pain. 
 These are attached, as consequences, in the shape 
 of reward or punishment, to certain courses of 
 action by one of three laws — the Dirine Law, 
 the State Law, and the Law of Public Opinion. 
 Moral good or evil is thus only the conformity 
 or disagreement of our voluntary actions to (me 
 or other of the laws of good or evil decreed either 
 by the Divine Legislator, or the Civil Legislator 
 or the Public Opinion. Locke admits that though 
 the Law of Public Opinion influences the conduct 
 
LOCKE. V 23 
 
 of men far more than any other law, yet the 
 Divine Law or the Will of God, when it can be 
 known, is the highest standard of morality and 
 the measure of sin and duty. The sanctions of 
 morality, when, it based oh the theological 
 grounds are the rewards and punishment of a 
 future state, which we are assurisd of only by 
 revelation. 
 
BOOK III. 
 
 WORDS, THEIR USB AND ABUSE, 
 
 Words. — Words are symbols of ideas, and the 
 bane of philosophy has been the use of idealess 
 words. Locke would therefore rigorously apply 
 the test of signification or meaning to verbal 
 symbols. Every abstract term in philosophy 
 and every abstract principle must be translated 
 into ideas. 
 
 2. General ideas. — General ideas are due to 
 abstraction, The generality consists in a com- 
 monname applicable to different individual objects 
 because of their common points and resemblances. 
 Locke is a thorough-going nominalist so far as 
 the objective world is concerned. With him the 
 principle of individuation is the principle of exis- 
 tence. Whatever exists is concrete and individual. 
 But to the mind he attributes the power of con- 
 ception and abstraction whereby general ideas 
 are formed though with some difficulty. 
 
 Judgment and reasoning. — The logical opera- 
 tions of the understanding such as judgment and 
 reasoning are analysed by Lopke into mental 
 operations of addition, subtraction, compQunding 
 and dividing. 
 
BOOK IV. 
 
 KNOWLEDGE AND OPINION. 
 
 Definition of knowledge and probability. — By 
 'knowledge Locke means absolute certainty or 
 rational perception of necessary relation between 
 ideaa and meaning ; and by probability, assent in- 
 duced on presumption that the ideas are related 
 according to what we presume. 
 
 Certainty and realityi-«-Both knowledge and 
 probability may be either (l) in regard to relation 
 between any two ideas or (2) between an idea 
 and the, idea of the reality of things. The second 
 Locke calls real knowledge or real certainty. 
 
 Perception. — Perception is expressly used in 
 three diflferent meanings in the Essay : (1) sensie- 
 phenomena and acts of mind as simply appre- 
 hended or the faculty of simple apprehension 
 (Book II.), (2) perception of the signification of 
 the signs (Book III.), and (3) perception or ration- 
 al intuition (immediate or mediate) of relation 
 between ideas or meanings (Book IV.). This 
 last alone is Logke's knowledge. 
 
 Classification of the relations implied in bnowtedge.- 
 Our judgmeats based on comparison pf ideas. 
 
26 LOCKE. 
 
 imply one or other, of the four kinds of relations: 
 (l) identity or difference {e.g., blue cannot be 
 yellow), or , 2) necessary r^elation either immediate 
 or mediate {e. g., two and three equal to five or 
 two triangles on equal bases and between the 
 same parallels are equal to one another, or (3) 
 co-existence or succession {e. g., heat expands 
 body,) or (4) correspondence to the idea of reality. 
 
 Degree of certainty or probability appertaining 
 to the different kinds of judgment or relation: — 
 (a) The first and the second kinds of relation 
 may give us certainties about universal truths 
 as well as particular facts. (6) Universal and ne- 
 cessary truths concerning mathematical and mo- 
 ral abstractions can be reached only through the 
 ^second kind. Iq) Certainties about individuals, z'.e , 
 about real existence can only be reached through 
 the fourth kind, {d) The practically all important 
 judgments about co-existence and succession of 
 phenomena can be only subjective presumptions 
 of probability. 
 
 Three ontological certainties. — fi) Tlie Ego or 
 fifiZ/".'— Each man has an intuitively certain know- 
 ^Jedge of his individual existence as a conscious 
 
LOC«B!, 27 
 
 being. Locke's argument follows that of Descartes' 
 cogito ergo sum. This knowledge is, however, 
 not innate. 
 
 2. God as the one Infinite mind,— This is an 
 absolute certainty. It is not howeter innate. 
 Neither is it self-evident like our knowledge of 
 our own existence. It is a demonstrable truth. 
 Our own self-conscious existence is the Starting 
 point from which, through the application of 
 the principle of causality, we reach the existence ofj 
 one supreme mind Locke here tacitly assumea 
 the universality of causation, though his analysis of 
 it in the Second Book can hardly a.ccount for ifl, 
 The real existence of God is the one necessity in 
 concrete individual existence. My own individual 
 existence though real is not thus universally and 
 absolutely necessary. 
 
