John Locke. Elements of Natural Philosophy. In Vol. 2 of The Works of John Locke, 472-96. London: George Bell and Sons, 1877.

Chapter 10. Of Animals

488 THERE is another sort of creatures belonging to this our earth, rather as inhabitants than parts of it. They differ in this from plants, that they are not fixed to any one place, but have a freedom of motion up and down, and, besides, have sense to guide them in their motions.

Man and brute divide all the animals of this our globe.

Brutes may be considered as either aerial, terrestrial, aquatic, or amphibious. I call those aerial which have wings, wherewith they can support themselves in the air. Terrestrial are those whose only place of rest is upon the earth. Aquatic are those whose constant abode is upon the water. Those are called amphibious, which live freely in the air upon the earth, and yet are observed to live long upon the water, as if they were natural inhabitants of that element; though it be worth the examination to know whether any of those creatures that live at their ease, and by choice, a good while or at any time upon the earth, can live a long time together perfectly under water.

Aerial animals may be subdivided into birds, and flies.

Fishes, which are the chief part of aquatic animals, may be divided into shell-fishes, scaly fishes, and those that have neither apparent scales nor shells.

And the terrestrial animals may be divided into quadrupeds or beasts, reptiles, which have many feet, and serpents, which have no feet at all.

Insects, which in their several changes belong to several of the before-mentioned divisions, may be considered together as one great tribe of animals. They are called insects, from a separation in the middle of their bodies, whereby they are, as it were, cut into two parts, which are joined together by a small ligature; as we see in wasps, common flies, and the like.

Besides all these, there are some animals that are not perfectly of these kinds, but placed, as it were, in the middle [489] betwixt two of them, by something of both; as bats, which have something of beasts and birds in them.

Some reptiles of the earth, and some of aquatics, want one or more of the senses which are in perfecter animals; as worms, oysters, cockles, &c.

Animals are nourished by food, taken in at the mouth, digested in the stomach, and thence by fit vessels distributed over the whole body, as is described in books of anatomy.

The greatest part of animals have five senses, viz. seeing, hearing, smelling, tasting, and feeling. These, and the way of nourishment of animals, we shall more particularly consider; because they are common to man with beasts.

The way of nourishment of animals, particularly of man, is by food taken in at the mouth, which being chewed there, is broken and mixed with the saliva, and thereby prepared for an easier and better digestion in the stomach.

When the stomach has performed its office upon the food, it protrudes it into the guts, by whose peristaltic motion it is gently conveyed along through the guts, and, as it passes, the chyle, which is the nutritive part, is separated from the excrementitious, by the lacteal veins; and from thence conveyed into the blood, with which it circulates till itself be concocted into blood. The blood, being by the vena cava brought into the right ventricle of the heart, by the contraction of that muscle, is driven through the arteria pulmonaris into the lungs; where the constantly inspired air mixing with it, enlivens it; and from thence being conveyed by the vena pulmonaris into the left ventricle of the heart, the contraction of the heart forces it out, and, by the arteries, distributes it into all parts of the body; from whence it returns by the veins into the right ventricle of the heart, to take the same course again. This is called the circulation of the blood; by which life and heat are communicated to every part of the body.

In the circulation of the blood, a good part of it goes up into the head; and by the brains are separated from it, or made out of it, the animal spirits; which, by the nerves, impart sense and motion to all parts of the body.

The instruments of motion are the muscles; the fibres [490] whereof contracting themselves, move the several parts of the body.

This contraction of the muscles is, in some of them, by the direction of the mind, and in some of them without it; which is the difference between voluntary and involuntary motions, in the body.

Chapter 12. Of the Understanding of Man

495 THE understanding of man does so surpass that of brutes, that some are of opinion brutes are mere machines, without any manner of perception at all. But letting this opinion alone as ill-grounded, we will proceed to the consideration of human understanding, and the distinct operations thereof.

The lowest degree of it consists in perception, which we have before in part taken notice of, in our discourse of the senses. Concerning which it may be convenient farther to observe, that, to conceive a right notion of perception, we must consider the distinct objects of it, which are simple ideas; v. g. such as are those signified by these words, scarlet, blue, sweet, bitter, heat, cold, &c. from the other objects of our senses; to which we may add the internal operations of our minds, as the objects of our own reflection, such as are thinking, willing, &c.

Out of these simple ideas are made, by putting them together, several compounded or complex ideas; as those signified by the words pebble, marygold, horse.

The next thing the understanding doth in its progress to knowledge, is to abstract its ideas, by which abstraction they are made general.

A general idea is an idea in the mind, considered there as separated from time and place; and so capable to represent any particular being that is conformable to it. Knowledge, which is the highest degree of the speculative faculties, consists in the perception of the truth of affirmative or negative propositions.

This perception is either immediate or mediate. Immediate perception of the agreement or disagreement of two ideas is, when, by comparing them together in our minds, we see, or, as it were, behold, their agreement or disagreement. This, therefore, is called intuitive knowledge. Thus we see that red is not green; that the whole is bigger than a part; and that two and two are equal to four.

496 The truth of these and the like propositions we know by a bare simple intuition of the ideas themselves, without any more ado; and such propositions are called self-evident.

The mediate perception of the agreement or disagreement of two ideas is, when, by the intervention of one or more other ideas, their agreement or disagreement is shown. This is called demonstration, or rational knowledge. For instance, the inequality of the breadth of two windows, or two rivers, or any two bodies that cannot be put together, may be known by the intervention of the same measure applied to them both; and so it is in our general ideas, whose agreement or disagreement may be often shown by the intervention of some other ideas, so as to produce demonstrative knowledge; where the ideas in question cannot be brought together, and immediately compared, so as to produce intuitive knowledge.

The understanding doth not know only certain truth; but also judges of probability, which consists in the likely agreement or disagreement of ideas.

The assenting to any proposition as probable is called opinion, or belief.

We have hitherto considered the great and visible parts of the universe, and those great masses of matter, the stars, planets, and particularly this our earth, together with the inanimate parts, and animate inhabitants of it; it may be now fit to consider what these sensible bodies are made of, and that is of unconceivably small bodies or atoms, out of whose various combinations bigger moleculæ are made: and so, by a greater and greater composition, bigger bodies; and out of these the whole material world is constituted.

By the figure, bulk, texture, and motion, of these small and insensible corpuscles, all the phenomena of bodies may be explained.

Wish I was able to draw better diagrams! Still piecing together what he understands the “creeping” animals to be (other than that they are reptiles and, presumably, bugs and amphibians).