In short, it must not be entirely new, but
have something in it old and already perceived by me. It must, I say,
have so much at least in common with the ideas I have before known and
named as to make me give it the same name with them. But it has been, if
I mistake not, clearly made out that a man born blind would not at first
reception of his sight think the things he saw were of the same nature
with the objects of touch, or had anything in common with them; but that
they were a new set of ideas, perceived in a new manner, and entirely
different from all he had ever perceived before: so that he would not
call them by the same name, nor repute them to be of the same sort with
anything he had hitherto known.
129. SECONDLY, light and colours are allowed by all to constitute a son
or species entirely different from the ideas of touch: nor will any man,
I presume, say they can make themselves perceived by that sense: but
there is no other immediate object of sight besides light and colours. It
is therefore a direct consequence that there is no idea common to both
senses.
130. It is a prevailing opinion, even amongst those who have thought and
writ most accurately concerning our ideas and the ways whereby they enter
into the understanding, that something more is perceived by sight than
barely light and colours with their variations.
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