ber of qualities; and fo is apparently fuch as the mind makes it. The yellow fhining colour makes gold to children; others add weight, malleableness, and fufibility; and others yet other qualities which they find joincd with that yellow colour, as conftantly as its weight and fufibility; for in all these and the like qualities, one has as good a right to be put into the complex idea of that fubftance wherein they are all joined, as another. And therefore different men leaving out or putting in fev. eral fimple ideas, which others do not, according to their various examination, skill, or obfervation of that fubject, have different effences of gold; which muft therefore be of their own, and not of nature's making.

§ 32. The more general our Ideas are, the more incomplete and partial they are.

If the number of fimple ideas, that make the nominal effence of the loweft fpecies, or firft forting of individuals, depends on the mind of man variously collecting them, it is much more evident that they do fo, in the more comprehenfive claffis, which by the mafters of logick are called genera. Thefe are complex ideas defignedly imperfect and it is vifible at fift fight, that feveral of thofe qualities, that are to be found in the things themselves, are purposely left out of generical ideas. For as the mind, to make general ideas comprehending feveral particulars, leaves out thofe of time, and place, and fuch other, that make them incommunicable to more than one individual; fo to make other yet more general ideas, that may comprehend different forts, it leaves out thofe qualities that diftinguish them, and puts into its new collection only fuch ideas as are common to several forts. The fame convenience that made men exprefs feveral parcels of yellow matter coming from Guinea and Peru under one name, fets them alfo upon making of one name that may comprehend both gold and filver, and fome other bodies of different forts. This is done by leaving out thofe qualities which are peculiar to each fort and retaining a complex idea made up of thofe that are common to them all. To which the name metal being annexed, there is a genus confti

tuted; the effence whereof being that abstract idea, containing only malleablenefs and fusibility, with certain degrees of weight and fixednefs, wherein fome bodies of feveral kinds agree, leaves out the colour, and other qualities peculiar to gold and filver, and the other forts comprehended under the name metal, whereby it is plain, that men follow not exactly the patterns fet them by nature, when they make their general ideas of fubftances; fince there is no body to be found, which has barely malleableness and füfibility in it, without other qualities as infeparable as those. But men, in making their general ideas, feeing more the convenience of language and quick defpatch, by fhort and comprehenfive figns, than the true and precife nature of things as they exift, have, in the framing their abftract ideas, chiefly pursued that end which was to be furnished with ftore of general and variouly comprehenfive names. So that in this whole bufinefs of genera and fpecies the genus, or more comprehenfive, is but a partial conception of what is in the fpecies, and the fpecies but a partial idea of what is to be found in each individual. If there fore any one will think, that a man, and a horse, and an animal, and a plant, &c. are diftinguished by real effences, made by nature, he must think nature to be very liberal of these real effences, making one for body, anoth er for an animal, and another for a horfe; and allthefe effences-liberally bestowed upon Bucephalus But if we would rightly confider what is done, in all these genera and fpecies, or forts, we fhould find, that there is no new thing made, but only more or lefs comprehenfive figns whereby we may be enabled to exprefs, in a few fyllables, great numbers of particular things, as they agree in more or lefs general conceptions, which we have framed to that purpofe. In all which we may obferve, that the more general term is always the name of a lefs complex idea; and that each genus is but a partial conception of the species comprehended under it. Sɔ that if thefe abftract general ideas be thought to be complete, it can only be in refpect of a certain established relation between them and certain names, which are made.

use of to fignify them; and not in refpect of any thing exifting, as made by nature.

$33. This all accommodated to the end of Speech. THIS is adjusted to the true end of speech, which is to be the eafieft and fhorteft way of communicating our notions. For thus he, that would difcourfe of things as they agreed in the complex idea of extenfion and folidity, needed but ufe the word body to denote all fuch. He that to thefe would join others fignified by the words life, fenfe, and fpontaneous motion, needed but use the word animal, to fignify all which partook of those ideas; and he that had made a complex idea of a body, with life, fenfe, and motion, with the faculty of reasoning, and a certain fhape joined to it, needed but use the fhort monofyllable man, to exprefs all particulars that correfpond to that complex idea. This is the proper business of genus and fpecies and this men do, without any confideration of real effences, or fubftantial forms, which come not within the reach of our knowledge, when we think of those things; nor within the fignification of our words, when we discourse with others.

