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Title:
An Essay Concerning Humane Understanding, Volume II.
MDCXC,
Based on the 2nd Edition, Books III. and IV. (of 4)
Author:
John Locke
Release
Date: January 6, 2004 [EBook #10616]
Language:
English
Character
set encoding: ASCII
***
START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HUMANE UNDERSTANDING, V2 ***
Produced
by Steve Harris and David Widger
[Based
on the 2d Edition] CONTENTS OF THE SECOND VOLUME
CHAP.
I.
OF WORDS OR LANGUAGE IN GENERAL
II.
OF THE SIGNIFICATION OF WORDS
III.
OF GENERAL TERMS
IV.
OF THE NAMES OF SIMPLE IDEAS
V.
OF THE NAMES OF MIXED MODES AND RELATIONS
VI.
OF THE NAMES OF SUBSTANCES
VII.
OF PARTICLES
VIII.
OF ABSTRACT AND CONCRETE TERMS
IX.
OF THE IMPERFECTION OF WORDS
X.
OF THE ABUSE OF WORDS
XI.
OF THE REMEDIES OF THE FOREGOING IMPERFECTION AND ABUSES
CHAP.
I.
OF KNOWLEDGE IN GENERAL
II.
OF THE DEGREES OF OUR KNOWLEDGE
III.
OF THE EXTENT OF HUMAN KNOWLEDGE
IV.
OF THE REALITY OF OUR KNOWLEDGE
V.
OF TRUTH IN GENERAL
VI.
OF UNIVERSAL PROPOSITIONS: THEIR TRUTH AND CERTAINTY
VII.
OF MAXIMS
VIII.
OF TRIFLING PROPOSITIONS
IX.
OF OUR THREEFOLD KNOWLEDGE OF EXISTENCE
X.
OF OUR KNOWLEDGE OF THE EXISTENCE OF A GOD
XI.
OF OUR KNOWLEDGE OF THE EXISTENCE OF OTHER THINGS
XII.
OF THE IMPROVEMENT OF OUR KNOWLEDGE
XIII.
SOME OTHER CONSIDERATIONS CONCERNING OUR KNOWLEDGE
XIV.
OF JUDGMENT
XV.
OF PROBABILITY
XVI.
OF THE DEGREES OF ASSENT
XVII.
OF REASON [AND SYLLOGISM]
XVIII.
OF FAITH AND REASON, AND THEIR DISTINCT PROVINCES
XIX.
[OF ENTHUSIASM]
XX.
OF WRONG ASSENT, OR ERROR
XXI.
OF THE DIVISION OF THE SCIENCES
OF
WORDS OR LANGUAGE IN GENERAL.
God,
having designed man for a sociable creature, made him not only with an
inclination, and under a necessity to have fellowship with those of his own
kind, but furnished him also with language, which was to be the great
instrument and common tie of society. Man, therefore, had by nature his organs
so fashioned, as to be fit to frame articulate sounds, which we call words.
But this was not enough to produce language; for parrots, and several other
birds, will be taught to make articulate sounds distinct enough, which yet by
no means are capable of language.
Besides
articulate sounds, therefore, it was further necessary that he should be able
to use these sounds as signs of internal conceptions; and to make them stand
as marks for the ideas within his own mind, whereby they might be made known
to others, and the thoughts of men’s minds be conveyed from one to another.
But
neither was this sufficient to make words so useful as they ought to be. It is
not enough for the perfection of language, that sounds can be made signs of
ideas, unless those signs can be so made use of as to comprehend several
particular things: for the multiplication of words would have perplexed their
use, had every particular thing need of a distinct name to be signified by.
[To remedy this inconvenience, language had yet a further improvement in the
use of GENERAL TERMS, whereby one word was made to mark a multitude of
particular existences: which advantageous use of sounds was obtained only by
the difference of the ideas they were made signs of: those names becoming
general, which are made to stand for GENERAL IDEAS, and those remaining
particular, where the IDEAS they are used for are PARTICULAR.]
Besides
these names which stand for ideas, there be other words which men make use of,
not to signify any idea, but the want or absence of some ideas, simple or
complex, or all ideas together; such as are NIHIL in Latin, and in English,
IGNORANCE and BARRENNESS. All which negative or privative words cannot be said
properly to belong to, or signify no ideas: for then they would be perfectly
insignificant sounds; but they relate to positive ideas, and signify their
absence.
It
may also lead us a little towards the original of all our notions and
knowledge, if we remark how great a dependence our words have on common
sensible ideas; and how those which are made use of to stand for actions and
notions quite removed from sense, have their rise from thence, and from
obvious sensible ideas are transferred to more abstruse significations, and
made to stand for ideas that come not under the cognizance of our senses; v.g.
to IMAGINE, APPREHEND, COMPREHEND, ADHERE, CONCEIVE, INSTIL, DISGUST,
DISTURBANCE, TRANQUILLITY, &c., are all words taken from the operations of
sensible things, and applied to certain modes of thinking. SPIRIT, in its
primary signification, is breath; ANGEL, a messenger: and I doubt not but, if
we could trace them to their sources, we should find, in all languages, the
names which stand for things that fall not under our senses to have had their
first rise from sensible ideas. By which we may give some kind of guess what
kind of notions they were, and whence derived, which filled their minds who
were the first beginners of languages, and how nature, even in the naming of
things, unawares suggested to men the originals and principles of all their
knowledge: whilst, to give names that might make known to others any
operations they felt in themselves, or any other ideas that came not under
their senses, they were fain to borrow words from ordinary known ideas of
sensation, by that means to make others the more easily to conceive those
operations they experimented in themselves, which made no outward sensible
appearances; and then, when they had got known and agreed names to signify
those internal operations of their own minds, they were sufficiently furnished
to make known by words all their other ideas; since they could consist of
nothing but either of outward sensible perceptions, or of the inward
operations of their minds about them; we having, as has been proved, no ideas
at all, but what originally come either from sensible objects without, or what
we feel within ourselves, from the inward workings of our own spirits, of
which we are conscious to ourselves within.
But
to understand better the use and force of Language, as subservient to
instruction and knowledge, it will be convenient to consider:
First,
TO WHAT IT IS THAT NAMES, IN THE USE OF LANGUAGE, ARE IMMEDIATELY APPLIED.
Secondly,
Since all (except proper) names are general, and so stand not particularly for
this or that single thing, but for sorts and ranks of things, it will be
necessary to consider, in the next place, what the sorts and kinds, or, if you
rather like the Latin names, WHAT THE SPECIES AND GENERA OF THINGS ARE,
WHEREIN THEY CONSIST, AND HOW THEY COME TO BE MADE. These being (as they
ought) well looked into, we shall the better come to find the right use of
words; the natural advantages and defects of language; and the remedies that
ought to be used, to avoid the inconveniences of obscurity or uncertainty in
the signification of words: without which it is impossible to discourse with
any clearness or order concerning knowledge: which, being conversant about
propositions, and those most commonly universal ones, has greater connexion
with words than perhaps is suspected. These considerations, therefore, shall
be the matter of the following chapters.
OF
THE SIGNIFICATION OF WORDS.
1.
Words are sensible Signs, necessary for Communication of Ideas.
Man,
though he have great variety of thoughts, and such from which others as well
as himself might receive profit and delight; yet they are all within his own
breast, invisible and hidden from others, nor can of themselves be made to
appear. The comfort and advantage of society not being to be had without
communication of thoughts, it was necessary that man should find out some
external sensible signs, whereof those invisible ideas, which his thoughts are
made up of, might be made known to others. For this purpose nothing was so
fit, either for plenty or quickness, as those articulate sounds, which with so
much ease and variety he found himself able to make. Thus we may conceive how
WORDS, which were by nature so well adapted to that purpose, came to be made
use of by men as the signs of their ideas; not by any natural connexion that
there is between particular articulate sounds and certain ideas, for then
there would be but one language amongst all men; but by a voluntary
imposition, whereby such a word is made arbitrarily the mark of such an idea.
The use, then, of words, is to be sensible marks of ideas; and the ideas they
stand for are their proper and immediate signification.
2.
Words, in their immediate Signification, are the sensible Signs of his
Ideas who uses them.
The
use men have of these marks being either to record their own thoughts, for the
assistance of their own memory; or, as it were, to bring out their ideas, and
lay them before the view of others: words, in their primary or immediate
signification, stand for nothing but THE IDEAS IN THE MIND OF HIM THAT USES
THEM, how imperfectly soever or carelessly those ideas are collected from the
things which they are supposed to represent. When a man speaks to another, it
is that he may be understood: and the end of speech is, that those sounds, as
marks, may make known his ideas to the hearer. That then which words are the
marks of are the ideas of the speaker: nor can any one apply them as marks,
immediately, to anything else but the ideas that he himself hath: for this
would be to make them signs of his own conceptions, and yet apply them to
other ideas; which would be to make them signs and not signs of his ideas at
the same time; and so in effect to have no signification at all. Words being
voluntary signs, they cannot be voluntary signs imposed by him on things he
knows not. That would be to make them signs of nothing, sounds without
signification. A man cannot make his words the signs either of qualities in
things, or of conceptions in the mind of another, whereof he has none in his
own. Till he has some ideas of his own, he cannot suppose them to correspond
with the conceptions of another man; nor can he use any signs for them: for
thus they would be the signs of he knows not what, which is in truth to be the
signs of nothing. But when he represents to himself other men’s ideas by
some of his own, if he consent to give them the same names that other men do,
it is still to his own ideas; to ideas that he has, and not to ideas that he
has not.
3.
Examples of this.
This
is so necessary in the use of language, that in this respect the knowing and
the ignorant, the learned and the unlearned, use the words they speak (with
any meaning) all alike. They, in every man’s mouth, stand for the ideas he
has, and which he would express by them. A child having taken notice of
nothing in the metal he hears called GOLD, but the bright shining yellow
colour, he applies the word gold only to his own idea of that colour, and
nothing else; and therefore calls the same colour in a peacock’s tail gold.
Another that hath better observed, adds to shining yellow great weight: and
then the sound gold, when he uses it, stands for a complex idea of a shining
yellow and a very weighty substance. Another adds to those qualities
fusibility: and then the word gold signifies to him a body, bright, yellow,
fusible, and very heavy.
Another
adds malleability. Each of these uses equally the word gold,
when
they have occasion to express the idea which they have applied it
to:
but it is evident that each can apply it only to his own idea; nor
can he make it stand as a sign of such a complex idea as he has not.
4.
Words are often secretly referred, First to the Ideas supposed to be in
other men’s minds.
But
though words, as they are used by men, can properly and immediately signify
nothing but the ideas that are in the mind of the speaker; yet they in their
thoughts give them a secret reference to two other things.
First,
THEY SUPPOSE THEIR WORDS TO BE MARKS OF THE IDEAS IN THE MINDS ALSO OF OTHER
MEN, WITH WHOM THEY COMMUNICATE; for else they should talk in vain, and could
not be understood, if the sounds they applied to one idea were such as by the
hearer were applied to another, which is to speak two languages. But in this
men stand not usually to examine, whether the idea they, and those they
discourse with have in their minds be the same: but think it enough that they
use the word, as they imagine, in the common acceptation of that language; in
which they suppose that the idea they make it a sign of is precisely the same
to which the understanding men of that country apply that name.
5.
Secondly, to the Reality of Things.
Secondly,
Because men would not be thought to talk barely of their own imagination, but
of things as really they are; therefore they often suppose the WORDS TO STAND
ALSO FOR THE REALITY OF THINGS. But this relating more particularly to
substances and their names, as perhaps the former does to simple ideas and
modes, we shall speak of these two different ways of applying words more at
large, when we come to treat of the names of mixed modes and substances in
particular: though give me leave here to say, that it is a perverting the use
of words, and brings unavoidable obscurity and confusion into their
signification, whenever we make them stand for anything but those ideas we
have in our own minds.
6.
Words by Use readily excite Ideas of their objects.
Concerning
words, also, it is further to be considered:
First,
that they being immediately the signs of men’s ideas, and by that means the
instruments whereby men communicate their conceptions, and express to one
another those thoughts and imaginations they have within their own breasts;
there comes, by constant use, to be such a connexion between certain sounds
and the ideas they stand for, that the names heard, almost as readily excite
certain ideas as if the objects themselves, which are apt to produce them, did
actually affect the senses. Which is manifestly so in all obvious sensible
qualities, and in all substances that frequently and familiarly occur to us.
7.
Words are often used without Signification, and Why.
Secondly,
That though the proper and immediate signification of words are ideas in the
mind of the speaker, yet, because by familiar use from our cradles, we come to
learn certain articulate sounds very perfectly, and have them readily on our
tongues, and always at hand in our memories, but yet are not always careful to
examine or settle their significations perfectly; it often happens that men,
even when they would apply themselves to an attentive consideration, do set
their thoughts more on words than things. Nay, because words are many of them
learned before the ideas are known for which they stand: therefore some, not
only children but men, speak several words no otherwise than parrots do, only
because they have learned them, and have been accustomed to those sounds. But
so far as words are of use and signification, so far is there a constant
connexion between the sound and the idea, and a designation that the one
stands for the other; without which application of them, they are nothing but
so much insignificant noise.
8.
Their Signification perfectly arbitrary, not the consequence of a
natural connexion.
