Existence as the mere presence of a feeling.
30. The designation of the idea of existence, then, as ‘suggested by every idea within,’ covers every possible suggestion. It can mean nothing else than that it is given in every act and mode of consciousness; that it is inseparable from feeling as such, being itself at the same time a distinct simple idea. This, we may remark by the way, involves the conclusion that every idea is composite, made up of whatever distinguishes it from other ideas together with the idea of existence. Of this idea of existence itself, however, it will be impossible to say anything distinctive; for, as it accompanies all possible objects of consciousness, there will be no cases where it is absent to be distinguished from those where it is present. Not merely will it be undefinable, as every simple idea is; it will be impossible ‘to send a man to his senses’ (according to Locke’s favourite subterfuge) in order to know what it is, since it is neither given in one sense as distinct from another, nor in all senses as distinct from any other modification of consciousness. Thus regarded, to treat it as a simple idea alongside of other simple ideas is a palpable contradiction. It is the mere ‘It is felt,’ the abstraction of consciousness, no more to be reckoned as one among other ideas than colour in general is to be co-ordinated with red, white, and blue. Whether I smell a rose in the summer or recall the smell in winter; whether I see a horse or a ghost, or imagine a centaur or think of gravitation or the philosopher’s stone—in every case alike the idea or ‘immediate object of the mind’ exists. Yet we find Locke distinguishing between real ideas, as those that ‘have a conformity with the existence of things,’ and fantastic ideas, as those which have no such conformity (Book II. chap. xxx. sec. 1); and again in the fourth book (chap. i. sec. 7, chap. iii. sec. 21, &c.) he makes the perception of the agreement of an idea with existence a special kind of knowledge, different from that of agreement of idea with idea; and having done so, raises the question whether we have such a knowledge of existence at all, and decides that our knowledge of it is very narrow.
Existence as reality.
31. How are such a distinction and such a question to be reconciled with the attribution of existence to every idea? The answer of course will be, that when he speaks of ideas as not conforming to existence, and makes knowledge or the agreement of ideas with each other something different from their agreement with existence, he means and generally says ‘real actual existence,’ or the ‘existence of things,’ i.e. an existence, whatever it be, which is opposed to mere existence in consciousness. Doubtless he so means, but this implies that upon mere consciousness, or the simple presence of ideas, there has supervened a distinction, which has to be accounted for, of ideas from things which they represent on the one hand, and from a mind of which they are affections on the other. Even in the passage first quoted (Book II. chap. vii. sec. 7), where existence is ascribed to every idea, on looking closely we find this distinction obtruding itself, though without explicit acknowledgment. In the very same breath, so to speak, in which the idea of existence is said to be suggested by every idea, it is further described as being either of two considerations—either the consideration of an idea as actually in our mind, or of a thing as actually without us. Such considerations at once imply the supervention of that distinction between ‘mind’ and ‘thing,’ which gives a wholly new meaning to ‘existence.’ They are not, in truth, as Locke supposed, two separate considerations, one or other of which, as the case may be, is interchangeable with the ‘idea of existence.’ One is correlative with the other, and neither is the same as simple feeling. Considered as actually in the mind, the feeling is distinguished from the mind as an affection from the subject thereof, and just in virtue of this distinction is referred to a thing as the cause of the affection, or becomes representative of a thing. But for such consideration there would for us, if the doctrine of ideas means anything, be no ‘thing without us’ at all. To ‘consider things as actually without us’ is to consider them as causes of the ideas in our mind, and this is to have an idea of existence quite different from mere consciousness. It is to have an idea of it which at once suggests the question whether the existence is real or apparent; in other words, whether the thing, to which an affection of the mind is referred as its cause, is really its cause or no.
By confusion of these two meanings, reality and its conditions are represented as given in simple feeling.
32. Between these two meanings of existence—its meaning as interchangeable with simple consciousness, and its meaning as reality—Locke failed to distinguish. Just as, having announced ‘ideas’ to be the sole ‘materials of knowledge,’ he allows himself at his convenience to put ‘things’ in the place of ideas; so having identified existence with momentary consciousness or the simple idea, he substitutes for existence in this sense reality, and in consequence finds reality given solely in the simple idea. Thus when the conceptions of cause or substance, or relations of any kind, come under view, since these cannot be represented as given in momentary consciousness, they have to be pronounced not to exist, and since existence is reality, to be unreal or ‘fictions of the mind.’ But without these unreal relations there could be no knowledge, and if they are not given in the elements of knowledge, it is difficult to see how they are introduced, or to avoid the appearance of constructing knowledge out of the unknown. Given in the elements of knowledge, however, they cannot be, if these are simple ideas or momentary recurrences of the ‘it is felt.’ But by help of Locke’s equivocation between the two meanings of existence, they can be covertly introduced as the real. Existence is given in the simple idea, existence equals the real, therefore the real is given in the simple idea. But think or speak of the real as we will, we find that it exhibits itself as substance, as cause, and as related; i.e. according to Locke as a ‘complex’ or ‘invented’ or ‘superinduced’ idea.
