NOTE F. ON LOCKE'S NOTION OF THE CREATION OF MATTER. [Reference. From I. P. 286 b.] [In the interpretation of Locke (Essay, | B. iv. c. 10, § 18)] Stewart does not coincide with Reid. In quoting the same passage of Locke, he says of it, that "when considered in connection with some others in his writings, it would almost tempt one to think that a theory concerning matter, somewhat analogous to that of Boscovich, had occasionally passed through his mind;" and then adduces various reasons in support of this opinion, and in opposition to Reid's. (Philosophical Essays, Ess. ii. ch. i. p. 63. Collected Works, vol. v., p. 94.) The whole arcanum in the passage in question is, however, revealed by M. Coste, the French translator of the Essay, and of several other of the works of Locke, with whom the philosopher lived in the same family, and on the most intimate terms, for the last seven years of his life; and who, though he has never been consulted, affords often the most important information in regard to Locke's opinions. To this passage there is in the fourth edition of Coste's translation, a very curious note appended, of which the following is an abstract :--"Here Mr Locke excites our curiosity without being inclined to satisfy it. Many persons, having imagined that he had communicated to me this mode of explaining the creation of matter, requested, when my translation first appeared, that I would inform them what it was; but I was obliged to confess that Mr Locke had not made even me a partner in the secret. At length, long after his death, Sir Isaac Newton, to whom I was accidentally speak * The following Note is reprinted from the Author's Discussions, pp. 201, 202.-ED. ing of this part of Mr Locke's book, dis covered to me the whole mystery. He told me, smiling, that it was he himself who had imagined this manner of explaining the creation of matter, and that the thought had struck him one day, when this question chanced to turn up in a conversation between himself, Mr Locke, and the late Earl of Pembroke. The following is the way in which he explained to them his thought: We may be enabled (be said) to form some rude conception of the creation of matter, if we suppose that God, by his power, had prevented the entrance of anything into a certain portion of pare space, which is of its nature penetrable, eternal, necessary, infinite; for hencefor ward this portion of space would be endored with impenetrability, one of the essential qualities of matter: and as pure space is absolutely uniform, we have only again to suppose that God communicated the same impenetrability to another portion of space, and we should then obtain in a certain sort the notion of the mobility of matter, another quality which is also very essential to it.' Thus, then, we are relieved of the embarrassment of endeavouring to discover what it was that Mr Locke had deemed it advisable to conceal from his readers; for the above is all that gave him occasion to tell us- If we would raise our thoughts as far as they could reach, we might be able to aim at some dim and seeming conception how matter might at first be made," " &c. This suffices to show what was the general purport of Locke's expressions, and that Mr Stewart's conjec ture is at least nearer to the truth than Dr Reid's. Compare Newtoni Opt., qu. 31. NOTE G. ON THE HISTORY OF THE WORD IDEA. [References. From Inq., 204 a; from I. P. 224 b, 267 a, 296 a, 360 a; from Supplementary Dissertations, 806 a.] In regard to the precise signification of the terms employed, it is requisite to say a word. Idea may be used to denominate merely a Notion,-properly a simple thought, in opposition to a composite thought or judgment. In this sense, ideal will mean merely what exists subjectively