ESSAY IV.

OF CONCEPTION.

CHAPTER I.

OF CONCEPTION, OR SIMPLE APPREHENSION IN GENERAL.

CONCEIVING, imagining, apprehending, understanding, having a notion of a thing, are common words used to express that operation of the understanding, which the logicians call simple apprehension. The having an idea of a thing, is in common language used in the same sense, chiefly I think since Mr. Locke's time.

Logicians define simple apprehension to be the bare conception of a thing without any judgment or belief about it. If this were intended for a strictly logical definition, it might be a just objection to it, that conception and apprehension are only synonymous words; and that we may as well define conception by apprehension, as apprehension by conception: but it ought to be remembered, that the most simple operations of the mind cannot be logically defined. To have a distinct notion of them, we must attend to them as we feel them in our own minds. He that would have a distinct notion of a scarlet colour, will never attain it by a definition; he must set it before his eye, attend to it, compare it with the colours that come nearest to it, and observe the specific difference, which he will in vain attempt to define.

Every man is conscious that he can conceive a thousand things, of which he believes nothing at all; as a horse with wings, a mountain of gold: but although conception may be without any degree of belief, even the smallest belief cannot be without conception. He that believes must have some conception of what he believes.

Without attempting a definition of this operation of the mind, I shall endeavour to explain some of its properties; consider the theories about it; and take notice of some mistakes of philosophers concerning it.

1. It may be observed, that conception enters as an ingredient in every operation of the mind: our senses cannot give us the belief of any objects without giving some conception of it at the same time: no man can either remember or reason about things of which he hath no conception: when we will to exert any of our active powers, there must be some conception of what we will to do; there can be no desire nor aversion, love nor hatred, without some conception of the object: we cannot feel pain without conceiving it, though we can conceive it without feeling it. These things are self-evident.

In every operation of the mind, therefore, in every thing we call thought, there must be conception: when we analyse the various operations either of the understanding or of the will, we shall always find this at the bottom, like the caput mortuum of the Chemists, or the materia prima of the Peripatetics; but though there is no operation of mind without conception,

yet it may be found naked, detached from all others, and then it is called simple apprehension, or the bare conception of a thing.

As all the operations of our mind are expressed by language, every one knows that it is one thing to understand what is said, to conceive or apprehend its meaning, whether it be a word, a sentence, or a discourse; it is another thing to judge of it, to assent or dissent, to be persuaded or moved. The first is simple apprehension, and may be without the last, but the last cannot be without the first.

2. In bare conception there can neither be truth nor falsehood, because it neither affirms nor denies. Every judgment, and every proposition by which judgment is expressed, must be true or false; and the qualities of true and false, in their proper sense, can belong to nothing but to judgments, or to propositions which express judgment. In the bare conception of a thing there is no judgment, opinion, or belief included, and therefore it cannot be either true or false.

But it may be said, Is there any thing more certain than that men may have true or false conceptions, true or false apprehensions of things? I answer, that such ways of speaking are indeed so common, and so well authorised by custom, the arbiter of language, that it would be presumption to censure them. It is hardly possible to avoid using them. But we ought to be upon our guard that we be not misled by them, to confound things which, though often expressed by the same words, are really different. We must therefore remember what was before observed, Essay I. Chap. 1, that all the words by which we signify the bare conception of a thing, are likewise used to signify our opinions, when we wish to express them with modesty and diffidence. And we shall always find, that, when we speak of true or false conceptions, we mean true or false opinions. An opinion, though ever so wavering, or ever so modestly expressed, must be either true or false; but a bare conception, which expresses no opinion or judgment, can be neither.

If we analyse those speeches, in which men attribute truth or falsehood to our conceptions of things, we shall find in every case, that there is some opinion or judgment implied in what they call conception. A child conceives the moon to be flat, and a foot or two broad; that is, this is his opinion and when we say it is a false notion, or a false conception, we mean that it is a false opinion. He conceives the city of London to be like his country village; that is, he believes it to be so, till he is better instructed. He conceives a lion to have horns; that is, he believes that the animal which men call a lion has horns. Such opinions language authorises us to call conceptions; and they may be true or false. But bare conception, or what the logicians call simple apprehension, implies no opinion, however slight, and therefore can neither be true or false.

