John Locke

“ Thus the idea of whiteness, or bitterness, as it is in the mind, exactly answering that power which is in any body to produce it there, has all the real conformity it can or ought to have, with things without us. And this conformity between our simple ideas and the existence of things, is sufficient for real knowledge. ”

“ For this or that outward mark of our bodies no more carries with it the hope of an eternal duration, than the fashion of a man’s suit gives him reasonable grounds to imagine it will never wear out, or that it will make him immortal. It will perhaps be said, that nobody thinks that the shape makes anything immortal, but it is the shape is the sign of a rational soul within, which is immortal. ”

“ All complex ideas, except ideas of substances, are their own archetypes. Secondly, All our complex ideas, except those of substances, being archetypes of the mind’s own making, not intended to be the copies of anything, nor referred to the existence of anything, as to their originals, cannot want any conformity necessary to real knowledge. ”

“ For till that be done, we talk at random of man : and shall always, I fear, do so, as long as we give ourselves up to certain sounds, and the imaginations of settled and fixed species in nature, we know not what. But, after all, I desire it may be considered, that those who think they have answered the difficulty, by telling us, that a mis-shaped foetus is a monster, run into the same fault they are arguing against ; by constituting a species between man and beast. ”

“ Whatever ideas we have, the agreement we find they have with others will still be knowledge. If those ideas be abstract, it will be general knowledge. But to make it real concerning substances, the ideas must be taken from the real existence of things. Whatever simple ideas have been found to co-exist in any substance, these we may with confidence join together again, and so make abstract ideas of substances. For whatever have once had an union in nature, may be united again. ”

“ Existence not required to make abstract knowledge real. For the attaining of knowledge and certainty, it is requisite that we have determined ideas : and, to make our knowledge real, it is requisite that the ideas answer their archetypes. ”

“ In the same manner, the truth and certainty of moral discourses abstracts from the lives of men, and the existence of those virtues in the world whereof they treat : nor are Tully’s Offices less true, because there is nobody in the world that exactly practises his rules, and lives up to that pattern of a virtuous man which he has given us, and which existed nowhere when he writ but in idea. If it be true in speculation, i.e. in idea, that murder deserves death, it will also be true in reality of any action that exists conformable to that idea of murder. ”

“ This is to attribute more to the outside than inside of things ; and to place the excellency of a man more in the external shape of his body, than internal perfections of his soul : which is but little better than to annex the great and inestimable advantage of immortality and life everlasting, which he has above other material beings, to annex it, I say, to the cut of his beard, or the fashion of his coat. ”

“ The first is, That all things that have the outward shape and appearance of a man must necessarily be designed to an immortal future being after this life : or, secondly, That whatever is of human birth must be so. Take away these imaginations, and such questions will be groundless and ridiculous. I desire then those who think there is no more but an accidental difference between themselves and changelings, the essence in both being exactly the same, to consider, whether they can imagine immortality annexed to any outward shape of the body ”

“ This is to bring all back again to what was exploded just now : this is to place all in the shape, and to take the measure of a man only by his outside. To show that according to the ordinary way of reasoning in this matter, people do lay the whole stress on the figure, and resolve the whole essence of the species of man (as they make it) into the outward shape, how unreasonable soever it be, and how much soever they disown it, we need but trace their thoughts and practice a little further, and then it will plainly appear. ”

“ Our complex ideas of substances have their archetypes without us ; and here knowledge comes short. Thirdly, There is another sort of complex ideas, which, being referred to archetypes without us, may differ from them, and so our knowledge about them may come short of being real. Such are our ideas of substances, which, consisting of a collection of simple ideas, supposed taken from the works of nature, may yet vary from them ; by having more or different ideas united in them than are to be found united in the things themselves. ”

“ For that which is not designed to represent anything but itself, can never be capable of a wrong representation, nor mislead us from the true apprehension of anything, by its dislikeness to it : and such, excepting those of substances, are all our complex ideas. Which, as I have shown in another place, are combinations of ideas, which the mind, by its free choice, puts together, without considering any connexion they have in nature. ”

“ And hence it is, that in all these sorts the ideas themselves are considered as the archetypes, and things no otherwise regarded, but as they are conformable to them. So that we cannot but be infallibly certain, that all the knowledge we attain concerning these ideas is real, and reaches things themselves. Because in all our thoughts, reasonings, and discourses of this kind, we intend things no further than as they are conformable to our ideas. ”

“ In our inquiries about substances, we must consider ideas, and not confine our thoughts to names or species supposed set out by names. This, if we rightly consider, and confine not our thoughts and abstract ideas to names, as if there were, or could be no other sorts of things than what known names had already determined, and, as it were, set out, we should think of things with greater freedom and less confusion than perhaps we do. ”

“ Indeed, wrong names in moral discourses breed usually more disorder, because they are not so easily rectified as in mathematics, where the figure, once drawn and seen, makes the name useless and of no force. ”

“ How shall the mind, when it perceives nothing but its own ideas, know that they agree with things themselves ? This, though it seems not to want difficulty, yet, I think, there be two sorts of ideas that we may be assured agree with things. ”

“ Shall a defect in the body make a monster ; a defect in the mind (the far more noble, and, in the common phrase, the far more essential part) not ? Shall the want of a nose, or a neck, make a monster, and put such issue out of the rank of men ”

“ Objection against a changeling being something between a man and beast, answered. Here everybody will be ready to ask, If changelings may be supposed something between man and beast, pray what are they ? I answer, changelings ; which is as good a word to signify something different from the signification of man or beast, as the names man and beast are to have significations different one from the other. ”

“ The well-shaped changeling is a man, has a rational soul, though it appear not : this is past doubt, say you : make the ears a little longer, and more pointed, and the nose a little flatter than ordinary, and then you begin to boggle : make the face yet narrower, flatter, and longer, and then you are at a stand : add still more and more of the likeness of a brute to it, and let the head be perfectly that of some other animal, then presently it is a monster ”

“ As all simple ideas are really conformed to things. First, The first are simple ideas, which since the mind, as has been shown, can by no means make to itself, must necessarily be the product of things operating on the mind, in a natural way, and producing therein those perceptions which by the Wisdom and Will of our Maker they are ordained and adapted to. ”

“ They are in the hands of a faithful Creator and a bountiful Father, who disposes not of his creatures according to our narrow thoughts or opinions, nor distinguishes them according to names and species of our contrivance. ”

“ Such an opinion as this, placing immortality in a certain superficial figure, turns out of doors all consideration of soul or spirit ; upon whose account alone some corporeal beings have hitherto been concluded immortal, and others not. ”

“ The reason whereof is, because we, knowing not what real constitution it is of substances whereon our simple ideas depend, and which really is the cause of the strict union of some of them one with another, and the exclusion of others there are very few of them that we can be sure are or are not inconsistent in nature, any further than experience and sensible observation reach. ”