An Essay Concerning Humane Understanding, Volume 1
- Language:
- English
- Status:
- Complete work
- Authorship:
- Written by the author
- Condition of the text:
- Clean text
- Extent:
- ~150,000 words · 704 passages
Cite this work
- APAJohn Locke. (n.d.). An Essay Concerning Humane Understanding, Volume 1. SigPhi. https://sigphiai.com/en/works/john-locke/an-essay-concerning-humane-understanding-volume-1
- MLAJohn Locke. "An Essay Concerning Humane Understanding, Volume 1." SigPhi, https://sigphiai.com/en/works/john-locke/an-essay-concerning-humane-understanding-volume-1.
- ChicagoJohn Locke. An Essay Concerning Humane Understanding, Volume 1. SigPhi. https://sigphiai.com/en/works/john-locke/an-essay-concerning-humane-understanding-volume-1.
What it is about
The first volume of Locke's Essay: Books I and II, against innate ideas and on the origin of all ideas in experience.
Context and history
Published in 1689 with the date 1690, and rewritten across five editions up to Locke's death. The catalogue holds it in two volumes: the first contains Books I and II — the refutation of innate ideas and the building up of all ideas out of sensation and reflection — and the second Books III and IV, on language and on the limits of what we can know. The spelling 'Humane' in the title is not an error: it is the orthography of the day. The whole English philosophical vocabulary comes out of this book, including primary and secondary qualities and the first modern discussion of personal identity; both Berkeley and Hume begin by arguing with it.
Editorial context, not a citable source: unlike the passages of the work itself, these statements cannot be checked against the corpus.
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 thou