the theory of ideas in gassendi and locke

8/12/2019 The Theory of Ideas in Gassendi and Locke

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The Theory of Ideas in Gassendi and LockeAuthor(s): Fred S. Michael and Emily MichaelSource: Journal of the History of Ideas, Vol. 51, No. 3 (Jul. - Sep., 1990), pp. 379-399Published by: University of Pennsylvania PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2709621.

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h e T h e o r y o d e a s nassendi a n d o c k e

FredS. Michael and EmilyMichael

There has recently been controversyover whether Gassendi should beconsidered the source of modem empiricism.1 Present day interest inGassendi's influence on Locke perhaps dates from the observation of R.I. Aaron in his book on Locke, firstpublishedin 1937,that Theinfluenceof Gassendi upon Locke, and indeed, upon English thought in general atthis period has been strangely neglected. 2 David Fate Norton in hispaper The Myth of 'British Empiricism' goes substantially furtherthan Aaron, asserting not only that Gassendi influenced Locke but thatGassendi,not Locke, is the founderof modem empiricism.3RichardKrollquestions the grounds for Norton's claim but concludes that there isevidence supporting an influence of Gassendi upon Locke.4While Locke did have contact with Gassendists in France, notablyFrancois Bernier,and owned a copy of Bernier'sAbregede la Philosophiede Gassendi, Kroll denies that this could be the source of Gassendistinfluence on Locke's essay;for as Kroll points out, much of the substanceof Locke's Essay was in draft form in 1671. At this time Locke had notmet Bemier and Bemier had not yet published his translation of Gas-sendi.5 The source of Gassendist influence on the early drafts of Locke'sEssay, Kroll suggests, is the translation of Gassendi'sPhilosophiaeEpicuriSyntagma published in Thomas Stanley's The History of Philosophy, awork found in Locke's library.6Kroll criticizes Norton for making use of a somewhat ahistoricalmorphological method, relying mainly on internal evidence, evidence

1 We gratefully acknowledge that research for this paper was partially funded by afellowship from the National Endowment for the Humanities.2 Richard I. Aaron, John Locke (3rd Edition; Oxford, 1971), 31.3 David Fate Norton, The Myth of British Empiricism, History of EuropeanIdeas,1 (1981), 336.4 Richard W. F. Kroll, The Question of Locke's Relation to Gassendi, JHI, 45

(1984), 339-59.5Ibid, 341.6Ibid, 347, 352-59.379

Copyright 1990 by JOURNALOF THE HISTORYOF IDEAS, INC.

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380 Fred S. and Emily Michaelof similarities in doctrine between Gassendi and Locke, to support theview that Gassendi influenced Locke.7 It does not follow from the factthat certain of Locke's views are similar to views of Gassendi, Krollargues, that Locke's views derive from Gassendi: there might have beenother sources for these views. As far as we can make out, this is Kroll'sonly justification for doubtingthe value of morphological evidence. Krollappears to agree with Yolton that Locke was indebted to a variety ofsources. As Yolton says: It would be difficult to say where ... are thedirect influences on Locke's Essay ConcerningHuman Understanding;but it is easy to find in Descartes, Malebranche, the logicians of the PortRoyal school, Gassendi, Boyle, and Burthogge, and many lesser men inseventeenth-centuryEngland almost all of the important epistemologicalprincipleslater worked into the fabric of Locke's book. 8 But the possiblesources are far fewer if we restrict our attention to those works whichcould have influenced the two 1671 drafts of the Essay; apart from theunspecified lesser men, there remain only Descartes, the Port Royallogicians, Boyle, and Gassendi. Of these, Boyle and the Port Royal Logi-cians are among the sources from which Locke could have obtained anindirect knowledge of Gassendist views; they are not sources of Locke'searly views in their own right.While Boyle was an experimentalistof genius, he was no innovator inepistemology, and epistemology was not one of his majorconcerns. Also,while he acknowledgesa debt to Descartes as well as Gassendi in physics,in epistemologicaldoctrine he is far closer to Gassendi than to Descartes.What we find of empiricist epistemological doctrine in Boyle is very likelyto have come from Gassendi.9With the Port Royal Logiciansthe situationis reversed. They follow Descartes on the whole and are hostile to Gas-sendi. Yet the authors of the Port Royal Logic had Gassendi very muchin mind. In many respects, Gassendi's Institutio Logica was a model forthe Port Royal Logic, and it appears to be the only epistemologicallybased logic prior to the Port Royal Logic. It is the first logic in the fourparts made standardby the Port Royal Logic: the first part is concerned

7 Ibid, 340.8 John W. Yolton, Locke and the Seventeenth Century Logic of Ideas, JHI, 16

(1955), 431.9As early as 1647, in a letter to Samuel Hartlib, Boyle describes Gassendi as a greatfavourite of mine (Robert Boyle, The Works,ed. T. Birch [London, 1772], xli). Somelight is cast on Boyle's denial that he had read Gassendi properly (cf. Kroll, 345), by aremark of Boyle at the beginning of his 1661 CertainPhysiological Essays. With respectto the Epicurean Syntagma, Descartes's Principles of Philosophy and Bacon's NovumOrganum, Boyle says: I purposely refrained, though not altogether from transientlyconsulting about a few particulars, yet from seriously and orderly reading over thoseexcellent ... books ... that I might not be prepossessed with any theory or principles(Works, I, 302). Boyle is not denying that he is familiar with these works; what he isdenying is that he has studied them. In Boyle's works on the whole, there appear to beonly occasional remarks having epistemological import.



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Gassendi and Locke 381with ideas, the second with judgment, the third with reasoning, and thefourth with order. Even the title of the Port Royal Logic, L 'Artde Penser,which in Latin is Ars Cogitandi,appearsto derive from Gassendi'sLogic.In the preface to his Logic Gassendi defines logic as ars bene cogitandi,the art of thinking well. The Port Royal Logic objects to this definitionon the grounds that it takes no art to think poorly and defines logic asthe art of thinking;from this definition the Port Royal Logic gets its title.But if Gassendi's Logic and the Port Royal Logic are similar in structureand approach, they are rivals in doctrine. The authors of the Port RoyalLogic are rarely in agreementwith Gassendi on epistemological doctrine,but they do presentthe main principlesof Gassendi'sempiricist epistemol-ogy, if only to identify them as dangerous, even ridiculous errors whichshould carefully be avoided. Owing to its phenomenal success, the PortRoyal Logic may have been-rather ironically, in view of the hostility ofthe authors of the Port Royal Logic to Gassendi-the most long-livedsource of information about Gassendi's views,10At any rate the empiricistdoctrine presented but not endorsed in the Port Royal Logic and theempiricist epistemology implicit in Boyle's work do seem, for the mostpart, to have been derived from Gassendi.

