The Enlightenment In England – Modern Humanities Practice Test

Empiricism—the idea that ideas come from experience rather than being innate in the mind—is what this question tests. John Locke argued this most clearly. He claimed the mind at birth is a blank slate, with no built‑in ideas, and that all knowledge and ideas arise from experience. This happens in two main ways: sensation, which delivers simple ideas from the external world through our senses; and reflection, which provides ideas from the mind’s own operations as we think and reflect. From these simple ideas, the mind combines and abstracts to form more complex ideas. Locke’s view rejects innate notions and helps explain how learning, education, and evidence shape understanding. Hobbes shares an emphasis on experience in understanding mind and matter, but the standout English philosopher who articulates ideas as originating in experience, especially with the blank SAMPLEslate image, is Locke. David Hume, while also an empiricist, is Scottish, and Isaac Newton is a scientist whose work is not about the origin of ideas in the same philosophical sense.