Words,
by long and familiar use, as has been said, come to excite in men certain
ideas so constantly and readily, that they are apt to suppose a natural
connexion between them. But that they signify only men’s peculiar ideas, and
that BY A PERFECT ARBITRARY IMPOSITION, is evident, in that they often fail to
excite in others (even that use the same language) the same ideas we take them
to be signs of: and every man has so inviolable a liberty to make words stand
for what ideas he pleases, that no one hath the power to make others have the
same ideas in their minds that he has, when they use the same words that he
does. And therefore the great Augustus himself, in the possession of that
power which ruled the world, acknowledged he could not make a new Latin word:
which was as much as to say, that he could not arbitrarily appoint what idea
any sound should be a sign of, in the mouths and common language of his
subjects. It is true, common use, by a tacit consent, appropriates certain
sounds to certain ideas in all languages, which so far limits the
signification of that sound, that unless a man applies it to the same idea, he
does not speak properly: and let me add, that unless a man’s words excite
the same ideas in the hearer which he makes them stand for in speaking, he
does not speak intelligibly. But whatever be the consequence of any man’s
using of words differently, either from their general meaning, or the
particular sense of the person to whom he addresses them; this is certain,
their signification, in his use of them, is limited to his ideas, and they can
be signs of nothing else.
OF
GENERAL TERMS.
1.
The greatest Part of Words are general terms.
All
things that exist being particulars, it may perhaps be thought reasonable that
words, which ought to be conformed to things, should be so too,--I mean in
their signification: but yet we find quite the contrary. The far greatest part
of words that make all languages are general terms: which has not been the
effect of neglect or chance, but of reason and necessity.
2.
That every particular Thing should have a Name for itself is
impossible.
First,
It is impossible that every particular thing should have a distinct peculiar
name. For, the signification and use of words depending on that connexion
which the mind makes between its ideas and the sounds it uses as signs of
them, it is necessary, in the application of names to things, that the mind
should have distinct ideas of the things, and retain also the particular name
that belongs to every one, with its peculiar appropriation to that idea. But
it is beyond the power of human capacity to frame and retain distinct ideas of
all the particular things we meet with: every bird and beast men saw; every
tree and plant that affected the senses, could not find a place in the most
capacious understanding. If it be looked on as an instance of a prodigious
memory, that some generals have been able to call every soldier in their army
by his proper name, we may easily find a reason why men have never attempted
to give names to each sheep in their flock, or crow that flies over their
heads; much less to call every leaf of plants, or grain of sand that came in
their way, by a peculiar name.
3.
And would be useless, if it were possible.
Secondly,
If it were possible, it would yet be useless; because it would not serve to
the chief end of language. Men would in vain heap up names of particular
things, that would not serve them to communicate their thoughts. Men learn
names, and use them in talk with others, only that they may be understood:
which is then only done when, by use or consent, the sound I make by the
organs of speech, excites in another man’s mind who hears it, the idea I
apply it to in mine, when I speak it. This cannot be done by names applied to
particular things; whereof I alone having the ideas in my mind, the names of
them could not be significant or intelligible to another, who was not
acquainted with all those very particular things which had fallen under my
notice.
4.
A distinct name for every particular thing not fitted for enlargement
of knowledge.
Thirdly,
But yet, granting this also feasible, (which I think is not,) yet a distinct
name for every particular thing would not be of any great use for the
improvement of knowledge: which, though founded in particular things, enlarges
itself by general views; to which things reduced into sorts, under general
names, are properly subservient. These,
with the names belonging to them, come within some compass, and do not
multiply every moment, beyond what either the mind can contain, or use
requires. And therefore, in these, men have for the most part stopped: but yet
not so as to hinder themselves from distinguishing particular things by
appropriated names, where convenience demands it.
And therefore in their own species, which they have most to do with,
and wherein they have often occasion to mention particular persons, they make
use of proper names; and there distinct individuals have distinct
denominations.
5.
What things have proper Names, and why.
Besides
persons, countries also, cities, rivers, mountains, and other the like
distinctions of lace have usually found peculiar names, and that for the same
reason; they being such as men have often as occasion to mark particularly,
and, as it were, set before others in their discourses with them. And I doubt
not but, if we had reason to mention particular horses as often as as have
reason to mention particular men, we should have proper names for the one, as
familiar as for the other, and Bucephalus would be a word as much in use as
Alexander. And therefore we see that, amongst jockeys, horses have their
proper names to be known and distinguished by, as commonly as their servants:
because, amongst them, there is often occasion to mention this or that
particular horse when he is out of sight.
6.
How general Words are made.
The
next thing to be considered is,--How general words come to be made.
For, since all things that exist are only particulars, how come we by
general terms; or where find we those general natures they are supposed to
stand for? Words become general by being made the signs of general ideas: and
ideas become general, by separating from them the circumstances of time and
place, and any other ideas that may determine them to this or that particular
existence. By this way of abstraction they are made capable of representing
more individuals than one; each of which having in it a conformity to that
abstract idea, is (as we call it) of that sort.
7.
Shown by the way we enlarge our complex ideas from infancy.
But,
to deduce this a little more distinctly, it will not perhaps be amiss to trace
our notions and names from their beginning, and observe by what degrees we
proceed, and by what steps we enlarge our ideas from our first infancy. There
is nothing more evident, than that the ideas of the persons children converse
with (to instance in them alone) are, like the persons themselves, only
particular. The ideas of the nurse and the mother are well framed in their
minds; and, like pictures of them there, represent only those individuals. The
names they first gave to them are confined to these individuals; and the names
of NURSE and MAMMA, the child uses, determine themselves to those persons.
Afterwards, when time and a larger acquaintance have made them observe that
there are a great many other things in the world, that in some common
agreements of shape, and several other qualities, resemble their father and
mother, and those persons they have been used to, they frame an idea, which
they find those many particulars do partake in; and to that they give, with
others, the name MAN, for example. And thus they come to have a general name,
and a general idea. Wherein they make nothing new; but only leave out of the
complex idea they had of Peter and James, Mary and Jane, that which is
peculiar to each, and retain only what is common to them all.
8.
And further enlarge our complex ideas, by still leaving out properties
contained in them.
By
the same way that they come by the general name and idea of MAN, they easily
advance to more general names and notions. For, observing that several things
that differ from their idea of man, and cannot therefore be comprehended out
under that name, have yet certain qualities wherein they agree with man, by
retaining only those qualities, and uniting them into one idea, they have
again another and more general idea; to which having given a name they make a
term of a more comprehensive extension: which new idea is made, not by any new
addition, but only as before, by leaving out the shape, and some other
properties signified by the name man, and retaining only a body, with life,
sense, and spontaneous motion, comprehended under the name animal.
9.
General natures are nothing but abstract and partial ideas of more
complex ones.
That
this is the way whereby men first formed general ideas, and general names to
them, I think is so evident, that there needs no other proof of it but the
considering of a man’s self, or others, and the ordinary proceedings of
their minds in knowledge. And he that thinks GENERAL NATURES or NOTIONS are
anything else but such abstract and partial ideas of more complex ones, taken
at first from particular existences, will, I fear, be at a loss where to find
them. For let any one effect, and then tell me, wherein does his idea of MAN
differ from that of PETER and PAUL, or his idea of HORSE from that of
BUCEPHALUS, but in the leaving out something that is peculiar to each
individual, and retaining so much of those particular complex ideas of several
particular existences as they are found to agree in? Of the complex ideas
signified by the names MAN and HORSE, leaving out but those particulars
wherein they differ, and retaining only those wherein they agree, and of those
making a new distinct complex idea, and giving the name ANIMAL to it, one has
a more general term, that comprehends with man several other creatures. Leave
out of the idea of ANIMAL, sense and spontaneous motion, and the remaining
complex idea, made up of the remaining simple ones of body, life, and
nourishment, becomes a more general one, under the more comprehensive term,
VIVENS. And, not to dwell longer upon this particular, so evident in itself;
by the same way the mind proceeds to BODY, SUBSTANCE, and at last to BEING,
THING, and such universal terms, which stand for any of our ideas whatsoever.
To conclude: this whole mystery of genera and species, which make such a noise
in the schools, and are with justice so little regarded out of them, is
nothing else but ABSTRACT IDEAS, more or less comprehensive, with names
annexed to them. In all which
this is constant and unvariable, That every more general term stands for such
an idea, and is but a part of any of those contained under it.
10.
Why the Genus is ordinarily made Use of in Definitions.
This
may show us the reason why, in the defining of words, which is nothing but
declaring their signification, we make use of the GENUS, or next general word
that comprehends it. Which is not out of necessity, but only to save the
labour of enumerating the several simple ideas which the next general word or
GENUS stands for; or, perhaps, sometimes the shame of not being able to do it.
But though defining by GENUS and DIFFERENTIA (I crave leave to use these terms
of art, though originally Latin, since they most properly suit those notions
they are applied to), I say, though defining by the GENUS be the shortest way,
yet I think it may be doubted whether it be the best. This I am sure, it is
not the only, and so not absolutely necessary. For, definition being nothing
but making another understand by words what idea the term defined stands for,
a definition is best made by enumerating those simple ideas that are combined
in the signification of the term defined: and if, instead of such an
enumeration, men have accustomed themselves to use the next general term, it
has not been out of necessity, or for greater clearness, but for quickness and
dispatch sake. For I think that, to one who desired to know what idea the word
MAN stood for; if it should be said, that man was a solid extended substance,
having life, sense, spontaneous motion, and the faculty of reasoning, I doubt
not but the meaning of the term man would be as well understood, and the idea
it stands for be at least as clearly made known, as when it is defined to be a
rational animal: which, by the several definitions of ANIMAL, VIVENS, and
CORPUS, resolves itself into those enumerated ideas. I have, in explaining the
term MAN, followed here the ordinary definition of the schools; which, though
perhaps not the most, exact, yet serves well enough to my present purpose. And
one may, in this instance, see what gave occasion to the rule, that a
definition must consist of GENUS and DIFFERENTIA; and it suffices to show us
the little necessity there is of such a rule, or advantage in the strict
observing of it. For, definitions, as has been said, being only the explaining
of one word by several others, so that the meaning or idea it stands for may
be certainly known; languages are not always so made according to the rules of
logic, that every term can have its signification exactly and clearly
expressed by two others. Experience sufficiently satisfies us to the contrary;
or else those who have made this rule have done ill, that they have given us
so few definitions conformable to it. But of definitions more in the next
chapter.
11.
General and Universal are Creatures of the Understanding, and belong
not to the Real Existence of things.
To
return to general words: it is plain, by what has been said, that GENERAL and
UNIVERSAL belong not to the real existence of things; but are the inventions
and creatures of the understanding, made by it for its own use, and concern
only signs, whether words or ideas. Words are general, as has been said, when
used for signs of general ideas, and so are applicable indifferently to many
particular things; and ideas are general when they are set up as the
representatives of many particular things: but universality belongs not to
things themselves, which are all of them particular in their existence, even
those words and ideas which in their signification are general. When therefore
we quit particulars, the generals that rest are only creatures of our own
making; their general nature being nothing but the capacity they are put into,
by the understanding, of signifying or representing many particulars. For the
signification they have is nothing but a relation that, by the mind of man, is
added to them.
12.
Abstract Ideas are the Essences of Genera and Species.
The
next thing therefore to be considered is, What kind of signification it is
that general words have. For, as it is evident that they do not signify barely
one particular thing; for then they would not be general terms, but proper
names, so, on the other side, it is as evident they do not signify a
plurality; for MAN and MEN would then signify the same; and the distinction of
numbers (as the grammarians call them) would be superfluous and useless. That
then which general words signify is a SORT of things; and each of them does
that, by being a sign of an abstract idea in the mind; to which idea, as
things existing are found to agree, so they come to be ranked under that name,
or, which is all one, be of that sort. Whereby it is evident that the ESSENCES
of the sorts, or, if the Latin word pleases better, SPECIES of things, are
nothing else but these abstract ideas. For the having the essence of any
species, being that which makes anything to be of that species; and the
conformity to the idea to which the name is annexed being that which gives a
right to that name; the having the essence, and the having that conformity,
must needs be the same thing: since to be of any species, and to have a right
to the name of that species, is all one. As, for example, to be a MAN, or of
the SPECIES man, and to have right to the NAME man, is the same thing. Again,
to be a man, or of the species man, and have the ESSENCE of a man, is the same
thing. Now, since nothing can be a man, or have a right to the name man, but
what has a conformity to the abstract idea the name man stands for, nor
anything be a man, or have a right to the species man, but what has the
essence of that species; it follows, that the abstract idea for which the name
stands, and the essence of the species, is one and the same. From whence it is
easy to observe, that the essences of the sorts of things, and, consequently,
the sorting of things, is the workmanship of the understanding that abstracts
and makes those general ideas.
13.
They are the Workmanship of the Understanding, but have their
Foundation in the Similitude of Things.
I
would not here be thought to forget, much less to deny, that Nature, in the
production of things, makes several of them alike: there is nothing more
obvious, especially in the races of animals, and all things propagated by
seed. But yet I think we may say, THE SORTING OF THEM UNDER NAMES IS THE
WORKMANSHIP OF THE UNDERSTANDING, TAKING OCCASION, FROM THE SIMILITUDE IT
OBSERVES AMONGST THEM, TO MAKE ABSTRACT GENERAL IDEAS, and set them up in the
mind, with names annexed to them, as patterns or forms, (for, in that sense,
the word FORM has a very proper signification,) to which as particular things
existing are found to agree, so they come to be of that species, have that
denomination, or are put into that CLASSIS. For when we say this is a man,
that a horse; this justice, that cruelty; this a watch, that a jack; what do
we else but rank things under different specific names, as agreeing to those
abstract ideas, of which we have made those names the signs? And what are the
essences of those species set out and marked by names, but those abstract
ideas in the mind; which are, as it were, the bonds between particular things
that exist, and the names they are to be ranked under?
