An Essay Concerning Human Understanding

“ Secondly, the other fountain from which experience furnisheth the understanding with ideas is,—the perception of the operations of our own mind within us, as it is employed about the ideas it has got;—which operations, when the soul comes to reflect on and consider, do furnish the understanding with another set of ideas, which could not be had from things without. ”

“ The understanding, like the eye, whilst it makes us see and perceive all other things, takes no notice of itself; and it requires and art and pains to set it at a distance and make it its own object. But whatever be the difficulties that lie in the way of this inquiry; whatever it be that keeps us so much in the dark to ourselves; sure I am that all the light we can let in upon our minds, all the acquaintance we can make with our own understandings, will not only be very pleasant, but bring us great advantage, in directing our thoughts in the search of other things. ”

“ When we know our own strength, we shall the better know what to undertake with hopes of success; and when we have well surveyed the POWERS of our own minds, and made some estimate what we may expect from them, we shall not be inclined either to sit still, and not set our thoughts on work at all, in despair of knowing anything; nor on the other side, question everything, and disclaim all knowledge, because some things are not to be understood. ”

“ Or does the mind regulate itself and its assent by ideas that it never yet had? Or the understanding draw conclusions from principles which it never yet knew or understood? The names IMPOSSIBILITY and IDENTITY stand for two ideas, so far from being innate, or born with us, that I think it requires great care and attention to form them right in our understandings. They are so far from being brought into the world with us, so remote from the thoughts of infancy and childhood, that I believe, upon examination it will be found that many grown men want them. ”

“ Whereas had they examined the ways whereby men came to the knowledge of many universal truths, they would have found them to result in the minds of men from the being of things themselves, when duly considered; and that they were discovered by the application of those faculties that were fitted by nature to receive and judge of them, when duly employed about them. ”

“ EXTERNAL OBJECTS furnish the mind with the ideas of sensible qualities, which are all those different perceptions they produce in us; and THE MIND furnishes the understanding with ideas of its own operations. ”

“ The understanding faculties being given to man, not barely for speculation, but also for the conduct of his life, man would be at a great loss if he had nothing to direct him but what has the certainty of true knowledge. ”

“ And such are perception, thinking, doubting, believing, reasoning, knowing, willing, and all the different actings of our own minds;—which we being conscious of, and observing in ourselves, do from these receive into our understandings as distinct ideas as we do from bodies affecting our senses. ”

“ But though this serves well enough for gross and confused conceptions, and inaccurate ways of talking and thinking; yet MEN ARE FAR ENOUGH FROM HAVING AGREED ON THE PRECISE NUMBER OF SIMPLE IDEAS OR QUALITIES BELONGING TO ANY SORT OF THINGS, SIGNIFIED BY ITS NAME. Nor is it a wonder; since it requires much time, pains, and skill, strict inquiry, and long examination to find out what, and how many, those simple ideas are, which are constantly and inseparably united in nature, and are always to be found together in the same subject. ”

“ All that can with any truth be meant by this proposition, that men ‘assent to them when they come to the use of reason,’ is no more but this,—that the making of general abstract ideas, and the understanding of general names, being a concomitant of the rational faculty, and growing up with it, children commonly get not those general ideas, nor learn the names that stand for them, till, having for a good while exercised their reason about familiar and more particular ideas, they are, by their ordinary discourse and actions with others, acknowledged to be capable of rational conversation. ”

“ These words men have learned from their very entrance upon knowledge, and have found their masters and systems lay great stress upon them : and therefore they cannot quit the opinion, that they are conformable to nature, and are the representations of something that really exists. ”

“ The comfort and advantage of society not being to be had without communication of thoughts, it was necessary that man should find out some external sensible signs, whereof those invisible ideas, which his thoughts are made up of, might be made known to others. ”

“ but moral principles require reasoning and discourse, and some exercise of the mind, to discover the certainty of their truth. They lie not open as natural characters engraved on the mind; ”

“ This heart throbs violently and eternally with the thirst of self-knowledge, as though in it all those substances and forces of nature that have created the human personality as the highest expression of their complexity and wisdom aspired to clarify the meaning and aim of life. ”

“ No man’s knowledge here can go beyond his experience. ”

“ All true sentiment, all noble, all tender feeling, comes not of the understanding, but of that mind—or heart, if we so please to call it—which imagination raises, educates, and perfects. Even feelings are to be made—are much the result of education. ”

“ The most immediate task which life demands from us in the understanding of ourselves and of others is, therefore, to interpret our ideas, to draw the consequences of our will, to appreciate the attitudes, to measure them by higher standards. ”

“ And if from those whom we daily meet, whose features are before our eyes, and whose minds we can probe with questions, we are nevertheless thus separated, how are the difficulties of the understanding increased when we are looking back from another age, with no better assistance than books, upon men who played their parts upon the earth under other outward circumstances, with other beliefs, other habits, other modes of thought, other principles of judgment! We see beings like ourselves, and yet different from ourselves. ”

“ When people are able to understand, not merely how beautiful -'s action was, but why it meant so much to me, and always will mean so much, then, perhaps, they will realise how and in what spirit they should approach me. ”

“ I conceived, that the pursuit of truth, and the advancement of reason, were the grand objects of universal attention, and I panted to do homage to those superior minds, who, teaching mankind to be wise, would at length lead them to happiness. Accustomed to think, to feel, to kindle into action, I am at a loss to understand the distinction between theory and practice, which every one seems eager to inculcate, as if the degrading and melancholy intelligence, which fills my soul with despondency, and pervades my understanding with gloom, was to them a subject of exultation. ”

