from others of that name. The names of substances, if they be used in them as they should, can no more disturb moral than they do mathematical discourses: where, if the mathematician speaks of a cube or globe of gold, or any other body, he has his clear settled idea which varies not, though it may by mistake be applied to a particular body to which it belongs not.

§. 17. This I have here mentioned by the Definitions by, to show of what consequence it is for can make men, in their names of mixed modes, and moral disconsequently in all their moral discourses, coursesclear. to define their words when there is occasion: since thereby moral knowledge may be brought to so great clearness and certainty. And it must be great want of ingenuity (to say no worse of it) to refuse to do it: since a definition is the only way whereby the precise meaning of moral words can be known; and yet a way whereby their meaning may be known certainly, and without leaving any room for any contest about it. And therefore the negligence or perverseness of mankind cannot be excused, if their discourses in morality be not much more clear than those in natural philosophy: since they are about ideas in the mind, which are none of them false or disproportionate: they having no external beings for the archetypes which they are referred to, and must correspond with. It is far easier for men to frame in their minds an idea which shall be the standard to which they will give the name justice, with which pattern so made, all actions that agree shall pass under that denomination; than, having seen Aristides, to frame an idea that shall in all things be exactly like him; who is as he is, let men make what idea they please of him. For the one, they need but know the combination of ideas that are put together in their own minds; for the other, they must inquire into the whole nature, and abstruse hidden constitution, and various qualities of a thing existing without them.

And is the

§. 18. Another reason that makes the defining of mixed modes so necessary, espe- only way. cially of moral words, is what I mentioned

a little before, viz. that it is the only way whereby the

signification of the most of them can be known with certainty. For the ideas they stand for, being for the most part such whose component parts no where exist together, but scattered and mingled with others, it is the mind alone that collects them, and gives them the union of one idea: and it is only by words, enumerating the several simple ideas which the mind has united, that we can make known to others what their names stand for; the assistance of the senses in this case not helping us, by the proposal of sensible objects, to show the ideas which our names of this kind stand for, as it does often. in the names of sensible simple ideas, and also to some degree in those of substances.

3. In sub

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§. 19. Thirdly, for the explaining the stances, by signification of the names of substances, as showing and they stand for the ideas we have of their dis defining. tinct species, both the fore-mentioned ways,r viz. of showing and defining, are requisite in many cases to be made use of. For there being ordinarily in each. sort some leading qualities, to which we suppose the other ideas, which make up our complex idea of that species, annexed; we forwardly give the specific name, to that thing, wherein that characteristical mark is found, which we take to be the most distinguishing idea of that species. These leading or characteristical (as L may call them) ideas, in the sorts of animals and vege tables, are (as has been before remarked, ch. vi. §. 29. and ch. ix. §. 15.) mostly figure, and in inanimate bodies, colour, and in some both together. Now, Ideas of the §. 20. These leading sensible qualities leading quaare those which make the chief ingredients lities of sub- of our specific ideas, and consequently the most observable and invariable part in the best got by definitions of our specific names, as as attri showing. buted to sorts of substances coming under our knowledge. For though the sound man, in its own nature, be as apt to signify a complex idea made up of animality and rationality, united in the same subject, as to signify any other combination; yet used as a mark to stand for a sort of creatures we count of our own kind, perhaps, the outward shape is as necessary to be taken

stances are

into our complex idea, signified by the word man, as any other we find in it: and therefore why Plato's “animal implume bipes latis unguibus" should not be a good definition of the name man, standing for that sort of creatures, will not be easy to show: for it is the shape, as the leading quality, that seems more to determine that species, than a faculty of reasoning, which appears not at first, and in some never. And if this be not allowed to be so, I do not know how they can be excused from murder, who kill monstrous births, (as we call them) because of an unordinary shape, without knowing whether they have a rational soul or no; which can be no more discerned in a well-formed than illshaped infant, as soon as born. And who is it has informed us, that a rational soul can inhabit no tenement, unless it has just such a sort of frontispiece; or can join itself to, and inform no sort of body but one that is just of such an outward structure?