Only two of the figures identified in Yolton's list, then, could beultimate sources of the early drafts of Locke's Essay: Descartes and Gas-sendi. Under these circumstances,morphological evidence supportingtheinfluence of Gassendi on the early drafts of Locke's Essay seems far moresignificant than Kroll appears to recognize.Yet Kroll is quite correct in his belief that the evidence Norton citesin order to show Gassendi's influence on Locke is far from conclusive. Ofthe three features common to Locke and Gassendi mentionedby Norton,anti-dogmatism, the view that all knowledge has its origin in sensation,and the view that we have no knowledge of the real essence of things,11Locke could have derived at least the first two from many sources otherthan Gassendi. But it is probably a mistake to see the brief account inNorton's paper of what is known of Gassendi and of his relationship toLocke as anything more than an attempt to draw attention to an undulyneglected figure;and Norton's statement that Gassendi was the founderof moder empiricismseems most suitablytaken not as something Nortonthinks he has establishedbut as something which, in Norton's view, thosefamiliar with Gassendi's work can see to be true. To see if he is right, we

10The Port Royal Logic was first published as La Logique or L'Art de Penser (Paris,1662). Gassendi's empiricisttheory of ideas is discussed(and dismissed)in Part I, Chapter1. The structuralsimilaritybetween Gassendi's InstitutioLogica and ThePortRoyal Logicis somewhat obscured by additions to the text in later editions of the latter work. Theobjection to defining logic as the art of thinking well is in the second Discours, firstpublished in the 2nd edition (1664). References to the Port Royal Logic will be to the

definitive fifth edition (1683).I Cf. Norton, 335.



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382 Fred S. and Emily Michaelhave to look not at what Norton says of Gassendi but at what Gassendihimself says. We will try in this paper to show that Norton's claim iscorrect: Gassendi had a significant influence upon Locke; and Gassendi,not Locke, was the founder of moder empiricism.Kroll's account is valuablein its attemptto pursueAaron's suggestionof a Gassendist influenceon the earlydraftsof the Essay.This is importantin implying that Locke knew Gassendi's views much earlier than hasgenerallybeen conceded. Apart from this historicalpoint, if we pay specialattention to the early drafts of the Essay, we simplify the problem oftracing the influence of Gassendi upon Locke for two reasons. First, it isreasonable to expect these drafts to be relatively derivative; for at thetime Locke wrote them, he tells us, he had not thought much aboutepistemological questions. Second, since there were not many sourcesfrom which Locke could have acquired a knowledge of epistemologicaldoctrine at the time he was writing the early drafts, the influences onthese drafts should be relatively easy to detect. There are, however, prob-lems with Kroll's suggestion that Gassendi's Epicurean Syntagma, astranslatedby Stanley, was the source of Locke's knowledge of Gassendi.First, the edition of Stanley'sHistoryin Locke's librarywas publishedin 1687.12 Kroll thinks it likely that Locke had read the first edition ofthis work by 1671. This is certainly possible, but it is no less possible thatLocke had read the Epicurean Syntagma in the original Latin. Krolldoubts this on the groundsthat Stanley'stranslationappearedonly a yearafter the publication of the original and that the Latin of the original isproverbiallytortuous. Now as a matter of fact Kroll is mistaken inbelieving that the EpicureanSyntagma first appears in Gassendi's com-pleteworkspublishedin 1658. It was firstpublishedin 1649 as an appendixto the second part of Gassendi's mammoth Animadversiones n DecimumLibrumDiogenisLaertii.13At any rate, all that is at issue is whether Lockehad read the work by 1671 and whether, by that date, he could have read

12 See John Harrison and Peter Laslett, The Library of John Locke (Oxford, 1965),item #2755.13 The pagination of the EpicureanSyntagma is distinct from that of the rest of volumeII of the Animadversiones.The situation is fully describedin the Centre Internationalde

Synthese, Pierre Gassendi 1592-1655: Sa Vie Et Son Oeuvre(Paris, 1966), 187-88. TheEpicureanSyntagma should not be confused with the Syntagma Philosophicum,which isGassendi's most important philosophical work and occupies two of the six volumes of theOpera Omnia (Lyon, 1658). The Syntagma Philosophicum itself is essentially a revisedversion of the three-volumeAnimadversiones n Decimum LibrumDiogenis Laertii (Lyon,1649). The main difference between the Animadversionesand the Syntagma is that thetext is reorganized and the Syntagma contains a newly written section on logic, whichreplacesthe section on Canonic in the Animadversiones.Only two sections of the Animad-versionsare reprintedin the OperaOmnia: the EpicureanSyntagma and DiogenesLaertiiLiberDecimus, which contains the text of Diogenes Laertius Book X, a translation of thetext, together with some interpretivecomments and philological notes extracted from theAnimadversiones.



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Gassendi and Locke 383it in the original Latin or in Stanley's translation. In fact a knowledge ofthe Epicurean canons which Kroll contends influenced Locke need noteven have come from the EpicureanSyntagma;much the same text is alsofound in the survey of the history of logic beginning Gassendi's massiveSyntagma Philosophicumin a section surveying the logic of Epicurus,14and its doctrine is worked into the body of the Institutio Logica, the finalsegment of the logic of the Syntagma Philosophicum. Finally, that thedifficulty of the Latin of the Epicurean Syntagma would be enough todeter a seventeenth century thinker literate in Latin, as Locke certainlywas, seems hardly conceivable.15We may conclude that Kroll gives us noreason to believe that Locke's knowledgeof Gassendi came from Stanley'stranslation of the EpicureanSyntagma.The more basic question,however, is whether Kroll providesevidencethat Locke was familiar with the epistemological doctrines of the Epicu-reanSyntagma, and to this questionthe answer seems to be yes. Does thisestablish that Gassendi had an influence on Locke? Unfortunately, not.This is because of a second, more serious, problem with Kroll's account:the EpicureanSyntagma contains the views not of Gassendi but of Epicu-rus.16 Stanley's The History of Philosophy deals only with the sects ofancient philosophy, and Gassendi's EpicureanSyntagma is includedjustbecause it is an accurate account of the philosophy of Epicurus.17TheSyntagma is a handbook of the philosophy of Epicurus as reconstructedby Gassendi.Gassendi's own views divergein variousways from the viewsof Epicurus expounded in his handbook. Now the canons of sense whichKroll believes influenced Locke are Epicurean.To be sure, Gassendi doesaccept these and in fact builds upon them. But if this were the limit ofGassendi's influenceon Locke, then it would be more accurateto describeEpicurusrather than Gassendias a significantinfluence on Locke'sepiste-mology. Kroll provides us with morphological evidence indicating theinfluence of Epicureandoctrine on Locke's early epistemology. We haveno wish to dispute the value of this; it is certainlyof interest.The problemis that it establishes nothing about the influence of Gassendi's own views

14 Gassendi, OperaOmnia, I, 52-56.15 Virtually every educated person in Western Europe had a thorough knowledge ofLatin during the seventeenth century. University instruction was in Latin and works ofinterest to scholars, if not written in Latin, were quickly translatedinto Latin so as to begenerally available to the scholarly community. More than a third of the titles in Locke'slibrary were in Latin, according to Harrison and Laslett, 19.16 The Centre International de Synthese volume on Gassendi has the following com-ment (188): This Epicurean breviarycontains hardly a word of Gassendi himself: it is acollection of texts translated from the Greek, of verses of Lucretius put into prose, ofextracts from Cicero, etc.17 There is a real questionabout how widely known it was that the section on Epicurusin Stanley's History is a translation of Gassendi's Epicurean Syntagma, since the only

indication of this are two words near the end of the section on Epicurus: HithertoGassendus. See Thomas Stanley, TheHistory of Philosophy,2nd ed. (London, 1687), 935.



