, and near of the same
temper; where the eyes have no light, and the ears so shut up are not
very susceptible of sounds; and where there is little or no variety, or
change of objects, to move the senses.

22. The mind thinks in proportion to the matter it gets from experience
to think about.

Follow a child from its birth, and observe the alterations that time
makes, and you shall find, as the mind by the senses comes more and more
to be furnished with ideas, it comes to be more and more awake; thinks
more, the more it has matter to think on. After some time it begins to
know the objects which, being most familiar with it, have made lasting
impressions. Thus it comes by degrees to know the persons it daily
converses with, and distinguishes them from strangers; which are
instances and effects of its coming to retain and distinguish the ideas
the senses convey to it. And so we may observe how the mind, BY DEGREES,
improves in these; and ADVANCES to the exercise of those other faculties
of enlarging, compounding, and abstracting its ideas, and of reasoning
about them, and reflecting upon all these; of which I shall have
occasion to speak more hereafter.

23. A man begins to have ideas when he first has sensation. What
sensation is.

If it shall be demanded then, WHEN a man BEGINS to have any ideas, I
think the true answer is,--WHEN HE FIRST HAS ANY SENSATION. For, since
there appear not to be any ideas in the mind before the senses have
conveyed any in, I conceive that ideas in the understanding are coeval
with SENSATION; WHICH IS SUCH AN IMPRESSION OR MOTION MADE IN SOME PART
OF THE BODY, AS MAKES IT BE TAKEN NOTICE OF IN THE UNDERSTANDING.

24. The Original of all our Knowledge.

The impressions then that are made on our sense by outward objects
that are extrinsical to the mind; and its own operations about these
impressions, reflected on by itself, as proper objects to be contemplated
by it, are, I conceive, the original of all knowledge. Thus the first
capacity of human intellect is,--that the mind is fitted to receive the
impressions made on it; either through the senses by outward objects, or
by its own operations when it reflects on them. This is the first step a
man makes towards the discovery of anything, and the groundwork whereon
to build all those notions which ever he shall have naturally in this
world. All those sublime thoughts which tower above the clouds, and
reach as high as heaven itself, ta