1690
AN ESSAY CONCERNING HUMAN UNDERSTANDING
by John Locke
TO THE RIGHT HONOURABLE
LORD THOMAS, EARL OF PEMBROKE AND MONTGOMERY,
BARRON HERBERT OF CARDIFF,
LORD ROSS, OF KENDAL, PAR, FITZHUGH, MARMION, ST. QUINTIN,
AND SHURLAND; LORD PRESIDENT OF HIS MAJESTY'S MOST
HONOURABLE PRIVY COUNCIL; AND LORD LIEUTENANT OF
THE COUNTY OF WILTS, AND OF SOUTH WALES.
MY LORD,
THIS Treatise, which is grown up under your lordship's eye, and
has ventured into the world by your order, does now, by a natural kind
of right, come to your lordship for that protection which you
several years since promised it. It is not that I think any name,
how great soever, set at the beginning of a book, will be able to
cover the faults that are to be found in it. Things in print must
stand and fall by their own worth, or the reader's fancy. But there
being nothing more to be desired for truth than a fair unprejudiced
hearing, nobody is more likely to procure me that than your
lordship, who are allowed to have got so intimate an acquaintance with
her, in her more retired recesses. Your lordship is known to have so
far advanced your speculations in the most abstract and general
knowledge of things, beyond the ordinary reach or common methods, that
your allowance and approbation of the design of this Treatise will
at least preserve it from being condemned without reading, and will
prevail to have those parts a little weighted, which might otherwise
perhaps be thought to deserve no consideration, for being somewhat out
of the common road. The imputation of Novelty is a terrible charge
amongst those who judge of men's heads, as they do of their perukes,
by the fashion, and can allow none to be right but the received
doctrines. Truth scarce ever yet carried it by vote anywhere at its
first appearance: new opinions are always suspected, and usually
opposed, without any other reason but because they are not already
common. But truth, like gold, is not the less so for being newly
brought out of the mine. It is trial and examination must give it
price, and not any antique fashion; and though it be not yet current
by the public stamp, yet it may, for all that, be as old as nature,
and is certainly not the less genuine. Your lordship can give great
and convincing instances of this, whenever you please to oblige the
public with some of those large and comprehensive discoveries you have
made of truths hitherto unknown, unless to some few, from whom your
lordship has been pleased not wholly to conceal them. This alone
were a sufficient reason, were there no other, why I should dedicate
this Essay to your lordship; and its having some little correspondence
with some parts of that nobler and vast system of the sciences your
lordship has made so new, exact, and instructive a draught of, I think
it glory enough, if your lordship permit me to boast, that here and
there I have fallen into some thoughts not wholly different from
yours. If your lordship think fit that, by your encouragement, this
should appear in the world, I hope it may be a reason, some time or
other, to lead your lordship further; and you will allow me to say,
that you here give the world an earnest of something that, if they can
bear with this, will be truly worth their expectation. This, my
lord, shows what a present I here make to your lordship; just such
as the poor man does to his rich and great neighbour, by whom the
basket of flowers or fruit is not ill taken, though he has more plenty
of his own growth, and in much greater perfection. Worthless things
receive a value when they are made the offerings of respect, esteem,
and gratitude: these you have given me so mighty and peculiar
reasons to have, in the highest degree, for your lordship, that if
they can add a price to what they go along with, proportionable to
their own greatness, I can with confidence brag, I here make your
lordship the richest present you ever received. This I am sure, I am
under the greatest obligations to seek all occasions to acknowledge
a long train of favours I have received from your lordship; favours,
though great and important in themselves, yet made much more so by the
forwardness, concern, and kindness, and other obliging
circumstances, that never failed to accompany them. To all this you
are pleased to add that which gives yet more weight and relish to
all the rest: you vouchsafe to continue me in some degrees of your
esteem, and allow me a place in your good thoughts, I had almost
said friendship. This, my lord, your words and actions so constantly
show on all occasions, even to others when I am absent, that it is not
vanity in me to mention what everybody knows: but it would be want
of good manners not to acknowledge what so many are witnesses of,