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384 Fred S. and Emily Michaelon Locke. If we wish to investigate this influence, we must look beyondthe EpicureanSyntagma.

The principlesource of evidence of Locke's knowledge of Gassendi isLocke's notebooks. Gassendi appearsto be mentioned explicitly only oncein the whole of Locke's published writings, in Locke's Third Letter toStillingfleet, and we are aware of no references to Gassendi in Locke'scorrespondence.But it was not Locke's practice to acknowledge sources;like many others in the late seventeenth century, Locke gives few explicitindications of where his intellectual debts lie. In Locke's library therewere two books of Gassendi, Bernier's Abrege and Gassendi's Life ofPeiresc, while Gassendi's objections to Descartes's Meditations are to befound in the copy of the Opera Philosophica of Descartes owned byLocke;18but neither these nor any other works of Gassendi are in the listLocke made in 1681 of the books he had at Oxford. To put this inperspective,only one work of Descartes is on this list, a volume of Descar-tes's letters.19On the whole, what we know of Locke's library in 1681,the earliest date for which there is any list at all, tells us little aboutLocke's philosophicalbackground.Locke's notebooks however are muchmore revealing. From time to time in the notebooks of the LovelaceCollection, according to Aaron, Locke quotes Gassendi'sopinion of vari-ous other thinkers.20Von Leyden informs us that there are quotationsfrom Gassendi'sLife ofPeiresc in Locke's notebook of 1664-66, and fromthe physics of the Syntagma Philosophicumin the notebook of 1667.21Cranston claims that Locke had read Gassendi'sDisquisitioMetaphysica,which contains a lengthy elaboration of Gassendi's objections to Desc-artes;22 resumably,Locke's notebooks are Cranston's source. Most inter-esting are the reportsof Antoine Adam and Olivier Bloch: Adam tells usthat in Locke's Medical CommonplaceBook, where Locke indicates whathe studied during 1659-60, there are notes on Gassendi,23while Bloch hasfound in Locke's Medical CommonplaceBook, for the years 1659-66, anextract on place from the Physics of Gassendi's Syntagma Philosoph-icum.24 Now the Syntagma Philosophicumwas available only in the sixvolumes of Gassendi's Operaomnia, publishedin 1658, suggesting that ata very early period, Locke had some familiaritywith the contents of thesevolumes. Other indications that Locke was familiar with Gassendi's viewsat an earlydate areprovidedby Locke's close associationduringthe 1660s

18 Harrison and Laslett, items #283, #1211, #603.19Ibid, item #604; also 270.20 Aaron, 35, n. 1.21 John Locke, Essays on the Law of Nature, ed. by W. von Leyden (Oxford, 1954),59, n. 1.22 Maurice Cranston, John Locke:A Biography(London, 1957), 102.23 Centre International de Synthese, op. cit., 159.24 Olivier Bloch, La Philosophiede Gassendi(The Hague, 1971), 198.



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Gassendi and Locke 385with Boyle and by the fact that during the 1660s Gassendi's influence wasat its height. Such are the grounds we have for believing that Locke hadan early knowledge of some of Gassendi's views.There may be very early indications of influence by Gassendi onLocke's epistemological views in Locke's Essays on the Law of Nature of1664. In the fourth essay we find:... [O]nly these two faculties [reason and sense-perception] appearto teach andeducate the minds of men and to provide what is characteristic of the light ofnature, namely that things otherwise wholly unknown and hidden in darknessshould be able to come before the mind.... As long as these two faculties serveone another,sensationfurnishingreason with the ideas of particular sense-objectsand supplying the subject-matterof discourse, reason on the other hand guidingthe faculty of sense and arrangingtogetherthe imagesof things derived fromsenseperceptions, thence forming others and composing new ones, there is nothing soobscure, so concealed, so removed from any meaning that the mind, capable ofeverything, could not apprehend it by reflection and reasoning.... But if youtake away one of the two, the other is certainly of no avail, for without reason,though actuated by our senses, we scarce rise to the standard of nature found inbeasts.... On the other hand, without the help and assistance of the senses,reason can achieve nothing more than a labourer can working in darkness behindshuttered windows ... reason is here taken to mean the discursive faculty of themind, which advances from things known to things unknown and argues fromone thing to another in a definite and fixed order of propositions.25Von Leyden attributes this passage to the influence of Culverwell.26 WhileVon Leyden does acknowledge that Gassendi had a significant influenceon Locke, he does not think that this influence can be found as early as1664. In the passage from Culverwell's Discourse of the Light of Nature,to which Von Leyden refers us, Culverwell writes:He [Aristotle] shows you ... an abrasa tabula, a virgin soul espousing itself tothe body, in a most entire, affectionate, and conjugal union, and by the blessingof heaven upon this loving pair, he did not doubt of a notional offspring andposterity;this makes him set open the windows of sense to welcome and entertainthe first dawnings, the early glimmeringsof morning light.... Many sparks andappearances fly from variety of objects to the understanding; The mind ...catches them all and cherishes them and blows them; and thus the candle ofknowledge is lighted. As he [Aristotle] could perceive no connate colours, nopicturesor portraitures n his externaleye: so neither could he find any signaturesin his mind till some outward objects had made some impression upon ... hissoft and pliable understanding impartially preparedfor every seal.... The mind... doth strongly evince that the true rise of knowledge is from the observingand comparing of objects, and from thence extracting the quintessence of somesuch principles as are worthy of all acceptation; that have so much of certainty

25von Leyden, op. cit., 147, 149.26Ibid, 41, 149.



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386 Fred S. and Emily Michaelin themthat they are near to a tautologyand identity,for this firstprinciplesare.27