in our thought, contrasted with real-that is, what exists objectively in the universe (internally of mind, externally of matter). But this is not the acceptation in which the words idea and ideal are specially employed by philosophers, and particularly in the polemic of Reid, of Stewart, and in general of the Scottish school. In their mouths, the Ideal Theory designates the theory of cognition brought to bear through the hypothesis of ideas, in one or more of the faculties of knowledge; and idea designates distinctively a vicarious, mediate, or representative object, through which we take cognisance of a mode of matter or mind, which, though really existing, is not, as existing, that is, in itself, immediately or presentatively by us known. To refute the Ideal Theory, to them means simply to evince that cognition, pro tanto, is not dependent on the hypothesis of ideas; or that, pro tanto, an immediate or presentative knowledge of a mode of matter or mind, as existing in itself, is competent to man. * The history of the word idea seems Previous to the completely unknown. * The preceding paragraph is from a paper written in the autumn of 1855. The two next paragraphs, with the exception of the notes, are reprinted from Discussions, p. 70.-ED. age of Descartes, as a philosophical term, * On the word idea before Plato, see Brandis, Gesch. d. Phil., pp. 242, 299, 307. Theognis is quoted by Goclenius (Lex. Phil. Gr. v. Idea), as πολλάκι γὰρ γνώμην ἐξαπατῶσ' ἰδέαι, using the word in sense of species animo concepta,— [1. 128, where, however, the word seems to be -ED.] used in its ordinary sense of visible appearance. The word is used by the Schoolmen, after Augustin, only in a theological, not in a psychological sense, for the reasons of things in the intelligence of God, by whose exemplar the world was formed, and in whose image the universe is "Mundum mente gerens, similique in imagine formans." [Boethius, De Consol. contemplated. Phil., Lib. iii. metr. ix. Cf. Heerebord, Meletemata Philosophica, p. 290 sq.-ED.] founded his usage on Melanchthon.* We should have distinctly said that, previous to its employment by Descartes himself, the expression had never been used as a comprehensive term for the immediate objects of thought, had we not in remembrance the Historia Animæ Humanæ of our countryman, David Buchanan. This work, originally written in French, had for some years been privately circulated previous to its publication at Paris in 1636. Here we find the word idea familiarly employed, in its most extensive signification, to express the objects not only of intellect proper, but of memory, imagination, sense; and this is the earliest example of such an employment. For the Discourse on Method, in which the term is usurped by Descartes in an equal latitude, was at least a year later in its publication-viz. in June 1637. Adopted soon after also by Gassendi,‡ the word, under such imposing patronage, gradually won its way into general use. In England, however, Locke may be said to have been the first who naturalized the term in its Cartesian universality. Hobbes employs it, and that historically, only once or twice. § Henry More and Cudworth are very chary of it, even when treating of the Cartesian Philosophy; Willis rarely uses it; while Lord Herbert, Reynolds, and the English philosophers in general, between Descartes and Locke, do not apply it psychologically at all. When in common language employed by Milton and Dryden, after Descartes, as before him, by Sidney, Spenser, Shakspeare, Hooker, &c., the meaning is Platonic. Our Lexicographers are ignorant of the difference. The fortune of this word is curious. Employed by Plato to express the real forms of the intelligible world, in lofty * Ideæ sumuntur nonnunquam pro concep tionibus sen notionibus animi communibus.'Goclenii Lexicon Philosophicum (Lat.) v. Idea.ED. + See the Dedication prefixed to the first Latin edition (Paris, 1637). This Dedication is dated "Octavo Calendas Apriles Gregorianas anno æræ Christianorum vulgaris, 1636."