An Essay Concerning Humane Understanding

when applied to a simple idea

ot; and would I imagine have spared the application he subjoins to it, as not very necessary. But I hope this Second Edition will give him satisfaction on the point, and that this matter is now so expressed as to show him there was no cause for scruple.

Though I am forced to differ from him in these apprehensions he has expressed, in the latter end of his preface, concerning w

This, I think almost every one has experience of in himself, and his own observation without difficulty leads him thus far. That which I would further conclude from hence is, that since the mind can sensibly put on, at several times, several degrees of thinking, and be sometimes, even in a waking man, so remiss, as to have thoughts dim and obscure to that degree that they are very little removed from none at all; and at last, in the dark retirements of sound sleep, loses the sight perfectly of all ideas whatsoever: since, I say, this is evidently so in matter of fact and constant experience, I ask whether it be not probable, that thinking is the action and not the

he Project Gutenberg EBook of An Essay Concerning Humane Understanding, Volume I., by John Locke

He that hawks at larks and sparrows has no less sport, though a much less considerable quarry, than he that flies at nobler game: