Some Further Considerations Concerning Our Simple Ideas of Sensation.
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In his composition, Some Further Considerations Concerning Our Simple Ideas of Sensation, John Locke debunks the rationalist belief in innate ideas, holding that the mind is born a blank upon which all knowledge is inscribed in the form of human experience. He distinguishes the primary qualities of things (e.g., extension, solidity, number) from the secondary qualities (e.g., color, smell, sound), which he held to be produced by the direct impact of the world on the sense organs. The primary qualities affect the sense organs mechanically, providing ideas that faithfully reflect reality; thus science is possible. Locke commences this composition by determining that a positive idea is anything whatsoever that causes any perception in the mind, by affecting our senses, and thus produces a realization of a simple idea. He then proceeds to distinguish ideas in the mind from that in things which give rise to them, "...it being...