There is in Culverwell's account of Aristotle's position the same im-plied empiricismas in the passages from Locke, and both Culverwell andLocke use the metaphorof the windows of sense. But the passage fromLocke concerns chiefly the cooperation of sense and reason, and reasonis characterized by Locke as a power by which what is not known bysense is inferredfrom what is. None of this is found in Culverwell, but itis found in Gassendi. In his InstitutioLogica, Part IV, Canon IV, Gassendiwrites:TheMethodof Judgmentnvolves he useof a doublecriterion r instrument fassessment,he sensesand reason.Sinceall thingsare eitherpresenteddirectly o thesensesorareperceivedbyreasonalone(remembering,f course,that in everycase it is the senseswhichultimately rovidehe material.. .),whenever here saquestion bout omethingwhichcanbe verifiedby the senses... we must referthe matterto the sensesandrelyuponthe evidencewhichtheysupply....Whenthe questionconcernsa matterwhichcan be resolvedby the under-standingalone,then we arerequiredo refer o reason,whichhasthe powertoinfer romsomething erceived ythe sensessomefurtherhingwhichthe sensesdo not perceive;or example, whether r not therearepores n theskin. Thatporesdo,infact,exist(howevermuchthey mayescape hesenses) s proved romtheconsiderationhat if theydidnot, therewouldbe no possibilityor thesweatwhich we perceiveon the outer surfaceof the skinto havemade its way therefrom the inside.Similarly,on the question whether here s a void, Epicurusinfers hatthere s fromtheconsiderationhatif therewereno voidtherewouldbe no motion,which the sensesdo, in fact,perceive.28The evident similarityof this with the passagefrom Locke's Essayson theLaw of Nature gives us some reason to believe that Gassendi's views hadan early influence upon Locke.In consideringthe extent to which Gassendi's influence is perceptiblein Locke's epistemology, we will restrict our attention to works of Gas-sendi that have significant epistemological content. Of these works wemay exclude the EpicureanSyntagma,as it contains the views of Epicurus,not Gassendi. If we concentrate on the content and not on the structureof the Animadversiones, t is basically an early version of the SyntagmaPhilosophicumand so need not be given independent consideration. Gas-sendi's basic epistemological principles can be found in his anti-CartesianDisquisitio Metaphysica,but this work contains no organized presentationof Gassendi's epistemology. Gassendi's purposein this work was to show

27 Nathaniel Culverwell, An Elegant and Learned Discourse of the Light of Nature(London, 1652), 90-92.28 Howard Jones, Pierre Gassendi'sInstitutio Logica (1658) (Assen, 1981), 160.



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Gassendi and Locke 387what is wrong with the views of Descartes, not to elaborate his own views.For an organized presentation of Gassendi's own epistemological views,we must look elsewhere. Kroll rejects the view that Gassendi's anti-Aristotelian work, the Exercitationesparadoxicae adversusAristoteleos,was influential on Locke, on the grounds that by the mid-seventeenthcentury, attacks on Aristotle were entirely commonplace. 29But not allattacks on Aristotle are alike, and there are distinctive features of Gas-sendi's critique also found in Locke. Consider, for instance, the views ofGassendi and Locke with respect to scientific knowledge conceived asAristotle conceives it, as a knowledge of real essences, real forms, realdifferences.

With respect to real essences there are, Locke says in the Essay, twoopinions:The one is of thosewho,usingthewordessence ortheyknownotwhat,supposea certainnumberof those essences,according o which all naturalthingsaremade,and wherein heydo exactlyeveryoneof thempartake, nd so becomeofthis or that species.The other and morerationalopinion s of thosewho lookuponall natural hings o have a real,butunknown, onstitution f their nsensi-bleparts; romwhichflow thosesensiblequalitieswhich serveus to distinguishthemone fromanother,accordingas we have occasion o rankthem intosorts,undercommondenominationsEssay,III.III.17).It is plain that Locke already accepted the second view in 1671, whenhe wrote, in Draft B of the Essay,30 hat the opinion that the specificconstitution and difference of things have depended on aform impedesa laborious and exact scrutiny into the nature of things, and a searchingout of all their qualities and properties (Section 72). Such a form, Lockeasserts, can be known only by its sensible properties, by the sensiblesimple ideas that are supposed to flow from it (Section 72). Also: ...[Mien have been taught that the severalspecies of things have had distinctessences, the knowledge of which was necessary for the clear knowledgeof this or that species. And so men have been led into a fruitless enquiryafter the essences of things thereby to find their distinct species (Section73).In the second book of the Exercitationes Gassendi argues similarlythat an ontology of matter, form, and privationtells us nothing about theessence of even the least of natural things, such as a flea. To know theessence of a flea, it is not enough to know that it is composed of matterand form; we must be able to answer questions such as

29 Kroll, 342.30 What is now known as Draft B of the Essay is John Locke, An Essay Concerningthe Understanding,Knowledge, Opinion and Assent, ed. Benjamin Rand (Cambridge,

Mass., 1931). Draft A is An Early Draft of Locke's Essay, ed. R. I. Aaron and JocelynGibb (Oxford, 1936).



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388 Fred S. and Emily Michael... just whatsort of matter hiswas,whatdispositionst requiredo receive hatform,for what reason it was distributed o that this partof it went into theproboscis,hatpartinto its feet,another nto its hairandscales,and the othersintotheremainder f itsbody,what was theactive orceandhowwasit broughtto bear whenit formedboth the entirebodyand its verydifferentparts n thisorder, his shape,this texture, his size, thiscolour.Again, ust what would the natureof this formbe, whatits origin,by whatforceis it stimulatedo action,howis its perceptive nd sentient aculty orged,how does it penetrate uch tiny bodytissues,which of the organsdoes it use,how doesit makeuse of suchorgans?By whatpowerdoes the flea biteyou sosharply o ingesthis nourishmentromyou,howdoes he digest t andassimilatepartof it in variouspassages, nd transform artof it intospiritswhichconservehim and mpartife to his entirebody,andeliminate tssuperfluous arts hroughhis differentwinding ntestines?Wheredoes the powertojumpso swiftlydwellin him?... What does he think whenhe does not want to be caught?Whatqualitiesresultfrom thatformdeepwithinhimand how?When his littlebodyiscrushed,whatbecomesof thatform?And a hundred therquestionsikethat.31It is plain from this that in the Exercitationes Gassendi maintains, likeLocke, the second, more rational opinion about real essences; and heseemsto have beenthe first in the seventeenthcenturyto takethis position.But the Exercitationes,although it may be the source of Locke's positionon real essences, does not seem otherwise to be an important source ofLocke's views.That leaves the SyntagmaPhilosophicum.Epistemologicalmatters aredealt with in two parts of this work: in the InstitutioLogica, particularlythe first part, and in that part of the Physics concerned with animalfunctions. In the latter Gassendi develops a faculty psychology, a psychol-ogy in which there is a hierarchicalarrangementof the powers of the soul:sensation, imagination and intellection. At the lowest level is sensation,by means of which the soul is aware of the external world; above this isthe imagination, which, among other functions, serves as the commonsense and which acts on and judges data derived from sensation; at thesummit is the intellect, which in turn acts upon and judges the productsof imaginative activity. While the senses and the imagination operatethrough organs of the body, the intellect, Gassendi argues, carries outfunctions (e.g., reflection upon itself and formation of universalconcepts)which no corporealorgancan perform; t is immaterialand, consequently,immortal.

