John Locke

“ But in our ideas of substances it is otherwise. For there, desiring to copy things as they really do exist, and to represent to ourselves that constitution on which all their properties depend, we perceive our ideas attain not that perfection we intend : we find they still want something we should be glad were in them ; and so are all inadequate. But mixed modes and relations, being archetypes without patterns, and so having nothing to represent but themselves, cannot but be adequate, everything being so to itself. ”

“ The simple ideas whereof we make our complex ones of substances are all of them (bating only the figure and bulk of some sorts) powers ; which being relations to other substances, we can never be sure that we know all the powers that are in any one body, till we have tried what changes it is fitted to give to or receive from other substances in their several ways of application : which being impossible to be tried upon any one body, much less upon all, it is impossible we should have adequate ideas of any substance made up of a collection of all its properties. ”

“ Substances have innumerable powers not contained in our complex ideas of them. But no one who hath considered the properties of bodies in general, or this sort in particular, can doubt that this, called gold, has infinite other properties not contained in that complex idea. ”

“ It is true, the things producing in us these simple ideas are but few of them denominated by us, as if they were only the causes of them ; but as if those ideas were real beings in them. For, though fire be called painful to the touch, whereby is signified the power of producing in us the idea of pain, yet it is denominated also light and hot ; as if light and heat were really something in the fire, more than a power to excite these ideas in us ”

“ Their powers usually make up our complex ideas of substances. Whosoever first lighted on a parcel of that sort of substance we denote by the word gold, could not rationally take the bulk and figure he observed in that lump to depend on its real essence, or internal constitution. ”

“ That the mind is satisfied with the perfection of this its idea is plain, in that it does not conceive that any understanding hath, or can have, a more complete or perfect idea of that thing it signifies by the word triangle, supposing it to exist, than itself has, in that complex idea of three sides and three angles, in which is contained all that is or can be essential to it, or necessary to complete it, wherever or however it exists. ”

“ Since were there no fit organs to receive the impressions fire makes on the sight and touch, nor a mind joined to those organs to receive the ideas of light and heat by those impressions from the fire or sun, there would yet be no more light or heat in the world than there would be pain if there were no sensible creature to feel it, though the sun should continue just as it is now, and Mount Aetna flame higher than ever it did. ”

“ And in this case, if he designs that his idea in thinking should be conformable to the other’s idea, as the name he uses in speaking is conformable in sound to his from whom he learned it, his idea may be very wrong and inadequate : because in this case, making the other man’s idea the pattern of his idea in thinking, as the other man’s word or sound is the pattern of his in speaking, his idea is so far defective and inadequate, as it is distant from the archetype and pattern he refers it to, and intends to express and signify by the name he uses for it ”

“ But yet this property has no necessary connexion with that complex idea, or any part of it : and there is no more reason to think that malleableness depends on that colour, weight, and hardness, than that colour or that weight depends on its malleableness. And yet, though we know nothing of these real essences, there is nothing more ordinary than that men should attribute the sorts of things to such essences. The particular parcel of matter which makes the ring I have on my finger is forwardly by most men supposed to have a real essence, whereby it is gold ”

“ Simple ideas all adequate. First, that all our simple ideas are adequate. Because, being nothing but the effects of certain powers in things, fitted and ordained by God to produce such sensations in us, they cannot but be correspondent and adequate to those powers : and we are sure they agree to the reality of things. ”

“ Secondly, those who, neglecting that useless supposition of unknown real essences, whereby they are distinguished, endeavour to copy the substances that exist in the world, by putting together the ideas of those sensible qualities which are found coexisting in them, though they come much nearer a likeness of them than those who imagine they know not what real specific essences : yet they arrive not at perfectly adequate ideas of those substances they would thus copy into the their minds : nor do those copies exactly and fully contain all that is to be found in their archetypes. ”

“ Now, then, when men apply to this particular parcel of matter on my finger a general name already in use, and denominate it gold, do they not ordinarily, or are they not understood to give it that name, as belonging to a particular species of bodies, having a real internal essence ”

“ First, simple ideas, which are ektupa or copies ; but yet certainly adequate. Because, being intended to express nothing but the power in things to produce in the mind such a sensation, that sensation when it is produced, cannot but be the effect of that power. So the paper I write on, having the power in the light (I speak according to the common notion of light) to produce in men the sensation which I call white, it cannot but be the effect of such a power in something without the mind ”

“ Some who have examined this species more accurately could, I believe, enumerate ten times as many properties in gold, all of them as inseparable from its internal constitution, as its colour or weight : and it is probable, if any one knew all the properties that are by divers men known of this metal, there would be an hundred times as many ideas go to the complex idea of gold as any one man yet has in his ”