of all notions whatever, render itself perfectly pure and empty, return to its original, natural, childlike state. Not only according to the spirit, but according to the letter, of Bacon's words, the human understanding in its original state is destitute of all notions whatever. He himself calls the understanding, thus purified, "intellectus abrasus;" he himself compares the mind to a thrashing-floor, which must be cleansed, levelled, and swept out. In this labour consists the negative task of his philosophy; the first book of his "Novum Organum" is expressly occupied with the restoration of this "expurgata, abrasa, æquata mentis arena." What Bacon calls the empty floor, is the empty tablet of Locke; the thought is the same, and the words are essentially the same likewise. Bacon says that the human mind should be made like an empty tablet. Locke says that it is this by nature. In fact, it must be, if Bacon does not require an impossibility. What Bacon insists upon, as the condition precedent of his philosophy, is made by Locke the principle of his,-namely, the non-existence of " innate ideas." Experience is acquired knowledge; "innate ideas" are not acquired, but original, naturally inherent knowledge. The philosophy of experience must, as a matter of course, deny "innate ideas." The denial is expressed by Bacon, and repeated by Locke with a great number of arguments. 66 INNATE IDEAS." 439 Hence the reason is apparent why Locke is commonly regarded as the adversary par excellence of " innate ideas." It does not merely consist in the fact that Bacon is less generally known. The most important contest that has been carried on respecting "innate ideas," is associated with the name of Locke. "Innate ideas are affirmed by Descartes and Leibnitz, denied by Bacon and Locke. Locke opposed Descartes, Leibnitz opposed Locke, each party defending a theory that it had not founded, but adopted — Leibnitz the Cartesian, Locke the Baconian. They are, therefore, to be regarded as the champions that come forward for and against the doctrine of “innate ideas," though, in other respects, the relation of Leibnitz to Descartes is altogether different from that of Locke to Bacon. Against Bayle, Leibnitz wrote the most popular and exoteric of his works, the "Théodicée;" against Locke, the most profound and esoteric, the "Nouveaux Essais sur l'Entendement Humain." Locke, in attacking Descartes, opposes all "innate ideas," both theoretical and practical. In the human mind there are no innate laws, either of the thought or of the will, neither axioms nor maxims; therefore there is no natural knowledge, no natural morality, no natural religion. Locke, conformably with the Baconian method, confutes in every case by means of "negative instances." He says that, if there are innate ideas, all men must have them, whereas experience shows that most men know nothing of the axioms of contradiction and identity-indeed, never acquire a knowledge of them in the whole course of their lives. Consequently there are no innate ideas, and the human mind is, by nature, in every respect empty. 2. THE ORIGIN OF KNOWLEDGE. Hence it follows that all the cultivation and repletion of the mind- as there is none by nature -is produced gradually. But from original emptiness nothing can proceed. Hence human culture arises solely from a continued intercourse with the world, under external influences; it is a product of experience and education; it is acquired*, as it is not original, the result of conditions external to ourselves. The mode in which human knowledge arises is, with Locke, not a "generatio ab ovo," as with Leibnitz, but a "generatio æquivoca." As, according to this physiological theory, the conditions from which an animate being results are not themselves animate, so, with Locke, the conditions from * "Ist eine Gewordene "—yiyveтα. We have not a precise equivalent in English.-J. O. HOBBES AND LOCKE. 441 which knowledge results are not themselves knowledge. There is no natural knowledge, in the sense of something originally given, but only a natural history of human knowledge, as something gradually produced. To pursue this is the peculiar office of Locke's philosophy, which describes the natural history of the human understanding, after it has shown that the natural understanding without history-that is to say, without intercourse with the world, without experience and education—is altogether empty, a tabula rasa. In this character, Locke shows us unquestionably his descent from Bacon, his affinity and analogy with Hobbes. Hobbes teaches the natural origin of the state, Locke that of knowledge, both as a generatio æquivoca. The former deduces the state from conditions that are not a state, nor even analogous to a state, but rather the very opposite; the latter deduces knowledge from conditions that are not knowledge, or even præformations of knowledge, but bear the same relation to it that emptiness bears to repletion. Hobbes takes the natural condition of mankind as his starting-point; Locke, the natural condition of the human mind. This "status naturalis"—compared, in the one case, with the state, in the other with knowledge-is with both a tabula rasa. 3. KNOWLEDGE AS A PRODUCT OF PERCEPTION. SENSATION AND REFLECTION. The elements of all our knowledge are representations or "ideas." There are no innate ideas; therefore all ideas are received from without, or perceived. We perceive that which takes place either within ourselves or externally to ourselves; hence perception is external or internal, or both together; the former is termed by Locke sensation, the latter reflection. These are the natural sources of all our notions, the canals of the perceptions, by means of which representations are brought to the mind. Thus the blank tablet of the understanding is written upon. derived * through When our notions are perception, they are simple; when they are derived from simple notions, they are complex. Hence in the whole sphere of the human mind there is not a single notion, the elements of which are not perceptions. "The soul," says Locke, "is like a dark vault that receives beams of light through a few chinks, and is able to retain them." Our knowledge arises from complex notions, these from simple notions, and these, again, from perception. The simple notions, as they are derived from sensation, reflection, or both * I. e., immediately.—J. O. |