{
    "schema": "prokopton42-public-passage-v1",
    "id": "locke.essay_human_understanding",
    "canonical_url": "https://prokopton42.com/en/works/john-locke/essay-human-understanding/reference-b2-c21-s35/",
    "language": "en",
    "title": "An Essay Concerning Human Understanding",
    "author": "John Locke",
    "date": "1689-1700; revised lifetime editions",
    "summary": "The Essay examines the origin and composition of ideas, personal identity, and the limits of knowledge.",
    "learning": "Take a disputed term, trace the ideas composing it, then separate what experience warrants as knowledge from what remains probable judgment.",
    "long_summary": "This edition joins three English Gutenberg transcriptions to Pierre Coste’s historical French translation. Canonical identity follows book, chapter and section. Sections missing from one manifestation remain monolingual and are never attached to a neighbor.\n\nThe reading distinguishes sensation and reflection, simple and complex ideas, qualities, identity, knowledge and probability. The 1975 editorial PDF remains a doxographer witness outside dialogue.",
    "historical_context": "The corpus manifests do not yet establish the precise place and circumstances of composition. The images below document the author’s world or the text’s transmission. They do not claim to show the exact scene of writing.",
    "material_world_label": "World of 1989",
    "material_world": {
        "technology": "Personal computers, satellites, video, industrial robots, and expensive mobile phones exist, but the public Web does not yet.",
        "science": "Computing, genetics, climate science, cosmology, and medical imaging produce growing data and international collaboration.",
        "medicine": "CT, MRI, transplantation, vaccines, and intensive care advance; the AIDS epidemic exposes both medical capacity and its limits.",
        "transport": "Cars, high-speed rail, metros, aircraft, and containers globalize people and goods.",
        "agriculture": "Machinery, chemical inputs, breeding, and cold chains support high yields with increasingly debated social and environmental costs.",
        "communication": "Fixed telephones, fax, television, radio, and newspapers predominate. Email and computer networks remain mainly professional or academic.",
        "clothing": "Loose suits, jeans, trainers, women’s power suits, sportswear, and urban subcultures create highly varied silhouettes."
    },
    "material_world_scenes": [
        {
            "asset": "/assets/timeline/landmarks/30-1989-ce/world-01.webp",
            "title": "Technology, science, and care",
            "description": "Personal computers, satellites, video, industrial robots, and expensive mobile phones exist, but the public Web does not yet. Computing, genetics, climate science, cosmology, and medical imaging produce growing data and international collaboration. CT, MRI, transplantation, vaccines, and intensive care advance; the AIDS epidemic exposes both medical capacity and its limits."
        },
        {
            "asset": "/assets/timeline/landmarks/30-1989-ce/world-02.webp",
            "title": "Travel and communication",
            "description": "Cars, high-speed rail, metros, aircraft, and containers globalize people and goods. Fixed telephones, fax, television, radio, and newspapers predominate. Email and computer networks remain mainly professional or academic."
        },
        {
            "asset": "/assets/timeline/landmarks/30-1989-ce/world-03.webp",
            "title": "Farming and food",
            "description": "Machinery, chemical inputs, breeding, and cold chains support high yields with increasingly debated social and environmental costs."
        },
        {
            "asset": "/assets/timeline/landmarks/30-1989-ce/world-04.webp",
            "title": "Clothing, women and men",
            "description": "Loose suits, jeans, trainers, women’s power suits, sportswear, and urban subcultures create highly varied silhouettes."
