It
is readily allowed, that other beings may possess many senses of which
we can have no conception; because the ideas of them have never been
introduced to us in the only manner by which an idea can have access
to the mind, to wit, by the actual feeling and sensation.
16. There is, however, one contradictory phenomenon, which may prove
that it is not absolutely impossible for ideas to arise, independent
of their correspondent impressions. I believe it will readily be
allowed, that the several distinct ideas of colour, which enter by the
eye, or those of sound, which are conveyed by the ear, are really
different from each other; though, at the same time, resembling. Now
if this be true of different colours, it must be no less so of the
different shades of the same colour; and each shade produces a
distinct idea, independent of the rest. For if this should be
denied, it is possible, by the continual gradation of shades, to run a
colour insensibly into what is most remote from it; and if you will
not allow any of the means to be different, you cannot, without
absurdity, deny the extremes to be the same. Suppose, therefore, a
person to have enjoyed his sight for thirty years, and to have
become perfectly acquainted with colours of all kinds except one
particular shade of blue, for instance, which it never has been his
fortune to meet with.
Pages:
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34