[An Essay Concerning Humane Understanding, Volume II. by John Locke]@TWC D-Link book
An Essay Concerning Humane Understanding, Volume II.

CHAPTER IV
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OF THE REALITY OF KNOWLEDGE.
1.Objection.

'Knowledge placed in our Ideas may be all unreal or chimerical' I DOUBT not but my reader, by this time, may be apt to think that I have been all this while only building a castle in the air; and be ready to say to me:-- 'To what purpose all this stir?
Knowledge, say you, is only the perception of the agreement or disagreement of our own ideas: but who knows what those ideas may be?
Is there anything so extravagant as the imaginations of men's brains?
Where is the head that has no chimeras in it?
Or if there be a sober and a wise man, what difference will there be, by your rules, between his knowledge and that of the most extravagant fancy in the world?
They both have their ideas, and perceive their agreement and disagreement one with another.

If there be any difference between them, the advantage will be on the warm-headed man's side, as having the more ideas, and the more lively.

And so, by your rules, he will be the more knowing.


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