$34. Inftance in Contraries.

WERE I to talk with any one of a fort of birds I lately faw in St. James's Park, about three or four feet high, with a covering of fomething between feathers and hair of a dark brown colour without wings, but in the place thereof two or three little branches coming down like fprigs of Spanish broom, long great legs, with feet only of three claws, and without a tail; I muft make this defcription of it, and fo may make others understand me: but when I am told that the name of it is Caffiowary, I may then use that word to ftand in discourse for all my complex idea mentioned in that defcription; though by that word, which is now become a specifick name, I know no more of the real effence or conftitution of that fort of animals than I did before; and knew probably as much of the nature of that species of birds, before I learned the name, as many Englishmen do of fwans, or herons, which are fpecifick names, very well known, of forts of birds common in England.

35. Men determine the Sirts.

FROM what has been faid it is evident that men make forts of things. For it being different effences alone that make different fpecies, it is plain that they who make thofe abftract ideas, which are the nominal effences, do thereby make the fpecies, or fort. Should there be a body found, having all the other qualities of gold, except malleablenefs, it would no doubt be made a question. whether it were gold or no, i. e, whether it were of that fpecies. This could be determined only by that abftract idea to which every one annexed the name gold: fo that it would be true gold to him, and belong to that fpecies, who included not malleablenefs in his nominal effence, fignified by the found gold; and on the other fide it would not be true gold, or of that species to him who included malleablenefs in his fpecifick idea. And who, I pray, is it that makes thefe diverfe fpecies even under one and the fame name, but men that make two differ-ent abftract ideas confisting not exactly of the fame collection of qualities? Nor is it a mere fuppofition, to imagine that a body may exift, wherein the other obvious qualities of gold may be without malleableness; fince it is certain, that gold itself, will be fometimes fo eager (as artifts call it) that it will as little endure the hammer as glafs itself. What we have faid, of the putting in or leaving malleableness out of the complex idea, the name gold is by any one annexed to, may be faid of its peculiar weight, fixednefs, and feveral other the like qualities for whatsoever is left out, or put in, it is fill the complex idea, to which that name is annexed, that makes the fpecies; and as any particular parcel of matter anfwers that idea, fo the name of the fort belongs truly to it; and it is of that species. And thus any thing is true gold, perfect metal. All which determination of the fpecies, it is plain, depends on the understanding of man, making this or that complex idea.

$36. Nature makes the Similitude.

THIS then, in fhort, is the cafe : nature makes many particular things which do agree one with another, in many fenfible qualities and probably too in their inter

nal frame and conftitution: but it is not this real effence that distinguishes them into Species; it is men, who, tak ing occasion from the qualities they find united in them and wherein they obferve often feveral individuals to agree, range them into forts, in order to their naming, for the convenience of comprehenfive figns: under which individuals, according to their conformity to this or that abstract idea, come to be ranked as under enfigns; fo that this is of the blue, that the red regiment; this is a man, that a drill and in this, I think, confifts the whole bufinefs of genus and fpecies.

$37.

I Do not deny but nature, in the constant production of particular beings, makes them not always new and various, but very much alike and of kin one to another: but I think it nevertheless true, that the boundaries of the fpecies, whereby men fort them, are made by men; fince the effences of the fpecies, diftinguithed by different names, are, as has been proved, of man's making, and feldom adequate to the internal nature of the things they are taken from. So that we may truly fay, fuch a manner of forting of things is the workmanship of men.

$38. Each abftract Idea is an Effence.

ONE thing I doubt not but will feem very strange in this doctrine ; which is, that from what has been faid it will follow, that each abstract idea, with a name to it, makes a diftinct fpecies. But who can help it if truth will have it fo? For fo it must remain till fomebody can fhow us the fpecies of things limited and distinguished by fomething elfe; and let us fee, that general terms fignify not our abstract ideas, but fomething different from them. I would fain know why a fock and a hound are not as diftinct species as a fpaniel and an elephant. We have no other idea of the different effence of an elephant and a spaniel, than we have of the different effence of a fhock and a hound; all the effential difference, whereby we know and diftinguish them one from another, confifting only in the different collection of fimple ideas, o which we have given those different names.