467 knowledge, they are both taken in under inceft: and that ftill for the fame convenience of expreffing under one name, and reckoning of one fpecies, fuch unclean mixtures as have a peculiar turpitude beyond others; and this to avoid cicumlocutions and tedious defcrip tions. Whereof the intranflatable words of divers languages are a proof. 6. 8. A moderate fkill in different languages will cafily fatisfy one of the truth of this, it being fo obvious to obferve great ftore of words in one language, which have not any that answer them in another. Which plainly thows, that thofe of one country, by their customs and manner of life, have found occafion to make feveral complex ideas, and given names. to them, which others never collected into fpecific ideas. This could not have happened, if thefe fpecies were the steady workmanship of nature, and not collections made and abftracted by the mind, in order to naming, and for the convenience of communication. The terms of our law, which are not empty founds, will hardly find words that answer them in the Spanish or Italian, no fcanty languages; much lefs, I think, could any one tranflate them into the Caribbee or Weftoe tongues: and the Verfura of the Romans, or Corban of the Jews, have no words in other languages to answer them: the reafon whereof is plain, from what has been faid. Nay, if we look a little more nearly into this matter, and exactly compare different languages, we fhall find, that though they have words which in tranflations and dictionaries are fuppofed to answer one another, yet there is fcarce one of ten amongst the names of complex ideas, especially of mixed modes, that ftands for the fame precife idea, which the word does that in dictionaries it is rendered by. There are no ideas more common, and lefs compounded, than the measures of time, extenfion, and weight, and the Latin names, hora, pes, libra, are without difficulty rendered by the English names, hour, foot, and pound: but yet there is nothing more evident, than that the ideas a Roman annexed to thefe Latin names, were very far different from thofe which an Englishman expreffes by thofe English ones. And if either of Hh 2 thefe these should make ufe of the measures that thofe of the other language defigned by their names, he would be quite out in his account. These are too fenfible proofs to be doubted; and we fhall find this much more fo, in the names of more abstract and compounded ideas, fuch as are the greateft part of those which make up moral. difcourfes: whofe names, when men come curiously to compare with those they are tranflated into, in other languages, they will find very few of them exactly to correspond in the whole extent of their fignifications. This shows fpecies to be made for communica tion. §. 9. The reason why I take fo particular notice of this, is, that we may not be miftaken about genera and fpecies, and their effences, as if they were things regularly and conftantly made by nature, and had a real existence in things; when they appear, upon a more wary furvey, to be nothing elfe but an artifice of the understanding, for the easier fignifying fuch collections of ideas, as it fhould often have occafion to communicate by one general term; under which divers particulars, as far forth as they agreed to that abstract idea, might be comprehended. And if the doubtful fignification of the word fpecies may make it found harsh to fome, that I fay the fpecies of mixed modes are made by the understanding; yet, I think, it can by no-body be denied, that it is the mind makes thofe abstract complex ideas, to which specific names are given. And if it be true, as it is, that the mind makes the patterns for forting and naming of things, I leave it to be confidered who makes the boundaries of the fort or fpecies; fince with me fpecies and fort have no other difference than that of a Latin and English idiom. In mixed S. 10. The near relation that there is between fpecies, effences, and their general name, at least in mixed modes, will farther appear, when we confider that it is the name that feems to preserve thofe effences, and give them their lafting duration. For the connexion between the loose parts of thofe those complex ideas being made by the mind, this union, which has no particular foundation in nature, would ceafe again, were there not fomething that did, as it were, hold it together, and keep the parts from fcattering. Though therefore it be the mind that makes the collection, it is the name which is as it were the knot that ties them faft together. What a vast variety of different ideas does the word triumphus hold together, and deliver to us as one fpecies? Had this name been never made, or quite loft, we might, no doubt, have had descriptions of what paffed in that folemnity but yet, I think, that which holds thofe different parts together, in the unity of one complex idea, is that very word annexed to it; without which the feveral parts of that would no more be thought to make one thing, than any other fhow, which having never been made but once, had never been united into one complex idea, under one denomination. How much therefore, in mixed modes, the unity neceffary to any effence depends on the mind, and how much the continuation and fixing of that unity depends on the name in common use annexed to it, I leave to be confidered by thofe who look upon effences and fpecies as real established things in nature. §. 