ABSTRACT
We have seen that, for Tracy, all our ideas come from the perceptions furnished by our senses; simple ideas are those given immediately by the senses, and other ideas are formed by separating and recombining simple ideas in complex ways. Our multitude of ideas have been generated by a small number of mental processes. The faculty of thinking, upon closer inspection, is seen to be composed of four more specialized faculties, all of which are modes of sensing or perceiving,and they account for all the activity of the mind. 1 1. Sensibility is our faculty of perceiving sensations, which are felt as simple pleasures or pains. 2. Memory is the faculty of being affected again by a past sensation. 3. Judgement is the faculty of perceiving relations, comparing and distinguishing between sensations, memories, simple and complex ideas, or any combination of these. If we suppose a perception of the relation between a pleasurable and a painful sensation, “there follows at once the desire to experience the one rather than the other.” 2 4. The will, or faculty of desiring, arises on the basis of our faculty of judgement, which in turn depends on our capacity to have simultaneous but distinguishable sensations.