And when general names have any connexion with particular beings, these
abstract ideas are the medium that unites them: so that the essences of
species, as distinguished and denominated by us, neither are nor can be
anything but those precise abstract ideas we have in our minds. And therefore
the supposed real essences of substances, if different from our abstract
ideas, cannot be the essences of the species WE rank things into. For two
species may be one, as rationally as two different essences be the essence of
one species: and I demand what are the alterations [which] may, or may not be
made in a HORSE or LEAD, without making either of them to be of another
species? In determining the species of things by OUR abstract ideas, this is
easy to resolve: but if any one will regulate himself herein by supposed REAL
essences, he will I suppose, be at a loss: and he will never be able to know
when anything precisely ceases to be of the species of a HORSE or LEAD.
14.
Each distinct abstract Idea is a distinct Essence.
Nor
will any one wonder that I say these essences, or abstract ideas (which are
the measures of name, and the boundaries of species) are the workmanship of
the understanding, who considers that at least the complex ones are often, in
several men, different collections of simple ideas; and therefore that is
COVETOUSNESS to one man, which is not so to another. Nay, even in substances,
where their abstract ideas seem to be taken from the things themselves, they
are not constantly the same; no, not in that species which is most familiar to
us, and with which we have the most intimate acquaintance: it having been more
than once doubted, whether the FOETUS born of a woman were a MAN, even so far
as that it hath been debated, whether it were or were not to be nourished and
baptized: which could not be, if the abstract idea or essence to which the
name man belonged were of nature’s making; and were not the uncertain and
various collection of simple ideas, which the understanding put together, and
then, abstracting it, affixed a name to it. So that, in truth, every distinct
abstract idea is a distinct essence; and the names that stand for such
distinct ideas are the names of things essentially different. Thus a circle is
as essentially different from an oval as a sheep from a goat; and rain is as
essentially different from snow as water from earth: that abstract idea which
is the essence of one being impossible to be communicated to the other. And
thus any two abstract ideas, that in any part vary one from another, with two
distinct names annexed to them, constitute two distinct sorts, or, if you
please, SPECIES, as essentially different as any two of the most remote or
opposite in the world.
15.
Several significations of the word Essence.
But
since the essences of things are thought by some (and not without reason) to
be wholly unknown, it may not be amiss to consider the several significations
of the word ESSENCE.
Real
essences.
First,
Essence may be taken for the very being of anything, whereby it is what it is.
And thus the real internal, but generally (in substances) unknown constitution
of things, whereon their discoverable qualities depend, may be called their
essence. This is the proper original signification of the word, as is evident
from the formation of it; essential in its primary notation, signifying
properly, being. And in this sense it is still used, when we speak of the
essence of PARTICULAR things, without giving them any name.
Nominal
Essences.
Secondly,
The learning and disputes of the schools having been much busied about genus
and species, the word essence has almost lost its primary signification: and,
instead of the real constitution of things, has been almost wholly applied to
the artificial constitution of genus and species. It is true, there is
ordinarily supposed a real constitution of the sorts of things; and it is past
doubt there must be some real constitution, on which any collection of simple
ideas co-existing must depend. But, it being evident that things are ranked
under names into sorts or species, only as they agree to certain abstract
ideas, to which we have annexed those names, the essence of each GENUS, or
sort, comes to be nothing but that abstract idea which the general, or sortal
(if I may have leave so to call it from sort, as I do general from genus,)
name stands for. And this we shall find to be that which the word essence
imports in its most familiar use.
These
two sorts of essences, I suppose, may not unfitly be termed, the one the REAL,
the other NOMINAL ESSENCE.
16.
Constant Connexion between the Name and nominal Essence.
Between
the NOMINAL ESSENCE and the NAME there is so near a connexion, that the name
of any sort of things cannot be attributed to any particular being but what
has this essence, whereby it answers that abstract idea whereof that name is
the sign.
17.
Supposition, that Species are distinguished by their real Essences
useless.
Concerning
the REAL ESSENCES of corporeal substances (to mention these only) there are,
if I mistake not, two opinions. The one is of those who, using the word
essence for they know not what, suppose a certain number of those essences,
according to which all natural things are made, and wherein they do exactly
every one of them partake, and so become of this or that species. The other
and more rational opinion is of those who look on all natural things to have a
real, but unknown, constitution of their insensible parts; from which flow
those sensible qualities which serve us to distinguish them one from another,
according as we have occasion to rank them into sorts, under common
denominations. The former of
these opinions, which supposes these essences as a certain number of forms or
moulds, wherein all natural things that exist are cast, and do equally
partake, has, I imagine, very much perplexed the knowledge of natural things.
The frequent productions of monsters, in all the species of animals, and of
changelings, and other strange issues of human birth, carry with them
difficulties, not possible to consist with this hypothesis; since it is as
impossible that two things partaking exactly of the same real essence should
have different properties, as that two figures partaking of the same real
essence of a circle should have different properties. But were there no other
reason against it, yet the supposition of essences that cannot be known; and
the making of them, nevertheless, to be that which distinguishes the species
of things, is so wholly useless and unserviceable to any part of our
knowledge, that that alone were sufficient to make us lay it by, and content
ourselves with such essences of the sorts or species of things as come within
the reach of our knowledge: which, when seriously considered, will be found,
as I have said, to be nothing else but, those ABSTRACT complex ideas to which
we have annexed distinct general names.
18.
Real and nominal Essence
Essences
being thus distinguished into nominal and real, we may further observe, that,
in the species of simple ideas and modes, they are always the same; but in
substances always quite different. Thus, a figure including a space between
three lines, is the real as well as nominal essence of a triangle; it being
not only the abstract idea to which the general name is annexed, but the very
ESSENTIA or being of the thing itself; that foundation from which all its
properties flow, and to which they are all inseparably annexed. But it is far
otherwise concerning that parcel of matter which makes the ring on my finger;
wherein these two essences are apparently different. For, it is the real
constitution of its insensible parts, on which depend all those properties of
colour, weight, fusibility, fixedness, &c., which are to be found in it;
which constitution we know not, and so, having no particular idea of, having
no name that is the sign of it. But yet it is its colour, weight, fusibility,
fixedness, &c., which makes it to be gold, or gives it a right to that
name, which is therefore its nominal essence. Since nothing can be called gold
but what has a conformity of qualities to that abstract complex idea to which
that name is annexed. But this distinction of essences, belonging particularly
to substances, we shall, when we come to consider their names, have an
occasion to treat of more fully.
19.
Essences ingenerable and incorruptible.
That
such abstract ideas, with names to them, as we have been speaking of are
essences, may further appear by what we are told concerning essences, viz.
that they are all ingenerable and incorruptible. Which cannot be true of the
real constitutions of things, which begin and perish with them. All things
that exist, besides their Author, are all liable to change; especially those
things we are acquainted with, and have ranked into bands under distinct names
or ensigns. Thus, that which was grass to-day is to-morrow the flesh of a
sheep; and, within a few days after, becomes part of a man: in all which and
the like changes, it is evident their real essence—i. e. that constitution
whereon the properties of these several things depended—is destroyed, and
perishes with them. But essences being taken for ideas established in the
mind, with names annexed to them, they are supposed to remain steadily the
same, whatever mutations the particular substances are liable to. For,
whatever becomes of ALEXANDER and BUCEPHALUS, the ideas to which MAN and HORSE
are annexed, are supposed nevertheless to remain the same; and so the essences
of those species are preserved whole and undestroyed, whatever changes happen
to any or all of the individuals of those species. By this means the essence
of a species rests safe and entire, without the existence of so much as one
individual of that kind. For, were there now no circle existing anywhere in
the world, (as perhaps that figure exists not anywhere exactly marked out,)
yet the idea annexed to that name would not cease to be what it is; nor cease
to be as a pattern to determine which of the particular figures we meet with
have or have not a right to the NAME circle, and so to show which of them, by
having that essence, was of that species. And though there neither were nor
had been in nature such a beast as an UNICORN, or such a fish as a MERMAID;
yet, supposing those names to stand for complex abstract ideas that contained
no inconsistency in them, the essence of a mermaid is as intelligible as that
of a man; and the idea of an unicorn as certain, steady, and permanent as that
of a horse. From what has been said, it is evident, that the doctrine of the
immutability of essences proves them to be only abstract ideas; and is founded
on the relation established between them and certain sounds as signs of them;
and will always be true, as long as the same name can have the same
signification.
20.
Recapitulation.
To
conclude. This is that which in short I would say, viz. that all the great
business of GENERA and SPECIES, and their ESSENCES, amounts to no more but
this:--That men making abstract ideas, and settling them in their minds with
names annexed to them, do thereby enable themselves to consider things, and
discourse of them, as it were in bundles, for the easier and readier
improvement and communication of their knowledge, which would advance but
slowly were their words and thoughts confined only to particulars.
OF
THE NAMES OF SIMPLE IDEAS.
1.
Names of simple Ideas, Modes, and Substances, have each something
peculiar.
Though
all words, as I have shown, signify nothing immediately but the ideas in the
mind of the speaker; yet, upon a nearer survey, we shall find the names of
SIMPLE IDEAS, MIXED MODES (under which I comprise RELATIONS too), and NATURAL
SUBSTANCES, have each of them something peculiar and different from the other.
For example:--
2.
First, Names of simple Ideas, and of Substances intimate real
Existence.
First,
the names of SIMPLE IDEAS and SUBSTANCES, with the abstract ideas in the mind
which they immediately signify, intimate also some real existence, from which
was derived their original pattern. But the names of MIXED MODES terminate in
the idea that is in the mind, and lead not the thoughts any further; as we
shall see more at large in the following chapter.
3.
Secondly, Names of simple Ideas and Modes signify always both real and
nominal Essences.
Secondly,
The names of simple ideas and modes signify always the real as well as nominal
essence of their species. But the names of natural substances signify rarely,
if ever, anything but barely the nominal essences of those species; as we
shall show in the chapter that treats of the names of substances in
particular.
4.
Thirdly, Names of simple Ideas are undefinable.
Thirdly,
The names of simple ideas are not capable of any definition; the names of all
complex ideas are. It has not, that I know, been yet observed by anybody what
words are, and what are not, capable of being defined; the want whereof is (as
I am apt to think) not seldom the occasion of great wrangling and obscurity in
men’s discourses, whilst some demand definitions of terms that cannot be
defined; and others think they ought not to rest satisfied in an explication
made by a more general word, and its restriction, (or to speak in terms of
art, by a genus and difference,) when, even after such definition, made
according to rule, those who hear it have often no more a clear conception of
the meaning of the word than they had before. This at least I think, that the
showing what words are, and what are not, capable of definitions, and wherein
consists a good definition, is not wholly besides our present purpose; and
perhaps will afford so much light to the nature of these signs and our ideas,
as to deserve a more particular consideration.
5.
If all names were definable, it would be a Process IN INFINITUM.
I
will not here trouble myself to prove that all terms are not definable, from
that progress IN INFINITUM, which it will visibly lead us into, if we should
allow that all names could be defined. For, if the terms of one definition
were still to be defined by another, where at last should we stop? But I
shall, from the nature of our ideas, and the signification of our words, show
WHY SOME NAMES CAN, AND OTHERS CANNOT BE DEFINED; and WHICH THEY ARE.
6.
What a Definition is.
I
think it is agreed, that a DEFINITION is nothing else but THE SHOWING THE
MEANING OF ONE WORD BY SEVERAL OTHER NOT SYNONYMOUS TERMS. The meaning of
words being only the ideas they are made to stand for by him that uses them,
the meaning of any term is then showed, or the word is defined, when, by other
words, the idea it is made the sign of, and annexed to, in the mind of the
speaker, is as it were represented, or set before the view of another; and
thus its signification ascertained. This
is the only use and end of definitions; and therefore the only measure of what
is, or is not a good definition.
7.
Simple Ideas, why undefinable.
This
being premised, I say that the NAMES OF SIMPLE IDEAS, AND THOSE ONLY, ARE
INCAPABLE OF BEING DEFINED. The reason whereof is this, That the several terms
of a definition, signifying several ideas, they can all together by no means
represent an idea which has no composition at all: and therefore a definition,
which is properly nothing but the showing the meaning of one word by several
others not signifying each the same thing, can in the names of simple ideas
have no place.
8.
Instances: Scholastic definitions of Motion.
The
not observing this difference in our ideas, and their names, has produced that
eminent trifling in the schools, which is so easy to be observed in the
definitions they give us of some few of these simple ideas. For, as to the
greatest part of them, even those masters of definitions were fain to leave
them untouched, merely by the impossibility they found in it. What more
exquisite jargon could the wit of man invent, than this definition:--‘The
act of a being in power, as far forth as in power;’ which would puzzle any
rational man, to whom it was not already known by its famous absurdity, to
guess what word it could ever be supposed to be the explication of. If Tully,
asking a Dutchman what BEWEEGINGE was, should have received this explication
in his own language, that it was ‘actus entis in potentia quatenus in
potentia;’ I ask whether any one can imagine he could thereby have
understood what the word BEWEEGINGE signified, or have guessed what idea a
Dutchman ordinarily had in his mind, and would signify to another, when he
used that sound?
9.
Modern definition of Motion.