What Mr. Locke says of ideas (by which word he very often means nothing but conceptions) is very just, when the word idea is so understood, book 2, chap. 32, § 1: "Though truth and falsehood belong in propriety of speech only to propositions, yet ideas are often termed true or false (as what words are there that are not used with great latitude, and with some deviation from their strict and proper signification); though I think, that when ideas themselves are termed true or false, there is still some secret or tacit proposition, which is the foundation of that denomination; as we shall see, if we examine the particular occasions wherein they come to be called true or false; in all which we shall find some kind of affirmation or negation, which is the reason of that denomination: for our ideas being nothing but bare appearances, or perceptions in our minds, cannot properly

and simply in themselves be said to be true or false, no more than a simple name of any thing can be said to be true or false."

It may be here observed, by the way, that in this passage, as in many others, Mr. Locke uses the word perception, as well as the word idea, to signify what I call conception, or simple apprehension. And in his chapter upon perception, book 2, chap. 9, he uses it in the same sense. Perception, he says, "as it is the first faculty of the mind exercised about our ideas, so it is the first and simplest idea we have from reflection, and is by some called thinking in general. It seems to be that which puts the distinction betwixt the animal kingdom and the inferior parts of nature. It is the first operation of all our faculties, and the inlet of all knowledge into our minds."

Mr. Locke has followed the example given by Des Cartes, Gassendi and other Cartesians, in giving the name of perception to the bare conception of things: and he has been followed in this by Bishop Berkeley, Mr. Hume, and many late philosophers, when they treat of ideas. They have probably been led into this impropriety, by the common doctrine concerning ideas, which teaches us, that conception, perception by the senses, and memory, are only different ways of perceiving ideas in our own minds. If that theory be well founded, it will indeed be very difficult to find any specific distinction between conception and perception. But there is reason to distrust any philosophical theory, when it leads men to corrupt language, and to confound, under one name, operations of the mind which common sense and common language teach them to distinguish. I grant that there are some states of the mind, wherein a man may confound his conceptions with what he perceives or remembers, and mistake the one for the other; as in the delirium of a fever, in some cases of lunacy and of madness, in dreaming, and perhaps in some momentary transports of devotion, or of other strong emotions, which cloud his intellectual faculties, and for a time carry a man out of himself, as we usually express it.

Even in a sober and sound state of mind, the memory of a thing may be so very weak, that we may be in doubt whether we only dreamed or imagined it.

It may be doubted, whether children, when their imagination first begins to work, can distinguish what they barely conceive from what they remember. I have been told by a man of knowledge and observation, that one of his sons, when he began to speak, very often told lies with great assurance, without any intention, as far as appeared, or any consciousness of guilt. From which the father concluded, that it is natural to some children to lie. I am rather inclined to think, that the child had no intention to deceive, but mistook the rovings of his own fancy for things which he remembered. This, however, I take to be very uncommon, after children can communicate their sentiments by language, though perhaps not so in a more early period.

Granting all this, if any man will affirm, that they whose intellectual faculties are sound, and sober and ripe, cannot with certainty distinguish what they perceive or remember, from what they barely conceive, when those operations have any degree of strength and distinctness, he may enjoy his opinion; I know not how to reason with him. Why should philosophers confound those operations in treating of ideas, when they would be ashamed to do it on other occasions? To distinguish the various rowers of our minds, a certain degree of understanding is necessary: and through a defect of understanding, natural or accidental, or from

unripeness of understanding, may be apt to confound different powers, will it follow that others cannot clearly distinguish them?

To return from this digression, into which the abuse of the word perception, by philosophers, has led me, it appears evident, that the bare conception of an object, which includes no opinion or judgment, can neither be true nor false. Those qualities, in their proper sense, are altogether inapplicable to this operation of the mind.

3. Of all the analogies between the operations of body and those of the mind, there is none so strong and so obvious to all mankind as that which there is between painting, or other plastic arts, and the power of conceiving objects in the mind. Hence in all languages, the words by which this power of the mind and its various modifications are expressed, are analogical, and borrowed from those arts. We consider this power of the mind as a plastic power, by which we form to ourselves images of the objects of thought.

In vain we should attempt to avoid this analogical language, for we have no other language upon the subject; yet it is dangerous, and apt to mislead. All analogical and figurative words have a double meaning; and, if we are not very much upon our guard, we slide insensibly from the borrowed and figurative meaning into the primitive. We are prone to carry the parallel between the things compared farther than it will hold, and thus very naturally to fall into error.