        }
    ],
    "intellectual_tradition": {
        "id": "modern-philosophy",
        "label": "Modern and contemporary philosophy"
    },
    "period": {
        "id": "modern",
        "label": "Modern era"
    },
    "languages": [
        "en",
        "fr"
    ],
    "manifestations": [
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            "coverage": "complete_for_attested_edition_boundaries",
            "file": "data/corpus/normalized/john_locke/essay_human_understanding/representations/en.ndjson",
            "language": "en",
            "records": 1079,
            "role": "source_language_transcription",
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            "coverage": "complete_for_attested_edition_boundaries",
            "file": "data/corpus/normalized/john_locke/essay_human_understanding/representations/fr.ndjson",
            "language": "fr",
            "records": 1093,
            "role": "historical_translation",
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        {
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            "file": "data/corpus/normalized/john_locke/essay_human_understanding/representations/ai-generated/en-gpt-5-6-sol-corpus-passage-translation-v1.ndjson",
            "generated_on": "2026-09-30",
            "language": "en",
            "model": "gpt-5.6-sol",
            "official_status": "non_official",
            "prompt_version": "corpus-passage-translation-v1",
            "provider": "codex_subscription",
            "records": 35,
            "role": "ai_generated_translation_non_official",
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            "source_id": "prokopton42-codex-translation:gpt-5.6-sol:corpus-passage-translation-v1",
            "translation_type": "ai_generated_translation"
        },
        {
            "coverage": "fills_missing_source_attested_coverage",
            "file": "data/corpus/normalized/john_locke/essay_human_understanding/representations/ai-generated/fr-gpt-5-6-sol-corpus-passage-translation-v1.ndjson",
            "generated_on": "2026-09-30",
            "language": "fr",
            "model": "gpt-5.6-sol",
            "official_status": "non_official",
            "prompt_version": "corpus-passage-translation-v1",
            "provider": "codex_subscription",
            "records": 21,
            "role": "ai_generated_translation_non_official",
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            "source_id": "prokopton42-codex-translation:gpt-5.6-sol:corpus-passage-translation-v1",
            "translation_type": "ai_generated_translation"
        }
    ],
    "concepts": [
        {
            "id": "anger",
            "label": "Anger"
        },
        {
            "id": "care_of_soul",
            "label": "Care of the soul"
        },
        {
            "id": "degrees_of_knowledge_and_probability",
            "label": "Degrees of knowledge and probability"
        },
        {
            "id": "desire",
            "label": "Desire"
        },
        {
            "id": "faith",
            "label": "Faith"
        },
        {
            "id": "family",
            "label": "Family"
        },
        {
            "id": "hope",
            "label": "Hope"
        },
        {
            "id": "ideas_from_sensation_and_reflection",
            "label": "Ideas from sensation and reflection"
        },
        {
            "id": "impressions_and_assent",
            "label": "Impressions and assent"
        },
        {
            "id": "justice",
            "label": "Justice"
        },
        {
            "id": "knowledge",
            "label": "Knowledge"
        },
        {
            "id": "law",
            "label": "Law"
        },
        {
            "id": "love",
            "label": "Love"
        },
        {
            "id": "messiah",
            "label": "Messiah"
        },
        {
            "id": "mindfulness",
            "label": "Mindfulness"
        },
        {
            "id": "necessity",
            "label": "Necessity"
        },
        {
            "id": "nominal_and_real_essence",
            "label": "Nominal and real essence"
        },
        {
            "id": "personal_identity_and_consciousness",
            "label": "Personal identity and consciousness"
        },
        {
            "id": "pleasure",
            "label": "Pleasure"
        },
        {
            "id": "poverty_wealth",
            "label": "Poverty and wealth"
        },
        {
            "id": "primary_and_secondary_qualities",
            "label": "Primary and secondary qualities"
        },
        {
            "id": "reason",