Nor
have the modern philosophers, who have endeavoured to throw off the jargon of
the schools, and speak intelligibly, much better succeeded in defining simple
ideas, whether by explaining their causes, or any otherwise. The atomists, who
define motion to be ‘a passage from one place to another,’ what do they
more than put one synonymous word for another? For what is PASSAGE other than
MOTION? And if they were asked what passage was, how would they better define
it than by motion? For is it not at least as proper and significant to say,
Passage is a motion from one place to another, as to say, Motion is a passage,
&c.? This is to translate, and not to define, when we change two words of
the same signification one for another; which, when one is better understood
than the other, may serve to discover what idea the unknown stands for; but is
very far from a definition, unless we will say every English word in the
dictionary is the definition of the Latin word it answers, and that motion is
a definition of MOTUS. Nor will ‘the successive application of the parts of
the superficies of one body to those of another,’ which the Cartesians give
us, prove a much better definition of motion, when well examined.
10.
Definitions of Light.
‘The
act of perspicuous, as far forth as perspicuous,’ is another Peripatetic
definition of a simple idea; which, though not more absurd than the former of
motion, yet betrays its uselessness and insignificancy more plainly; because
experience will easily convince any one that it cannot make the meaning of the
word LIGHT (which it pretends to define) at all understood by a blind man, but
the definition of motion appears not at first sight so useless, because it
escapes this way of trial. For this simple idea, entering by the touch as well
as sight, it is impossible to show an example of any one who has no other way
to get the idea of motion, but barely by the definition of that name. Those
who tell us that light is a great number of little globules, striking briskly
on the bottom of the eye, speak more intelligibly than the Schools: but yet
these words never so well understood would make the idea the word light stands
for no more known to a man that understands it not before, than if one should
tell him that light was nothing but a company of little tennis-balls, which
fairies all day long struck with rackets against some men’s foreheads,
whilst they passed by others. For granting this explication of the thing to be
true, yet the idea of the cause of light, if we had it never so exact, would
no more give us the idea of light itself, as it is such a particular
perception in us, than the idea of the figure and motion of a sharp piece of
steel would give us the idea of that pain which it is able to cause in us. For
the cause of any sensation, and the sensation itself, in all the simple ideas
of one sense, are two ideas; and two ideas so different and distant one from
another, that no two can be more so. And therefore, should Des Cartes’s
globules strike never so long on the retina of a man who was blind by a gutta
serena, he would thereby never have any idea of light, or anything approaching
it, though he understood never so well what little globules were, and what
striking on another body was. And therefore the Cartesians very well
distinguish between that light which is the cause of that sensation in us, and
the idea which is produced in us by it, and is that which is properly light.
11.
Simple Ideas, why undefinable, further explained.
Simple
ideas, as has been shown, are only to be got by those impressions objects
themselves make on our minds, by the proper inlets appointed to each sort. If
they are not received this way, all the words in the world, made use of to
explain or define any of their names, will never be able to produce in us the
idea it stands for. For, words being sounds, can produce in us no other simple
ideas than of those very sounds; nor excite any in us, but by that voluntary
connexion which is known to be between them and those simple ideas which
common use has made them the signs of. He that thinks otherwise, let him try
if any words can give him the taste of a pine apple, and make him have the
true idea of the relish of that celebrated delicious fruit. So far as he is
told it has a resemblance with any tastes whereof he has the ideas already in
his memory, imprinted there by sensible objects, not strangers to his palate,
so far may he approach that resemblance in his mind. But this is not giving us
that idea by a definition, but exciting in us other simple ideas by their
known names; which will be still very different from the true taste of that
fruit itself. In light and colours, and all other simple ideas, it is the same
thing: for the signification of sounds is not natural, but only imposed and
arbitrary. And no DEFINITION of
light or redness is more fitted or able to produce either of those ideas in
us, than the SOUND light or red, by itself.
For, to hope to produce an idea of light or colour by a sound, however
formed, is to expect that sounds should be visible, or colours audible; and to
make the ears do the office of all the other senses. Which is all one as to
say, that we might taste, smell, and see by the ears: a sort of philosophy
worthy only of Sancho Panza, who had the faculty to see Dulcinea by hearsay.
And therefore he that has not before received into his mind, by the proper
inlet, the simple idea which any word stands for, can never come to know the
signification of that word by any other words or sounds whatsoever, put
together according to any rules of definition. The only way is, by applying to
his senses the proper object; and so producing that idea in him, for which he
has learned the name already. A studious blind man, who had mightily beat his
head about visible objects, and made use of the explication of his books and
friends, to understand those names of light and colours which often came in
his way, bragged one day, That he now understood what SCARLET signified. Upon
which, his friend demanding what scarlet was? The blind man answered, It was
like the sound of a trumpet. Just such an understanding of the name of any
other simple idea will he have, who hopes to get it only from a definition, or
other words made use of to explain it.
12.
The contrary shown in complex ideas, by instances of a Statue and
Rainbow.
The
case is quite otherwise in COMPLEX IDEAS; which, consisting of several simple
ones, it is in the power of words, standing for the several ideas that make
that composition, to imprint complex ideas in the mind which were never there
before, and so make their names be understood. In such collections of ideas,
passing under one name, definition, or the teaching the signification of one
word by several others, has place, and may make us understand the names of
things which never came within the reach of our senses; and frame ideas
suitable to those in other men’s minds, when they use those names: provided
that none of the terms of the definition stand for any such simple ideas,
which he to whom the explication is made has never yet had in his thought.
Thus the word STATUE may be explained to a blind man by other words, when
PICTURE cannot; his senses having given him the idea of figure, but not of
colours, which therefore words cannot excite in him.
This gained the prize to the painter against the statuary: each of
which contending for the excellency of his art, and the statuary bragging that
his was to be preferred, because it reached further, and even those who had
lost their eyes could yet perceive the excellency of it. The painter agreed to
refer himself to the judgment of a blind man; who being brought where there
was a statue made by the one, and a picture drawn by the other; he was first
led to the statue, in which he traced with his hands all the lineaments of the
face and body, and with great admiration applauded the skill of the workman.
But being led to the picture, and having his hands laid upon it, was told,
that now he touched the head, and then the forehead, eyes, nose, &c., as
his hand moved over the parts of the picture on the cloth, without finding any
the least distinction: whereupon he cried out, that certainly that must needs
be a very admirable and divine piece of workmanship, which could represent to
them all those parts, where he could neither feel nor perceive anything.
13.
Colours indefinable to the born-blind.
He
that should use the word RAINBOW to one who knew all those colours, but yet
had never seen that phenomenon, would, by enumerating the figure, largeness,
position, and order of the colours, so well define that word that it might be
perfectly understood. But yet that definition, how exact and perfect soever,
would never make a blind man understand it; because several of the simple
ideas that make that complex one, being such as he never received by sensation
and experience, no words are able to excite them in his mind.
14.
Complex Ideas definable only when the simple ideas of which they
consist have been got from experience.
Simple
ideas, as has been shown, can only be got by experience from those objects
which are proper to produce in us those perceptions. When, by this means, we
have our minds stored with them, and know the names for them, then we are in a
condition to define, and by definition to understand, the names of complex
ideas that are made up of them. But when any term stands for a simple idea
that a man has never yet had in his mind, it is impossible by any words to
make known its meaning to him. When any term stands for an idea a man is
acquainted with, but is ignorant that that term is the sign of it, then
another name of the same idea, which he has been accustomed to, may make him
understand its meaning. But in no case whatsoever is any name of any simple
idea capable of a definition.
15.
Fourthly, Names of simple Ideas of less doubtful meaning than those of
mixed modes and substances.
Fourthly,
But though the names of simple ideas have not the help of definition to
determine their signification, yet that hinders not but that they are
generally less doubtful and uncertain than those of mixed modes and
substances; because they, standing only for one simple perception, men for the
most part easily and perfectly agree in their signification; and there is
little room for mistake and wrangling about their meaning. He that knows once
that whiteness is the name of that colour he has observed in snow or milk,
will not be apt to misapply that word, as long as he retains that idea; which
when he has quite lost, he is not apt to mistake the meaning of it, but
perceives he understands it not. There is neither a multiplicity of simple
ideas to be put together, which makes the doubtfulness in the names of mixed
modes; nor a supposed, but an unknown, real essence, with properties depending
thereon, the precise number whereof is also unknown, which makes the
difficulty in the names of substances. But, on the contrary, in simple ideas
the whole signification of the name is known at once, and consists not of
parts, whereof more or less being put in, the idea may be varied, and so the
signification of name be obscure, or uncertain.
16.
Simple Ideas have few Ascents in linea praedicamentali.
Fifthly,
This further may be observed concerning simple Simple ideas and their names,
that they have but few ascents in linea praedicamentali, (as they call it,)
from the lowest species to the summum genus. The reason whereof is, that the
lowest species being but one simple idea, nothing can be left out of it, that
so the difference being taken away, it may agree with some other thing in one
idea common to them both; which, having one name, is the genus of the other
two: v.g. there is nothing that can be left out of the idea of white and red
to make them agree in one common appearance, and so have one general name; as
RATIONALITY being left out of the complex idea of man, makes it agree with
brute in the more general idea and name of animal. And therefore when, to
avoid unpleasant enumerations, men would comprehend both white and red, and
several other such simple ideas, under one general name, they have been fain
to do it by a word which denotes only the way they get into the mind. For when
white, red, and yellow are all comprehended under the genus or name colour, it
signifies no more but such ideas as are produced in the mind only by the
sight, and have entrance only through the eyes. And when they would frame yet
a more general term to comprehend both colours and sounds, and the like simple
ideas, they do it by a word that signifies all such as come into the mind only
by one sense. And so the general term QUALITY, in its ordinary acceptation,
comprehends colours, sounds, tastes, smells, and tangible qualities, with
distinction from extension, number, motion, pleasure, and pain, which make
impressions on the mind and introduce their ideas by more senses than one.
17.
Sixthly, Names of simple Ideas not arbitrary, but perfectly taken from
the existence of things.
Sixthly,
The names of simple ideas, substances, and mixed modes have also this
difference: that those of MIXED MODES stand for ideas perfectly arbitrary;
those of SUBSTANCES are not perfectly so, but refer to a pattern, though with
some latitude; and those of SIMPLE IDEAS are perfectly taken from the
existence of things, and are not arbitrary at all. Which, what difference it
makes in the significations of their names, we shall see in the following
chapters.
Simple
modes.
The
names of SIMPLE MODES differ little from those of simple ideas.
OF
THE NAMES OF MIXED MODES AND RELATIONS.
1.
Mixed modes stand for abstract Ideas, as other general Names.
The
names of MIXED MODES, being general, they stand, as has been shewed, for sorts
or species of things, each of which has its peculiar essence.
The essences of these species also, as has been shewed, are nothing but
the abstract ideas in the mind, to which the name is annexed. Thus far the
names and essences of mixed modes have nothing but what is common to them with
other ideas: but if we take a little nearer survey of them, we shall find that
they have something peculiar, which perhaps may deserve our attention.
2.
First, The abstract Ideas they stand for are made by the Understanding.
The
first particularity I shall observe in them, is, that the abstract ideas, or,
if you please, the essences, of the several species of mixed modes, are MADE
BY THE UNDERSTANDING, wherein they differ from those of simple ideas: in which
sort the mind has no power to make any one, but only receives such as are
presented to it by the real existence of things operating upon it.
3.
Secondly, Made arbitrarily, and without Patterns.
In
the next place, these essences of the species of mixed modes are not only made
by the mind, but MADE VERY ARBITRARILY, MADE WITHOUT PATTERNS, OR REFERENCE TO
ANY REAL EXISTENCE. Wherein they differ from those of substances, which carry
with them the supposition of some real being, from which they are taken, and
to which they are conformable. But, in its complex ideas of mixed modes, the
mind takes a liberty not to follow the existence of things exactly. It unites
and retains certain collections, as so many distinct specific ideas; whilst
others, that as often occur in nature, and are as plainly suggested by outward
things, pass neglected, without particular names or specifications. Nor does
the mind, in these of mixed modes, as in the complex idea of substances,
examine them by the real existence of things; or verify them by patterns
containing such peculiar compositions in nature. To know whether his idea of
ADULTERY or INCEST be right, will a man seek it anywhere amongst things
existing? Or is it true because any one has been witness to such an action?
No: but it suffices here, that men have put together such a collection into
one complex idea, that makes the archetype and specific idea; whether ever any
such action were committed in rerum natura or no.
4.
How this is done.
To
understand this right, we must consider wherein this making of these complex
ideas consists; and that is not in the making any new idea, but putting
together those which the mind had before. Wherein the mind does these three
things: First, It chooses a certain number; Secondly, It gives them connexion,
and makes them into one idea; Thirdly, It ties them together by a name. If we
examine how the mind proceeds in these, and what liberty it takes in them, we
shall easily observe how these essences of the species of mixed modes are the
workmanship of the mind; and, consequently, that the species themselves are of
men’s making.
5.
Evidently arbitrary, in that the Idea is often before the Existence.
Nobody
can doubt but that these ideas of mixed modes are made by a voluntary
collection of ideas, put together in the mind, independent from any original
patterns in nature, who will but reflect that this sort of complex ideas may
be made, abstracted, and have names given them, and so a species be
constituted, before any one individual of that species ever existed. Who can
doubt but the ideas of SACRILEGE or ADULTERY might be framed in the minds of
men, and have names given them, and so these species of mixed modes be
constituted, before either of them was ever committed; and might be as well
discoursed of and reasoned about, and as certain truths discovered of them,
whilst yet they had no being but in the understanding, as well as now, that
they have but too frequently a real existence? Whereby it is plain how much
the sorts of mixed modes are the creatures of the understanding, where they
have a being as subservient to all the ends of real truth and knowledge, as
when they really exist. And we cannot doubt but law-makers have often made
laws about species of actions which were only the creatures of their own
understandings; beings that had no other existence but in their own minds. And
I think nobody can deny but that the RESURRECTION was a species of mixed modes
in the mind, before it really existed.
