Skip to main content

An Essay Concerning Human Understanding - Book IV Chapter XXI: Of the Division of the Sciences

1. Science may be divided into three sorts. All that can fall within the compass of human understanding, being either, First, the nature of things, as they are in themselves, their relations, and their manner of operation : or, Secondly, that which man himself ought to do, as a rational and voluntary agent, for the attainment of any end, especially happiness : or, Thirdly, the ways and means whereby the knowledge of both the one and the other of these is attained and communicated ; I think science may be divided properly into these three sorts : –

2. Physica. First, The knowledge of things, as they are in their own proper beings, their constitution, properties, and operations ; whereby I mean not only matter and body, but spirits also, which have their proper natures, constitutions, and operations, as well as bodies. This, in a little more enlarged sense of the word, I call Phusike, or natural philosophy. The end of this is bare speculative truth : and whatsoever can afford the mind of man any such, falls under this branch, whether it be God himself, angels, spirits, bodies ; or any of their affections, as number, and figure, &c.

3. Practica. Secondly, Praktike, The skill of right applying our own powers and actions, for the attainment of things good and useful. The most considerable under this head is ethics, which is the seeking out those rules and measures of human actions, which lead to happiness, and the means to practise them. The end of this is not bare speculation and the knowledge of truth ; but right, and a conduct suitable to it.

4. Semeiotike. Thirdly, the third branch may be called Semeiotike, or the doctrine of signs ; the most usual whereof being words, it is aptly enough termed also Logike, logic : the business whereof is to consider the nature of signs, the mind makes use of for the understanding of things, or conveying its knowledge to others. For, since the things the mind contemplates are none of them, besides itself, present to the understanding, it is necessary that something else, as a sign or representation of the thing it considers, should be present to it : and these are ideas. And because the scene of ideas that makes one man’s thoughts cannot be laid open to the immediate view of another, nor laid up anywhere but in the memory, a no very sure repository : therefore to communicate our thoughts to one another, as well as record them for our own use, signs of our ideas are also necessary : those which men have found most convenient, and therefore generally make use of, are articulate sounds. The consideration, then, of ideas and words as the great instruments of knowledge, makes no despicable part of their contemplation who would take a view of human knowledge in the whole extent of it. And perhaps if they were distinctly weighed, and duly considered, they would afford us another sort of logic and critic, than what we have been hitherto acquainted with.

5. This is the first and most general division of the objects of our understanding. This seems to me the first and most general, as well as natural division of the objects of our understanding. For a man can employ his thoughts about nothing, but either, the contemplation of things themselves, for the discovery of truth ; or about the things in his own power, which are his own actions, for the attainment of his own ends ; or the signs the mind makes use of both in the one and the other, and the right ordering of them, for its clearer information. All which three, viz, things, as they are in themselves knowable ; actions as they depend on us, in order to happiness ; and the right use of signs in order to knowledge, being toto coelo different, they seemed to me to be the three great provinces of the intellectual world, wholly separate and distinct one from another.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Two Treatises of Government

TWO TREATISES OF GOVERNMENT BY JOHN LOCKE In the Former, The False Principles, and Foundation OF Sir ROBERT FILMER, And his Followers, ARE Detected and Overthrown. The Latter Is an ESSAY CONCERNING THE True Original, Extent, and End OF Civil Government. The Preface BOOK I: The First Treatise of Government: The False Principles and Foundations of Sir Robert Filmer, and His Followers, are Detected and Overthrown Chapter 1: The Introduction Chapter 2: Of Paternal and Regal Power Chapter 3: Of Adam’s Title to Sovereignty, by Creation Chapter 4: Of Adam’s Title to Sovereignty, by Donation Chapter 5: Of Adam’s Title to Sovereignty, by the Subjection of Eve Chapter 6: Of Adam’s Title to Sovereignty, by Fatherhood Chapter 7: Of Fatherhood and Property, as Fountains of Sovereignty Chapter 8: Of the Conveyance of Adam’s Sovereign Monarchial Power Chapter 9: Of Monarchy, by Inheritance from Adam Chapter 10: Of the Heir to the Monarchial Power of Adam Chapter 11: Who Heir? BOOK II: The Second Trea
Post a Comment
Read more

John Locke Biography

John Locke was born in 1632, during the reign of Charles I, and died in 1704, two years after the accession of Queen Anne. His life covered an unusually turbulent period of English history and his fortunes were affected by the stresses of the times in which he lived. He was born at Wrington in Somerset, the son of a West Country lawyer. The Civil War broke out when young John Locke was ten years old and his father joined the Parliamentary army. John Locke spent his childhood in Somerset and at the age of fourteen was sent to Westminster School where he stayed until his election to a junior studentship at Christ Church, Oxford, in 1652. From his Thoughts on Education, published in 1693, John Locke seems not to have been favorably impressed either by the curriculum at Westminster or with the savage discipline of the English public school of his time.
Post a Comment
Read more

Of the Conduct of the Understanding

Of the Conduct of the Understanding by John Locke 1706 Section 01. Introduction. The last resort a man has recourse to in the conduct of himself is his understanding; for though we distinguish the faculties of the mind and give the supreme command to the will as to an agent, yet the truth is, the man which is the agent determines himself to this or that voluntary action upon some precedent knowledge or appearance of knowledge in the understanding. No man ever sets himself about anything but upon some view or other which serves him for a reason for what he does; and whatsoever faculties he employs, the understanding, with such light as it has, well or ill informed, constantly leads; and by that light, true or false, all his operative powers are directed. The will itself, how absolute and uncontrollable however it may be thought, never fails in its obedience to the dictates of the understanding. Temples have their sacred images, and we see what influence they have always had over a great
Post a Comment
Read more