-ED. Inst. Log. Pars I., Opera, I. p. 92.-ED. § Hobbes uses the word idea, both in Latin and English, in the sense of phantasm or image in the mind, or even in the sense. See his Elementa Philosophiæ, Pars I. c. i. § 3-c. ii. § 14—c. v. §§ 8, 9; and his Leviathan, Part iv. c. 45, p. 649, ed. Molesworth. Previously, in the " Objectiones Tertiæ in Meditationes Cartesii," which were written by Hobbes, the word idea is frequently used in the same sense, which Descartes notices as different from his own.-ED. contrast to the unreal images of the sensible, it was lowered by Descartes, who extended it to the objects of our consciousness in general. When, after Gassendi, the school of Condillac had analysed our highest faculties into our lowest, the idea was still more deeply degraded from its high original. Like a fallen angel, it was relegated from the sphere of divine intelligence to the atmosphere of human sense; till at last Idéologie (more correctly Idéa logie), a word which could only properly suggest an a priori scheme, deducing our knowledge from the intellect, has in France become the name peculiarly distinctive of that philosophy of mind which exclusively derives our knowledge from the senses.Word and thing, ideas have been the craz philosophorum, since Aristotle sent them packing (xapérwσav idéai), to the present day. [The following references, extracted from the Author's Common-Place Book, will shew how carefully he had studied the subject, and represent probably the greater part of the materials which would have been employed, had he lived to rewrite the above note in the form conteuplated for the present work.—ED.] On history of opinions about Ideas, see Zimmermann, Dial. de Idearum Natura, Opuscula, t. i. p. 604 sq., Tiguri, 1751; Hillerus, Logica, § 33; Lossius, Real-Lexikon, v. Angeborne Begriffe. That idea used for notion in intellect rarely before Descartes, (Mem. Melanch thon and Fracastorius, below), see Ruiz, Comm. et Disp. de Scientia, [Disp. lxxxi. § 1, ed. 1629]; Goclenius, Lex. Phil (Lat.) v. Idea; Scharfius, Metaph. Ex empl. [L. i. c. i. p. 19, ed. 1628]; Scheg kius, Comm. in Arist. Organ. [pp. 91, 344, 411 sq., ed. 1570]. Compare also Micrae lius, Lex. Phil., v. Idea; who, with the Peripatetics, makes it equivalent to general notion. [Historical notices of the use of the term Idea.] 1. THEOGNIS is said to have used 'Idéa for phantasm. See Goclenius, Lex. Phil. (Græc.), v. Idea. [But see above, p. 925 b, n. *.-ED.] 2.-ARISTOTLE, De Colo, I. 7, for form, figure. See Patricius, Discuss 327. Peripatet. p. 3.-MELANCHTHON, once for intelligible species, or general notion, De Anima, ed. Lugd. 1555, p. 187. [Noticia est mentis actio, qua rem adspicit, quasi formans imaginem rei quam cogitat. Nec aliud sunt imagines illæ seu ideæ, nisi actus intelligendi.'] But see Erotemata Dialectica, p. 60-3, ed. 3, Strigelii, 1579; De Dialectica, pp. 11, 76, ed. Lugd. 1542. Compare J. C. Scaliger, De Subtilitate, Exerc. vi. § 4. 4.-FRACASTORIUS, likewise in same sense. De Intellectione, L. i. Opera, 3 ed., 1584, f. 130 A. ['Sicut autem e lacte et nive universale albedinis fit, ita et conjunctorum sua universalia et idea extrahuntur. Quare et universale loci, et figuræ, et quantitatis, et numeri, et aliorum conficitur. Propter quod potentia hæc animæ, quæ ideis est plena, divina quodammodo est, et solus hic intellectus appellatur.'] call our Conception, Imagination, Ideas, Notice, or Knowledge of them.'] And in Elementa Philosophiae (Lond. 1655) p. 224, [Pars. iv. c. 25, § 1,] idea occurs as an equivalent for phantasma. [The latter is thus explained, §§ 2, 3]:-'Sensio est ab origine sensorii conatu ad extra, qui generatur a conatu ab objecto versus interna, eoque aliquamdiu manente per reactionem factum Phantasma Phantasma enim est sentiendi actus; neque differt a sensione aliter quam fieri differt a factum esse; quæ differentia in instantaneis nulla est. Fit autem Phantasma in instante.'