6.
Instances: Murder, Incest, Stabbing.
To
see how arbitrarily these essences of mixed modes are made by the mind, we
need but take a view of almost any of them. A little looking into them will
satisfy us, that it is the mind that combines several scattered independent
ideas into one complex one; and, by the common name it gives them, makes them
the essence of a certain species, without regulating itself by any connexion
they have in nature. For what greater connexion in nature has the idea of a
man than the idea of a sheep with killing, that this is made a particular
species of action, signified by the word MURDER, and the other not? Or what
union is there in nature between the idea of the relation of a father with
killing than that of a son or neighbour, that those are combined into one
complex idea, and thereby made the essence of the distinct species PARRICIDE,
whilst the other makes no distinct species at all? But, though they have made
killing a man’s father or mother a distinct species from killing his son or
daughter, yet, in some other cases, son and daughter are taken in too, as well
as father and mother: and they are all equally comprehended in the same
species, as in that of INCEST. Thus the mind in mixed modes arbitrarily unites
into complex ideas such as it finds convenient; whilst others that have
altogether as much union in nature are left loose, and never combined into one
idea, because they have no need of one name. It is evident then that the mind,
by its free choice, gives a connexion to a certain number of ideas, which in
nature have no more union with one another than others that it leaves out: why
else is the part of the weapon the beginning of the wound is made with taken
notice of, to make the distinct species called STABBING, and the figure and
matter of the weapon left out? I do not say this is done without reason, as we
shall see more by and by; but this I say, that it is done by the free choice
of the mind, pursuing its own ends; and that, therefore, these species of
mixed modes are the workmanship of the understanding.
And there is nothing more evident than that, for the most part, in the
framing these ideas, the mind searches not its patterns in nature, nor refers
the ideas it makes to the real existence of things, but puts such together as
may best serve its own purposes, without tying itself to a precise imitation
of anything that really exists.
7.
But still subservient to the End of Language, and not made at random.
But,
though these complex ideas or essences of mixed modes depend on the mind, and
are made by it with great liberty, yet they are not made at random, and
jumbled together without any reason at all. Though these complex ideas be not
always copied from nature, yet they are always suited to the end for which
abstract ideas are made: and though they be combinations made of ideas that
are loose enough, and have as little union in themselves as several other to
which the mind never gives a connexion that combines them into one idea; yet
they are always made for the convenience of communication, which is the chief
end of language. The use of
language is, by short sounds, to signify with ease and dispatch general
conceptions; wherein not only abundance of particulars may be contained, but
also a great variety of independent ideas collected into one complex one. In
the making therefore of the species of mixed modes, men have had regard only
to such combinations as they had occasion to mention one to another. Those
they have combined into distinct complex ideas, and given names to; whilst
others, that in nature have as near a union, are left loose and unregarded.
For, to go no further than human actions themselves, if they would make
distinct abstract ideas of all the varieties which might be observed in them,
the number must be infinite, and the memory confounded with the plenty, as
well as overcharged to little purpose. It suffices that men make and name so
many complex ideas of these mixed modes as they find they have occasion to
have names for, in the ordinary occurrence of their affairs.
If they join to the idea of killing the idea of father or mother, and
so make a distinct species from killing a man’s son or neighbour, it is
because of the different heinousness of the crime, and the distinct punishment
is due to the murdering a man’s father and mother, different to what ought
to be inflicted on the murder of a son or neighbour; and therefore they find
it necessary to mention it by a distinct name, which is the end of making that
distinct combination. But though the ideas of mother and daughter are so
differently treated, in reference to the idea of killing, that the one is
joined with it to make a distinct abstract idea with a name, and so a distinct
species, and the other not; yet, in respect of carnal knowledge, they are both
taken in under INCEST: and that still for the same convenience of expressing
under one name, and reckoning of one species, such unclean mixtures as have a
peculiar turpitude beyond others; and this to avoid circumlocutions and
tedious descriptions.
8.
Whereof the intranslatable Words of divers Languages are a Proof.
A
moderate skill in different languages will easily satisfy one of the truth of
this, it being so obvious to observe great store of 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 given 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 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 often 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. There 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 to correspond in the whole extent of their significations.
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 of simple ideas
together, and makes it a Species.
The
near relation that there is between SPECIES, ESSENCES, and their GENERAL NAME,
at least in mixed modes, will further appear when we consider, that it is the
name that seems to preserve those essences, and give them their lasting
duration. For, the connexion 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 not, 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 our mixed Modes, we look no further than the Mind;
which also shows them to be the Workmanship of the Understanding.
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 further. When we speak of JUSTICE, or GRATITUDE,
we frame to ourselves no imagination of anything existing, which we would
conceive; but our thoughts terminate in the abstract ideas of those virtues,
and look not further; 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, 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.
Names of mixed Modes stand alway for their real Essences, which are the
workmanship of our minds.
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
anything 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 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.
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 this
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 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. 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 further to say concerning this matter.
OF
THE NAMES OF SUBSTANCES.
1.
The common Names of Substances stand for Sorts.
The
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 substances do or might agree, by virtue of which they are
capable of being comprehended in one common conception, and signified by one
name. I say do or might agree: for though there be but one sun existing in the
world, yet the idea of it being abstracted, so that more substances (if there
were several) might each agree in it, it is as much a sort as if there were as
many suns as there are stars. They want not their reasons who think there are,
and that each fixed star would answer the idea the name sun stands for, to one
who was placed in a due distance: which, by the way, may show us how much the
sorts, or, if you please, GENERA and SPECIES of things (for those Latin terms
signify to me no more than the English word sort) depend on such collections
of ideas as men have made, and not on the real nature of things; since it is
not impossible but that, in propriety of speech, that might be a sun to one
which is a star to another.
2.
The Essence of each Sort of substance is our abstract Idea to which the
name is annexed.
The
measure and boundary of each sort or species, whereby it is constituted that
particular sort, and distinguished from others, is that we call its ESSENCE,
which is nothing but that abstract idea to which the name is annexed; so that
everything contained in that idea is essential to that sort. This, though it
be all the essence of natural substances that WE know, or by which we
distinguish them into sorts, yet I call it by a peculiar name, the NOMINAL
ESSENCE, to distinguish it from the real constitution of substances, upon
which depends this nominal essence, and all the properties of that sort;
which, therefore, as has been said, may be called the REAL ESSENCE: v.g. the
nominal essence of gold is that complex idea the word gold stands for, let it
be, for instance, a body yellow, of a certain weight, malleable, fusible, and
fixed. But the real essence is the constitution of the insensible parts of
that body, on which those qualities and all the other properties of gold
depend. How far these two are different, though they are both called essence,
is obvious at first sight to discover.
3.
The nominal and real Essence different.
For,
though perhaps voluntary motion, with sense and reason, joined to a body of a
certain shape, be the complex idea to which I and others annex the name MAN,
and so be the nominal essence of the species so called: yet nobody will say
that complex idea is the real essence and source of all those operations which
are to be found in any individual of that sort. The foundation of all those
qualities which are the ingredients of our complex idea, is something quite
different: and had we such a knowledge of that constitution of man; from which
his faculties of moving, sensation, and reasoning, and other powers flow, and
on which his so regular shape depends, as it is possible angels have, and it
is certain his Maker has, we should have a quite other idea of his essence
than what now is contained in our definition of that species, be it what it
will: and our idea of any individual man would be as far different from what
it is now, as is his who knows all the springs and wheels and other
contrivances within of the famous clock at Strasburg, from that which a gazing
countryman has of it, who barely sees the motion of the hand, and hears the
clock strike, and observes only some of the outward appearances.
4.
Nothing essential to Individuals.
That
ESSENCE, in the ordinary use of the word, relates to sorts, and that it is
considered in particular beings no further than as they are ranked into sorts,
appears from hence: that, take but away the abstract ideas by which we sort
individuals, and rank them under common names, and then the thought of
anything essential to any of them instantly vanishes: we have no notion of the
one without the other, which plainly shows their relation. It is necessary for
me to be as I am; God and nature has made me so: but there is nothing I have
is essential to me.
An
accident or disease may very much alter my colour or shape; a fever
or
fall may take away my reason or memory, or both; and an apoplexy
leave
neither sense, nor understanding, no, nor life. Other creatures of
my
shape may be made with more and better, or fewer and worse faculties
than
I have; and others may have reason and sense in a shape and body
very
different from mine. None of these are essential to the one or the
other,
or to any individual whatever, till the mind refers it to some
sort
or species of things; and then presently, according to the abstract
idea
of that sort, something is found essential. Let any one examine his
own
thoughts, and he will find that as soon as he supposes or speaks
of
essential, the consideration of some species, or the complex idea
signified
by some general name, comes into his mind; and it is in
reference
to that that this or that quality is said to be essential.
So
that if it be asked, whether it be essential to me or any other particular
corporeal being, to have reason? I say, no; no more than it is essential to
this white thing I write on to have words in it. But if that particular being
be to be counted of the sort MAN, and to have the name MAN given it, then
reason is essential to it; supposing reason to be a part of the complex idea
the name man stands for: as it is essential to this thing I write on to
contain words, if I will give it the name TREATISE, and rank it under that
species. So that essential and not essential relate only to our abstract
ideas, and the names annexed to them; which amounts to no more than this, That
whatever particular thing has not in it those qualities which are contained in
the abstract idea which any general term stands for, cannot be ranked under
that species, nor be called by that name; since that abstract idea is the very
essence of that species.
5.
The only essences perceived by us in individual substances are those
qualities which entitle them to receive their names.
Thus,
if the idea of BODY with some people be bare extension or space, then solidity
is not essential to body: if others make the idea to which they give the name
BODY to be solidity and extension, then solidity is essential to body. That
therefore, and that alone, is considered as essential, which makes a part of
the complex idea the name of a sort stands for; without which no particular
thing can be reckoned of that sort, nor be entitled to that name. Should there
be found a parcel of matter that had all the other qualities that are in iron,
but wanted obedience to the loadstone, and would neither be drawn by it nor
receive direction from it, would any one question whether it wanted anything
essential? It would be absurd to ask, Whether a thing really existing wanted
anything essential to it. Or could it be demanded, Whether this made an
essential or specific difference or no, since WE have no other measure of
essential or specific but our abstract ideas? And to talk of specific
differences in NATURE, without reference to general ideas in names, is to talk
unintelligibly. For I would ask any one, What is sufficient to make an
essential difference in nature between any two particular beings, without any
regard had to some abstract idea, which is looked upon as the essence and
standard of a species? All such patterns and standards being quite laid aside,
particular beings, considered barely in themselves, will be found to have all
their qualities equally essential; and everything in each individual will be
essential to it; or, which is more, nothing at all. For, though it may be
reasonable to ask, Whether obeying the magnet be essential to iron?
yet I think it is very improper and insignificant to ask, whether it be
essential to the particular parcel of matter I cut my pen with; without
considering it under the name IRON, or as being of a certain species. And if, as has been said, our abstract ideas, which have
names annexed to them, are the boundaries of species, nothing can be essential
but what is contained in those ideas.
6.
Even the real essences of individual substances imply potential sorts.
It
is true, I have often mentioned a REAL ESSENCE, distinct in substances from
those abstract ideas of them, which I call their nominal essence. By this real
essence I mean, that real constitution of anything, which is the foundation of
all those properties that are combined in, and are constantly found to
co-exist with the nominal essence; that particular constitution which
everything has within itself, without any relation to anything without it. But
essence, even in this sense, RELATES TO A SORT, AND SUPPOSES A SPECIES. For,
being that real constitution on which the properties depend, it necessarily
supposes a sort of things, properties belonging only to species, and not to
individuals: v. g. supposing the nominal essence of gold to be a body of such
a peculiar colour and weight, with malleability and fusibility, the real
essence is that constitution of the parts of matter on which these qualities
and their union depend; and is also the foundation of its solubility in aqua
regia and other properties, accompanying that complex idea. Here are essences
and properties, but all upon supposition of a sort or general abstract idea,
which is considered as immutable; but there is no individual parcel of matter
to which any of these qualities are so annexed as to be essential to it or
inseparable from it. That which is essential belongs to it as a condition
whereby it is of this or that sort: but take away the consideration of its
being ranked under the name of some abstract idea, and then there is nothing
necessary to it, nothing inseparable from it. Indeed, as to the real essences
of substances, we only suppose their being, without precisely knowing what
they are; but that which annexes them still to the species is the nominal
essence, of which they are the supposed foundation and cause.
7.
The nominal Essence bounds the Species to us.
The
next thing to be considered is, by which of those essences it is that
substances are determined into sorts or species; and that, it is evident, is
by the nominal essence. For it is that alone that the name, which is the mark
of the sort, signifies. It is impossible, therefore, that anything should
determine the sorts of things, which WE rank under general names, but that
idea which that name is designed as a mark for; which is that, as has been
shown, which we call nominal essence. Why do we say this is a horse, and that
a mule; this is an animal, that an herb? How comes any particular thing to be
of this or that sort, but because it has that nominal essence; or, which is
all one, agrees to that abstract idea, that name is annexed to? And I desire
any one but to reflect on his own thoughts, when he hears or speaks any of
those or other names of substances, to know what sort of essences they stand
for.
8.
The nature of Species as formed by us.