Yet reality involves complex ideas which are made by the mind.
33. In the second book of his Essay, which treats of ideas, he makes the grand distinction between ‘the simple ideas which are all from things themselves, and of which the mind can have no more or other than what are suggested to it,’ and the ‘complex ideas which are the workmanship of the mind.’ (Book II. chap. xii.) In his account of the latter there are some curious cross-divisions, but he finally enumerates them as ideas either of modes, substances, or relations. The character of these ideas he then proceeds to explain in the order given, one after the other, and as if each were independent of the rest; though according to his own statement the idea of mode presupposes that of substance, and the idea of substance involves that of relation. ‘Modes I call such complex ideas, which, however compounded, contain not in them the supposition of subsisting by themselves, but are considered as dependencies on, or affections of, substances; such are the ideas signified by the words ‘triangle,’ ‘gratitude,’ ‘murder,’ &c. Of these there are two sorts. First, there are some which are only variations or different combinations of the same simple idea without the mixture of any other—as a dozen, or score—which are nothing but the ideas of so many distinct units added together; and these I call simple modes, as being contained within the bounds of one simple idea. Secondly, there are others compounded of simple ideas of several kinds, put together to make one complex one; e. g. beauty, … and these I call mixed modes.’ (Book II. chap. xii. secs. 4, 5.) So soon as he comes to speak more in detail of simple modes, he falls into apparent contradiction with his doctrine that, as complex ideas, they are the mere workmanship of the mind. All particular sounds and colours are simple modes of the simple ideas of sound and colour. (Book II. chap, xviii. sees. 3, 4.) Again, the ideas of figure, place, distance, as of all particular figures, places, and distances, are simple modes of the simple idea of space. (Book II. chap, xiii.) To maintain, however, that the ideas of space, sound, or colour in general (as simple ideas) were taken from things themselves, while those of particular spaces, sounds, and colours (as complex ideas) were ‘made by the mind,’ was for Locke impossible. Thus in the very next chapter after that in which he has opposed all complex ideas, those of simple modes included, as made by the mind to all simple ones as taken from things themselves, he speaks of simple modes ‘either as found in things existing, or as made by the mind within itself.’ (Book II. chap. xiii. sec. 1.) It was not for Locke to get over this confusion by denying the antithesis between that which the mind ‘makes’ and that which it ‘takes from existing things’ and for the present we must leave it as it stands. We must further note that a mode being considered ‘as an affection of a substance,’ space must be to the particular spaces which are its simple modes, as a substance to its modifications. So too colour to particular colours, &c., &c. But the idea of a substance is a complex idea ‘framed by the mind.’ Therefore the idea of space—at any rate such an idea as we have of it when we think of distances, places, or figures, and when else do we think of it at all?—must be a complex and artificial idea. But according to Locke the idea of space is emphatically a simple idea, given immediately both by sight and touch, concerning which if a man enquire, he ‘sends him to his senses.’ (Book II. chap, v.)
Such are substance and relation which must be found in every object of knowledge.
34. These contradictions are not avoidable blunders, due to carelessness or want of a clear head in the individual writer, ‘The complex idea of substance’ will not be exorcised; the mind will show its workmanship in the very elements of knowledge towards which its relation seems most passive—in the ‘existing things’ which are the conditions of its experience no less than in the individual’s conscious reaction upon them. The interrogator of the individual consciousness seeks to know that consciousness, and just for that reason must find in it at every stage those formal conceptions, such as substance and cause, without which there can be no object of knowledge at all. He thus substantiates sensation, while he thinks that he merely observes it, and calls it a sensible thing. Sensations, thus unconsciously transformed, are for him the real, the actually existent. Whatever is not given by immediate sense, outer or inner, he reckons a mere ‘thing of the mind.’ The ideas of substance and relation, then, not being given by sense, must in his eyes be things of the mind, in distinction from, really existent things. But speech bewrayeth him. He cannot state anything that he knows save in terms which imply that substance and relation are in the things known; and hence an inevitable obtrusion of ‘things of the mind’ in the place of real existence, just where the opposition between them is being insisted on. Again, as a man seems to observe consciousness in himself and others, it has nothing that it has not received. It is a blank to begin with, but passive of that which is without, and through its passivity it becomes informed. If the ‘mind,’ then, means this or that individual consciousness, the things of the mind must be gradually developed from an original passivity. On the other hand, let anyone try to know this original passive consciousness, and in it, as in every other known object-matter, he must find these things of the mind, substance and relations. If nature is the object, he must find them in nature; if his own self-consciousness, he must find them in that consciousness. But while nature knows not what is in herself, self-consciousness, it would seem, ex vi termini, does know. Therefore not merely substance and relation must be found in the original consciousness, but the knowledge, the ideas, of them.