'gold' But body,' as that in which ideas are found,' and in which they permanently coexist according to a natural law, is one thing; 'body,' as the abstraction of the unknown, is quite another. It is body in the former sense that is the real thing when nominal essence (the complex of ideas in us) is treated as representative, though inadequately so, of the real thing; it is body in the latter sense that is the real thing when this is treated as wholly outside possible consciousness, and its essence as wholly unrepresented by possible ideas. By a jumble of the two meanings Locke obtains an amphibious entity which is at once independent of relation to ideas, as is body in the latter sense, and a source of ideas representative of it, as is body in the former sense-which thus carries with it that opposition to the mental which is supposed necessary to the real, while yet it seems to manifest itself in ideas. Meanwhile a third conception of the real keeps thrusting itself upon the other two -the view, namely, that body in both senses is a fiction of thought, and that the mere present feeling is alone the real. 6 94. Where Locke is insisting on the opposition between the real essence and any essence that can be known, the former is generally ascribed either to a particular being' or to a parcel of matter.' The passage which brings the opposition into the strongest relief is perhaps the following:-'I would ask any one, what is sufficient to make an essential difference in nature between any two particular beings, without any regard had to some abstract idea, which is looked upon as the essence and standard of a species? All such patterns and standards being quite laid aside, particular beings, considered barely in themselves, will be found to have all their qualities equally essential; and everything, in each individual, will be essential to it, or, which is more, nothing at all. For though it may be reasonable to ask whether obeying the magnet be essential to iron; yet I think it is very improper and insignificant to ask whether it be essential to the particular parcel of matter I ent my pen with, without considering it under the name iron, or as being of a certain species.' (Book III. chap. vi. sec. 5.)1 Here, it will be seen, the exclusion of the abstract idea from reality carries with it the exclusion of that standard made end. To the same purpose is a passage in Book II. chap. x. sec. 19, towards the by nature,' which according to the passages already quoted, is the thing itself' from which the abstract idea is taken, and from which, if correctly taken, it derives reality. This exclusion, again, means nothing else than the disappearance from nature' (which with Locke is interchangeable with "reality") of all essential difference. There remain, however, as the 'real,' 'particular beings,' or 'individuals,' or 'parcels of matter.' In each of these, considered barely in itself, everything will be essential to it, or, which is more, nothing at all.' is the mere 95. We have already seen,' that if by a 'particular being' In this is meant the mere individuum, as it would be upon abstrac- sense body tion of all relations which according to Locke are fictitious, indiand constitute a community or generality, it certainly can viduum. have no essential qualities, since it has no qualities at all. It is a something which equals nothing. The notion of this bare individuum being the real is the protoplasm' of Locke's philosophy, to which, though he never quite recognized it himself, after the removal of a certain number of accretions we may always penetrate. It is so because his unacknowledged method of finding the real consisted in abstracting from the formed content of consciousness till he came to that which could not be got rid of. This is the momentarily present relation of subject and object, which, considered on the side of the object, gives the mere atom, and on the side of the subject, the mere 'it is felt.' Even in this ultimate abstraction the 'fiction of thought' still survives, for the atom is determined to its mere individuality by relation to other individuals, and the feeling is determined to the present moment or the now' by relation to other 'nows.' 96. To this ultimate abstraction, however, Locke, though Body as constantly on the road to it, never quite penetrates. He is qualified by circum. farthest from it-indeed, as far from it as possible-where he stances of is most acceptable to common sense, as in his ordinary time and doctrine of abstraction, where the real, from which the place. process of abstraction is supposed to begin, is already the individual in the fullness of its qualities, James and John, this man or this gold. He is nearest to it when the only qualification of the particular being,' which has to be removed by thought in order to its losing its reality and See above, paragraph 45. Such body to be sub ject of primary qualities' but are these compatible with particularity in time? becoming an abstract idea, is supposed to consist in 'circumstances of time and place.' 97. It is of these circumstances, as the constituents of the real, that he is thinking in the passage last quoted. As qualified by circumstances of place' the real is a parcel of matter, and under this designation Locke thought of it as a subject of primary qualities of body." These, indeed, as he enumerates them, may be shown to imply relations going far beyond that of simple distinctness between atoms, and thus to involve much more of the creative action of thought; but we need be the less concerned for this usurpation on the part of the particular being, since that which he illegitimately conveys to it as derived from 'circumstances of place,' he virtually takes away from it again by limitation in time. The particular being' has indeed on the one hand a real essence, consisting of certain primary qualities, but on the other it has no continued identity. It is only real as present to feeling at this or that time. The particular being of one moment is not the particular being of the next. Thus the primary qualities which are a real essence, i.e. an essence of a particular being, at one moment, are not its real essence at the next, because, while they as represented in the mind remain the same, the 'it,' the particular being is different. An immutable essence for that very reason cannot be real. The immutability can only lie in a relation between a certain abstract (i.e. unreal) idea and a certain sound. (Book III. chap. iii. sec. 19.) The real constitution of