and every day tell me I am indebted to your lordship for. I wish
they could as easily assist my gratitude, as they convince me of the
great and growing engagements it has to your lordship. This I am sure,
I should write of the Understanding without having any, if I were
not extremely sensible of them, and did not lay hold on this
opportunity to testify to the world how much I am obliged to be, and
how much I am,
Your Lordship's most humble and most obedient servant,
JOHN LOCKE
Dorset Court,
24th of May, 1689
EPISTLE TO THE READER
I HAVE put into thy hands what has been the diversion of some of
my idle and heavy hours. If it has the good luck to prove so of any of
thine, and thou hast but half so much pleasure in reading as I had
in writing it, thou wilt as little think thy money, as I do my
pains, ill bestowed. Mistake not this for a commendation of my work;
nor conclude, because I was pleased with the doing of it, that
therefore I am fondly taken with it now it is done. He that hawks at
larks and sparrows has no less sport, though a much less
considerable quarry, than he that flies at nobler game: and he is
little acquainted with the subject of this treatise- the
UNDERSTANDING- who does not know that, as it is the most elevated
faculty of the soul, so it is employed with a greater and more
constant delight than any of the other. Its searches after truth are a
sort of hawking and hunting, wherein the very pursuit makes a great
part of the pleasure. Every step the mind takes in its progress
towards Knowledge makes some discovery, which is not only new, but the
best too, for the time at least.
For the understanding, like the eye, judging of objects only by
its own sight, cannot but be pleased with what it discovers, having
less regret for what has escaped it, because it is unknown. Thus he
who has raised himself above the alms-basket, and, not content to live
lazily on scraps of begged opinions, sets his own thoughts on work, to
find and follow truth, will (whatever he lights on) not miss the
hunter's satisfaction; every moment of his pursuit will reward his
pains with some delight; and he will have reason to think his time not
ill spent, even when he cannot much boast of any great acquisition.
This, Reader, is the entertainment of those who let loose their
own thoughts, and follow them in writing; which thou oughtest not to
envy them, since they afford thee an opportunity of the like
diversion, if thou wilt make use of thy own thoughts in reading. It is
to them, if they are thy own, that I refer myself: but if they are
taken upon trust from others, it is no great matter what they are;
they are not following truth, but some meaner consideration; and it is
not worth while to be concerned what he says or thinks, who says or
thinks only as he is directed by another. If thou judgest for
thyself I know thou wilt judge candidly, and then I shall not be
harmed or offended, whatever be thy censure. For though it be
certain that there is nothing in this Treatise of the truth whereof
I am not fully persuaded, yet I consider myself as liable to
mistakes as I can think thee, and know that this book must stand or
fall with thee, not by any opinion I have of it, but thy own. If
thou findest little in it new or instructive to thee, thou art not
to blame me for it. It was not meant for those that had already
mastered this subject, and made a thorough acquaintance with their own
understandings; but for my own information, and the satisfaction of
a few friends, who acknowledged themselves not to have sufficiently
considered it.
Were it fit to trouble thee with the history of this Essay, I should
tell thee, that five or six friends meeting at my chamber, and
discoursing on a subject very remote from this, found themselves
quickly at a stand, by the difficulties that rose on every side. After
we had awhile puzzled ourselves, without coming any nearer a
resolution of those doubts which perplexed us, it came into my
thoughts that we took a wrong course; and that before we set ourselves
upon inquiries of that nature, it was necessary to examine our own
abilities, and see what objects our understandings were, or were
not, fitted to deal with. This I proposed to the company, who all
readily assented; and thereupon it was agreed that this should be
our first inquiry. Some hasty and undigested thoughts, on a subject
I had never before considered, which I set down against our next
meeting, gave the first entrance into this Discourse; which having
been thus begun by chance, was continued by intreaty; written by
incoherent parcels; and after long intervals of neglect, resumed
again, as my humour or occasions permitted; and at last, in a
retirement where an attendance on my health gave me leisure, it was
brought into that order thou now seest it.