            "label": "Reason"
        },
        {
            "id": "roles",
            "label": "Roles and relationships"
        },
        {
            "id": "simple_and_complex_ideas",
            "label": "Simple and complex ideas"
        },
        {
            "id": "sin",
            "label": "Sin"
        },
        {
            "id": "spirit",
            "label": "Spirit"
        },
        {
            "id": "suffering",
            "label": "Suffering"
        },
        {
            "id": "time",
            "label": "Time"
        },
        {
            "id": "tranquillity",
            "label": "Tranquillity"
        },
        {
            "id": "virtue",
            "label": "Virtue"
        },
        {
            "id": "wisdom",
            "label": "Wisdom"
        }
    ],
    "source_work_ids": [
        "locke.essay_human_understanding"
    ],
    "passages": 1114,
    "word_count": 257071,
    "word_counts_by_language": {
        "en": 257071,
        "fr": 297020
    },
    "editorial_status": "gpt_5_6_semantic_draft_v1",
    "structure": {
        "citation_scheme": "locke-essay-book-chapter-section-v1",
        "kind": "native",
        "levels": [
            {
                "key": "book",
                "label_fr": "Livre",
                "label_en": "Book"
            },
            {
                "key": "chapter",
                "label_fr": "Chapitre",
                "label_en": "Chapter"
            },
            {
                "key": "section",
                "label_fr": "Section",
                "label_en": "Section"
            }
        ],
        "leaf_fr": "Section",
        "leaf_en": "Section"
    },
    "canonical_passage_id": "passage:locke.essay_human_understanding:B2.C21.S35",
    "canonical_ref": "B2.C21.S35",
    "canonical_parent_ref": null,
    "canonical_parent_id": null,
    "representations": [
        {
            "language": "en",
            "text": "It seems so established and settled a maxim, by the general consent of all mankind, that good, the greater good, determines the will, that I do not at all wonder that, when I first published my thoughts on this subject I took it for granted; and I imagine that, by a great many, I shall be thought more excusable for having then done so, than that now I have ventured to recede from so received an opinion. But yet, upon a stricter inquiry, I am forced to conclude that GOOD, the GREATER GOOD, though apprehended and acknowledged to be so, does not determine the will, until our desire, raised proportionably to it, makes us uneasy in the want of it. Convince a man never so much, that plenty has its advantages over poverty; make him see and own, that the handsome conveniences of life are better than nasty penury: yet, as long as he is content with the latter, and finds no uneasiness in it, he moves not; his will never is determined to any action that shall bring him out of it. Let a man be ever so well persuaded of the advantages of virtue, that it is as necessary to a man who has any great aims in this world, or hopes in the next, as food to life: yet, till he hungers or thirsts after righteousness, till he FEELS AN UNEASINESS in the want of it, his WILL will not be determined to any action in pursuit of this confessed greater good; but any other uneasiness he feels in himself shall take place, and carry his will to other actions. On the other side, let a drunkard see that his health decays, his estate wastes; discredit and diseases, and the want of all things, even of his beloved drink, attends him in the course he follows: yet the returns of uneasiness to miss his companions, the habitual thirst after his cups at the usual time, drives him to the tavern, though he has in his view the loss of health and plenty, and perhaps of the joys of another life: the least of which is no inconsiderable good, but such as he confesses is far greater than the tickling of his palate with a glass of wine, or the idle chat of a soaking club. It is not want of viewing the greater good: for he sees and acknowledges it, and, in the intervals of his drinking hours, will take resolutions to pursue the greater good; but when the uneasiness to miss his accustomed delight returns, the greater acknowledged good loses its hold, and the present uneasiness determines the will to the accustomed action; which thereby gets stronger footing to prevail against the next occasion, though he at the same time makes secret promises to himself that he will do so no more; this is the last time he will act against the attainment of those greater goods. And thus he is, from time to time, in the state of that unhappy complainer, Video meliora, proboque, deteriora sequor: which sentence, allowed for true, and made good by constant experience, may in this, and possibly no other way, be easily made intelligible.",
