2. The cause of this is thought to be the obscurity of things, or
the natural weakness and imperfection of our understandings. It is
said, the faculties we have are few, and those designed by nature
for the support and comfort of life, and not to penetrate into the
inward essence and constitution of things. Besides, the mind of man
being finite, when it treats of things which partake of infinity, it
is not to be wondered at if it run into absurdities and
contradictions, out of which it is impossible it should ever extricate
itself, it being of the nature of infinite not to be comprehended by
that which is finite.

  3. But, perhaps, we may be too partial to ourselves in placing the
fault originally in our faculties, and not rather in the wrong use
we make of them. It is a hard thing to suppose that right deductions
from true principles should ever end in consequences which cannot be
maintained or made consistent. We should believe that God has dealt
more bountifully with the sons of men than to give them a strong
desire for that knowledge which he had placed quite out of their
reach. This were not agreeable to the wonted indulgent methods of
Providence, which, whatever appetites it may have implanted in the
creatures, doth usually furnish them with such means as, if rightly
made use of, will not fail to satisfy them. Upon the whole, I am
inclined to think that the far greater part, if not all, of those
difficulties which have hitherto amused philosophers, and blocked up
the way to knowledge, are entirely owing to ourselves- that we have
first raised a dust and then complain we cannot see.

  4. My purpose therefore is, to try if I can discover what those
Principles are which have introduced all that doubtfulness and
uncertainty, those absurdities and contradictions, into the several
sects of philosophy; insomuch that the wisest men have thought our
ignorance incurable, conceiving it to arise from the natural dulness
and limitation of our faculties. And surely it is a work well
deserving our pains to make a strict inquiry concerning the First
Principles of Human Knowledge, to sift and examine them on all
sides, especially since there may be some grounds to suspect that
those lets and difficulties, which stay and embarrass the mind in
its search after truth, do not spring from any darkness and
intricacy in the objects, or natural defect in the understanding, so
much as from false Principles which have been insisted on, and might
have been avoided.

  5. How difficult and discouraging soever this attempt may seem, when
I consider how many great and extraordinary men have gone before me in
the like designs, yet I am not without some hopes- upon the
consideration that the largest views are not always the clearest,
and that he who is short-sighted will be obliged to draw the object
nearer, and may, perhaps, by a close and narrow survey, discern that
which had escaped far better eyes.

  6. In order to prepare the mind of the reader for the easier
conceiving what follows, it is proper to premise somewhat, by way of
Introduction, concerning the nature and abuse of Language. But the
unravelling this matter leads me in some measure to anticipate my
design, by taking notice of what seems to have had a chief part in
rendering speculation intricate and perplexed, and to have
occasioned innumerable errors and difficulties in almost all parts
of knowledge. And that is the opinion that the mind hath a power of
framing abstract ideas or notions of things. He who is not a perfect
stranger to the writings and disputes of philosophers must needs
acknowledge that no small part of them are spent about abstract ideas.
These are in a more especial manner thought to be the object of
those sciences which go by the name of Logic and Metaphysics, and of
all that which passes under the notion of the most abstracted and
sublime learning, in all which one shall scarce find any question
handled in such a manner as does not suppose their existence in the
mind, and that it is well acquainted with them.

  7. It is agreed on all hands that the qualities or modes of things
do never really exist each of them apart by itself, and separated from
all others, but are mixed, as it were, and blended together, several
in the same object. But, we are told, the mind being able to
consider each quality singly, or abstracted from those other qualities
with which it is united, does by that means frame to itself abstract
ideas. For example, there is perceived by sight an object extended,
coloured, and moved: this mixed or compound idea the mind resolving
into its simple, constituent parts, and viewing each by itself,
exclusive of the rest, does frame the abstract ideas of extension,
colour, and motion. Not that it is possible for colour or motion to
exist without extension; but only that the mind can frame to itself by
abstraction the idea of colour exclusive of extension, and of motion
exclusive of both colour and extension.

  8. Again, the mind having observed that in the particular extensions
perceived by sense there is something common and alike in all, and
some other things peculiar, as this or that figure or magnitude, which
distinguish them one from another; it considers apart or singles out
by itself that which is common, making thereof a most abstract idea of
extension, which is neither line, surface, nor solid, nor has any
figure or magnitude, but is an idea entirely prescinded from all
these. So likewise the mind, by leaving out of the particular
colours perceived by sense that which distinguishes them one from
another, and retaining that only which is common to all, makes an idea
of colour in abstract which is neither red, nor blue, nor white, nor
any other determinate colour. And, in like manner, by considering
motion abstractedly not only from the body moved, but likewise from
the figure it describes, and all particular directions and velocities,
the abstract idea of motion is framed; which equally corresponds to
all particular motions whatsoever that may be perceived by sense.