-- CHAP. XX. Not so in Errors as is supposed. BOOK IV. 18. But, notwithstanding the great noise is made in the world about errors and opinions, I must do mankind that right as to say, There are not so many men in errors and wrong many men opinions as is commonly supposed. Not that I think they embrace the truth; but indeed, because concerning those commonly doctrines they keep such a stir about, they have no thought, no opinion at all. For if any one should a little catechise the greatest part of the partizans of most of the sects in the world, he would not find, concerning those matters they are so zealous for, that they have any opinions of their own: much less would he have reason to think that they took them upon the examination of arguments and appearance of probability. They are resolved to stick to a party that education or interest has engaged them in; and there, like the common soldiers of an army, show their courage and warmth as their leaders direct, without ever examining, or so much as knowing, the cause they contend for. If a man's life shows that he has no serious regard for religion; for what reason should we think that he beats his head about the opinions of his church, and troubles himself to examine the grounds of this or that doctrine? It is enough for him to obey his leaders, to have his hand and his tongue ready for the support of the common cause, and thereby approve himself to those who can give him credit, preferment, or protection in that society1. Thus men become professors by books or churches must at last be 1 Perhaps Locke makes too much of menting on this of Locke, 'does not after all redound much to their credit; for people are to be excused more for following erroneous opinions sincerely than selfishly. Perhaps, however, there is among men more sincerity than you seem to allow, and that without understanding fully the cause which they support, men submit them. selves with an implicit trust, often blindly, but still in good faith, to the judgment of those whose authority they have once recognised.' Moreover, the elements of truth usually mixed with errors that have long and widely prevailed, must not be forgotten in explaining and excusing apparent surrender to error. CHAP. XX. of, and combatants for, those opinions they were never BOOK IV. convinced of nor proselytes to; no, nor ever had so much as floating in their heads: and though one cannot say there are fewer improbable or erroneous opinions in the world than there are, yet this is certain; there are fewer that actually assent to them, and mistake them for truths, than is imagined. BOOK IV. CHAP. Science CHAPTER XXI. OF THE DIVISION OF THE SCIENCES1. 1. ALL that can fall within the compass of human understanding, being either, First, the nature of things, as they are in themselves3, their relations, and their manner of operation: or, Secondly, that which man himself ought to do, as a rational and voluntary agent, for the attainment of into three any end, especially happiness: or, Thirdly, the ways and means whereby the knowledge of both the one and the other of these is attained and communicated'; I think science may be divided properly into these three sorts : sorts. 1 'science,' here and throughout limits, of human knowledge and belief. One expects here a philosophical organisation, upon this basis, of the intellectual possessions and prospects of mankind, in which the facts and arguments of the Essay might appropriately culminate, instead of a 'division of the sciences,' analogous to that attributed to the Stoics (adopted also by Gassendi), without logical consistency or adequate philosophical basis. 36 3 things, as they are in themselves,' i. e. as particular substances, bodies or spirits, of which we can form complex ideas that may be more or less in harmony with their real essences. 'their relations,' e. g. of sameness or difference, extent and duration, causality, &c. 'their manner of operation,' i. e. the 'modes,' simple or mixed, which may be referred to them, and which have been abstracted from them. CHAP. 2. First, The knowledge of things, as they are in their own BOOK IV. proper beings, then constitution, properties, and operations; whereby I mean not only matter and body, but spirits also, XXI. which have their proper natures, constitutions, and operations, First, as well as bodies. This, in a little more enlarged sense Physica. of the word, I call Þvσikỳ, or natural philosophy. The end of this is bare speculative truth: and whatsoever can afford the mind of man any such, falls under this branch, whether it be God himself, angels, spirits, bodies; or any of their affections1, as number, and figure, &c. Practica. 3. Secondly, Прaktikǹ, The skill of right applying our own Secondly, powers and actions, for the attainment of things good and useful. The most considerable under this head is ethics2, which is the seeking out those rules and measures of human actions, which lead to happiness, and the means to practise them. The end of this is not bare speculation and the knowledge of truth; but right, and a conduct suitable to it. 4. Thirdly, the third branch may be called Enμelwrikn, Thirdly, or the doctrine of signs; the most usual whereof being EnμTIK. words, it is aptly enough termed also Aoyin, logic: the business whereof is to consider the nature of signs, the mind makes use of for the understanding of things, or conveying its knowledge to others. For, since the things the mind contemplates are none of them, besides itself3, present to the understanding, it is necessary that something else, as a sign or representation of the thing it considers, should be 1 'affections'-which give rise to 'modes-simple and mixed.' ethics'-'Ethicks' in the early editions, here and elsewhere. The ' demonstrable' nature of abstract ethics, and its consequent claim to become 'science,' i. e. ' knowledge, in Locke's stricter meaning, repeatedly suggested in the Essay, scarcely holds good of the applied science here partly in view. 'besides itself.' This qualification cannot mean that one can discover even what his own mind is, when regarded as a particular spiritual substance, otherwise than through ideas of reflection upon its operations, i. e. СНАР. XXI. BOOK IV. present to it: and these are ideas1. And because the scene of ideas that makes one man's thoughts cannot be laid open to the immediate view of another2, nor laid up anywhere but in the memory, a no very sure repository: therefore to communicate our thoughts to one another, as well as record them for our own use, signs of our ideas are also necessary: those which men have found most convenient, and therefore generally make use of, are articulate sounds. The consideration, then, of ideas and words as the great instruments of knowledge, makes no despicable part of their contemplation who would take a view of human knowledge in the whole extent of it. And perhaps if they were distinctly weighed, and duly considered, they would afford us another sort of logic and critic, than what we have been hitherto acquainted with ". This is the first and most general Division of the Objects of our Under 5. This seems to me the first and most general, as well as natural division of the objects of our understanding. For a man can employ his thoughts about nothing, but either, the contemplation of things themselves, for the discovery of truth; or about the things in his own power, which are his own actions, for the attainment of his own ends; or the signs standing. the mind makes use of both in the one and the other, and the right ordering of them, for its clearer information. All which three, viz. things, as they are in themselves knowable; actions as they depend on us, in order to happiness; and the right use of signs in order to knowledge, being toto coelo To know what particular things or actions really are without having ideas of them, would, according to Locke's use of language, be to know the things or actions without knowing them. To be known they must be signified in and through their qualities, phenomena, or simple ideas. 2 This is now disputed. 3 Cf. Bk. II. ch. x. §§ 4, 5, 8, 9. Semeiotica, which might be called the instrumental part of 'the sciences,' in contrast to the other two divisions, the speculative and the practical, is that under which the Essay concerning Human Understanding itself might be placed, especially its second and third books, about ideas and words. These are our primary and secondary 'signs' of what things really are, and of what our actions ought to be. He has in view the scholastic logic, which is adapted to evolve the conse. quences of abstract maxims,' not to criticise maxims or principles themselves, in the light of experience and actual intuition. Cf. Bk. I. ch. iii. § 25. So Bacon, Novum Organum, I. 11-19. It is a division of knowable objects,' rather than of special sciences in a philosophical system, that Locke proposes. |