* 13. REYNOLDS, Treatise of the Passions and Faculties of the Soul of Man (1640). Ideas not used. * * 14. SIR KENELM DIGBY, On the Nature of Bodies, &c. (1644). Term not used. 15. - LORD HERBERT OF CHERBURY 5.-SIR JOHN DAVIES, Nosce Teipsum (1599), never uses 'idea;' but 'form,' 'image.' 6.-CHARRON, De la Sagesse (1601)-(1645), not 'idea;' but notitia,' 'concep'images,' 'espèces ;' never 'idées.' tus,' 'apparentia,'' species,'' ectypus.' 16.-FROMONDUS, De Anima (1649), never uses idea. 7.-BACON never [psychologically]; but contradistinguishes and contrasts humana mentis idola et divinæ mentis idea.' Nov. Organ, aph. 23, et alibi pluries. 8. CASPAR BAUHINUS, Theatrum Anatomicum (Basileæ, 1621), L. iii. c. 40, p. 402, speaking of the retina, says: Et rerum visibilium ideas ad cerebrum tanquam judicem deferat.' Compare Ibid. c. 42, pp. 408, 410. 9. DAVID BUCHANAN, Hist. Animæ Humanæ (Paris, 1637), in full extent before Descartes. [See pp. 39, 113-14, 214 sq., et alibi pluries.-ED.] 10. DESCARTES. His 'De la Méthode' first published in 1637; and idea there used, as well as in the subsequent Latin translation; and in 'Meditationes,' 1641. N.B. The Cartesians did not apply the term idea to smells, tastes, &c. See Regis, Cours entier de Philosophie, t. i. p. 145, ed. 1691; Malebranche [Recherche, L. iii. P. ii. c. 7, and relative Eclaircissement]. Locke (Essay, B. ii. c. 13. § 25) wrong in thinking they did. Compare Bayle, Lettre à M. Coste, Euvres, t. iv. p. 831; and Coste's Locke (ed. 1755), p. 131, note. 11.--GASSENDI used idea, but only in works after Descartes. 12. HOBBES seldom uses the word; but 'species,' 'phantasm,' 'image,' 'apparition,' conception,' 'visible show,' 'aspect,' notice,' 'imagination,' &c. Only once in Treatise of Human Nature (1640*) c. i., idea mentioned as a synonym. [The Imagery and Representations of the qualities of the things without, is that we The dedication is dated 1640, but the work was not actually published till 1650.-ED. 17. DE LA CHAMBRE, Système de l'Ame (1664).-After Descartes. Only 'image,'' espèce,' &c. 18. GLANVILL used term idea in its Cartesian sense, before Locke. See Vanity of Dogmatising (London, 1661), pp. 91, 97, et alibi. [P. 91: I would not that the Idea of our passions should be applied to anything without us, when it hath its subject nowhere but in ourselves.'-P.97: 'When we would conceive a triangle, man, horse, or any other sensible, we figure it in our Phancies, and stir up there its sensible Idea.'] Cf. also his Scepsis Scientifica (London, 1665), pp. 67, 71, et alibi. 19.-LOCKE appears, from the author + of Solid Philosophy, asserted against the Fancies of the Ideists, Lond. 1697,' p. 3, to have been the first to introduce the use of the word in England. And Locke himself acknowledges that it is new. (Reply to the Bishop of Worcester, Works, vol. i. p. 410.) But Glanvill before him. 20. HENRY MORE, chary in use, even when speaking of the Cartesian philosophy. 21. HON. ROBERT BOYLE, Discourse of Things above Reason (1681), uses it, passim, in the vaguest way for image of Imagination, or notion of Understanding. 22. SIDNEY, SPENSER (Sonnet 45), SHAKSPEARE, HOOKER, MILTON, Dryden, &c., use it in Platonic sense. [See quotations in Johnson's Dict., v. Idea.] For further notices of Hobbes see above, p. 926 d, n. §.