To avoid this as far as possible in the present subject, it is proper to attend to the dissimilitude between conceiving a thing in the mind, and painting it to the eye, as well as to their similitude. The similitude strikes and gives pleasure. The dissimilitude we are less disposed to observe. But the philosopher ought to attend to it, and to carry it always in mind, in his reasonings on this subject, as a monitor, to warn him against the errors into which the analogical language is apt to draw him.

When a man paints, there is some work done, which remains when his hand is taken off, and continues to exist, though he should think no more of it. Every stroke of his pencil produces an effect, and this effect is different from his action in making it; for it remains and continues to exist when the action ceases. The action of painting is one thing, the picture produced is another thing. The first is the cause, the second is the effect.

Let us next consider what is done when he only conceives this picture. He must have conceived it before he painted it for this is a maxim universally admitted, that every work of art must first be conceived in the mind of the operator. What is this conception? It is an act of the mind, a kind of thought. This cannot be denied. But does it produce any effect besides the act itself? Surely common sense answers this question in the negative: for every one knows, that it is one thing to conceive, another thing to bring forth into effect. It is one thing to project, another to execute. A man may think for a long time what he is to do, and after all do nothing. Conceiving as well as projecting or resolving are what the schoolmen called immanent acts of the mind, which produce nothing beyond themselves. But painting is a transitive act, which produces an effect distinct from the operation, and this effect is the picture. Let this therefore be always remembered, that what is commonly called the image of a thing in the mind, is no more than the act or operation of the mind in conceiving it.

That this is the common sense of men who are untutored by philosophy, appears from their language. If one ignorant of the language should ask,

What is meant by conceiving a thing? we should very naturally answer, That it is having an image of it in the mind; and perhaps we could not explain the word better. This shows, that conception, and the image of a thing in the mind, are synonymous expressions. The image in the mind, therefore, is not the object of conception, nor is it any effect produced by conception as a cause. It is conception itself. That very mode of thinking, which we call conception, is by another name called an image in

the mind.

Nothing more readily gives the conception of a thing than the seeing an image of it. Hence, by a figure common in language, conception is called an image of the thing conceived. But to show that it is not a real but a metaphorical image, it is called an image in the mind. We know nothing that is properly in the mind but thought; and when any thing else is said to be in the mind, the expression must be figurative, and signify some kind of thought.

I know that philosophers very unanimously maintain, that in conception. there is a real image in the mind, which is the immediate object of conception, and distinct from the act of conceiving it. I beg the reader's indulgence to defer what may be said for or against this philosophical opinion to the next chapter; intending in this only to explain what appears to me to belong to this operation of mind, without considering the theories about it. I think it appears, from what has been said, that the common language of those who have not imbibed any philosophical opinion upon this subject, authorises us to understand the conception of a thing, and an image of it in the mind, not as two different things, but as two different expressions to signify one and the same thing; and I wish to use common words in their common acceptation.

4. Taking along with us what is said in the last article, to guard us against the seduction of the analogical language used on this subject, we may observe a very strong analogy, not only between conceiving and painting in general, but between the different kinds of our conceptions, and the different works of the painter. He either makes fancy pictures, or he copies from the painting of others, or he paints from the life; that is, from real objects of art or nature which he has seen. I think our conceptions admit of a division very similar.

First, There are conceptions which may be called fancy pictures. They are commonly called creatures of fancy or of imagination. They are not the copies of any original that exists, but are originals themselves. Such was the conception which Swift formed of the island of Laputa and of the country of the Lilliputians; Cervantes of Don Quixote and his squire; Harrington of the government of Oceana; and Sir Thomas More of that of Utopia. We can give names to such creatures of imagination, conceive them distinctly, and reason consequentially concerning them, though they never had an existence. They were conceived by their creators, and may be conceived by others, but they never existed. We do not ascribe the qualities of true or false to them, because they are not accompanied with any belief, nor do they imply any affirmation or negation.

Setting aside those creatures of imagination, there are other conceptions, which may be called copies, because they have an original or archetype to which they refer, and with which they are believed to agree; and we call them true or false conceptions, according as they agree or disagree with the standard to which they are referred. These are of two kinds, which have different standards or originals.