 3. TAe universe, external world, matter, dc: — 
 Though the real existence of all external things 
 (except that of God) maybe doubted, still, Locke 
 maintains, our actual perceptions of external 
 things presented to us involve an assurance that 
 deserve the name of knowledge and certainty. 
 But whenever we pass from present to remem- 
 
28 LOCKE, 
 
 bered data of sensei to expectations ^tid judgmentd 
 about abseot. things, there knowledge gives place, 
 to presumption and probability. Physical investiga- 
 tion concerning co-existence and succession can 
 lead only to probability. " We can have no certain 
 knovv^ledge of universal truths concerning material 
 bodies" (i. e., induction comes within the range of 
 probability.) 
 
GENERAL REMARKS. 
 
 Locke's position: his method and style. — Loci: 6 
 decuples a very high position in the history of 
 philosophy. He is the unquestioned founder 
 of the empirical school of modern psychology — ' 
 nay thei father of psychology itself. Hobbes and 
 €!-assendi, Descartes and Spinoza had, indeed, 
 treated some of the questions of mental science; 
 but they had all regarded it as subordinate to 
 Other sciences, and had taken oiily a very cursory 
 view of it in illustration of their' favourite studies. 
 Hobbes ■ had given it as an introduction to his 
 political philosophy, Gassendi to his physics^ 
 and Descartes and Spinoza' to their metaphysics 
 explaining the nature and attributes of God. 
 Locke was the first to make psychology an inde- 
 pfeixdent branch of inquiry. By his patient observa- 
 tion, his strong common sense and his earnest 
 love of truth, he for the first time gave us a most 
 eoinplete chart of the human mind, and secured 
 for this iaflich neglected science an eminent place 
 itt ilb^' codimon wealth of learning. The analytic 
 method, which was' inaugurated by Bacon, and 
 ftpplitd bj Hewton with brilliant success in the 
 
30 LOCKE. 
 
 investigation of the physical sciences, was also 
 for the first time extended by Locke to the 
 sphere of psychology. Instead of starting with 
 preconcievei ideas and dogmas, as many a' priori 
 philosophers before him had done, he set himself 
 to examine in " historical plain matter-of-fact 
 fashion " the operations of his own mind, and 
 resolved them into simpler and original elements 
 of experience out of which they had been formed. 
 It has justly been remarked by Prof. Fowler 
 that " Locke's was preeminently the philosophy 
 of experience both in its method and in its 
 results. It accepts nothing on authority, no 
 foregone conclusion, no data from other sciences." 
 He was a great original thinker and his 
 speculations bear the strongest marks of having 
 been wrought out of the materials of his own 
 mind. His peculiar " masculine racy " style 
 was a proper vehicle for conveying his new 
 thoughts to the world, its chief merits being 
 simplicity, directness and clearness of expression. 
 Locke had a genuine abhorence of obscurity and 
 vagueness of language, which was often mista- 
 ken for depth and profundity of thought. So he 
 studiously avoids the old technicalities of the 
 
locke; 31 
 
 school that had served as a cloak for charlatans, 
 and uses in his Essay, as far as possible in a phi- 
 losophical work, such plain, simple, and idiomatic 
 English that well bred people, could use it, with 
 slight changes, in conversation. He varies his 
 expressions in different ways to make his, 
 readers the better understand his meaning. But 
 this, over and above the fault of redundancy, was 
 a source of confusion in his writing. Some of. 
 the passages in his Essay, when taken by them- 
 selves, seem to contradict each, other. But. 
 Locke should not be judged by such isolated 
 extracts, unless they are fully borne out. by a 
 reference to the whole content^ and by the spirit; 
 and tenor of his speculation. 
 