11. Suitable to this, we find, that men fpeaking of mixed modes, feldom imagine or take any other for fpecies of them, but fuch as are fet out by name: because they being of man's making only, in order to naming, no fuch fpecies are taken notice of, or fuppofed to be, unless a name be joined to it, as the fign of man's having combined into one idea feveral loose ones; and by that name giving a lafting union to the parts, which could otherwife cease to have any, as foon as the mind laid by that abstract idea, and ceafed actually to think on it. But when a name is once annexed to it, wherein the parts of that complex idea have a fettled and permanent union; then is the effence as it were established, and the fpecies looked on as compleat. For to what purpofe fhould the memory charge itself with fuch compofitions, unless it were by abftraction to make them general? And to what purpose make them general, Hh3 general, unless it were that they might have general namės, for the convenience of difcourfe and communication? Thus we fee, that killing a man with a fword or a hatchet, are looked on as no diftinct fpecies of action: but if the point of the sword first enter the body, it paffes for a diftinct fpecies, where it has a diftinct name; as in England, in whofe language it is called ftabbing: but in another country, where it has not happened to be fpecified under a peculiar name, it paffes not for a diftinct fpecies. But in the fpecies of corporeal fubftances, though it be the mind that makes the nominal effence; yet fince thofe ideas which are combined in it are fuppofed to have an union in nature, whether the mind joins them or no, therefore thofe are looked on as diftinct names, without any operation of the mind, either abftracting or giving a name to that complex idea. For the ori ginals of mixed modes, we look no farther than the mind, which alfo fhows them to be the workmanship of the underftanding. $. 12. Conformable alfo to what has been faid, concerning the effences of the fpecies of mixed modes, that they are the creatures of the understanding, rather than the works of nature: conformable, I fay, to this, we find that their names lead our thoughts to the mind, and no farther. When we speak of juftice, or gratitude, we frame to ourselves no imagination of any thing existing, which we would conceive; but our thoughts terminate in the abstract ideas of thofe virtues, and look not farther: as they do, when we fpeak of a horse, or iron, whose specific ideas we confider not, as barely in the mind, but as in things themselves, which afford the original patterns of thofe ideas. But in mixed modes, at least the most confiderable parts of them, which are moral beings, we confider the original patterns as being in the mind; and to those we refer for the diftinguishing of particular beings under names. And hence I think it is, that these effences of the fpecies of mixed modes are by a more particular name called notions, as, by a peculiar right, appertaining to the understanding. §. 13. Their being made by the underflanding without patterns fhows the reafon why they are fo compounded, §. 13. Hence likewife we may learn, why the complex ideas of mixed modes are commonly more compounded and decompounded, than those of natural fubftances. Because they being the workmanship of the understanding, pursuing only its own ends, and the conveniency of expreffing in fhort thofe ideas it would make known to another, it does with great liberty unite often into one abstract idea things that in their nature have no coherence; and fo, under one term, bundle together a great variety of compounded and decompounded ideas. Thus the name of proceffion, what a great mixture of independent ideas of perfons, habits, tapers, orders, motions, founds, does it contain in that complex one, which the mind of man has arbitrarily put together, to exprefs by that one name? Whereas the complex ideas of the forts of fubftances are usually made up of only a fmall number of fimple ones; and in the fpecies of animals, these two, viz. fhape and voice, commonly make the whole nominal effence. §. 14. Another thing we may observe from what has been faid, is, that the names of mixed modes always fignify (when they have any determined fignification) the real effences of their fpecies. For thefe abstract ideas being the workmanship of the mind, and not re ferred to the real existence of things, there is no fuppofition of any thing more fignified by that name, but barely that complex idea the mind itself has formed, which is all it would have expreffed by it: and is that on which all the properties of the fpecies depend, and from which alone they all flow and fo in these the real and nominal effence is the fame; which of what concernment it is to the certain knowledge of general truth, we fhall fee hereafter. §. 15. This alfo may fhow us the reafon, why for the most part the names of mixed modes are got, before the ideas they ftand for are perfectly known. there being no fpecies of thefe ordinarily Hh 4 Because Names of mixed modes for their real ftand always effences. Why their names are ufually got ideas. before their taken |