“ A knowledge of the disposition and character of the human mind can be acquired only by experience: a great deal will be learned, I admit, by a habit of examining what passes in our bosoms, what are our own motives of action, and of what kind of sentiments we are conscious on any occasion. We may suppose a uniformity, and conclude that the same effect will be produced by the same cause in the minds of others. ”

“ The thing is plain. All that men really understand, is confined to a very small compass; to their daily affairs and experience; to what they have an opportunity to know, and motives to study or practise. ”

“ To see, to know, to understand, even though the seeing blind, though the knowledge sadden, though the understanding shatter the dearest hopes—such has ever been the craving of the upward-striving mind in man. ”

“ How do we gain knowledge of a human being, that is to say of his motives? "By observing his actions in many different circumstances, especially in extremities of joy, sorrow, fear, temptation, and then by comparing his actions with what we, or others, have done in the same circumstances?" ”

“ We should not then perhaps be so forward, out of an Affectation of an universal Knowledge, to raise Questions, and perplex our selves and others with Disputes about Things, to which our Understandings are not suited ”

“ Its object is or should be to prepare him both in his will and in his intelligence to make a thoroughly illuminating use of his experience in life. His experience,—as a man of business, a husband, a father, a citizen, a friend,—has been made real to him, not merely by the zest with which he has sought it and the sincerity with which he has accepted it, but by the disinterested intelligence which he has brought to its understanding. ”

“ Following our instinct for intellect and knowledge, we acquire pieces of knowledge; and presently, in the generality of men, there arises the desire to relate these pieces of knowledge to our sense for conduct, to our sense for beauty,—and there is weariness and dissatisfaction if the desire is baulked. ”

“ If considered as a mere receptacle for Latin and Greek, Mathematics and Metaphysics, Science and Literature, we may, without moral turpitude or virtue, abstractly considered, follow our own inclinations; but the Understanding will all the time be growing either stronger or weaker, wiser or more foolish, whether we study them or whether we let them alone. This action of the Understanding cannot go on without influencing the Affections. ”

“ He ought not to be wholly unacquainted with that part of philosophy which gives an insight into human nature, and relates to the manners, characters, passions, and affections. He ought to know something concerning the mind, as well as a great deal concerning the body of man. ”

“ It is to this world, this sweep of action, that our understandings must be stretched and fitted; it is in this age we must show our human quality. We must measure ourselves by the task, accept the pace set for us, make shift to know what we are about. How free and liberal should be the scale of our sympathy, how catholic our understanding of the world in which we live, how poised and masterful our action in the midst of so great affairs! We should school our ears to know the voices that are genuine, our thought to take the truth when it is spoken, our spirits to feel the zest of the day. ”

“ It requires great attention to form a just judgment of ourselves—yea, to attain that self knowledge which is necessary for us. With regard to the knowledge of others, the difficulty is still greater. We can neither see the heart, nor know the thoughts and designs. ”

“ To this nobler purpose the man of understanding will devote the energies of his life. And in the first place, he will honor studies which impress these qualities on his soul, and will disregard others? ”

“ In teaching man to co-relate his many states of developing consciousness into one powerful state of mind, we use our everyday common sense. We give him a place of mental power and after such training he opens or shuts his mind to suit himself; he can live in either extension of consciousness at will and extending his understanding into the transcendent side of his own mind, he can become the modern mystic or seer. ”

“ Does any one claim, or imagine, that school-books contain much nourishment for the heart and soul, or the moral feelings, or love of beauty? Upon what grounds, does any one claim, or imagine, that such things are less important to the growth of character, and a cheerful disposition, and fine standards of conduct, than the training of the intellect? If we are perfectly satisfied that the method employed to train the intellect does not and need not interfere with a corresponding development of those other sides of human nature—that is one thing. ”

“ In whatever time I place a human understanding, it will know them, but in knowing them it will find them truths, it will not make them such, for our cognitions do not make their objects, but suppose them. ”

“ The mystery of life he leaves as he finds it; and, in his most tremendous positions, he is addressing rather the intellectual emotions than the understanding,—knowing well that the understanding in such things is at fault, and the sage as ignorant as the child. ”

“ In the light of this higher understanding we can see that in just the proportion that our human nature rises towards the Universal Wisdom, our human perception becomes widened, until, at last, we include all the laws of higher living, thinking and being, and we bring from the hidden center within ourselves a profound knowledge. ”

“ To lay open all the sources from which errour flows in upon him who contemplates his own character, would require more exact knowledge of the human heart, than, perhaps, the most acute and laborious observers have acquired. ”

“ Are they not rife with all the useful reasoning—the philosophic intelligence—the happiness of application, that cultivated man could devise for the assistance of untutored intellect?
From the logic of the sage we learn, by a spirit of imitation natural to human beings, to quicken our own powers of reasoning. The perspicuity of arrangement and expression, so admirable in our master, becomes gradually a part of our own style. ”

“ I still defend, and, in the fourth lecture of this volume I expound afresh, the thesis that the contrast between our “descriptive” knowledge of the physical world and our “appreciative” knowledge of the facts of finite life, is determined precisely by this difference between our social consciousness of what is “valid for all individuals” and our personal consciousness of what is valid for the Self. ”

“ For I thought that the first Step towards satisfying several Enquiries, the Mind of Man was very apt to run into, was, To take a Survey of our own Understandings, examine our own Powers, and see to what things they were adapted. ”

“ The man of understanding, so called, simply perceives the forms of things and their relations; the man of impassioned imagination perceiving forms and divining spirit, conceives the life of things and their relations. ”