 Criticism on Locke's Origin of knowledge. — 
 Locke's Essay is not altogether free from defects-: 
 He has derived ail human knowledge from indivi- 
 dual experience. But^ as^Mr. Fowler points out,' 
 in order to receive and acquire experience it^ iai 
 essential that the mind should be endowed with 
 certain inherent faculties. Whence come these 
 faculties ? Locke' gives- no explanation of them. 
 To complete his payehalogy he should have 
 opened an enquiry into the origin of our facultiea 
 
32 LOCKE. 
 
 The question was, perhaps too abstruse for him. 
 to discuss. But the insufficient explanation of the 
 beginning of conscious experience has led Leibnitz 
 to meet the empirical adage " nihil est in intel- 
 lectu quod non prius fuerifc in sensu" (nothing 
 is in the intellect which has not been in the 
 senses before) by his celebrated retort " nisi in- 
 tellectus ipse" (except the intellect itself*. 
 Again, in his attempt to give undue prominence 
 to the passive side of human knowledge, Locke 
 has ignored the activity of the mind, without 
 which our knowledge would not have been more 
 than an incoherent and confused mass of impres- 
 sions. Locke, of course, recognises its activity 
 in forming the complex ideas and also the 
 simple ideas of reflection. But he denies it alto- 
 gether as an agency in the formation of the simple' 
 ideas of sensation. Here he overlooks the I 
 obvious fact that but for some sort of attention," 
 or certain reaction of the mind from within, these 
 ideas could not have been formed. Lastly, though 
 Locke has furnished us with an elaborate ana- 
 lysis of ideas as he found them in adult minds, 
 he hfts given no account of the early stage of an 
 infant mind when it receive^ the elementary 
 
LOCKE. 33 
 
 nptiotis of space, lime, causality, &c , nor does he 
 give any satisfactory solution of the origin of 
 these notions. 
 
 Elements of Idealism and Scepticism in Locke : 
 His influence on Berkeley and Hume.— Though Locke 
 himself was neither an idealist nor a sceptic, 
 his experiential principles were afterwards de- 
 veloped into those of idealism and scepticism. 
 As knowledge presupposes ideas, and as ideas 
 must always be in our mind, so our knowledge 
 cannot but be subjective. This is a logical deduc- 
 tion from Locke's philosophy, and indeed in 
 several places of his Essay he himself lays stress 
 upon it. But he often goes only half-way to- 
 wards the conception of knowledge as purely 
 subjective. His distinction between the primary 
 find secondary qualities, viz., that the ideas of 
 the former are exact copies of w^hat really exist 
 in bodies, and those of the latter are mere sensa- 
 tions in our minds without the least resemblance 
 to any thing in the body, — is inconsistent with 
 the fundamental principles of his empirical philo- 
 sophy. For the primary qualities as well as tho 
 secondairy are only ideas in our minds and are 
 therefore equally subjective^ Berkeley did away 
 
34 LOCKE. 
 
 with this (iistinc'tion and resolved tberii equally 
 into impressions in our minds. Again, Locke's 
 treatment of matter as the unknown support of 
 accidents paved the way for the immaterialism 
 of Berkeley and the agnosticism of Hume. 
 If substance be something, we know not what, 
 inconceivable by us, what right have we to 
 assume its existence ? What guarantee is there 
 that it is not a mere fiction of the imagination f 
 The next step in philosophy was naturally, there- 
 fore, to get rid of this suppositional something. 
 This was partly done by Berkeley's denial of the 
 independent existence of matter. He resolved 
 the material world iiito sense-dependent pheno- 
 mena, presented to the human mind in a regular 
 order by the ever active Divine Keason. His 
 idealistic conception of the world was meant t 
 extol the importance of Mind by shawing t%;a 
 the ideas and spirits comprehend all sorts of exis'» 
 tences. For the unintelligible matterof Loeke> 
 he substituted the intervention of the Divine 
 agency, proving thereby to mankind that "in 
 Him we live and move and have our -beings" He 
 altogether refrained from extending his.destruc^ 
 tjve critici§ms to the case of spirituaLl substattcei 
 
LOCKE. 35 
 
 though they were equally applicable to it. It 
 was left to the still bolder speculations of Hume 
 to question the reality ofboth matter and mind as 
 substances. He has consistently and logically 
 shown that, starting from the standpoint of 
 experience, we can know nothing in this world and 
 the whole universe becomes " a riddle, on enigma, 
 an inexplicable mystery." He carried the Lockian 
 principles to an extreme, and landed philosophy 
 in absolute scepticism, leaving to it nothing but 
 isolated ideas unconnected by any real link except 
 the blind non-rational custom. This philosophi- 
 cal nescience caused a strong reaction against 
 empiricism, and roused great thinkers in the next 
 generation to seek the root-principles of philoso- 
 phy in some thing other than mere experience. 
 Lastly, Locke's definition of knowledge "as the 
 "^rception of the agreement or disagreement 
 ^jetween of our ideas," is also a prolific source of 
 idealism and scepticism. For, as it confines know- 
 ledge within our ideas, we cannot know the real 
 nature or essence of any thing in this world. Locke, 
 indeed, tries to escape from such a conclusion, but 
 the germs of ontological sceptisism are to be 
 found in his Essay. 
 
 THE END 
 
 Mnon Prnaa. Aervn..