人間知性論 — John Locke
You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org . If you are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this eBook. Title : An Essay Concerning Humane Understanding, Volume 1 Author : John Locke Release date : January 1, 2004 [eBook #10615] Most recently updated: February 20, 2026 Language : English Other information and formats : www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/10615 Credits : Steve Harris and David Widger *** START OF de Natur. Deor. l . 1. LONDON: Printed by Eliz. Holt, for Thomas Basset, at the George in Fleet Street, near St. Dunstan’s Church. MDCXC CONTENTS THE EPISTLE TO THE READER ESSAY CONCERNING HUMANE UNDERSTANDING. BOOK I NEITHER PRINCIPLES NOR IDEAS ARE INNATE CHAPTER I. INTRODUCTION. CHAPTER II. NO INNATE SPECULATIVE PRINCIPLES. CHAPTER III. NO INNATE PRACTICAL PRINCIPLES CHAPTER IV. OTHER CONSIDERATIONS CONCERNING INNATE PRINCIPLES, BOTH SPECULATIVE AND PRACTICAL. BOOK II OF IDEAS CHAPTER I. OF IDEAS IN GENERAL, AND THEIR ORIGINAL. CHAPTER II. OF SIMPLE IDEAS. CHAPTER III. OF SIMPLE IDEAS OF SENSE. CHAPTER IV. IDEA OF SOLIDITY. CHAPTER V. OF SIMPLE IDEAS OF DIVERS SENSES. CHAPTER VI. OF SIMPLE IDEAS OF REFLECTION. CHAPTER VII. OF SIMPLE IDEAS OF BOTH SENSATION AND REFLECTION. CHAPTER VIII. SOME FURTHER CONSIDERATIONS CONCERNING OUR SIMPLE IDEAS OF SENSATION. CHAPTER IX. OF PERCEPTION. CHAPTER X. OF RETENTION. CHAPTER XI. OF DISCERNING, AND OTHER OPERATIONS OF THE MIND. CHAPTER XII. OF COMPLEX IDEAS. CHAPTER XIII. COMPLEX IDEAS OF SIMPLE MODES:—AND FIRST, OF THE SIMPLE MODES OF IDEA OF SPACE. CHAPTER XIV. IDEA OF DURATION AND ITS SIMPLE MODES. CHAPTER XV. IDEAS OF DURATION AND EXPANSION, CONSIDERED TOGETHER. CHAPTER XVI. IDEA OF NUMBER. CHAPTER XVII. OF INFINITY. CHAPTER XVIII. OTHER SIMPLE MODES. CHAPTER XIX. OF THE MODES OF THINKING. CHAPTER XX. OF MODES OF PLEASURE AND PAIN. CHAPTER XXI. OF POWER. CHAPTER XXII. OF MIXED MODES. CHAPTER XXIII. OF OUR COMPLEX IDEAS OF SUBSTANCES. CHAPTER XXIV. OF COLLECTIVE IDEAS OF SUBSTANCES. CHAPTER XXV. OF RELATION. CHAPTER XXVI. OF CAUSE AND EFFECT, AND OTHER RELATIONS. CHAPTER XXVII. OF IDENTITY AND DIVERSITY. CHAPTER XXVIII. OF OTHER RELATIONS. CHAPTER XXIX. OF CLEAR AND OBSCURE, DISTINCT AND CONFUSED IDEAS. CHAPTER XXX. OF REAL AND FANTASTICAL IDEAS. CHAPTER XXXI. OF ADEQUATE AND INADEQUATE IDEAS. CHAPTER XXXII. OF TRUE AND FALSE IDEAS. CHAPTER XXXIII. OF THE ASSOCIATION OF IDEAS. TO THE RIGHT HONOURABLE THOMAS, EARL OF PEMBROKE AND MONTGOMERY, BARON 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 weighed, 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. W