§. 21. Now these leading qualities are best made known by showing, and can hardly be made known otherwise. For the shape of an horse, or cassuary, will be but rudely and imperfectly imprinted on the mind by words; the sight of the animals doth it a thousand times better: and the idea of the particular colour of gold is not to be got by any description of it, but only by the frequent exercise of the eyes about it, as is evident in those who are used to this metal, who will frequently distinguish true from counterfeit, pure from adulterate, by the sight; where others (who have as good eyes, but yet by use have not got the precise nice idea of that peculiar yellow) shall not perceive any dif ference. The like may be said of those other simple ideas, peculiar în their kind to any substance; for which precise ideas there are no peculiar names. The particular ringing sound there is in gold, distinct from the sound of other bodies, has no particular name annexed to it, no more than the particular yellow that belongs to that metal.

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§. 22. But because many of the simple The ideas of ideas that make up our specific ideas of their powers substances, are powers which lie not ob- best by defi vious to our senses in the things as they

nition.

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ordinarily appear; therefore in the signification of our names of substances, some part of the signification will be better made known by enumerating those simple ideas, than by showing the substance itself. For he that to the yellow shining colour of gold got by sight, shall, from my enumerating them, have the ideas of great ductility, fusibility, fixedness, and solubility in aq. regia, will have a perfecter idea of gold, than he can have by seeing a piece of gold, and thereby imprinting in his mind only its obvious qualities. But if the formal constitution of this shining, heavy, ductile thing (from whence all these its properties flow) lay open to our senses, as the formal constitution, or essence of a triangle does, the signification of the word gold might as easily be ascertained as that of triangle.

rits.

A reflection §. 23. Hence we may take notice how ontheknow much the foundation of all our knowledge ledge of spi- of corporeal things lies in our senses. For how spirits, separate from bodies (whose knowledge and ideas of these things are certainly much more perfect than ours) know them, we have no notion, no idea at all. The whole extent of our knowledge or imagination reaches not beyond our own ideas limited to our ways of perception. Though yet it be not to be doubted that spirits of a higher rank than those immersed in flesh, may have as clear ideas of the radical constitution of substances, as we have of a triangle, and so per ceive how all their properties and operations flow from thence but the manner how they come by that knowledge exceeds our conceptions.

4. Ideas also of substances must be conformable to things.

24. But though definitions will serve to explain the names of substances as they stand for our ideas; yet they leave them not without great imperfection as they stand for things. For our names of substances being not put barely for our ideas, but being made use of ultimately to represent things, and so are put in their place; their signification must agree with the truth of things as well as with men's ideas. And therefore in substances we are not always to rest in the ordinary complex idea, commonly received as the signification

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of that word, but must go a little farther, and inquire into the nature and properties of the things themselves, and thereby perfect, as much as we can, our ideas of their distinct species; or else learn them from such as are used to that sort of things, and are experienced in them. For since it is intended their names should stand for such collections of simple ideas as do really exist in things themselves, as well as for the complex idea in other men's minds, which in their ordinary acceptation they stand for: therefore to define their names right, natural history is to be inquired into; and their properties are, with care and examination, to be found out. For it is not enough, for the avoiding inconveniencies in discourse and arguings about natural bodies and substantial things, to have learned from the propriety of the language, the common but confused, or very imperfect idea, to which each word is applied, and to keep them to that idea in our use of them: but we must, by acquainting ourselves with the history of that sort of things, rectify and settle our complex idea belonging to each specific name; and in discourse with others, (if we find them mistake us) we ought to tell what the complex idea is, that we make such a name stand for. This is the more necessary to be done by all those who search after knowledge and philosophical verity, in that children, being taught words whilst they have but imperfect notions of things, apply them at random, and without much thinking, and seldom frame determined ideas to be signified by them. Which custom (it being easy, and serving well enough for the ordinary affairs of life and conversation) they are apt to continue when they are men and so begin at the wrong end, learning words first and perfectly, but make the notions to which they apply those words afterwards very overtly. By this means it comes to pass, that men speaking the proper language of their country, i. e. according to grammar rules of that language, do yet speak very improperly of things themselves; and, by their arguing one with another, make but small progress in the discoveries of useful truths, and the knowledge of things, as they are to be found in themselves, and not in our