For though men may make what complex ideas they please, and give what names to them they will, yet if they will be understood, when they speak of things really exifting, they must in fome degree conform their ideas to the things they would fpeak of, or elfe mens language will be like that of Babel; and every man's words being intelligible only to himself, would no longer ferve to converfation, and the ordinary affairs of life, if the ideas they ftand for be not fome way anfwering the common appearances and agreement of substances as they really

exist.

$29. Though very imperfect.

SECONDLY, Though the mind of man, in making its complex ideas of fubftances, never puts any together that do not really or are not fuppofed to co-exist, and fo it truly borrows that union from nature, yet the number it combines depends upon the various care, induftry or fancy of him that makes it. Men generally content themfelves with fome few fenfible obvious qualities, and often, if not always, leave out others as material, and as firmly united, as those that they take. Of fenfible fubftances, there are two forts; one of organized bodies which are propagated by feed; and in thefe, the fhape is that which to us is the leading quality and moft characteristical part that determines the fpecies; and therefore in vegetables and animals, an extended folid fubftance of fuch a certain figure ufually ferves the turn. For however some men feem to prize their definition of animal rationale, yet should there a creature be found that had language and reafon, but partook not of the ufual fhape of a man, I believe it would hardly pafs for a man, how much foever it were animal rationale; and if Baalam's afs had, all his life, difcourfed as rational as he did once with his mafter, I doubt yet whether any one would have thought him worthy the name man, or allowed him to be of the fame fpecies with himself. As in vegetables and animals it is the shape, fo in most other bodies, not propagated by feed, it is the colour we must fix on, and are moft led by. Thus, where we find the colour of gold, we are apt to imagine all the other qua

lities, comprehended in our complex idea, to be there alfo; and we commonly take thefe two obvious qualities, viz. fhape and colour, for fo prefumptive ideas of feveral fpecies, that in a good picture we readily fay this is a lion, and that a rofe; this is a gold, and that a filver goblet, only by the different figures and colours reprefented to the eye by the pencil. that ma

30. Which yet ferve for common converfe. BUT though this ferves well enough for grofs and confufed conceptions, and inaccurate ways of talking and thinking; yet men are far enough from having agreed on the precife number of fimple ideas, or qualities belonging to any fort of things fignified by its name: Nor is it a wonder, fince it requires much time, pains, and fkill, ftrict inquiry, and long examination, to find out what and how many thofe fimple ideas are, which are conftantly and infeparably united in nature, and are always to be found together in the fame fubject. Moft men wanting either time, inclination, or industry enough for this, even to fome tolerable degree, content themfelves with fome few obvious and outward appearances of things, thereby readily to diftinguish and fort them for the common affairs of life; and fo without farther examination give them names, or take up the names already in use; which, though in common converfation they pass well enough for the figns of fome few obvious qualities coexifting, are yet far enough from comprehending, in a fettled fignification, a precife number of fimple ideas, much lefs all thofe which are united in nature. He that shall confider, after so much stir about genus and Species, and fuch a deal of talk of fpecific differences, how few words we have yet fettled definitions of, may with reafon imagine that those forms, which there hath been fo much noife made about, are only chimeras, which give us no light into the specific natures of things; and he that fhall confider, how far the names of subftances are from having fignifications, wherein all who ufe them do agree, will have reafon to conclude, that though the nominal effences of fubftances are all fupposed to be copied from nature, yet they are all, or moft

of them, very imperfect, fince the compofition of thofe complex ideas are, in feveral men, very different; and therefore that thefe boundaries of fpecies are as men, and not as nature makes them, if at least there are in nature any fuch prefixed bounds. It is true, that many parti cular fubitances are fo made by nature, that they have agreement and likeness one with another, and fo afford a foundation of being ranked into forts. But the forting of things by us, or the making of determinate fpecies, being in order to naming and comprehending them. under general terms, I cannot fee how it can be properly faid, that nature fets the boundaries of the fpecies of things; or if it be fo, our boundaries of Species are not exactly conformable to thofe in nature; for we having need of general names for prefent ufe, ftay not for a perfect discovery of all thofe qualities which would best how us their moft material differences and agreements; but we ourselves divide them, by certain obvious appearances, into species, that we may the easier under general names communicate our thoughts about them. For having no other knowledge of any fubftance, but of the Eimple ideas that are united in it, and obferving feveral particular things to agree with others in feveral of thofe fimple ideas, we make that collection our fpecific idea, and give it a general name, that in recording our own thoughts, and in our difcourfe with others, we may in one fhort word defign all the individuals that agree in that complex idea, without enumerating the fimple ideas that make it up, and fo not waste our time and breath in tedious defcriptions; which we fee they are fain to do, who would difcourfe of any new fort of things they have not yet a name for.

$31. Effences of Species under the fame name very diffe

rent.

BUT however thefe fpecies of fubftances pafs well enough in ordinary converfation, it is plain that this complex idea, wherein they obferve feveral individuals to agree, is by different men made very differently; by fome more, and others lefs accurately. In fome, this complex idea contains a greater, and in others a smaller num

ber of qualities; and fo is apparently such as the mind makes it. The yellow fhining colour makes gold to children; others add weight, malleableness, and fufibili ty; and others yet other qualities, which they find join ed with that yellow colour, as conftantly as its weight and fufibility; for in all thefe and the like qualities, onehas 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 feveral fimple ideas, which others do not, according to their various examination, fkill or obfervation of that. fubject, have different effences of gold; which must therefore be of their own, and not of nature's making.

$32. The more general our Ideas are, the more incom➡ plete and partial they are.

If the number of fimple ideas, that make the nominal effence of the lowest fpecies, or firft forting of individuals, depends on the mind of man varioufly collecting them, it is much more evident that they do fo, in the more comprehenfive claffis, which by the mafters of logic are called genera. These are complex ideas defign. edly imperfect; and it is visible at firft fight, that feveral of thofe qualities, that are to be found in the things themfelves, are purpofely left out of generical ideas. For as the mind, to make general ideas comprehending feveral particulars, leaves out those 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 comprchend different forts, it leaves out thofe qualities that diftinguish them, and puts into its new collection only fuch ideas as are common to feveral 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 some 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 abftract idea, containing only malleablenefs and fufibility, 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 malleablenefs and fulibility in it, without other qualities as infeparable as thofe. But men, in making their general ideas, feeing more the convenience of language and quick difpatch, by fhort and comprehenfive figns, than the true and precife nature of things as they exift, have, in the framing their abstract ideas, chiefly purfued that end which was to be furnished with ftore of general and varioufly comprehenfive names; fo that in this whole bufinefs of genera and Species, 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, therefore, any one will think, that a man, and a horfe, and an animal, and a plant, &c. are diftinguished by real effences made by nature, he must think nature to be very liberal of thefe real effences, making one for body, another for an animal, and another for a horfe, and all thefe effences liberally beftowed upon Bucephalus. But if we would rightly confider what is done in all thefe 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 purpose: 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 fpecies comprehended under it; fo that if thefe abftract general ideas be thought to be complete, it can only be in refpect of a certain eftalifhed relation between them and certain names, which are made VOL. II. I