Note 2* — PRIVATIVE TERMS.
Reading edition
Mr. Locke recognised the fact, but gave an erroneous account of it: “I should offer this as a reason why a privative cause might produce a positive idea; viz., that, all sensation being produced in us, only by different degrees and modes of motion in our animal spirits, variously agitated by external objects, the abatement of any former motion, must as necessarily produce a new sensation, [for “abatement of any former motion,” read, ceasing of a particular sensation; and for “new sensation,” read, new feeling, or, new state of consciousness,] as the variation or increase of it: and so introduce a new idea. B. II. ch. viii. s. 4.—(Author’s Note.)