Locke, John (1632-1704)

An Essay Concerning Humane Understanding

London

1690, 1694, 1695, 1700, 1706

"Nor will it be so strange, to think these few simple Ideas sufficient to employ the quickest Thought, or largest Capacity; and to furnish the Materials of all that various Knowledge, and more various Phansies and Opinions of all Mankind, if we consider how many Words may be made out of the various composition of 24 Letters; or if going one step farther, we will but reflect on the variety of combinations may be made, with barely one of these Ideas, viz. Number, whose stock is inexhaustible, and truly infinite."

§. 10. These, if they are not all, are at least (as I think) the most considerable of those simple Ideas which the Mind has, and out of which are made all its other knowledge; all which it receives only by the two forementioned ways of Sensation and Reflection. Nor let any one think these too narrow bounds for the capacious Mind of Man to expatiate in, which takes its flight farther than the Stars, and cannot be confined by the limits of the World; that extends its thoughts often even beyond the utmost expansion of Matter, and makes excursions into that incomprehensible Inane. I grant all this, but desire any one to assign any simple Idea, which it received not from one of those Inlets before-mentioned, or any complex Idea not made out of those simple ones. Nor will it be so strange, to think these few simple Ideas sufficient to employ the quickest Thought, or largest Capacity; and to furnish the Materials of all that various Knowledge, and more various Phansies and Opinions of all Mankind, if we consider how many Words may be made out of the various composition of 24 Letters; or if going one step farther, we will but reflect on the variety of combinations may be made, with barely one of these Ideas, viz. Number, whose stock is inexhaustible, and truly infinite. And what a large and immense field, doth Excursion alone afford the Mathematicians? (II.vii.10, p. 54)

Writing::Letters

Searching in EEBO-TCP

Locke began composition as early as 1671 (Drafts A and B).

I find over 25 entries in the ESTC (1690, 1694, 1695, 1700, 1706, 1710, 1715, 1721, 1726, 1731, 1735, 1741, 1748, 1753, 1759, 1760, 1765, 1768, 1775, 1777, 1786, 1788, 1793, 1795, 1796, 1798). See also the many abridgements issued in the period.

First published as An Essay Concerning Humane Understanding. In Four Books. (London: Printed by Eliz. Holt, for Thomas Basset, at the George in Fleetstreet, near St. Dunstan's Church, 1690). <Link to EEBO><EEBO-TCP>

Searching first in a Past Masters edition based on the 12th Edition of Locke's Works and proofread against the 1959 Fraser edition. More recent searches in EEBO-TCP.

Reading John Locke's An Essay Concerning Human Understanding, ed. Peter Nidditch (Oxford, Oxford UP, 1975)--against which I have checked the text searched in Past Masters. Note, Nidditch's text is based on 4th ed. of 1700.

07/28/2014