This discontinued way of writing may have occasioned, besides
others, two contrary faults, viz., that too little and too much may be
said in it. If thou findest anything wanting, I shall be glad that
what I have written gives thee any desire that I should have gone
further. If it seems too much to thee, thou must blame the subject;
for when I put pen to paper, I thought all I should have to say on
this matter would have been contained in one sheet of paper; but the
further I went the larger prospect I had; new discoveries led me still
on, and so it grew insensibly to the bulk it now appears in. I will
not deny, but possibly it might be reduced to a narrower compass
than it is, and that some parts of it might be contracted, the way
it has been writ in, by catches, and many long intervals of
interruption, being apt to cause some repetitions. But to confess
the truth, I am now too lazy, or too busy, to make it shorter.
I am not ignorant how little I herein consult my own reputation,
when I knowingly let it go with a fault, so apt to disgust the most
judicious, who are always the nicest readers. But they who know
sloth is apt to content itself with any excuse, will pardon me if mine
has prevailed on me, where I think I have a very good one. I will
not therefore allege in my defence, that the same notion, having
different respects, may be convenient or necessary to prove or
illustrate several parts of the same discourse, and that so it has
happened in many parts of this: but waiving that, I shall frankly avow
that I have sometimes dwelt long upon the same argument, and expressed
it different ways, with a quite different design. I pretend not to
publish this Essay for the information of men of large thoughts and
quick apprehensions; to such masters of knowledge I profess myself a
scholar, and therefore warn them beforehand not to expect anything
here, but what, being spun out of my own coarse thoughts, is fitted to
men of my own size, to whom, perhaps, it will not be unacceptable that
I have taken some pains to make plain and familiar to their thoughts
some truths which established prejudice, or the abstractedness of
the ideas themselves, might render difficult. Some objects had need be
turned on every side; and when the notion is new, as I confess some of
these are to me; or out of the ordinary road, as I suspect they will
appear to others, it is not one simple view of it that will gain it
admittance into every understanding, or fix it there with a clear
and lasting impression. There are few, I believe, who have not
observed in themselves or others, that what in one way of proposing
was very obscure, another way of expressing it has made very clear and
intelligible; though afterwards the mind found little difference in
the phrases, and wondered why one failed to be understood more than
the other. But everything does not hit alike upon every man's
imagination. We have our understandings no less different than our
palates; and he that thinks the same truth shall be equally relished
by every one in the same dress, may as well hope to feast every one
with the same sort of cookery: the meat may be the same, and the
nourishment good, yet every one not be able to receive it with that
seasoning; and it must be dressed another way, if you will have it
go down with some, even of strong constitutions. The truth is, those
who advised me to publish it, advised me, for this reason, to
publish it as it is: and since I have been brought to let it go
abroad, I desire it should be understood by whoever gives himself
the pains to read it. I have so little affection to be in print,
that if I were not flattered this Essay might be of some use to
others, as I think it has been to me, I should have confined it to the
view of some friends, who gave the first occasion to it. My
appearing therefore in print being on purpose to be as useful as I
may, I think it necessary to make what I have to say as easy and
intelligible to all sorts of readers as I can. And I had much rather
the speculative and quick-sighted should complain of my being in
some parts tedious, than that any one, not accustomed to abstract
speculations, or prepossessed with different notions, should mistake
or not comprehend my meaning.