And
that the species of things to us are nothing but the ranking them under
distinct names, according to the complex ideas in US, and not according to
precise, distinct, real essences in THEM, is plain from hence:--That we find
many of the individuals that are ranked into one sort, called by one common
name, and so received as being of one species, have yet qualities, depending
on their real constitutions, as far different one from another as from others
from which they are accounted to differ specifically. This, as it is easy to
be observed by all who have to do with natural bodies, so chemists especially
are often, by sad experience, convinced of it, when they, sometimes in vain,
seek for the same qualities in one parcel of sulphur, antimony, or vitriol,
which they have found in others. For, though they are bodies of the same
species, having the same nominal essence, under the same name, yet do they
often, upon severe ways of examination, betray qualities so different one from
another, as to frustrate the expectation and labour of very wary chemists. But
if things were distinguished into species, according to their real essences,
it would be as impossible to find different properties in any two individual
substances of the same species, as it is to find different properties in two
circles, or two equilateral triangles. That is properly the essence to US,
which determines every particular to this or that CLASSIS; or, which is the
same thing, to this or that general name: and what can that be else, but that
abstract idea to which that name is annexed; and so has, in truth, a
reference, not so much to the being of particular things, as to their general
denominations?
9.
Not the real Essence, or texture of parts, which we know not.
Nor
indeed can we rank and sort things, and consequently (which is the end of
sorting) denominate them, by their real essences; because we know them not.
Our faculties carry us no further towards the knowledge and distinction of
substances, than a collection of THOSE SENSIBLE IDEAS WHICH WE OBSERVE IN
THEM; which, however made with the greatest diligence and exactness we are
capable of, yet is more remote from the true internal constitution from which
those qualities flow, than, as I said, a countryman’s idea is from the
inward contrivance of that famous clock at Strasburg, whereof he only sees the
outward figure and motions. There
is not so contemptible a plant or animal, that does not confound the most
enlarged understanding. Though the familiar use of things about us take off
our wonder, yet it cures not our ignorance. When we come to examine the stones
we tread on, or the iron we daily handle, we presently find we know not their
make; and can give no reason of the different qualities we find in them. It is
evident the internal constitution, whereon their properties depend, is unknown
to us: for to go no further than the grossest and most obvious we can imagine
amongst them, What is that texture of parts, that real essence, that makes
lead and antimony fusible, wood and stones not? What makes lead and iron
malleable, antimony and stones not? And yet how infinitely these come short of
the fine contrivances and inconceivable real essences of plants or animals,
every one knows. The workmanship of the all-wise and powerful God in the great
fabric of the universe, and every part thereof, further exceeds the capacity
and comprehension of the most inquisitive and intelligent man, than the best
contrivance of the most ingenious man doth the conceptions of the most
ignorant of rational creatures. Therefore we in vain pretend to range things
into sorts, and dispose them into certain classes under names, by their real
essences, that are so far from our discovery or comprehension. A blind man may
as soon sort things by their colours, and he that has lost his smell as well
distinguish a lily and a rose by their odours, as by those internal
constitutions which he knows not. He that thinks he can distinguish sheep and
goats by their real essences, that are unknown to him, may be pleased to try
his skill in those species called CASSIOWARY and QUERECHINCHIO; and by their
internal real essences determine the boundaries of those species, without
knowing the complex idea of sensible qualities that each of those names stand
for, in the countries where those animals are to be found.
10.
Not the substantial Form, which know Not.
Those,
therefore, who have been taught that the several species of substances had
their distinct internal SUBSTANTIAL FORMS, and that it was those FORMS which
made the distinction of substances into their true species and genera, were
led yet further out of the way by having their minds set upon fruitless
inquiries after ‘substantial forms’; wholly unintelligible, and whereof we
have scarce so much as any obscure or confused conception in general.
11.
That the Nominal Essence is that only whereby we distinguish Species of
Substances, further evident, from our ideas of finite Spirits and of God.
That
our ranking and distinguishing natural substances into species consists in the
nominal essences the mind makes, and not in the real essences to be found in
the things themselves, is further evident from our ideas of spirits. For the
mind getting, only by reflecting on its own operations, those simple ideas
which it attributes to spirits, it hath or can have no other notion of spirit
but by attributing all those operations it finds in itself to a sort of
beings; without consideration of matter. And even the most advanced notion we
have of GOD is but attributing the same simple ideas which we have got from
reflection on what we find in ourselves, and which we conceive to have more
perfection in them than would be in their absence; attributing, I say, those
simple ideas to Him in an unlimited degree. Thus, having got from reflecting
on ourselves the idea of existence, knowledge, power and pleasure—each of
which we find it better to have than to want; and the more we have of each the
better—joining all these together, with infinity to each of them, we have
the complex idea of an eternal, omniscient, omnipotent, infinitely wise and
happy being. And though we are told that there are different species of
angels; yet we know not how to frame distinct specific ideas of them: not out
of any conceit that the existence of more species than one of spirits is
impossible; but because having no more simple ideas (nor being able to frame
more) applicable to such beings, but only those few taken from ourselves, and
from the actions of our own minds in thinking, and being delighted, and moving
several parts of our bodies; we can no otherwise distinguish in our
conceptions the several species of spirits, one from another, but by
attributing those operations and powers we find in ourselves to them in a
higher or lower degree; and so have no very distinct specific ideas of
spirits, except only of GOD, to whom we attribute both duration and all those
other ideas with infinity; to the other spirits, with limitation: nor, as I
humbly conceive, do we, between GOD and them in our ideas, put any difference,
by any number of simple ideas which we have of one and not of the other, but
only that of infinity. All the particular ideas of existence, knowledge, will,
power, and motion, &c., being ideas derived from the operations of our
minds, we attribute all of them to all sorts of spirits, with the difference
only of degrees; to the utmost we can imagine, even infinity, when we would
frame as well as we can an idea of the First Being; who yet, it is certain, is
infinitely more remote, in the real excellency of his nature, from the highest
and perfectest of all created beings, than the greatest man, nay, purest
seraph, is from the most contemptible part of matter; and consequently must
infinitely exceed what our narrow understandings can conceive of Him.
12.
Of finite Spirits there are probably numberless Species in a continuous
series of gradations.
It
is not impossible to conceive, nor repugnant to reason, that there may be many
species of spirits, as much separated and diversified one from another by
distinct properties whereof we have no ideas, as the species of sensible
things are distinguished one from another by qualities which we know and
observe in them. That there should be more species of intelligent creatures
above us, than there are of sensible and material below us, is probable to me
from hence: that in all the visible corporeal world, we see no chasms or gaps.
All quite down from us the descent is by easy steps, and a continued series of
things, that in each remove differ very little one from the other. There are
fishes that have wings, and are not strangers to the airy region: and there
are some birds that are inhabitants of the water, whose blood is cold as
fishes, and their flesh so like in taste that the scrupulous are allowed them
on fish-days. There are animals so near of kin both to birds and beasts that
they are in the middle between both: amphibious animals link the terrestrial
and aquatic together; seals live at land and sea, and porpoises have the warm
blood and entrails of a hog; not to mention what is confidently reported of
mermaids, or sea-men. There are some brutes that seem to have as much
knowledge and reason as some that are called men: and the animal and vegetable
kingdoms are so nearly joined, that, if you will take the lowest of one and
the highest of the other, there will scarce be perceived any great difference
between them: and so on, till we come to the lowest and the most inorganical
parts of matter, we shall find everywhere that the several species are linked
together, and differ but in almost insensible degrees. And when we consider
the infinite power and wisdom of the Maker, we have reason to think that it is
suitable to the magnificent harmony of the universe, and the great design and
infinite goodness of the Architect, that the species of creatures should also,
by gentle degrees, ascend upward from us toward his infinite perfection, as we
see they gradually descend from us downwards: which if it be probable, we have
reason then to be persuaded that there are far more species of creatures above
us than there are beneath; we being, in degrees of perfection, much more
remote from the infinite being of God than we are from the lowest state of
being, and that which approaches nearest to nothing. And yet of all those
distinct species, for the reasons abovesaid, we have no clear distinct ideas.
13.
The Nominal Essence that of the Species, as conceived by us, proved
from Water and Ice.
But
to return to the species of corporeal substances. If I should ask any one
whether ice and water were two distinct species of things, I doubt not but I
should be answered in the affirmative: and it cannot be denied but he that
says they are two distinct species is in the right.
But if an Englishman bred in Jamaica, who perhaps had never seen nor
heard of ice, coming into England in the winter, find the water he put in his
basin at night in a great part frozen in the morning, and, not knowing any
peculiar name it had, should call it hardened water; I ask whether this would
be a new species to him, different from water? And I think it would be
answered here, It would not be to him a new species, no more than congealed
jelly, when it is cold, is a distinct species from the same jelly fluid and
warm; or than liquid gold in the furnace is a distinct species from hard gold
in the hands of a workman. And if this be so, it is plain that OUR DISTINCT
SPECIES are NOTHING BUT DISTINCT COMPLEX IDEAS, WITH DISTINCT NAMES ANNEXED TO
THEM. It is true every substance that exists has its peculiar constitution,
whereon depend those sensible qualities and powers we observe in it; but the
ranking of things into species (which is nothing but sorting them under
several titles) is done by us according to the ideas that WE have of them:
which, though sufficient to distinguish them by names, so that we may be able
to discourse of them when we have them not present before us; yet if we
suppose it to be done by their real internal constitutions, and that things
existing are distinguished by nature into species, by real essences, according
as we distinguish them into species by names, we shall be liable to great
mistakes.
14.
Difficulties in the supposition of a certain number of real Essences
To
distinguish substantial beings into species, according to the usual
supposition, that there are certain precise essences or forms of things,
whereby all the individuals existing are, by nature distinguished into
species, these things are necessary:--
15.
A crude supposition.
First,
To be assured that nature, in the production of things, always designs them to
partake of certain regulated established essences, which are to be the models
of all things to be produced. This, in that crude sense it is usually
proposed, would need some better explication, before it can fully be assented
to.
16.
Monstrous births.
Secondly,
It would be necessary to know whether nature always attains that essence it
designs in the production of things. The irregular and monstrous births, that
in divers sorts of animals have been observed, will always give us reason to
doubt of one or both of these.
17.
Are monsters really a distinct species?
Thirdly,
It ought to be determined whether those we call monsters be really a distinct
species, according to the scholastic notion of the word species; since it is
certain that everything that exists has its particular constitution. And yet
we find that some of these monstrous productions have few or none of those
qualities which are supposed to result from, and accompany, the essence of
that species from whence they derive their originals, and to which, by their
descent, they seem to belong.
18.
Men can have no ideas of Real Essences.
Fourthly,
The real essences of those things which we distinguish into species, and as so
distinguished we name, ought to be known; i.e. we ought to have ideas of them.
But since we are ignorant in these four points, the supposed real essences of
things stand US not in stead for the distinguishing substances into species.
19.
Our Nominal Essences of Substances not perfect collections of the
properties that flow from the Real Essence.
Fifthly,
The only imaginable help in this case would be, that, having framed perfect
complex ideas of the properties of things flowing from their different real
essences, we should thereby distinguish them into species. But neither can
this be done. For, being ignorant of the real essence itself, it is impossible
to know all those properties that flow from it, and are so annexed to it, that
any one of them being away, we may certainly conclude that that essence is not
there, and so the thing is not of that species. We can never know what is the
precise number of properties depending on the real essence of gold, any one of
which failing, the real essence of gold, and consequently gold, would not be
there, unless we knew the real essence of gold itself, and by that determined
that species. By the word GOLD here, I must be understood to design a
particular piece of matter; v. g. the last guinea that was coined. For, if it
should stand here, in its ordinary signification, for that complex idea which
I or any one else calls gold, i. e. for the nominal essence of gold, it would
be jargon. So hard is it to show the various meaning and imperfection of
words, when we have nothing else but words to do it by.
20.
Hence names independent of Real Essence.
By
all which it is clear, that our distinguishing substances into species by
names, is not at all founded on their real essences; nor can we pretend to
range and determine them exactly into species, according to internal essential
differences.
21.
But stand for such collections of simple ideas as we have made the Name
stand for.
But
since, as has been remarked, we have need of GENERAL words, though we know not
the real essences of things; all we can do is, to collect such a number of
simple ideas as, by examination, we find to be united together in things
existing, and thereof to make one complex idea. Which, though it be not the real essence of any substance
that exists, is yet the specific essence to which our name belongs, and is
convertible with it; by which we may at least try the truth of these nominal
essences. For example: there be that say that the essence of body is
EXTENSION; if it be so, we can never mistake in putting the essence of
anything for the thing itself. Let us then in discourse put extension for
body, and when we would say that body moves, let us say that extension moves,
and see how ill it will look. He that should say that one extension by impulse
moves another extension, would, by the bare expression, sufficiently show the
absurdity of such a notion. The essence of anything in respect of us, is the
whole complex idea comprehended and marked by that name; and in substances,
besides the several distinct simple ideas that make them up, the confused one
of substance, or of an unknown support and cause of their union, is always a
part: and therefore the essence of body is not bare extension, but an extended
solid thing; and so to say, an extended solid thing moves, or impels another,
is all one, and as intelligible, as to say, BODY moves or impels. Likewise, to
say that a rational animal is capable of conversation, is all one as to say a
man; but no one will say that rationality is capable of conversation, because
it makes not the whole essence to which we give the name man.
22.
Our Abstract Ideas are to us the Measures of the Species we make in
instance in that of Man.
There
are creatures in the world that have shapes like ours, but are hairy, and want
language and reason. There are naturals amongst us that have perfectly our
shape, but want reason, and some of them language too. There are creatures, as
it is said, (sit fides penes authorem, but there appears no contradiction that
there should be such,) that, with language and reason and a shape in other
things agreeing with ours, have hairy tails; others where the males have no
beards, and others where the females have. If it be asked whether these be all
men or no, all of human species? it is plain, the question refers only to the
nominal essence: for those of them to whom the definition of the word man, or
the complex idea signified by that name, agrees, are men, and the other not.
