Essay Concerning Human Understanding Book II

by John Locke

Education Philosophy Psychology Religion

32 chapters14h 39mEnglish1812

About this book

John Locke wrote four essays on human (or humane) understanding. Here are a few quotes from the book: "I see no reason to believe, that the soul thinks before the senses have furnished it with ideas to think on. The dreams of sleeping men are, as I take it, all made up of the waking man's ideas, though for the most part oddly put together. Can the soul think, and not the man, or a man think, and not be conscious of it? Suppose the soul of Castor separated, during his sleep, from his body, to think apart. Let us suppose too, that it chooses for its scene of thinking the body of another man, v. g. Pollux, who is sleeping without a soul. Nobody can imagine that his soul can think, or move a body at Oxford, whilst he is at London. The question is, whether if the same substance which thinks, be changed, it can be the same person; or, remaining the same, it can be different persons? Whiteness and coldness are no more in snow than pain is."John Locke wrote four essays on human (or humane) understanding. The first and second have been recorded into LibriVox. This recording is a repetition of the second of Locke's Essays. All of his essays were, and are, very influential. Edward Stillingfleet 1635-1699 (Bishop of Worcester) wrote a Critique of Locke’s ideas and many letters to him. Locke’s Essays inspired Gottfried Leibniz (1646-1716) to write his New Essays Concerning Human Understanding and Victor Cousin analyzed all four books in his 1834 Elements of Psychology. - Summary by Craig Campbell

Chapters (32)

1Chapter 1 Of Ideas in general, and their Original

2400

2Chapters 2-7 Of Simple Ideas, Of Ideas of one Sense, Of Solidity, Of Simple Ideas of diverse Senses, Of Simple Ideas of Reflection, Of Simple Ideas of both Sensation and Reflection

1978

3Chapter 8 Some farther Considerations concerning our Simple Ideas

1636

4Chapter 9 Of Perception

933

5Chapter 10 Of Retention

872

6Chapter 11 Of Discerning, and other Operations of the Mind

1091

7Chapter 12 Of Complex Ideas

519

8Chapter 13 Of Simple Modes, and first of the Simple Modes of Space

2045

9Chapter 14 Of Duration, and its simple Modes

2150

10Chapter 15 Of Duration and Expansion, considered together

1974

11Chapter16 Of Number

682

12Chapter 17 Of Infinity

2665

13Chapters 18-19 Of Other Simple Modes, Of the Modes of Thinking

818

14Chapter 20 Of Modes of Pleasure and Pain

790

15Chapter 21 Of Power Part 1

1701

16Chapter 21 Of Power Part 2

2767

17Chapter 21 Of Power Part 3

2750

18Chapter 21 Of Power Part 4

1923

19Chapter 22-Of Mixed Modes

1138

20Chapter 23 Of our complex Ideas of Substances Part 1

1625

21Chapter 23 Of our complex Ideas of Substances Part 2

2494

22Chapters 24-26 Of Collective Ideas of Substances, Of Relation, Of Cause and Effect and other Relations

2017

23Chapter 27 Of Identity and Diversity Part 1

1989

24Chapter 27 Of Identity and Diversity Part 2

1142

25Chapter 27 Footnote: Locke discusses the Bishop of Worchester Part 1

2552

26Chapter 27 Footnote: Locke discusses the Bishop of Worchester Part 2

1950

27Chapter 28 Of Moral Relations

1807

28Chapter 29 Of Clear and Obscure, Distinct and Confused Ideas

1441

29Chapter 30 Of Real and Fantastical Ideas

595

30Chapter 31 Of adequate and inadequate Ideas

1473

31Chapter 32 Of True and False Ideas

1584

32Chapter 33 Of the Association of Ideas

1275

Essay Concerning Human Understanding Book II

About this book

Chapters (32)

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