An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding | Page 6

imagination. These faculties may mimic or copy the perceptions of
the senses; but they never can entirely reach the force and vivacity of the original
sentiment. The utmost we say of them, even when they operate with greatest vigour, is,
that they represent their object in so lively a manner, that we could almost say we feel or
see it: But, except the mind be disordered by disease or madness, they never can arrive at
such a pitch of vivacity, as to render these perceptions altogether undistinguishable. All
the colours of poetry, however splendid, can never paint natural objects in such a manner
as to make the description be taken for a real landskip. The most lively thought is still
inferior to the dullest sensation.
We may observe a like distinction to run through all the other perceptions of the mind. A
man in a fit of anger, is actuated in a very different manner from one who only thinks of

that emotion. If you tell me, that any person is in love, I easily understand your meaning,
and form a just conception of his situation; but never can mistake that conception for the
real disorders and agitations of the passion. When we reflect on our past sentiments and
affections, our thought is a faithful mirror, and copies its objects truly; but the colours
which it employs are faint and dull, in comparison of those in which our original
perceptions were clothed. It requires no nice discernment or metaphysical head to mark
the distinction between them.
12. Here therefore we may divide all the perceptions of the mind into two classes or
species, which are distinguished by their different degrees of force and vivacity. The less
forcible and lively are commonly denominated Thoughts or Ideas. The other species want
a name in our language, and in most others; I suppose, because it was not requisite for
any, but philosophical purposes, to rank them under a general term or appellation. Let us,
therefore, use a little freedom, and call them Impressions; employing that word in a sense
somewhat different from the usual. By the term impression, then, I mean all our more
lively perceptions, when we hear, or see, or feel, or love, or hate, or desire, or will. And
impressions are distinguished from ideas, which are the less lively perceptions, of which
we are conscious, when we reflect on any of those sensations or movements above
mentioned.
13. Nothing, at first view, may seem more unbounded than the thought of man, which not
only escapes all human power and authority, but is not even restrained within the limits
of nature and reality. To form monsters, and join incongruous shapes and appearances,
costs the imagination no more trouble than to conceive the most natural and familiar
objects. And while the body is confined to one planet, along which it creeps with pain
and difficulty; the thought can in an instant transport us into the most distant regions of
the universe; or even beyond the universe, into the unbounded chaos, where nature is
supposed to lie in total confusion. What never was seen, or heard of, may yet be
conceived; nor is any thing beyond the power of thought, except what implies an absolute
contradiction.
But though our thought seems to possess this unbounded liberty, we shall find, upon a
nearer examination, that it is really confined within very narrow limits, and that all this
creative power of the mind amounts to no more than the faculty of compounding,
transposing, augmenting, or diminishing the materials afforded us by the senses and
experience. When we think of a golden mountain, we only join two consistent ideas, gold,
and mountain, with which we were formerly acquainted. A virtuous horse we can
conceive; because, from our own feeling, we can conceive virtue; and this we may unite
to the figure and shape of a horse, which is an animal familiar to us. In short, all the
materials of thinking are derived either from our outward or inward sentiment: the
mixture and composition of these belongs alone to the mind and will. Or, to express
myself in philosophical language, all our ideas or more feeble perceptions are copies of
our impressions or more lively ones.
14. To prove this, the two following arguments will, I hope, be sufficient. First, when we
analyze our thoughts or ideas however compounded or sublime, we always find that they
resolve themselves into such simple ideas as were copied from a precedent feeling or

sentiment. Even those ideas, which, at first view, seem the most wide of this origin, are
found, upon a nearer scrutiny, to be derived from it. The idea of God, as meaning an
infinitely intelligent, wise, and good Being, arises from reflecting on the operations of our
own mind,