But if the inquiry be made concerning the supposed real essence; and whether
the internal constitution and frame of these several creatures be specifically
different, it is wholly impossible for us to answer, no part of that going
into our specific idea: only we have reason to think, that where the faculties
or outward frame so much differs, the internal constitution is not exactly the
same. But what difference in the real internal constitution makes a specific
difference it is in vain to inquire; whilst our measures of species be, as
they are, only our abstract ideas, which we know; and not that internal
constitution, which makes no part of them. Shall the difference of hair only
on the skin be a mark of a different internal specific constitution between a
changeling and a drill, when they agree in shape, and want of reason and
speech? And shall not the want of reason and speech be a sign to us of
different real constitutions and species between a changeling and a reasonable
man? And so of the rest, if we pretend that distinction of species or sorts is
fixedly established by the real frame and secret constitutions of things.
23.
Species in Animals not distinguished by Generation.
Nor
let any one say, that the power of propagation in animals by the mixture of
male and female, and in plants by seeds, keeps the supposed real species
distinct and entire, For, granting this to be true, it would help us in the
distinction of the species of things no further than the tribes of animals and
vegetables. What must we do for the rest?
But in those too it is not sufficient: for if history lie not, women
have conceived by drills; and what real species, by that measure, such a
production will be in nature will be a new question: and we have reason to
think this is not impossible, since mules and jumarts, the one from the
mixture of an ass and a mare, the other from the mixture of a bull and a mare,
are so frequent in the world. I once saw a creature that was the issue of a
cat and a rat, and had the plain marks of both about it; wherein nature
appeared to have followed the pattern of neither sort alone, but to have
jumbled them both together. To which he that shall add the monstrous
productions that are so frequently to be met with in nature, will find it
hard, even in the race of animals, to determine by the pedigree of what
species every animal’s issue is; and be at a loss about the real essence,
which he thinks certainly conveyed by generation, and has alone a right to the
specific name. But further, if the species of animals and plants are to be
distinguished only by propagation, must I go to the Indies to see the sire and
dam of the one, and the plant from which the seed was gathered that produced
the other, to know whether this be a tiger or that tea?
24.
Not by substantial Forms.
Upon
the whole matter, it is evident that it is their own collections of sensible
qualities that men make the essences of THEIR several sorts of substances; and
that their real internal structures are not considered by the greatest part of
men in the sorting them. Much less were any SUBSTANTIAL FORMS ever thought on
by any but those who have in this one part of the world learned the language
of the schools: and yet those ignorant men, who pretend not any insight into
the real essences, nor trouble themselves about substantial forms, but are
content with knowing things one from another by their sensible qualities, are
often better acquainted with their differences; can more nicely distinguish
them from their uses; and better know what they expect from each, than those
learned quick-sighted men, who look so deep into them, and talk so confidently
of something more hidden and essential.
25.
The specific Essences that are common made by Men.
But
supposing that the REAL essences of substances were discoverable by those that
would severely apply themselves to that inquiry, yet we could not reasonably
think that the ranking of things under general names was regulated by those
internal real constitutions, or anything else but their OBVIOUS appearances;
since languages, in all countries, have been established long before sciences.
So that they have not been philosophers or logicians, or such who have
troubled themselves about forms and essences, that have made the general names
that are in use amongst the several nations of men: but those more or less
comprehensive terms have, for the most part, in all languages, received their
birth and signification from ignorant and illiterate people, who sorted and
denominated things by those sensible qualities they found in them; thereby to
signify them, when absent, to others, whether they had an occasion to mention
a sort or a particular thing.
26.
Therefore very various and uncertain in the ideas of different men.
Since
then it is evident that we sort and name substances by their nominal and not
by their real essences, the next thing to be considered is how, and by whom
these essences come to be made. As to the latter, it is evident they are made
by the mind, and not by nature: for were they Nature’s workmanship, they
could not be so various and different in several men as experience tells us
they are. For if we will examine it, we shall not find the nominal essence of
any one species of substances in all men the same: no, not of that which of
all others we are the most intimately acquainted with. It could not possibly
be that the abstract idea to which the name MAN is given should be different
in several men, if it were of Nature’s making; and that to one it should be
animal rationale, and to another, animal implume bipes latis unguibus. He that
annexes the name man to a complex idea, made up of sense and spontaneous
motion, joined to a body of such a shape, has thereby one essence of the
species man; and he that, upon further examination, adds rationality, has
another essence of the species he calls man: by which means the same
individual will be a true man to the one which is not so to the other.
I think there is scarce any one will allow this upright figure, so well
known, to be the essential difference of the species man; and yet how far men
determine of the sorts of animals rather by their shape than descent, is very
visible; since it has been more than once debated, whether several human
foetuses should be preserved or received to baptism or no, only because of the
difference of their outward configuration from the ordinary make of children,
without knowing whether they were not as capable of reason as infants cast in
another mould: some whereof, though of an approved shape, are never capable of
as much appearance of reason all their lives as is to be found in an ape, or
an elephant, and never give any signs of being acted by a rational soul.
Whereby it is evident, that the outward figure, which only was found wanting,
and not the faculty of reason, which nobody could know would be wanting in its
due season, was made essential to the human species. The learned divine and
lawyer must, on such occasions, renounce his sacred definition of animal
rationale, and substitute some other essence of the human species. [Monsieur
Menage furnishes us with an example worth the taking notice of on this
occasion: ‘When the abbot of Saint Martin,’ says he, ‘was born, he had
so little of the figure of a man, that it bespake him rather a monster. It was
for some time under deliberation, whether he should be baptized or no.
However, he was baptized, and declared a man provisionally [till time should
show what he would prove]. Nature had moulded him so untowardly, that he was
called all his life the Abbot Malotru; i.e. ill-shaped. He was of Caen.
(Menagiana, 278, 430.) This child, we see, was very near being excluded
out of the species of man, barely by his shape. He escaped very narrowly as he
was; and it is certain, a figure a little more oddly turned had cast him, and
he had been executed, as a thing not to be allowed to pass for a man. And yet
there can be no reason given why, if the lineaments of his face had been a
little altered, a rational soul could not have been lodged in him; why a
visage somewhat longer, or a nose flatter, or a wider mouth, could not have
consisted, as well as the rest of his ill figure, with such a soul, such
parts, as made him, disfigured as he was, capable to be a dignitary in the
church.]
27.
Nominal Essences of particular substances are undetermined by nature,
and therefore various as men vary.
Wherein,
then, would I gladly know, consist the precise and unmovable boundaries of
that species? It is plain, if we examine, there is no such thing made by
Nature, and established by her amongst men. The real essence of that or any
other sort of substances, it is evident, we know not; and therefore are so
undetermined in our nominal essences, which we make ourselves, that, if
several men were to be asked concerning some oddly-shaped foetus, as soon as
born, whether it were a man or no, it is past doubt one should meet with
different answers. Which could not happen, if the nominal essences, whereby we
limit and distinguish the species of substances, were not made by man with
some liberty; but were exactly copied from precise boundaries set by nature,
whereby it distinguished all substances into certain species. Who would
undertake to resolve what species that monster was of which is mentioned by
Licetus (lib. i. c. 3), with a man’s head and hog’s body? Or those other
which to the bodies of men had the heads of beasts, as dogs, horses, &c.
If any of these creatures had lived, and could have spoke, it would
have increased the difficulty. Had the upper part to the middle been of human
shape, and all below swine, had it been murder to destroy it? Or must the
bishop have been consulted, whether it were man enough to be admitted to the
font or no? As I have been told it happened in France some years since, in
somewhat a like case. So uncertain are the boundaries of species of animals to
us, who have no other measures than the complex ideas of our own collecting:
and so far are we from certainly knowing what a MAN is; though perhaps it will
be judged great ignorance to make any doubt about it. And yet I think I may
say, that the certain boundaries of that species are so far from being
determined, and the precise number of simple ideas which make the nominal
essence so far from being settles and perfectly known, that very material
doubts may still arise about it. And I imagine none of the definitions of the
word MAN which we yet have, nor descriptios of that sort of animal, are so
perfect and exact as to satisfy a considerate inquisitive person; much less to
obtain a general consent, and to be that which men would everywhere stick by,
in the decision of cases, and determining of life and death, baptism or no
baptism, in productions that mights happen.
28.
But not so arbitrary as Mixed Modes.
But
though these nominal essences of substances are made by the mind, they are not
yet made so arbitrarily as those of mixed modes. To the making of any nominal
essence, it is necessary, First, that the ideas whereof it consists have such
a union as to make but one idea, how compounded soever. Secondly, that the
particular ideas so united be exactly the same, neither more nor less. For if
two abstract complex ideas differ either in number or sorts of their component
parts, they make two different, and not one and the same essence. In the first
of these, the mind, in making its complex ideas of substances, only follows
nature; and puts none together which are not supposed to have a union in
nature. Nobody joins the voice of a sheep with the shape of a horse; nor the
colour of lead with the weight and fixedness of gold, to be the complex ideas
of any real substances; unless he has a mind to fill his head with chimeras,
and his discourse with unintelligible words. Men observing certain qualities
always joined and existing together, therein copied nature; and of ideas so
united made their complex ones of substances. For, though men may make what
complex ideas they please, and give what names to them they will; yet, if they
will be understood WHEN THEY SPEAK OF THINGS REALLY EXISTING, they must in
some degree conform their ideas to the things they would speak of; or else men’s
language will be like that of Babel; and every man’s words, being
intelligible only to himself, would no longer serve to conversation and the
ordinary affairs of life, if the ideas they stand for be not some way
answering the common appearances and agreement of substances as they really
exist.
29.
Our Nominal Essences of substances usually consist of a few obvious
qualities observed in things.
Secondly,
Though the mind of man, in making its complex ideas of substances, never puts
any together that do not really, or are not supposed to, co-exist; and so it
truly borrows that union from nature: yet the number it combines depends upon
the various care, industry, or fancy of him that makes it. Men generally
content themselves with some few sensible obvious qualities; and often, if not
always, leave out others as material and as firmly united as those that they
take. Of sensible substances there are two sorts: one of organized bodies,
which are propagated by seed; and in these the SHAPE is that which to us is
the leading quality, and most characteristical part, that determines the
species. And therefore in vegetables and animals, an extended solid substance
of such a certain figure usually serves the turn. For however some men seem to
prize their definition of animal rationale, yet should there a creature be
found that had language and reason, but partaked not of the usual shape of a
man, I believe it would hardly pass for a man, how much soever it were animal
rationale. And if Balaam’s ass had all his life discoursed as rationally as
he did once with his master, I doubt yet whether any one would have thought
him worthy the name man, or allowed him to be of the same species with
himself. As in vegetables and animals it is the shape, so in most other
bodies, not propagated by seed, it is the COLOUR we most fix on, and are most
led by. Thus where we find the colour of gold, we are apt to imagine all the
other qualities comprehended in our complex idea to be there also: and we
commonly take these two obvious qualities, viz. shape and colour, for so
presumptive ideas of several species, that in a good picture, we readily say,
this is a lion, and that a rose; this is a gold, and that a silver goblet,
only by the different figures and colours represented to the eye by the
pencil.
30.
Yet, imperfect as they thus are, they serve for common converse.
But
though this serves well enough for gross and confused conceptions, and
inaccurate ways of talking and thinking; yet MEN ARE FAR ENOUGH FROM HAVING
AGREED ON THE PRECISE NUMBER OF SIMPLE IDEAS OR QUALITIES BELONGING TO ANY
SORT OF THINGS, SIGNIFIED BY ITS NAME. Nor is it a wonder; since it requires
much time, pains, and skill, strict inquiry, and long examination to find out
what, and how many, those simple ideas are, which are constantly and
inseparably united in nature, and are always to be found together in the same
subject. Most men, wanting either time, inclination, or industry enough for
this, even to some tolerable degree, content themselves with some few obvious
and outward appearances of things, thereby readily to distinguish and sort
them for the common affairs of life: and so, without further examination, give
them names, or take up the names already in use. Which, though in common
conversation they pass well enough for the signs of some few obvious qualities
co-existing, are yet far enough from comprehending, in a settled
signification, a precise number of simple ideas, much less all those which are
united in nature. He that shall consider, after so much stir about genus and
species, and such a deal of talk of specific differences, how few words we
have yet settled definitions of, may with reason imagine, that those FORMS
which there hath been so much noise made about are only chimeras, which give
us no light into the specific natures of things. And he that shall consider
how far the names of substances are from having significations wherein all who
use them do agree, will have reason to conclude that, though the nominal
essences of substances are all supposed to be copied from nature, yet they are
all, or most of them, very imperfect. Since the composition of those complex
ideas are, in several men, very different: and therefore that these boundaries
of species are as men, and not as Nature, makes them, if at least there are in
nature any such prefixed bounds. It is true that many particular substances
are so made by Nature, that they have agreement and likeness one with another,
and so afford a foundation of being ranked into sorts. But the sorting of
things by us, or the making of determinate species, being in order to naming
and comprehending them under general terms, I cannot see how it can be
properly said, that Nature sets the boundaries of the species of things: or,
if it be so, our boundaries of species are not exactly conformable to those in
nature. For we, having need of general names for present use, stay not for a
perfect discovery of all those qualities which would BEST show us their most
material differences and agreements; but we ourselves divide them, by certain
obvious appearances, into species, that we may the easier under general names
communicate our thoughts about them. For, having no other knowledge of any
substance but of the simple ideas that are united in it; and observing several
particular things to agree with others in several of those simple ideas; we
make that collection our specific idea, and give it a general name; that in
recording our thoughts, and in our discourse with others, we may in one short
word designate all the individuals that agree in that complex idea, without
enumerating the simple ideas that make it up; and so not waste our time and
breath in tedious descriptions: which we see they are fain to do who would
discourse of any new sort of things they have not yet a name for.