-ED. ↑ John Sergeant. See Discussions, p. 80 n.*.— ED. 'Sunt Poiret (Cogitationes Rationales, p. 175 note, 3 ed. 1715) gives five different extensions of the term Idea. [The following is the passage referred to:quibus idea et perceptio unum et idem · (1.) significant; atque his licet dicere Dei Mentisque ideas dari, Deumque Mentemque per ideas suas agnosci; (2.) Sunt quibus non perceptio aut conscientia mera, sed perceptio contemplativa vel intuitiva, ut sic loquar, et intellectiva sit idem ac idea: atque his dolor, verbi gratia, colores, passiones animæ, non dicuntur idea directe cognosci seu percipi, sed sensu et conscientia: quod utique ipsis ita efferre licet; modo et aliis permittant sua quemque uti nomenclatura; (3.) Sunt qui solam perceptionem, cujus terminus extra nos, ideam vocant: et hoc sensu Anima cujusque suæ perceptio idea non erit nominanda; (4.) Si quibusdam perceptionem solam rei finitæ et limitatæ placeat ideam vocare, his idea Dei non veniet nuncupanda; (5.) Denique illi quibus perceptionem solam, cujus terminus extra nos est corporeus, ideam dicere volupe est, solius corporis et rerum huc spectantium ideas dare concedent: cetera vero dicent alio modo, sensu nempe sive conscientia vel conjectura, cognosci.'-ED.] [As a psychological term, idea has been used]— 1. Of an individual object, whether in perception or imagination,—equivalent to the German Anschauung.-Baumgarten, Acr. Log. § 51 (v. Bolzano, Wissenschaftslehre, i. p. 344). 2. Exclusive of object of perception, and always of the past,-equivalent to both image and notion.-Hume, Essays, &c., vol. ii. p. 29. 3. Equivalent to image-representation of past perception, and opposed to notion. -Daube, Essai d'Idéologie, p. 61; Sam. Johnson (Life by Boswell, p. 560, ed. Croker, 1848); Gleig, Encycl. Brit., 7th ed., art. Metaphysics, p. 601; Author* of Two Dissertations concerning Sense and the Imagination,' [pp. 58, 104-107]; Ernesti, Init. Doctr. Solid. [De Mente Humana c. i. § 35] p. 134. 4. Equivalent to notion, and opposed to image.-Leibnitz, Euvres Philosophiques, ed. Raspe, pp. 93, 219-21, 503; Spinoza, Eth. Pars. i. [Op. Posth. 1677], p. 87; Segner, Specimen Logicæ universaliter demonstratæ, Sect. i. def. 1; Toussaint, * Probably Zachary Mayne.-See Discussions, pp. 48, 49.-ED. [NOTE G. De la Pensée, p. 155 sq.; Burthogge, and particular,-equivalent to 'represen- 114; Resp. et Obj. Tertiæ R. v. Medit. as opposed to sensation of secondary qua- sciousness, or modifications of the conscious subject.-Bonnet, Essai Analytique, 7. Including all the phænomena of conideas and notions); Destutt Tracy, Elém. t. i. pp. 14, 170 (but he distinguishes d'Idéol., i. pp. 27-29, 419; Thurot, Introd. à l'Etude de la Philosophie, Disc. Toussaint, De la Pensée, p. 158; Jacquier, Prél., t. i. p. xxxvi.; Laromiguière (v. Elémens, &c.. p. 64); Cardaillac, Etudes Elém., t. ii. p. 185; Degerando, Des Signes, t. i. p. 34. général d'idées, et ces images et les élémens ou rapports que l'esprit apperçoit 'Je comprendrai sous le nota en elles, et les circonstances qui les accompagnent; en un mot, j'y comprendrai tout ce qu'on imagine.' t. i. p. 92), uses Idea for image or repreGassendi (Instit. Log. P. i., Opera, sentation of aught in the mind, comprehending species, imago, notio, prænotio, anticipatio, anticipata notio, conceptus, object of cognition. So Locke applied phantasma,-in a word, any incomplex the term to every modification of mind as an object of thought. (Essay, Introd. and the Port Royal Logicians. (See Jac§ 8; B. ii. c. 8. § 8.) So also Descartes quier, Elémens, &c., p. 64.) ‡ but not merely in imagination, also in intellect tions, &c., in præsenti, of which we are consci- On Locke and Descartes, see Baxter's En- |