            "edition": "Project Gutenberg transcription of Locke author text",
            "source_id": "gutenberg-10615",
            "translation_type": "source_language_transcription"
        },
        {
            "language": "fr",
            "text": "C’eſt une Maxime ſi fort établie par le conſentement général de tous les hommes, Que c’eſt le Bien & le plus grand Bien qui détermine la Volonté, que je ſuis nullement ſurpris d’avoir ſuppoſé cela comme indubitable, la prémiére fois que je publiai mes penſées ſur cette matiére ; & je penſe que bien des gens m’excuſeront plûtôt d’avoir adopté cette Maxime, que de ce que je me hazarde préſentement à m’éloigner d’une Opinion ſi généralement reçuë. Cependant, après une plus exacte recherche, je me ſens forcé de conclurre, que le Bien & le plus grand Bien, quoi que jugé & reconnu tel, ne détermine point la Volonté ; à moins que venans à le deſirer d’une maniére proportionnée à ſon excellence, ce deſir ne nous rende inquiets de ce que nous en ſommes privez. En effet, perſuadez à un Homme, tant qu’il vous plairra, que l’abondance eſt plus avantageuſe que la pauvreté ; faites-lui voir & confeſſer que les agréables commoditez de la vie ſont préferables à une ſordide indigence ; s’il eſt ſatisfait de ce dernier état, & qu’il n’y trouve aucune incommodité, il y perſiſte malgré tous vos diſcours ; ſa Volonté n’eſt déterminée à aucune action qui le porte à y renoncer. Qu’un homme ſoit convaincu de l’utilité de la Vertu, juſqu’à voir qu’elle eſt auſſi néceſſaire à quiconque ſe propoſe quelque choſe de grand dans ce Monde, ou eſpére d’être heureux dans l’autre, que la nourriture eſt néceſſaire au ſoûtien de notre vie ; cependant juſqu’à ce que cet homme ſoit affamé & alteré de la Juſtice, juſqu’à ce qu’il ſe ſente inquiet de ce qu’elle lui manque, ſa volonté ne ſera jamais déterminée à aucune action qui le porte à la recherche de cet excellent Bien dont il reconnoit l’utilité ; mais quelque autre inquiétude qu’il ſent en lui-même, venant à la traverſe entraînera ſa Volonté à d’autres choſes. D’autre part, qu’un Homme adonné au vin conſidere, qu’en menant la vie qu’il mene, il ruine ſa ſanté, diſſipe ſon Bien, qu’il va ſe deshonorer dans le Monde, s’attirer des maladies, & tomber enfin dans l’indigence juſques à n’avoir plus dequoi ſatisfaire cette paſſion de boire qui le poſſede ſi fort : cependant les retours de l’inquiétude qu’il ſent à être abſent de ſes compagnons de débauche, l’entraînent au cabaret aux heures qu’il eſt accoûtumé d’y aller, quoi qu’il ait alors devant les yeux la perte de ſa ſanté & de ſon Bien, & peut-être même celle du Bonheur de l’autre Vie : Bonheur qu’il ne peut regarder comme un Bien peu conſiderable en lui-même, puiſqu’il avoûë au contraire qu’il eſt beaucoup plus excellent que le plaiſir de boire, ou que le vain babil d’une troupe de Débauchez. Ce n’eſt donc pas faute de jetter les yeux ſur le ſouverain Bien qu’il perſiſte dans ce déreglement, car il l’enviſage & en reconnoît l’excellence, juſque-là que durant le temps qui s’écoule entre les heures qu’il employe à boire, il réſout de s’appliquer à la recherche de ce ſouverain Bien ; mais quand l’inquiétude d’être privé du plaiſir auquel il eſt accoûtumé, vient le tourmenter, ce Bien qu’il reconnoît être plus excellent que celui de boire, n’a plus de force ſur ſon Eſprit ; & c’eſt cette inquiétude actuelle qui détermine ſa Volonté à l’Action à laquelle il eſt accoûtumé, & qui par-là faiſant de plus fortes impreſſions prévaut encore à la prémiére occaſion, quoi que dans le même temps il s’engage, pour ainſi dire, à lui-même par de ſecretes promeſſes à ne plus faire la même choſe ; & qu’il ſe figure que ce ſera là en effet la derniére fois qu’il agira contre ſon plus grand intérêt. Ainſi il ſe trouve de temps en temps réduit dans l’état de cette miſerable perſonne qui ſoûmiſe à une paſſion imperieuſe diſoit :\n\n- - * Video meliora, proboque, Deteriora ſequor :\n\nJe vois le meilleur parti, je l’approuve, & je prens le pire. Cette ſentence qu’on reconnoit veritable, & qui n’eſt que trop confirmée par une conſtante expérience, eſt aiſée à comprendre par cette voye-là ; & ne l’eſt peut-être pas, de quelque autre ſens qu’on la prenne.",
            "translator": "Pierre Coste",
            "edition": "Pierre Mortier, Amsterdam, 1735, third edition",
            "source_id": "wikisource-rev-14176341",
            "translation_type": "historical_translation"
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}