1. Idea is the Object of Thinking.
Every man being conscious to himself that he thinks; and that which his
mind is applied about whilst thinking being the IDEAS that are there, it
is past doubt that men have in their minds several ideas,--such as are
those expressed by the words whiteness, hardness, sweetness, thinking,
motion, man, elephant, army, drunkenness, and others: it is in the first
place then to be inquired, HOW HE COMES BY THEM?
I know it is a received doctrine, that men have native ideas, and
original characters, stamped upon their minds in their very first being.
This opinion I have at large examined already; and, I suppose what I
have said in the foregoing Book will be much more easily admitted, when
I have shown whence the understanding may get all the ideas it has; and
by what ways and degrees they may come into the mind;--for which I
shall appeal to every one's own observation and experience.
2. All Ideas come from Sensation or Reflection.
Let us then suppose the mind to be, as we say, white paper, void of all
characters, without any ideas:--How comes it to be furnished? Whence
comes it by that vast store which the busy and boundless fancy of man
has painted on it with an almost endless variety? Whence has it all the
MATERIALS of reason and knowledge? To this I answer, in one word, from
EXPERIENCE.
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