things,' on the other hand, begin and perish with them. All things that exist are liable to change.' (Ibid.) Locke, it is true (as is implied in the term change) never quite drops the notion of there being a real identity in some unknown background, but this makes no difference in the bearing of his doctrine upon the possibility of 'real' knowledge. It only means that for an indefinite particularity of 'beings' there is substituted one 'being' under an indefinite peculiarity of forms. Though the reality of the thing in itself be immutable, yet its reality for 1 According to Locke's ordinary usage of the terms, no distinction appears between matter' and 'body.' In Book II. chap. x. sec. 15, however, he distinguishes matter from body as the less determinate conception from the more. The one implies solidity merely, the other extension and figure also, so that we may talk of the matter of bodies,' but not of the body of matters.' But since solidity, according to Locke's definition, involves the other primary qualities,' this distinction does not avail him much. 2 See above, paragraph 69. us is in perpetual flux. In itself' it is a substance without an essence, a 'something we know not what' without any ideas to support;' a 'parcel of matter,' indeed, but one in which no quality is really essential, because its real essence, consisting in its momentary presentation to sense, changes with the moments.' 98. We have previously noticed' Locke's pregnant remark, that things whose existence is in succession' do not admit of identity. (Book II. chap. xxvii. sec. 2.) So far, then, as the real,' in distinction from the abstract,' is constituted by particularity in time, or has its existence in succession, it excludes the relation of identity. It perishes in every moment that it begins.' Had Locke been master of this notion, instead of being irregularly mastered by it, he might have anticipated all that Hume had to say. As it is, even in passages such as those to which reference has just been made, where he follows its lead the farthest, he is still pulled up by inconsistent conceptions with which common sense, acting through common language, restrains the most adventurous philosophy. Thus, even from his illustration of the liability of all existence to change that which was grass to-day is to-morrow the flesh of a sheep, and within a few days after will become part of a man'3-we find that, just as he does not pursue the individualization of the real in space so far but that it still remains a constitution of parts,' so he does not pursue it in time so far but that a coexistence of real elements over a certain duration is possible. To a more thorough analysis, indeed, there is no alternative between finding reality in relations of thought, which, because relations of thought, are not in time and therefore are immutable, and submitting it to such subdivision of time as excludes all real coexistence because what is real, as present, at one moment is unreal, as past, at the next. This alternative could not present itself in its clearness to Locke, because, according to his method of interrogating consciousness, he inevitably found in its supposed beginning, which he identified with the real, those products of thought which he opposed to the real, and thus read into the simple feeling of the moment that which, if it were the simple feeling of the moment, it 1 Cf. Book in. chap. vi. sec. 4: 'Take but away the abstract ideas by which we sort individuals and rank them under common names, and then the thought of anything essential to any of How Locke avoids this question. Body and its quali ties supposed to be outside ness. could not contain. Thus throughout the Second Book of the Essay the simple idea is supposed to represent either as copy or as effect a permanent reality, whether body or mind: and in the later books, even where the representation of such reality in knowledge comes in question, its existence as constituted by 'primary qualities of body' is throughout assumed, though general propositions with regard to it are declared impossible. It is a feeling referred to body, or, in the language of subsequent psychology, a feeling of the outward sense,' that Locke means by an actual present sensation,' and it is properly in virtue of this reference that such sensation is supposed to be, or to report, the real. 6 99. According to the doctrine of primary qualities, as originally stated, the antithesis lies between body as it is in itself and body as it is for us, not between body as it is for us in actual sensation,' and body as it is for us according to conscious ideas in the mind.' The primary qualities are in bodies whether we perceive them or no.' (Book II. chap. viii. sec. 23.) As he puts it elsewhere (Book 11. chap. xxxi. sec. 2), it is just because 'solidity and extension and the termination of it, figure, with motion and rest, whereof we have the ideas, would be really in the world as they are whether there were any sensible being to perceive them or no,' that they are to be locked on as the real modifications of matter. A change in them, unlike one in the secondary qualities, or such as is relative to sense, is a real alteration in body. Pound an almond, and the clear white colour will be altered into a dirty one, and the sweet taste into an oily one. What alteration can the beating of the pestle make in any body, but an alteration of the texture of it?' (Book II. chap. viii. sec. 20.) It is implied then in the notion of the real as body that it should be outside consciousness. It is that which seems to remain when everything belonging to consciousness has been thought For the germs of the distinction between outer and inner sense, see Locke's Essay, Book 1. chap. i. sec. 14: 'This source of ideas (the perception of the operations of the mind) every man has wholly in himself; and though it be not sense, as having nothing to do with external objects, yet it is very like it, and might properly enough be called internal sense.' For the notion of outer sense Cf. Book II. chap. ix. sec. 6, where he is distinguishing the ideas of hunger and warmth, which he supposes children to receive in the womb from the 'innate principles which some contend for. These (the ideas of hunger and warmth) being the effects of sensation, are only from some affections of the body which happen to them there, and so depend on something exterior to the mind, not otherwise differing in their manner of production from other ideas derived from sense, but only in the precedency of time.' |