An Analysis of John Locke's Essay

John Locke’s essay, “Some Further Considerations Concerning Our Simple Ideas of Sensation”, presents us with the distinction of qualities, primary and secondary.  Both of these qualities are used to explain the thought process of identifying and defining what an object is.  The primary qualities are used to depict the hard definition that everyone uses for a particular thing.  The descriptions added by an individual beyond the primary qualities that are that particular objects secondary qualities.  According to Locke, the secondary qualities only inhabit a person’s mind.  

A person can understand what the definition of a table is, but they can’t really understand what the table is until they use the secondary qualities of the table.  Locke furthers his interpretation of ideas by examining ideas as perceptions of reality in the mind.  When our mind gives us an object of understanding, such as light bulbs in cartoons, that is an idea.  The power behind someone’s mind to view the external qualities of a certain object produces the power to have ideas that are seen as sensations or perceptions in an individual’s understanding.  Quality is behind the power of the mind to produce ideas.

The ideas of primary and secondary qualities are produced by a person’s impulse.  Primary qualities are produced within people by the perception produced by the use of the senses in defining what is being looked at.  The secondary qualities are also produced in much of the same way.  However, through most of our own experiences we tend to take the analysis of our sense’s perceptions to go way beyond the primary definition of the object.  People use their senses to take in more of the detail of the object that they are looking at.  The link between primary definition and the actual object is because the definition comes from that object.  There is, however, not a very good link between the secondary definitions of the object and the object.