words in one language, which have not any that answer them in another. Which plainly shows, that (those of one country, by their customs and manner of life, have found occasion to make several complex ideas, and give names to them, which others never collected into specific ideas. This could not have happened, if these species were the steady workmanship of nature, and not collections made and abstracted by the mind, in order to naming, and for the convenience of communication, The terms of our law, which are not empty sounds, will hardly find words that answer them in the Spanish or Italian, no scanty languages; much less, I think, could any one translate them into the Caribbee or Westoe tongues and the versura of the Romans, or Corban of the Jews, have no words in other languages to answer them; the reason whereof is plain, from what has been said. Nay, if we will look a little more nearly into this matter, and exactly compare different languages, we shall find, that though they have words which in translations and dictionaries are supposed to answer one another, yet there is scarce one of ten amongst the names of complex ideas, especially of mixed modes, that stands for the same precise idea, which the word does that in dictionaries it is rendered by.) are no ideas more common, and less compounded, than the measures of time, extension, 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 these Latin names, were very far different from those which an Englishman expresses by those English ones. And if either of these should make use of the measures that those of the other language designed by their names, he would be quite out in his account. These are too sensible proofs to be doubted; and we shall find this much more so, in the names of more abstract and compounded ideas, such as are the greatest part of those which make up moral discourses) whose names, when men come curiously to compare with those they are translated into, in other languages, they will find very few of them exactly tocorrespond in the whole extent of their significations.

There

§ 9. This shows species to be made for communication. THE reason why I take so particular notice of this, is, that we may not be mistaken about genera and species, and their essences, as if they were things regularly and constantly made by nature, and had a real existence in things; when they appear, upon a more wary survey, to be nothing else but an artifice of the understanding, for

the easier signifying such collections of ideas, as it should often have occasion 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 signification of the word species, may make it sound harsh to some, that I say the species of mixed modes are made by the understanding; yet, I think, it can by nobody be denied, that it is the mind makes those abstract complex ideas, to which specific names are given. And if it be true, as it is, that the mind makes the patterns for sorting and naming of things, I leave it to be considered who makes the boundaries of the sort or species; since with me, species and sort have` no other difference, than that of a Latin and English idiom.

§ 10. In mixed modes it is the name that ties the combination to

gether, and makes it a species.

THE near relation that there is between species, essences, and their general name, at least in mixed modes, will farther appear, when we consider that it is the name that seems to preserve those essences, and give them their lasting duration. (For the connection between the loose parts of 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 would 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 complete.) 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 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 species, without any operation of the mind, either abstracting or giving a name to that complex idea.

§ 12. For the originals of mixed modes, we look no farther than the mind, which also shows them to be the workmanship of the understanding.

CONFORMABLY 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. Their being made by the understanding without patterns, shows the reason why they are so compounded.

HENCE likewise we may learn, Why the complex ideas of mixed modes are commonly more compounded and decompounded, than those of natural substances. 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, 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. Names of mixed modes stand always for their real essences. 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. Why their names are usually got before their ideas. 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 taken notice of, but what have names, and those species, or

un

rather their essences, being abstract complex ideas made arbitrarily by the mind, it is convenient, if not necessary, to know the names, before one endeavor to frame these complex ideas :) less 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 or names are got one before the other, as it happens.

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§ 16. Reason of my being so large on this subject. WHAT has been said here of mixed modes, is with very little difference applicable also to relations; which, since every 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, 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 hinderances of true