ther, usually make the complex idea in men's minds of that sort of body we call gold.

§. 10. But no one, who hath considered the properties of bodies in general, or this sort in particular, can doubt that this called gold has infinite other properties not contained in that complex idea. Some who have examined this species more accurately, could, I believe, enumerate ten times as many properties in gold, all of them as inseparable from its internal constitution, as its colour or weight: and it is probable, if any one knew all the properties that are by divers men known of this metal, there would be an hundred times as many ideas go to the complex idea of gold, as any one man yet has in his; and yet perhaps that not be the thousandth part of what is to be discovered in it. The changes which that one body is apt to receive, and make in other bodies, upon a due application, exceeding far not only what we know, but what we are apt to imagine. Which will not appear so much a paradox to any one, who will but consider how far men are yet from knowing all the properties of that one, no very compound figure, a triangle; though it be no small number that are already by mathematicians discovered of it.

Ideas of sub

stances, as collections

§. 11. So that all our complex ideas of substances are imperfect and inadequate. Which would be so also in mathematical of their qua- figures, if we were to have our complex lities, are all ideas of them, only by collecting their proinadequate. perties in reference to other figures. How uncertain and imperfect would our ideas be of an ellipsis, if we had no other idea of it, but some few of its properties? Whereas having in our plain idea the whole essence of that figure, we from thence discover those properties, and demonstratively see how they flow, and are inseparable from it.

Simple ideas, §. 12. Thus the mind has three sorts of Exluma, and abstract ideas or nominal essences :

adequate. First, simple ideas, which are luna, or copies; but yet certainly adequate. Because being intended to express nothing but the power in things to

produce in the mind such a sensation, that sensation, when it is produced, cannot but be the effect of that power. So the paper I write on, having the power, in the light (I speak according to the common notion of light) to produce in men the sensation which I call white, it cannot but be the effect of such a power, in something without the mind; since the mind has not the power to produce any such idea in itself, and being meant for nothing else but the effect of such a power, that simple idea is real and adequate; the sensation of white, in my mind, being the effect of that power, which is in the paper to produce it, is perfectly adequate to that power; or else, that power would produce a different idea.

Ideas of substances are

§. 13. Secondly, the complex ideas of substances are ectypes, copies too; but not perfect ones, not adequate which is very lura, inevident to the mind, in that it plainly per- adequate. ceives that whatever collection of simple ideas it makes of any substance that exists, it cannot be sure that it exactly answers all that are in that substance: since not having tried all the operations of all other substance's upon it, and found all the alterations it would receive from, or cause in, other substances, it cannot have an exact adequate collection of all its active and passive capacities; and so not have an adequate complex idea of the powers of any substance existing, and its relations, which is that sort of complex idea of substances we have. And after all, if we would have, and actually had, in our complex idea, an exact collection of all the secondary qualities or powers of any substance, we should not yet thereby have an idea of the essence of that thing. For since the powers or qualities that are observable by us, are not the real essence of that substance, but depend on it, and flow from it, any collection whatsoever of these qualities cannot be the real essence of that thing. Whereby it is plain, that our ideas of substances are not adequate; are not what the mind intends them to be. Besides, a man has no idea of substance in general, nor knows what substance is in itself.

Ideas of

modes and

§. 14. Thirdly, complex ideas of modes and relations are originals, and archetypes; are relations are not copies, nor made after the pattern of archetypes, and cannot any real existence, to which the mind inbut be ade- tends them to be conformable, and exactly quate. to answer. These being such collections of simple ideas, that the mind itself puts together, and such collections, that each of them contains in it precisely all that the mind intends that it should, they are archetypes and essences of modes that may exist; and so are designed only for, and belong only to, such modes as, when they do exist, have an exact conformity with those complex ideas. The ideas therefore of modes and relations cannot but be adequate.

CHAP. XXXII.

Of true and false Ideas.

Truth and §. 1. THOUGH truth and falsehood belong, falsehood in propriety of speech, only to propositions; properly be- yet ideas are oftentimes termed true or long to pro- false (as what words are there, that are not positions. used with great latitude, and with some de viation from their strict and proper significations?) Though, I think, that when ideas themselves are termed true or false, there is still some secret or tacit proposition, which is the foundation of that denomination: as we shall see, if we examine the particular occasions wherein they come to be called true or false. In all which, we shall find some kind of affirmation or negation, which is the reason of that denomination. For our ideas, being nothing but bare appearances or perceptions in our minds, cannot properly and simply in themselves be said to be true or false, no more than a single name of any thing can be said to be true or false.

§. 2. Indeed both ideas and words may Metaphysical be said to be true in a metaphysical sense truth conof the word truth, as all other things, that tains a tacit proposition. any way exist, are said to be true; i. e. really to be such as they exist. Though in things called true, even in that sense, there is perhaps a secret reference to our ideas, looked upon as the standards of that truth, which amounts to a mental proposition, though it be usually not taken notice of.

an appear.

or false.

§. 3. But it is not in that metaphysical No idea, as sense of truth which we inquire here, when we examine whether our ideas are capable ance in the of being true or false; but in the more or- mind, true dinary acceptation of those words: and so I say, that the ideas in our minds being only so many perceptions, or appearances there, none of them are false the idea of a centaur having no more falsehood in it, when it appears in our minds, than the name centaur has falsehood in it, when it is pronounced by our mouths, or written on paper. For truth or falsehood lying always in some affirmation, or negation, mental or verbal, our ideas are not capable, any of them, of being false, till the mind passes some judgment on them; that is, affirms or denies something of them.

Ideas refer

false.

§. 4. Whenever the mind refers any of its ideas to any thing extraneous to them, red to any they are then capable to be called true or thing may false. Because the mind in such a reference be true or makes a tacit supposition of their conformity to that thing: which supposition, as it happens to be true or false, so the ideas themselves come to be denominated. The most usual cases wherein this happens, are these following:

existence,

§. 5. First, when the mind supposes any Other men's idea it has conformable to that in other ideas, real men's minds, called by the same common and supposname; v. g. when the mind intends or judges ed real esits ideas of justice, temperance, religion, to be the same with what other men give those names to.

sences, are

what men usually refer their ideas to.

Secondly, when the mind supposes any idea it has in itself to be conformable to some real existence. Thus the two ideas, of a man and a centaur, supposed to be the ideas of real substances, are the one true, and the other false; the one having a conformity to what has really existed, the other not.

ferences.

Thirdly, when the mind refers any of its ideas to that real constitution and essence of any thing, whereon all its properties depend; and thus the greatest part, if not all our ideas of substances, are false. The cause §. 6. These suppositions the mind is very of such re- apt tacitly to make concerning its own ideas. But yet, if we will examine it, we shall find it is chiefly, if not only, concerning its abstract complex ideas. For the natural tendency of the mind being towards knowledge; and finding that if it should proceed by and dwell upon only particular things, its progress would be very slow, and its work endless; therefore to shorten its way to knowledge, and make each perception more comprehensive; the first thing it does, as the foundation of the easier enlarging its knowledge, either by contemplation of the things themselves that it would know, or conference *with others about them, is to bind them into bundles, and rank them so into sorts, that what knowledge it gets of any of them, it may thereby with assurance extend to all of that sort; and so advance by larger steps in that, which is its great business, knowledge. This, as I have elsewhere shown, is the reason why we collect things under comprehensive ideas, with names annexed to them, into genera and species, i. e. into kinds and sorts.

§. 7. If therefore we will warily attend to the motions of the mind, and observe what course it usually takes in its way to knowledge; we shall, I think, find that the mind having got an idea, which it thinks it may have use of, either in contemplation or discourse, the first thing it does is to abstract it, and then get a name to it; and so lay it up in its store-house, the memory, as containing the essence of a sort of things, of which that name is always to be the mark.

Hence