Concerning matters such as these, Locke remarks:I shallnot at presentmeddle with the physicalconsideration f the mind;ortroublemyselfto examinewherein ts essenceconsists;or by what motions ofour spiritsor alterationsof our bodieswe come to haveany sensationby our

31 TheSelected WorksofPierre Gassendi,ed. and tr. CraigB. Brush (New York, 1972),98-99.



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Gassendi and Locke 389organs,or anyideasin ourunderstandings;ndwhether heseideasdo in theirformation,anyor all of them,dependon matteror not. These arespeculationswhich,howevercuriousandentertaining, shalldeclineas lyingoutof my wayin the designI amnowupon.It shall suffice o my presentpurpose, o considerthe discerningacultiesof a man,as theyareemployedaboutthe objectswhichtheyhave to do with (Essay,Introduction;DraftB, section2).Those who engage in speculations about the natureof the soul and so on,Voltairesays, write the romanceof the soul;Locke gives its history.32Wasthis the way Locke saw the matter? Did he consider questions such asthose about the nature of the mind as illegitimate in some way or as toospeculative?Locke says no such thing, only that questions such as theseare outside the scope of his project. What did he consider his project tobe? In the last chapter of the Essay Locke makes clear that he considersthe Essay to be a work in semiotic or logic. It is true that there are logicsin which questions such as those about nature of the mind, about how weacquire ideas and the like, are considered; the Port Royal Logic is anexample.But certainlyGassendi did not consider such questionsas properto logic. Gassendi praises Ramus's logic chiefly because it is pure logic;it contains nothing but logic.33Questions of the sort Locke declines toconsider are no more discussed by Gassendi in his Institutio Logica thanby Locke in his Essay. They are considered both by Gassendi and byLocke to be questions of physics. It is in the Physics of the Syntagma thatquestions about the nature of the mind are discussed, and properly so,according to Locke, who characterizes physics as:Theknowledge fthingsastheyare ntheirownproperbeings, henconstitution,properties,ndoperations;whereby meannotonlymatterandbody,butspiritsalso,whichhave theirpropernatures,constitutions, ndoperations, s well asbodies.... Theendof this is barespeculativeruth:and whatsoever anaffordthe mind of manany such falls underthis branch,whether t be God himself,angels, pirits,bodies;oranyof theiraffections, snumber ndfigure, tc.(Essay,IV.XXI.2).Locke is in effect following Gassendi's practice in not considering ques-tions about the nature of the mind and how it relates to the body in theEssay or the early drafts.

Now if Locke saw the Essay and the early drafts of it as logic, thenits antecedents are likely to be other works in logic, at any rate logic asseen by Locke. Most works in logic prior to 1671 were Aristotelian orRamist or involved some compromise between the two approaches.Locke's epistemological writings have little in common with any of these.Aside from these, the most notable works in logic were Gassendi's Insti-tutio Logica and the Port Royal Logic. Gassendi's Institutio Logica con-32 See Letter 13 of Voltaire's Lettres anglaises.33 Gassendi, Operaomnia, I, 89b.



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390 Fred S. and Emily Michaeltains the firstsystematic reatmentof the modern heoryof ideas.WhileDescartescertainlyprecededGassendi n his treatmentof ideas,he didnot treatthem n a systematicmanner;orhim,theywereonlyof inciden-tal interest,not of concernfor their own sake. Gassendi's reatmentofideas was quicklyfollowedby that in the PortRoyal Logic.The PortRoyal theoryof ideasis a systemizationof the Cartesian heoryand isembedded n a Cartesian onceptionof the natureof the mind and ofmentaloperations.The Gassendist nd Cartesian pproacheso thetheoryof ideaswere on the wholerivals,and it will be seenthat,in thisrivalry,Lockewas firmlyon the Gassendist ide. Referring he readerto Gas-sendi'sInstitutioLogica,Aaron remarks: Themeasureof Locke'sdebtto Gassendiwillprobablyurprise im. 34norder o determine he extentof this debt,we must examine n some detailthe theoryof ideasin thefirst part of the Institutio Logica.

Kroll suggests hat an important nfluenceon Locke'sepistemologywas the Canonicof Gassendi'sEpicurean yntagma.Now as hasalreadybeen mentioned, he canonsof the EpicureanSyntagmarepresent heviewsnot of Gassendihimselfbutof Epicurus sformulated yGassendi.Nonetheless,Gassendidoesacceptthem at leastin spirit,and their influ-enceis unmistakablyeflected n the InstitutioLogica.Thesecanonsaretheprinciple ourceof Gassendi's mpiricist pistemology.n the Epicu-reanCanonic herearetwo groupsof epistemologicalanons, hecanonsof senseandthe canonsof theanticipatio.35Therearefourcanonsof sense:(1) Sense is never mistaken;and thereforeevery sensation and everyperception f a phantasyor appearances true.(2) Opinion ollows fromsense,andis somethingadded to sense,capableof truth andfalsity.(3)Thatopinion s true which is supported, r not opposed,by the evidenceof sense.(4) Thatopinion s falsewhichis opposed,or not supported,bythe evidence of sense. Canons3 and 4 are intended to providenot adefinitionof truth,which for Gassendi s correspondence,uta criterionof truth.A moreprecise ormulation f the intent of Canon3 mightbe:thatopinion s true which the evidenceof sensesupportseitherdirectly(e.g.,thatsugar s soluble n water)orindirectlye.g.,thatthereareporesin theskin,that thereareatoms).Canon4 can be similarly eformulated.Correspondence ith sense is then,according o Canon3, the criterionof truth.Gassendi'sown viewis slightlydifferent.For him,the criterionof truth is correspondence ith sense assistedby reason.Inaddition o thecanonsof sense,thereare, n theEpicurean anonic,four canonsof the anticipatio: 1) Every anticipationor prenotion nthe minddependson the senses and doesthis by incursion,proportion,

34Aaron, 32.35These are given in the Operaomnia, I, 52-56, and also in III, 4-10. They are newlytranslatedin this paper.



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Gassendiand Locke 391similitude, or composition. (2) The anticipation is the very notion ordefinition of a thing, without which we may not enquire about, doubt,believe, nor even name anything. (3) Anticipation is what is basic in allreasoning, as that which we consider when we infer that one thing is thesame as another or different,conjoined with another or disjoinedfrom it.(4) From the anticipation of that which is evident, that which is notevident ought to be demonstrated. We have already encountered thefourth of these canons in our consideration of the Institutio Logica, PartIV, Canon 4, concerned with the cooperation of the senses and reason,where reason is said to be the power to demonstrate, from somethingevident, something which is not. The remainingthree canons of the antic-ipatio form the basis of the theory of ideas in the Institutio Logica, PartI.

Part I of the Institutio Logica is called Of the Simple Imaginationof Things and is concerned with the simple apprehension of things(apprehensionof things without affirming or denying anything of them)by means of images.36These Gassendi calls ideas, he tells us, becauseidea had become a familiar term. Ideas, for Gassendi, then are justimages. Part I of the Institutio Logica is Gassendi's theory of ideas andconsists of eighteen canons, which can conveniently be divided into fivegroups. The canons of the first group are the most important.The first canon asserts that the simple imagination of a thing is thesame as the idea we have of it. A clearand distinct idea Gassendi describesas a strong and vivacious image, such as we have of a man we have seenoften and recently, and to whom we have paid particular attention ascompared with the image of a man we have seen once only, in passing.This makes it plain that clearness and distinctness is not for Gassendi, asit is for Cartesians,a criterion of truth. An idea or image which is clearand distinct simply is one likely to represent its object more adequatelythan one which is not.The second canon, which can be seen to derive from the first canonof the anticipatio, formulates a fundamental empiricist principle: Everyidea in the mind derives its origin from the senses. Gassendi elaborates asfollows:This indeed s the reasonwhya man bornblindhas no ideaof colour.He lacksthe sense of visionby which he mightobtain t. It is alsowhy a manborndeafhas no ideaof sound,for he is without hesenseof hearing, hepowerby whichhe might acquiret. So therefore,upposinghis werepossible,a man who livedwithoutant senses ... would have no idea of anythingand thereforewouldimaginenothing.

