Locke

by Thomas Fowler

With the idea of "Substance" Locke is fairly baffled. If we examine our idea of a horse, a man, a piece of gold, &c., we are able to resolve it into a number of simple ideas, such as extension, figure, solidity, weight, colour, &., co-existing together. But, according to Locke, who, in this respect, was merely following in the track of the generally received philosophy of his time, there is, in addition to all these qualities, a substratum in which they inhere, or, to use his own language, "wherein they do subsist, and from which they do result." Now of the various qualities we can form a clear idea and give a more or less intelligible account. But can we form a clear idea or give an intelligible account of the substratum? Locke here is bold enough to break off from the orthodox doctrine of the time, and confess candidly that we cannot. The idea of this Substratum or Substance is a "confused idea of something to which the qualities belong, and in which they subsist." The name Substance denotes a Support, "though it be certain we have no clear or distinct idea of that thing we suppose a support."

"So that if any one will examine himself concerning his notion of pure Substance in general, he will find he has no other idea of it at all but only a supposition of he knows not what Support of such qualities which are capable of producing simple ideas in us; which qualities are commonly called Accidents. If any one should be asked what is the subject wherein Colour or Weight inheres, he would have nothing to say but the solid extended parts. And if he were demanded what is it that Solidity and Extension inhere in, he would not be in a much better case than the Indian who, saying that the world was supported by a great elephant, was asked what the elephant rested on? To which his answer was, a great tortoise. But, being again pressed to know what gave support to the broad-backed tortoise, replied, something, he knew not what. And thus here, as in all other cases, where we use words without having clear and distinct ideas, we talk like children; who, being questioned what such a thing is, which they know not, readily give this satisfactory answer, That it is something; which in truth signifies no more, when so used, either by children or men, but that they know not what, and that the thing they pretend to know and talk of is what they have no distinct idea of at all, and so are perfectly ignorant of it and in the dark." (Bk. II., ch. xxiii., § 2.)

No wonder that the next step in philosophy was to get rid altogether of this "something, we know not what." For, if we know not what it is, how do we know that it exists, and is not a mere fiction of the Schools? This step was taken by Berkeley, as respects matter, and by Hume the same negative criticism which Berkeley confines to matter was boldly, and, as it seems to me, far less successfully and legitimately extended to mind. Indeed, were it not for his express assurance to the contrary, we should often be tempted to think that Locke himself regarded this distinction of Substance and Accident, so far, at least, as it affects Matter and its attributes, as untenable, and was anxious to insinuate a doubt as to the very existence of the "unknown somewhat."

In this chapter, Locke maintains that there is no more difficulty, if indeed so much, in the notion of immaterial spirit as of body. "Our idea of Body, as I think, is an extended solid substance, capable of communicating motion by impulse; and our idea of our Soul, as an immaterial Spirit, is of a substance that thinks, and has a power of exciting motion in body by Will or Thought." (§ 22.) Now, it is "no more a contradiction that Thinking should exist separate and independent from Solidity, than it is a contradiction that Solidity should exist separate and independent from Thinking, they being both but simple ideas independent one from another. And, having as clear and distinct ideas in us of Thinking as of Solidity, I know not why we may not as well allow a thinking thing without solidity, that is immaterial, to exist, as a solid thing without thinking, that is matter, to exist; especially since it is no harder to conceive how Thinking should exist without Matter, than how Matter should think." (§ 32.)

In the Fourth Book (ch. iii., § 6), however, he gave great scandal by suggesting the possibility that Matter might think, that it was not much more repugnant to our conceptions that God might, if he pleased, "superadd to Matter a Faculty of Thinking, than that he should superadd to it another substance with a faculty of thinking." At the same time, he regarded it as no less than a contradiction to suppose that Matter, "which is evidently in its own nature void of sense and thought," should be the "eternal first thinking Being," or God Himself; and, in his First Letter to the Bishop of Worcester, he grants that in us (as distinguished from the lower animals) it is in the highest degree probable that the "thinking substance" is immaterial. Materialism, therefore, as ordinarily understood, is certainly no part of Locke's system.

In discussing the idea of Substance, Locke seems generally to be thinking more of Matter than Mind. But, in an early part of the Essay (Bk. II., ch. xiii., § 18), he very rightly begs those who talk so much of Substance "to consider whether applying it, as they do, to the infinite incomprehensible God, to finite Spirit, and to Body, it be in the same sense, and whether it stands for the same idea, when each of those three so different beings are called Substances." As applied respectively to Matter and to Mind (whether finite or infinite), it appears to me that the word Substance assumes a very different meaning, and that the absurdities which it is possible to fix on the distinction between Matter and its attributes by no means extend to the distinction between Mind and its operations. For an union of certain forces or powers affecting our organisms in certain ways seems to exhaust our conception of external objects (the notion of externality, I conceive, being quite independent of that of the Substrate "matter"), but no similar enumeration of mental acts and feelings seems adequately to take the place of that "Self," or "I," of which we regard these as merely phases and modifications. It would much conduce to clearness in philosophical discussions if, at least amongst those who admit the dualism of matter and mind, the word Substance, whenever applied to incorporeal objects, were replaced by the word Mind, and, whenever applied to corporeal objects, by the word Matter.

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The Second Book closes, in the Fourth and subsequent editions, with a short but very interesting Chapter on the "Association of Ideas." The student of Mental Philosophy will find it instructive to compare this Chapter with the previous account given by Hobbes (Human Nature, ch. iv.; Leviathan, Pt. I., ch. iii.), and the subsequent account given by Hume (Human Nature, Pt. I., § 4; Essays on Human Understanding, § 3), of the same phenomena. Locke appears to have been the first author to use the exact[2] expression "Association of Ideas," and it is curious to find in this chapter (§ 5) the word "inseparable," so familiar to the readers of recent works on psychology, already applied to designate certain kinds of association. Some ideas, indeed, have, he says, a natural correspondence, but others, that "in themselves are not at all of kin," "come to be so united in some men's minds that one no sooner at any time comes into the understanding than the whole Gang, always inseparable, show themselves together."

[2] Sir W. Hamilton refers to La Chambre (Système de l'Ame: Paris, 1664) as having anticipated Locke in the use of this expression. In Liv. IV., ch. ii., art. 9, La Chambre speaks of "l' Union et la Liaison des Images," but I cannot find that he approaches any nearer to the now established phraseology.

The following passage on what may be called the associations of antipathy affords a good instance of Locke's power of homely and apposite illustration: