IGI E on of them, which we have no knowledge or thought of, and confequently can make no name for. Ibid. page 446, line 28. Now fince nothing.-This reafoning feems not valid, for it may be faid, that to have a conformity, &c. and to have the effence, &c. are ftill different things, though both are required to the being of a man. It might perhaps be made valid thus -fince nothing can be a man but only by having a conformity, &c. and nothing can be a man but what has the effence, &c. Sc. fince both these things, hitherto appearing different are the only way for any thing to be a man, they muft needs be one and the fame thing. It might have been fufficient to prove this point to have fhewn, that thefe abftract ideas are all that we think of particular things, all the conceptions we have of them when we make them into forts. §13, page 447, line 7. The forting of them.Though nature has made them thus alike, they could not have been forted, or had general names given, but for the mind of man. Ibid. page 448, line 40. He will never be able.-He means, I prefume, because these fuppofed real effences are unknown, fo that we cannot tell in any of them, for inftance, when there is all of it, and when not. § 14, page 448, line 12. It baving been more.This inftance proves that thefe contending parties have different ideas of a man. For whereas a certain fhape of the body is a leading quality in this idea, one of thefe parties it is plain admits of a greater latitude in that fhape than another. Ibid. It is both obfcure and confounding to say that abstract ideas are the very effence of those things which are forted; for this does not keep up the difference between the act of the mind and its object; for the idea furely is in the mind, and the properties which make VOL. II. M 2 the have unknown effences and other things have not, it will follow that there are two different fpecies of effences, or that other things befides fubftances have no effence at all. It was this put Mr. Locke upon the diftinction of real and nominal effences; and afferting that all our moral and mathematical ideas, as of virtue, vice, &c. a cube, a fquare, &c. (things of as fixed and immutable natures, as any that can be named) having only according to his diftinction nominal effences, are nothing but the mere arbitrary compofitions of ideas in our minds; which admitted, would be of the greatest differvice both in philofophy and practice.* Some men pretend to have Mr. Locke's authority for infinuating that the unknown conftitution of things is in itself nothing, and that fubftance or what he calls fubftratum, is but empty found. But they are mistaken, for Mr. Locke allows that the internal, &c. is Jomething, upon which their discoverable qualities are owned to depend; and this other thing, if we fpeak of it at all, must be called fubject, fupport, fubftance, or fome fuch name; and though we have no particular idea of it, yet we know that it is, unless properties could fubfift by themselves, and if there be neither property nor fubject, there would be nothing left to exift.t §17, page 450, line 19. The frequent production. -See S14 The force of this argument I take to be this, it is impoffible there fhould be a fet, determinate number of thefe effences, because these productions are daily inftances of new effences, which appears from hence, that they have not the properties of the old effences. § 19, page 452. There is but one being which includes existence in the very effence of it, and i. e. God. But the actual existence of every creature is very dif* Baxt, p. 147. + Ibid, p. 144. VOL. II. tin&t N motion, or its being in that ftate in the prefent fyftem of things; and what fort of particles they are that raise that idea in our minds we call light. CHAP. V. Of the Names of Mixed Modes and Relations. THEREIN they differ. $ 2, page 463, line 5. W The author feems to con found making of complex ideas with abftracting them; for the abftracting of complex ideas is as much the work of the understanding, as the abftracting of fimple ones, though making is not. § 3, page 463. Mixed modes are no more creatures of the understanding than fubftances; for a man can as eafily diftinguish between virtue and vice, as he can between fome animals, plants, &c. by the light of nature, and fuch rules as God has given every man by which to compare actions: and if abstract ideas be only the' figns. of real actions, the actions applied to particular cafes, appear as manifeftly different as the fubftances themselves. And as barbarous as fome men are pleased to reprefent others, yet moft fort of actions that are efteemed good or bad, are so diftinguished (however different their names for them are) all the world over; and therefore are not voluntary or arbitrary.* § 8, page 467, line 19. And the verfura (a fort of brokening) of the Romans, &c.-This does not prove that the ideas of the actions were voluntary and arbitrary, for let the Romans or Jews have agreed upon any other words to fignify thofe actions, yet the actions would have been the fame: nor can I learn, how the names VOL. II. *Lee, p. 210. of |