36 The text of the Institutio Logica, Part I is in the Opera omnia, I, 92-99. A newedition of the Institutio Logica together with an English translation is in Jones, op. cit.;text of Part I (3-20), translation on 83-101. The translation of all passages cited in thispaper is ours.



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392 Fred S. and Emily MichaelIt is this then that the celebratedaying,There snothingn theintellectwhichwas notfirst in sense,means.This is also what is meantby the claimthat theintellect,or mind, is a tabularasa, on which nothinghas been engravedor

depicted.37Gassendi then holds that mind is a tabula rasa. This was a commonlyheld view, as Gassendi points out; but though not original, the argumenthe uses to support it appears to be.Concerning innate ideas, Gassendi remarks only that those who saythat there are ideas that are naturally imprinted, or innate, not acquiredby sense, do not prove this claim.For furtherdiscussion of whether there are innate ideas or principlesinnately known to be true, we must consult other works of Gassendi. Inthe Disquisitio Metaphysica,Gassendi tries to show that ideas claimed byDescartes to be innate (e.g., the idea of thing ) could not have beenacquired without the assistance of sensation.38In the chapter on theintellect in the Physics of the Syntagma Gassendi argues that not evenfirst principles are known innately to be true; we discover the truth ofeven the most general and indubitable principles, such as the whole isgreater than the part, by induction from experience. His argument is asfollows: When we firsthear this principleand understandwhat whole,part, and greaterthan mean, there occur to us instantaneously,as itwere, several examples of this sort, the house is greaterthan the roof, theman than his head, the tree than the branch, the book than the page;andat once it comes into the mind confusedly that all that we ever have seen,or ever could see, is like this, as a result of which without delay we admitthe principleto be true. 39This argumentis given in the PortRoyal Logic(Part IV, ChapterVI), where it is said to be as false as the doctrine thatall of our knowledge comes from the senses. But although it is quite clearthat Gassendi rejects innate ideas, there is nowhere in Gassendi's work apolemic against innate ideas like that in Book I of Locke's Essay.The third canon of Institutio Logica, I, asserts that every idea eitherpasses through sense or is formed from those which pass through sense.In addition to the ideas we have of the things we sense, as in the firstcanon of the Anticipatio,there are said to be ideas formedby increaseanddiminution, as when from the idea of a person of normal size, we formthe idea of a pygmy or giant; by composition, as when from the ideas ofgold and a mountain we form the idea of a golden mountain; and bycomparison or analogy, as when by analogy with a city we have seen weform the idea of one we have not. Ideas of incorporeals, such as God,according to Gassendi, are always analogical. Thus we form the idea of

37 Jones, 4.38 See OperaOmnia, III, 318-20.39 OperaOmnia, II, 458a;a condensed versionof this argumentis foundin theInstitutioLogica, III, Canon XVI. Jones, 61, 146.



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Gassendiand Locke 393God fromtheimageof some suchthingas a grandold man or a blindinglight.Therenowfollowa groupof threecanonsconcernedwith the forma-tion of generalideas. Everything hat exists and all that we sense issingular,Gassendiholds; t is the mindwhichoutof similar ingulardeasformsgeneralones(CanonIV).Themind canformgeneral deasin twoways.Oneway is byjoiningsimilarsingular deastogetherandformingthe idea of the collectionto which each of thesesingular deasbelong.Thus,fromtheideasof Socrates,Plato, Aristotle,andlikeindividuals,wecan form the idea, man, a generalor universaldea,sinceit applies oall of the individuals n the collection.The secondwayis by abstraction,by whichwe determinewhat featuresa groupof similarsingular deashave in common and, disregardingdifferencesbetweenthem, form aseparatedeaof the common eatures.Thisideais general, inceit repre-sentsthe featureswhicha groupof singulardeas share.Thus,whenthemind notes thatideas suchas thoseof Socrates,Plato,and Aristotlehavein commonthat they all represent wo-leggedanimalswith head erect,capableof reason, aughter,discipline,and so forth,it forms the idea ofa creaturewiththesefeatures,disregardingeatureswhich do not applyto all,such as thatone(Socrates)s the son ofSophroniscus,whileanother(Plato)is the son of Ariston,that one is tall,another hort; he ideaof acreaturewiththe commonfeatures s the general deaof man,obtainedby abstraction. rrationalanimals,Gassendibelieves,can formideasofcollectionsof things;they cannot,however,form general deasby ab-straction.

By collectionand abstractionromgeneral deas,ideas moregeneralare formed(Canon V). By joining togetherthe collections(or generalideas)of men, lions, goats, and so on, we get the collection(or idea),animals. oining his to thecollection, plants, ivesthemoregeneralcollection, living hings, o which(if we addthe collection inanimatethings )wegetthe stillmoregeneral ollection, corporealhings. Add-ing to this incorporealhings gives substances,which(when attri-butes s added)givesthe mostgeneralcollection, beings.By abstraction,once we have determined he featurescommontoman, o lion, and so forth,notingthat man, lion, andthe otheranimals have in common that all are animate creatures hat have thepowerof sensation,we obtain the general dea, animal. Animals andplantsare alike animatebodies,and so we get the general deaof livingbeings.Livingbeingsand non-livingbeingsare bothbodily;abstractingthis featuregivesus the notion of corporeal ubstance.Continuing hisprocessof abstraction,we can form the idea of substanceand finallyofbeing. A classificationscheme, such as the Tree of Porphyry,whicharrangesdeasin a sequence rom the most specificto the mostgeneral,is useful CanonVI),since t helpsus learn o classify hings, o formclearideasof things,and to gainclarity n definition,division,anddescription.



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394 Fred S. and Emily MichaelThat there are two waysof forminggeneral deas,by collectionandabstraction,mplies,althoughGassendidoes not say this explicitly, hatgeneralideas have a doublesignification.A generalidea signifiesthecollectionof objectsrepresented y the idea andalso the collectionof allthe propertiesheseobjectshavein common,consideredn abstraction;the former omesto be called n the PortRoyalLogic(PartI, ChapterVI)theextension,he latter hecomprehensionfideasor terms.Although hePortRoyal Logic is generallycreditedwith introducing he distinctionbetweenextensionandcomprehension,t is quiteclearly mplied n whatGassendisaysabout the two waysof forminggeneral deas.After this is a set of four canons concernedwith the perfectionofideas.A singulardeais saidto be the moreperfect, he morepartsof athing,and themoreof its attributesheidearepresentsCanonVII).Thesciences, incetheyreveal o us attributes f a thingaboutwhichwe wouldotherwisebe unaware,enableus to havemoreperfect deasof them.Ageneral deais moreperfect he moreit is completeandthe morepurelyit representswhat singularshave in common(CanonVIII). A generalideaobtainedby collection s the moreperfect, he more membersof thecollectionwe know.A general dea obtainedby abstractions perfect o

