[An Essay Concerning Humane Understanding, Volume I. by John Locke]@TWC D-Link bookAn Essay Concerning Humane Understanding, Volume I. CHAPTER III 21/30
His cataracts are couched, and then he has the ideas (which he remembers not) of colours, DE NOVO, by his restored sight, conveyed to his mind, and that without any consciousness of a former acquaintance.
And these now he can revive and call to mind in the dark.
In this case all these ideas of colours which, when out of view, can be revived with a consciousness of a former acquaintance, being thus in the memory, are said to be in the mind.
The use I make of this is,--that whatever idea, being not actually in view, is in the mind, is there only by being in the memory; and if it be not in the memory, it is not in the mind; and if it be in the memory, it cannot by the memory be brought into actual view without a perception that it comes out of the memory; which is this, that it had been known before, and is now remembered.
If therefore there be any innate ideas, they must be in the memory, or else nowhere in the mind; and if they be in the memory, they can be revived without any impression from without; and whenever they are brought into the mind they are remembered, i.e.they bring with them a perception of their not being wholly new to it.
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