those complex ideas being made by the mind, this union, which has no particular foundation in nature, would cease again, were there not something that did, as it were, hold it together, and keep the parts from scattering. Though therefore it be the mind that makes the collection, it is the name which is as it were the knot that ties them fast together. What a vast variety of different ideas does the word triumphus hold together, and deliver to us as one species? Had this name been never made, or quite lost, we might, no doubt, have had descriptions of what passed in that solemnity: but yet, I think, that which holds those different parts together, in the unity of one complex idea, is that very word annexed to it; without which the several parts of that would no more be thought to make one thing, than any other show, 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 necessary to any essence 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 considered by those who look upon essences and species as real established things in nature. §. 11. Suitable to this, we find, that men speaking of mixed modes, seldom imagine or take any other for species of them, but such as are set out by name: because they being of man's making only, in order to naming, no such species are taken notice of, or supposed to be, unless a name be joined to it, as the sign of man's having combined into one idea several loose ones; and by that name giving a lasting union to the parts, which could otherwise cease to have any, as soon as the mind laid by that abstract idea, and ceased actually to think on it. But when a name is once annexed to it, wherein the parts of that complex idea have a settled and permanent union; then is the essence as it were established, and the species looked on as compleat. For to what purpose should the memory charge itself with such compositions, unless it were by abstraction to make them general? And to what purpose make them Hh3 general, general, unless it were that they might have general names, for the convenience of discourse and communication? Thus we see, that killing a man with a sword or a hatchet, are looked on as no distinct species of action but if the point of the sword first enter the body, it passes for a distinct species, where it has a distinct name; as in England, in whose language it is called stabbing: but in another country, where it has not happened to be specified under a peculiar name, it passes not for a distinct species. But in the species of corporeal substances, though it be the mind that makes the nominal essence; yet since those ideas which are combined in it are supposed to have an union in nature, whether the mind joins them or no, therefore those are looked on as distinct names, without any operation of the mind, either abstracting or giving a name to that complex idea. For the ori ginals of mixed modes, we look no far. ther than the mind, which also shows them to be the workmanship of the understanding. 6. 12. Conformable also to what has been said concerning the essences of the species of mixed modes, that they are the creatures of the understanding, rather than the works of nature: conformable, I say, to this, we find that their names lead our thoughts to the mind, and no farther. When we speak of justice, 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 those virtues, and look not farther: as they do, when we speak of a horse, or iron, whose specific ideas we consider not, as barely in the mind, but as in things themselves, which afford the original patterns of those ideas. But in mixed modes, at least the most considerable parts of them, which are moral beings, we consider the original patterns as being in the mind; and to those we refer for the distinguishing of particular beings under names. And hence I think it is, that these essences of the species of mixed modes are by a more particular name called notions, as, by a peculiar right, appertaining to the understanding. §. 13. §. 13. Hence likewise we may learn, why Their being made by the understand patterns shows the reason why. they are so compounded. the complex ideas of mixed modes are commonly more compounded and decompounded, than those of natural substances. ing without Because they being the workmanship of the understanding, pursuing only its own ends, and the conveniency of expressing in short those 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 so, under one term, bundle together a great variety of compounded and decompounded ideas. Thus the name of procession, what a great mixture of independent ideas of persons, habits, tapers, orders, motions, sounds, does it contain in that complex one, which the mind of man has arbitrarily put together, to express by that one name? Whereas the complex ideas of the sorts of substances are usually made up of only a small number of simple ones; and in the species of animals, these two, viz. shape and voice, commonly make the whole nominal essence. §. 14. Another thing we may observe from what has been said, is, that the names of mixed modes always signify (when they have any determined signification) the real essences of their species. For these abstract ideas being the workmanship of the mind, and not referred to the real existence of things, there is no supposition of any thing more signified by that name, but barely that complex idea the mind itself has formed, which is all it would have expressed by it: and is that on which all the properties of the species depend, and from which alone they all flow: and so in these the real and nominal essence is the same; which of what concernment it is to the certain knowledge of general truth, we shall see hereafter. §. 15. This also may show us the reason, why for the most part the names of mixed modes are got, before the ideas they stand for are perfectly known. Because there being no species of these ordinarily Hh 4 Names of mixed modes stand always for their real essences. Why their names are usually got before their ideas. taken taken notice of, but what have names; and those species, or rather their essences, being abstract complex ideas made arbitrarily by the mind; it is convenient, if not necessary, to know the names, before one endeavour to frame these complex ideas: unless a man will fill his head with a company of abstract complex ideas, which others having no names for, he has nothing to do with, but to lay by and forget again. I confess, that in the beginning of languages it was necessary to have the idea, before one gave it the name: and so it is still, where making a new complex idea, one also, by giving it a new name, makes a new word. But this concerns not languages made, which have generally pretty well provided for ideas, which men have frequent occasion to have and communicate and in such, I ask, whether it be not the ordinary method, that children learn the names of mixed modes, before they have their ideas? What one of a thousand ever frames the abstract ideas of glory and ambition, before he has heard the names of them? In simple ideas and substances I grant it is otherwise; which being such ideas as have a real existence and union in nature, the ideas and names are got one before the other, as it happens. Reason of §. 16. What has been said here of mixed my being so modes, is with very little difference applilarge on this cable also to relations; which, since every subject. man himself may observe, I may spare myself the pains to enlarge on; especially, since what I have here said concerning words in this third book, will possibly be thought by some to be much more than what so slight a subject required. I allow it might be brought into a narrower compass; but I was willing to stay my reader on an argument that appears to me new, and a little out of the way, (I am sure it is one I thought not of when I began to write) that by searching it to the bottom, and turning it on every side, some part or other might meet with every one's thoughts, and give occasion to the most averse or negligent to reflect on a general miscarriage; which, though of great consequence, is little taken notice of When it is considered what a pudder is made about essences, essences, and how much all sorts of knowledge, discourse, and conversation are pestered and disordered by the careless and confused use and application of words, it will perhaps be thought worth while thoroughly to lay it open. And I shall be pardoned if I have dwelt long on an argument which I think therefore needs to be inculcated; because the faults, men are usually guilty of in this kind, are not only the greatest hindrances of true knowledge, but are so well thought of as to pass for it. Men would often see what a small pittance of reason and truth, or possibly none at all, is mixed with those huffing opinions they are swelled with, if they would but look beyond fashionable sounds, and observe what ideas are, or are not comprehended under those words with which they are so armed at all points, and with which they so confidently lay about them. lay about them. I shall imagine I have done some service to truth, peace, and learning, if, by any enlargement on this subject, I can make men reflect on their own use of language; and give them reason to suspect, that since it is frequent for others, it may also be possible for them to have sometimes very good and approved words in their mouths and writings, with very uncertain, little, or no signification. And therefore it is not unreasonable for them to be wary herein themselves, and not to be unwilling to have them examined by others. With this design therefore I shall go on with what I have farther to say concerning this matter. §. 1. TH CHAP. VI. Of the Names of Substances. HE common names of substances, as well as other general terms, stand for sorts; which is nothing else but the being made signs of such complex ideas, wherein several particular sub The com. mon names of substances stand for sorts. stances |