the extent that its featuresare sharedby the individuals t represents.Gassendiadds: It is trulydifficult,not to say impossible, o purelytoimaginemanin common, hathe is not large,smallnor of moderate ize;that he is not old, young,nor of an agein between; hat he is not white,black,nor of some otherparticular olour:but one shouldat leastkeepit in mind that the man wewish considered enerally,oughtto be free ofall these distinctions. 40hat is, evengeneral deasaresingulars;but iftheimageof a manis usedto representmanin general,t ought,as far aspossible,to be that of a typicalman. Finally,Gassendiclaims,an ideaobtainedby personalexperiences moreperfectthan one formedfromsomebodyelse'sreport(CanonsIX andX).The nextfourcanonsconsiderhow we canbemisled n forming deasand how error can be avoided.The senses can deceive(Canon XI), aswhena straight tickpartiallymmersedn waterappearsbent. Butwhenwe areawarethat someappearancemaybe deceptive,we can checktoseeif it is and so avoidbeingmisled.Wecan,forexample, ind out if thestick immersedn water s reallybentby taking t out of the water,andwe can find out if somethingwhich appears o be gold reallyis goldby usinga touchstone.We shouldalso take care not to be misleadbytemperament,tate of mind,custom,or prejudice Canon XII); by the

40Jones, 11. This passage calls attention to a problem with Gassendi's use of idea.While ideas may be general, images cannot be. Yet ideas, for Gassendi, are images.Gassendi really shouldn't speak of general ideas here at all, but instead of general notionsor conceptions, as he does elsewhere (e.g. Operaomnia, II, 441).



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Gassendiand Locke 395falsereportsof others CanonXIII);by ambiguous rfigurativeanguage(CanonXIV).The last four canonsof InstitutioLogica,I, elaborate he second andthirdcanonsof the anticipatio nd concernhow definition,division,andourknowledge f relationsdependupon deasand howideasare the basisof all we know.The idea of a thing s whatis formulatedn itsdefinitionCanonXV).We define a thing according o the idea we have of it, and the moreperfectly he ideawe haverepresentst, the more accurateourdefinitionwill be. What is defined s a species(individuals re the lowestspecies),and it is defined n termsofgenus anddifferentia.The ideaof a thingalsobringsaboutthe divisionof that thinginto species,parts,and attributes(CanonXVI). The moreperfectthe idea we have of a thing,the moreperfectly he divisionof genusinto species,whole intoparts,andsubjectinto attributescan be broughtabout. The idea of a thing also makesintelligiblets relation o otherthings(CanonXVII).We can conceiveathingnotjustas it is initselfbutinrelativeermsaswell,as whenSocratesis conceivedas the son of Sophroniscusr as the wisest of men.Finally,the morethingsof which a personhas ideasand the moreperfecttheideashehasof them,themorepowerfulhisknowledges (CanonXVIII).While certainsimilaritiesbetweenthis accountof ideas and Locke'sareeasyto see, the extent to whichLockeadoptsGassendi'saccountofideas is not at first sight evident.The similaritiesbetweenLocke andGassendiare overshadowed y oneverynoticeabledifference;here s nosignin the InstitutioLogicaof the most characteristiceatureof Locke'saccountof ideas,the systemof classifyingdeas,found n the 1671draftsaswellas theEssay.Butif we supplementGassendi's ccountof ideasbyLocke'sclassification,he resultcloselyapproximateshetheoryof ideasin the Essay.In fact,virtually he whole contentof the accountof ideasin InstitutioLogica,I, is incorporatedomewheren Locke'sEssayor inthe earlydrafts.Repeatedly,n both 1671draftsof the Essay(DraftA and DraftB),ideasare said to be imagesof things(as in InstitutioLogica,I, CanonI).But this Gassendistusage is not found in the Essay,whereideas aresaid to be perceptions,not images.Locke discussesthe clearnessanddistinctnessof ideasonly in the Essay;his viewis like that of Gassendi(CanonI). Our imple deasareclear, Lockesays, when heyare suchas theobjects romwhence heywere akendidormight, na well orderedsensation or perception,presentthem. So long as they retain theiroriginalexactness, heyareclear; heyare obscurewhentheyhave beenas it were,fadedor tarnished,by time (II.XXIX.2).Lockecertainlymaintains hat all our ideasderivefrom sense(as inInstitutioLogica,I, canon II). Gassendi'sargument n favor of this isfound n anexpanded ersion n DraftB, section66.Not onlycan a blindman have no ideaof color anda personwho has nevertastedpineapple



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396 Fred S. and Emily Michaelhave no ideaof its taste,but Lockeobserves, Couldwe supposea manto existandlive forsixty yearswithoutsightorfeeling,he would havenoother deasoftangiblequalitieshanhe hasofcolours. Thus,as Gassendimaintains, n individualwithno sensescouldhave no ideaseither.Muchof the materialof Draft B, section 66 is incorporatednto the Essay(III.IV.11-14),but its form s so altered hat tsconnectionwithGassendi'sarguments no longerrecognizable.Gassendi'sargument hat so-calledself-evident truths, such as the whole is greater than thepart, are derivedby induction romexperience,s foundin a qualified orm in Draft A,section11,whereLockeattributes urknowledge f themto the constantobservation f our senses. I thinkI maysaythat thewholeof themandall whereby hey gainsuchan assent(farther hanthose that arebarelyabout the signification f words) s onlyby the testimonyand assuranceof our senses(and f our sensescouldbringbutanyone instancecontraryto any of these axioms, the force and certaintyof that axiom wouldpresentlyail). Thischanges n DraftB. Whatwasattributedn DraftAto constant bservation f oursenses s saidin DraftB to be borrowedfromnumber, he evidencewhereof, f not solelygot, mostsatisfactorilyarisesfromthe clearanddistinctnotionswe have of numbers,andequalorunequalnthem section51).IntheEssayprinciplesuch asthewholeis greaterthan thepart are characterized s bareverbalpropositions(IV.VIII.11).Knowledgedoes notbeginwith suchprinciplesbut beganin the mindand was foundedon particulars IV.XII.3).Concerninghe formation f ideas,which Gassendi aysisbyincreaseor diminution, omposition,and comparison, r analogy,Lockesays inDraft A that this is by comparing,uniting, compounding, nlarging(section 2). In DraftB the understandings said to have the powerto

join ogether, nlarge, ompareone(idea)with another section20).IntheEssaythis is simplifiedo comparison ndcomposition; nlargementand diminution re understood o fall undercomposition II.XI.4,6).ForLocke he ideawe haveofGod is notpurelycorporeal, sit is forGassendi;butis acompositionwhich ncludes uch incorporeal deasas thinking,knowing,willing,existencewithoutbeginning,powerof motion (DraftA, section2).Locke,like Gassendi,maintains hat all that existsis particularbutthat we can formgeneral deas. About the formationof general deas,Lockesaysnothing n DraftA; he treatsthe matter mplicitly n DraftBand discusses t explicitlyonly in the Essay.AboutGassendi's wo waysof forminggeneral deas,by collectionandby abstraction,Lockedeniesthat theideaofa collection s a generaldea.Generalwords,heholds donot signifya plurality; or man and men would then signifythe same(Essay,111.111.12).n Locke'sview there is only one way of forminggeneral deas,and that is by abstraction.Now, Locke'saccount of howideasare formedby abstraction,s exactlylike Gassendi's.To formthegeneraldeaman,forinstance,we leaveoutof theideasofparticularmen



