Page:History of Modern Philosophy (Falckenberg).djvu/179

THEORY OF KNOWLEDGE. 157 gradually become corrupted and disappear, they must at least be discoverable in full purity where these disturbing influences have not yet acted ; but it is especially vain to look for them in children and the ignorant. Perhaps, how- ever, these possess such principles unconsciously ; perhaps they are imprinted on the understanding, without being attended to ? This would be a contradiction in terms. To be in the mind or the understanding simply means " to be understood " or to be known ; no one can have an idea without being conscious of it. Finally, if the attempt be made to explain " originally in the mind '" in so wide a sense that it would include all truths which man can ever attain or is capable of discovering by the right use of reason, this would make not only all mathematical principles, but all knowledge in general, all sciences, and all arts innate ; there would be no ground even for the exclusion of wisdom and virtue. Therefore, either all ideas are innate or none are. This is an important alternative. While Locke de- cides for the second half of the proposition, Leibnitz de- fends the first by a delicate application of the concept of unconscious representation and of implicit knowledge, which his predecessor rejects out of hand. Locke's positive answer to the question concerning the origin of ideas is given in his second book. Ideas are not present in the understanding from the beginning, nor are they originated by the understanding, but received through sensation. The understanding is like a piece of white paper on which perception inscribes its characters. All knowledge arises in experience. This is of two kinds, derived either from the external senses or the internal sense. The perception of external objects is termed Sensation, that of internal phenomena (of the states of the mind itself) Reflection. External and internal per- ception are the only windows through which the light of ideas penetrates into the dark chamber of the under- standing. The two are not opened simultaneously, how- ever, but one after the other; since the perceptions of the sensible qualities of bodies, unlike that of the oper- ations of the mind itself, do not require an effort of atten- tion, they are the earlier. The child receives ideas of sen-