It will possibly be censured as a great piece of vanity or insolence
in me, to pretend to instruct this our knowing age; it amounting to
little less, when I own, that I publish this Essay with hopes it may
be useful to others. But, if it may be permitted to speak freely of
those who with a feigned modesty condemn as useless what they
themselves write, methinks it savours much more of vanity or insolence
to publish a book for any other end; and he fails very much of that
respect he owes the public, who prints, and consequently expects men
should read, that wherein he intends not they should meet with
anything of use to themselves or others: and should nothing else be
found allowable in this Treatise, yet my design will not cease to be
so; and the goodness of my intention ought to be some excuse for the
worthlessness of my present. It is that chiefly which secures me
from the fear of censure, which I expect not to escape more than
better writers. Men's principles, notions, and relishes are so
different, that it is hard to find a book which pleases or
displeases all men. I acknowledge the age we live in is not the
least knowing, and therefore not the most easy to be satisfied. If I
have not the good luck to please, yet nobody ought to be offended with
me. I plainly tell all my readers, except half a dozen, this
Treatise was not at first intended for them; and therefore they need
not be at the trouble to be of that number. But yet if any one
thinks fit to be angry and rail at it, he may do it securely, for I
shall find some better way of spending my time than in such kind of
conversation. I shall always have the satisfaction to have aimed
sincerely at truth and usefulness, though in one of the meanest
ways. The commonwealth of learning is not at this time without
master-builders, whose mighty designs, in advancing the sciences, will
leave lasting monuments to the admiration of posterity: but every
one must not hope to be a Boyle or a Sydenham; and in an age that
produces such masters as the great Huygenius and the incomparable
Mr. Newton, with some others of that strain, it is ambition enough
to be employed as an under-labourer in clearing the ground a little,
and removing some of the rubbish that lies in the way to knowledge;-
which certainly had been very much more advanced in the world, if
the endeavours of ingenious and industrious men had not been much
cumbered with the learned but frivolous use of uncouth, affected, or
unintelligible terms, introduced into the sciences, and there made
an art of, to that degree that Philosophy, which is nothing but the
true knowledge of things, was thought unfit or incapable to be brought
into well-bred company and polite conversation. Vague and
insignificant forms of speech, and abuse of language, have so long
passed for mysteries of science; and hard and misapplied words, with
little or no meaning, have, by prescription, such a right to be
mistaken for deep learning and height of speculation, that it will not
be easy to persuade either those who speak or those who hear them,
that they are but the covers of ignorance, and hindrance of true
knowledge. To break in upon the sanctuary of vanity and ignorance will
be, I suppose, some service to human understanding; though so few
are apt to think they deceive or are deceived in the use of words;
or that the language of the sect they are of has any faults in it
which ought to be examined or corrected, that I hope I shall be
pardoned if I have in the Third Book dwelt long on this subject, and
endeavoured to make it so plain, that neither the inveterateness of
the mischief, nor the prevalency of the fashion, shall be any excuse
for those who will not take care about the meaning of their own words,
and will not suffer the significancy of their expressions to be
inquired into.
I have been told that a short Epitome of this Treatise, which was
printed in 1688, was by some condemned without reading, because innate
ideas were denied in it; they too hastily concluding, that if innate
ideas were not supposed, there would be little left either of the
notion or proof of spirits. If any one take the like offence at the
entrance of this Treatise, I shall desire him to read it through;
and then I hope he will be convinced, that the taking away false
foundations is not to the prejudice but advantage of truth, which is
never injured or endangered so much as when mixed with, or built on,
falsehood.
In the Second Edition I added as followeth:-
The bookseller will not forgive me if I say nothing of this New
Edition, which he has promised, by the correctness of it, shall make
amends for the many faults committed in the former. He desires too,
that it should be known that it has one whole new chapter concerning
Identity, and many additions and amendments in other places. These I
must inform my reader are not all new matter, but most of them
either further confirmation of what I had said, or explications, to
prevent others being mistaken in the sense of what was formerly
printed, and not any variation in me from it.
I must only except the alterations I have made in Book II. chap.
xxi.
What I had there written concerning Liberty and the Will, I
thought deserved as accurate a view as I am capable of; those subjects
having in all ages exercised the learned part of the world with
questions and difficulties, that have not a little perplexed
morality and divinity, those parts of knowledge that men are most
concerned to be clear in. Upon a closer inspection into the working of
men's minds, and a stricter examination of those motives and views
they are turned by, I have found reason somewhat to alter the thoughts
I formerly had concerning that which gives the last determination to
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