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Gassendiand Locke 397that which is peculiar o each,andretainonly what is commonto all(Essay,III.III.7;see also Draft A, section83a). Contrast his with theaccountof abstractionn the PortRoyalLogic(PartI, ChapterV), whichinvolvesno comparison f particulars ut consistsrather n attending osome of the attributes f a thing,disregardingthers.Ascent to ideasofgreatergeneralitys explainedby Lockejust as Gassendiexplainsthis;andLocke, ikeGassendi,llustrateshisascentusing he TreeofPorphyry(Essay,III.III.8and9;see alsoDraftB, section83a,84a). Finally,Lockemaintains,ust as Gassendidoes, that irrationalanimals,althoughtheycan form deasand evenhave somecapacity o reason,are devoidof anypowerto abstract Essay,II.XI.11).Lockespeaksaboutthe perfections f ideasin DraftsA andB muchas Gassendidoes; n theEssay,however,he seemsto abandon his termi-nology. It shouldbe notedthat Lockespeaksonly of the perfectionofgeneralideas.For an idea to be perfect,it must be both distinctandcomplete.A complexidea is distinctwhen it contains a collectionofsimple deasadequate o distinguisht fromanyotheridea, acollectionof simple deasas theyarereallyandconstantly n anyonesortof things,and belongnot to any other (sort of thing) ;a complexidea of some

sort of thing is perfect f it is distinctand, further,containsa completeenumerationf allthesimple deaswhicharein... (that)sortof things(DraftB, sections86a, 87a).Thiscorresponds xactlyto CanonVIII ofInstitutio Logica, I.Theproblemof errorand how it canbe avoided s treatedby Lockeprincipally n Book IV, chapterXX of the Essayand foreshadowednDraftA, section42. Locke does not seemever to takeskepticaldoubtsseriously,and so thereis no consideration f how senseexperiencemaydeceiveus,asthere s inInstitutioLogica,I, CanonXI. Theother mport-ant sources of error,consideredby Gassendi n CanonsXII and XIII(prejudicesf variouskinds,relianceon authority), re whatLocke n theEssay, IV.XX.7, calls wrongmeasuresprobability.These are: (1) Proposi-tions that are not in themselvescertain and evident but doubtfulandfalse,taken upfor principles,(2) Receivedhypotheses, 3) Predominantpassionsor inclinations, nd (4) Authority.Errorcan also arise,Gassendiholds(CanonXIV),fromambiguous r figurativeanguage.This is consideredby Lockein the Essay,III.IX.4and III.X.34.Onthesubject f error t shouldbe noted hat Lockeholdsthe doctrineimpliedin the first two EpicureanCanons. No sensation, dea, simpleapprehension,anbemistaken.Onlywhere here sjudgments there ruthor falsity. ... the ideas in our minds, being only so many perceptions orappearanceshere,none of them arefalse.... Fortruthandfalsity yingalwaysin some affirmation r negation,mentalor verbal,our ideasarenotcapable, nyofthem,ofbeing alse, ill the mindpasses ome udgmentonthem; hat s,affirms rdenies omething f them Essay, I.XXXII.3;see also DraftA, section8 and DraftB, section92).



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398 Fred S. and Emily MichaelWhereGassendisaysthat the ideaof a thingis what is put forthinits definition CanonXV), Lockedescribeshe definitionof a thingas anenumeration f all thesimple deasout of which thecomplex dea of it ismade(DraftA, section1;DraftB, section67). Concerninghedefinitionof a thing in terms of genus and differentia,Locke remarks that it ... isnotout ofnecessity,butonlyto savethe labourofenumeratinghe severalsimpleideaswhich the next generalword or genusstands for.... For,definitionbeingnothingbut makinganotherunderstand y wordswhatideathe termdefined tands or,a definitions best madebyenumeratingthose simpleideas that are combined n the significationof the termdefined Essay,III.III.10).Fromthis it is plainthatthe definitionof atermwhen bestmade as Lockeputsit would,as Gassendi ays,deter-mine its division nto species,parts,and attributes CanonXVI). Also,Lockenotes,as doesGassendiCanonXVII),that a thingmaybethoughtof, not absolutely,but as it relates to other things;thus Caius can bethought of not just as a man, but as husbandof Sempronia Essay,II.XXV.1;see alsoDraftA, section18andDraftB, section98). Finally,justasGassendi aysthat ourknowledge f things s thegreater,he moreperfect he ideas we haveof themand the morethingsof whichwe have

ideas(CanonXVIII),so Lockeclaimsthatourknowledges enlargedbygetting clear,distinctand constant deasof thethingswe wouldconsiderand know (Essay,Ist Ed, IV.XII.14),and we may surelyadd to thisthat the morethingsof whichwe have suchknowledge,he greaterourknowledges.Gassendi'sheoryof ideas s foundvirtually ntactevenin theearliestversionsof Locke's heoryof ideas.The extentto whichLockebuildsonGassendi's heory is somewhat obscured n the Essay due to its veryelaborate reatment f ideasand the diffuseness f its text. Yet acompari-son of the two theories eaves ittleroom to doubtthat Gassendi'sheorywas Locke'sstartingpoint.

There is much more to say about the relationof Locke's views tothose of Gassendi.We havebeen concernedn thispaperprincipallywithLocke'sdebt to Gassendi'sheoryof ideas,but Locke'sdebt to Gassendigoes well beyondthis. Otherareasin which LockeadoptsGassendistviews are specifiedby Leibniz at the beginningof his New EssaysonHuman Understanding, herehe says of Locke: This authorlargelyacceptsthe systemof Gassendi,which is at bottom,that of Democritus;he is forthe void andforatoms;he believes hat mattermightthink; hatthereare no innate deas; hat the mindis a tabularasa,andthat we donotalways hink;andheappearsnclined oapprovemostof theobjectionsGassendibroughtagainstDescartes. 41 o this it should be added thatLocke also acceptsGassendistviewson space,time,andinfinity.4241 Leibniz, Nouveaux essais sur l'entendement humain (Paris, 1966), 55-56.42 See Bloch, op. cit. ch. 6.



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Gassendi and Locke 399Yetbyno means s Lockea discipleof Gassendi;notonlydoesLockedevelopthe theoryof ideas farfurther hanGassendidoes,in important

respectshis epistemologys at oddswiththat of Gassendi. n a full scalestudyof the relationbetweenGassendiandLocke,this would have to bespelledout. But it is enoughfor the present o have shown that Nortonis correctin claimingthat the modem theoryof ideas originateswithGassendi.BrooklynCollege,CUNY.

the theory of ideas in gassendi and locke

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