31.
Essences of Species under the same Name very different in different
minds.
But
however these species of substances pass well enough in ordinary conversation,
it is plain that this complex idea wherein they observe several individuals to
agree, is by different men made very differently; by some more, and others
less accurately. In some, this complex idea contains a greater, and in others
a smaller number of qualities; and so is apparently such as the mind makes it.
The yellow shining colour makes gold to children; others add weight,
malleableness, and fusibility; and others yet other qualities, which they find
joined with that yellow colour, as constantly as its weight and fusibility.
For in all these and the like qualities, one has as good a right to be put
into the complex idea of that substance wherein they are all joined as
another. And therefore different men, leaving out or putting in several simple
ideas which others do not, according to their various examination, skill, or
observation of that subject, have different essences of gold, which must
therefore be of their own and not of nature’s making.
32.
The more general our Ideas of Substances are, the more incomplete and
partial they are.
If
the number of simple ideas that make the nominal essence of the lowest
species, or first sorting, of individuals, depends on the mind of man,
variously collecting them, it is much more evident that they do so in the more
comprehensive classes, which, by the masters of logic, are called genera.
These are complex ideas designedly imperfect: and it is visible at first
sight, that several of those qualities that are to be found in the things
themselves are purposely left out of generical ideas. For, as the mind, to
make general ideas comprehending several particulars, leaves out those of time
and place, and such other, that make them incommunicable to more than one
individual; so to make other yet more general ideas, that may comprehend
different sorts, it leaves out those qualities that distinguish them, and puts
into its new collection only such ideas as are common to several sorts. The
same convenience that made men express several parcels of yellow matter coming
from Guinea and Peru under one name, sets them also upon making of one name
that may comprehend both gold and silver, and some other bodies of different
sorts. This is done by leaving out those qualities, which are peculiar to each
sort, and retaining a complex idea made up of those that are common to them
all. To which the name METAL being annexed, there is a genus constituted; the
essence whereof being that abstract idea, containing only malleableness and
fusibility, with certain degrees of weight and fixedness, wherein some bodies
of several kinds agree, leaves out the colour and other qualities peculiar to
gold and silver, and the other sorts comprehended under the name metal.
Whereby it is plain that men follow not exactly the patterns set them
by nature, when they make their general ideas of substances; since there is no
body to be found which has barely malleableness and fusibility in it, without
other qualities as inseparable as those. But men, in making their general
ideas, seeking more the convenience of language, and quick dispatch by short
and comprehensive signs, than the true and precise nature of things as they
exist, have, in the framing their abstract ideas, chiefly pursued that end;
which was to be furnished with store of general and variously comprehensive
names. So that in this whole business of genera and species, the genus, or
more comprehensive, is but a partial conception of what is in the species; and
the species but a partial idea of what is to be found in each individual. If
therefore any one will think that a man, and a horse, and an animal, and a
plant, &c., are distinguished by real essences made by nature, he must
think nature to be very liberal of these real essences, making one for body,
another for an animal, and another for a horse; and all these essences
liberally bestowed upon Bucephalus. But if we would rightly consider what is
done in all these genera and species, or sorts, we should find that there is
no new thing made; but only more or less comprehensive signs, whereby we may
be enabled to express in a few syllables great numbers of particular things,
as they agree in more or less general conceptions, which we have framed to
that purpose. In all which we may observe, that the more general term is
always the name of a less complex idea; and that each genus is but a partial
conception of; the species comprehended under it.
So that if these abstract general ideas be thought to be complete, it
can only be in respect of a certain established relation between them and
certain names which are made use of to signify them; and not in respect of
anything existing, as made by nature.
33.
This all accommodated to the end of the Speech.
This
is adjusted to the true end of speech, which is to be the easiest and shortest
way of communicating our notions. For thus he that would discourse of things,
as they agreed in the complex idea of extension and solidity, needed but use
the word BODY to denote all such. He that to these would join others,
signified by the words life, sense, and spontaneous motion, needed but use the
word ANIMAL to signify all which partaked of those ideas, and he that had made
a complex idea of a body, with life, sense, and motion, with the faculty of
reasoning, and a certain shape joined to it, needed but use the short
monosyllable MAN, to express all particulars that correspond to that complex
idea. This is the proper business of genus and species: and this men do
without any consideration of real essences, or substantial forms; which come
not within the reach of our knowledge when we think of those things, nor
within the signification of our words when we discourse with others.
34.
Instance in Cassowaries.
Were
I to talk with any one of a sort of birds I lately saw in St.
James’s Park, about three or four feet high, with a covering of
something between feathers and hair, of a dark brown colour, without wings,
but in the place thereof two or three little branches coming down like sprigs
of Spanish broom, long great legs, with feet only of three claws, and without
a tail; I must make this description of it, and so may make others understand
me. But when I am told that the name of it is CASSUARIS, I may then use that
word to stand in discourse for all my complex idea mentioned in that
description; though by that word, which is now become a specific name, I know
no more of the real essence or constitution of that sort of animals than I did
before; and knew probably as much of the nature of that species of birds
before I learned the name, as many Englishmen do of swans or herons, which are
specific names, very well known, of sorts of birds common in England.
35.
Men determine the Sorts of Substances, which may be sorted variously.
From
what has been said, it is evident that MEN make sorts of things.
For, it being different essences alone that make different species, it
is plain that they who make those abstract ideas which are the nominal
essences do thereby make the species, or sort. Should there be a body found,
having all the other qualities of gold except malleableness, it would no doubt
be made a question whether it were gold or not, i.e.
whether it were of that species. This could be determined only by that
abstract idea to which every one annexed the name gold: so that it would be
true gold to him, and belong to that species, who included not malleableness
in his nominal essence, signified by the sound gold; and on the other side it
would not be true gold, or of that species, to him who included malleableness
in his specific idea. And who, I pray, is it that makes these diverse species,
even under one and the same name, but men that make two different abstract
ideas, consisting not exactly of the same collection of qualities? Nor is it a
mere supposition to imagine that a body may exist wherein the other obvious
qualities of gold may be without malleableness; since it is certain that gold
itself will be sometimes so eager, (as artists call it,) that it will as
little endure the hammer as glass itself. What we have said of the putting in,
or leaving out of malleableness, in the complex idea the name gold is by any
one annexed to, may be said of its peculiar weight, fixedness, and several
other the like qualities: for whatever is left out, or put in, it is still the
complex idea to which that name is annexed that makes the species: and as any
particular parcel of matter answers that idea, so the name of the sort belongs
truly to it; and it is of that species. And
thus anything is true gold, perfect metal. All which determination of the
species, it is plain, depends on the understanding of man, making this or that
complex idea.
36.
Nature makes the Similitudes of Substances.
This,
then, in short, is the case: Nature makes many PARTICULAR THINGS, which do
agree one with another in many sensible qualities, and probably too in their
internal frame and constitution: but it is not this real essence that
distinguishes them into species; it is men who, taking occasion from the
qualities they find united in them, and wherein they observe often several
individuals to agree, range them into sorts, in order to their naming, for the
convenience of comprehensive signs; under which individuals, according to
their conformity to this or that abstract idea, come to be ranked as under
ensigns: so that this is of the blue, that the red regiment; this is a man,
that a drill: and in this, I think, consists the whole business of genus and
species.
37.
The manner of sorting particular beings the work of fallible men,
though nature makes things alike.
I
do not deny but nature, in the constant production of particular beings, makes
them not always new and various, but very much alike and of kin one to
another: but I think it nevertheless true, that the boundaries of the species,
whereby men sort them, are made by men; since the essences of the species,
distinguished by different names, are, as has been proved, of man’s making,
and seldom adequate to the internal nature of the things they are taken from.
So that we may truly say, such a manner of sorting of things is the
workmanship of men.
38.
Each abstract Idea, with a name to it, makes a nominal Essence.
One
thing I doubt not but will seem very strange in this doctrine, which is, that
from what has been said it will follow, that each abstract idea, with a name
to it, makes a distinct species. But who can help it, if truth will have it
so? For so it must remain till somebody can show us the species of things
limited and distinguished by something else; and let us see that general terms
signify not our abstract ideas, but something different from them. I would
fain know why a shock and a hound are not as distinct species as a spaniel and
an elephant. We have no other idea of the different essence of an elephant and
a spaniel, than we have of the different essence of a shock and a hound; all
the essential difference, whereby we know and distinguish them one from
another, consisting only in the different collection of simple ideas, to which
we have given those different names.
39.
How Genera and Species are related to naming.
How
much the making of species and genera is in order to general names; and how
much general names are necessary, if not to the being, yet at least to the
completing of a species, and making it pass for such, will appear, besides
what has been said above concerning ice and water, in a very familiar example.
A silent and a striking watch are but one species, to those who have but one
name for them: but he that has the name WATCH for one, and CLOCK for the
other, and distinct complex ideas to which those names belong, to HIM they are
different species. It will be said perhaps, that the inward contrivance and
constitution is different between these two, which the watchmaker has a clear
idea of. And yet it is plain they
are but one species to him, when he has but one name for them. For what is
sufficient in the inward contrivance to make a new species? There are some
watches that are made with four wheels, others with five; is this a specific
difference to the workman? Some have strings and physics, and others none;
some have the balance loose, and others regulated by a spiral spring, and
others by hogs’ bristles. Are
any or all of these enough to make a specific difference to the workman, that
knows each of these and several other different contrivances in the internal
constitutions of watches? It is certain each of these hath a real difference
from the rest; but whether it be an essential, a specific difference or no,
relates only to the complex idea to which the name watch is given: as long as
they all agree in the idea which that name stands for, and that name does not
as a generical name comprehend different species under it, they are not
essentially nor specifically different. But if any one will make minuter
divisions, from differences that he knows in the internal frame of watches,
and to such precise complex ideas give names that shall prevail; they will
then be new species, to them who have those ideas with names to them, and can
by those differences distinguish watches into these several sorts; and then
WATCH will be a generical name. But yet they would be no distinct species to
men ignorant of clock-work, and the inward contrivances of watches, who had no
other idea but the outward shape and bulk, with the marking of the hours by
the hand. For to them all those other names would be but synonymous terms for
the same idea, and signify no more, nor no other thing but a watch. Just thus
I think it is in natural things. Nobody will doubt that the wheels or springs
(if I may so say) within, are different in a RATIONAL MAN and a CHANGELING; no
more than that there is a difference in the frame between a DRILL and a
CHANGELING. But whether one or both these differences be essential or
specifical, is only to be known to us by their agreement or disagreement with
the complex idea that the name man stands for: for by that alone can it be
determined whether one, or both, or neither of those be a man.
40.
Species of Artificial Things less confused than Natural.
From
what has been before said, we may see the reason why, in the species of
artificial things, there is generally less confusion and uncertainty than in
natural. Because an artificial thing being a production of man, which the
artificer designed, and therefore well knows the idea of, the name of it is
supposed to stand for no other idea, nor to import any other essence, than
what is certainly to be known, and easy enough to be apprehended. For the idea
or essence of the several sorts of artificial things, consisting for the most
part in nothing but the determinate figure of sensible parts, and sometimes
motion depending thereon, which the artificer fashions in matter, such as he
finds for his turn; it is not beyond the reach of our faculties to attain a
certain idea thereof; and so settle the signification of the names whereby the
species of artificial things are distinguished, with less doubt, obscurity,
and equivocation than we can in things natural, whose differences and
operations depend upon contrivances beyond the reach of our discoveries.
41.
Artificial Things of distinct Species.
I
must be excused here if I think artificial things are of distinct species as
well as natural: since I find they are as plainly and orderly ranked into
sorts, by different abstract ideas, with general names annexed to them, as
distinct one from another as those of natural substances. For why should we
not think a watch and pistol as distinct species one from another, as a horse
and a dog; they being expressed in our minds by distinct ideas, and to others
by distinct appellations?
42.
Substances alone, of all our several sorts of ideas, have proper Names.
This
is further to be observed concerning substances, that they alone of all our
several sorts of ideas have particular or proper names, whereby one only
particular thing is signified. Because in simple ideas, modes, and relations,
it seldom happens that men have occasion to mention often this or that
particular when it is absent. Besides, the greatest part of mixed modes, being
actions which perish in their birth, are not capable of a lasting duration, as
substances which are the actors; and wherein the simple ideas that make up the
complex ideas designed by the name have a lasting union.
43.
Difficult to lead another by words into the thoughts of things stripped
of those abstract ideas we give them.
I
must beg pardon of my reader for having dwelt so long upon this subject, and
perhaps with some obscurity. But I desire it may be considered, how difficult
it is to lead another by words into the thoughts of things, stripped of those
specifical differences we give them: which things, if I name not, I say
nothing; and if I do name them, I thereby rank them into some sort or other,
and suggest to the mind the usual abstract idea of that species; and so cross
my purpose. For, to talk of a man, and to lay by, at the same time, the
ordinary signification of the name man, which is our complex idea usually
annexed to it; and bid the reader consider man, as he is in himself, and as he
is really distinguished from others in his internal constitution, or real
essence, that is, by something he knows not what, looks like trifling: and yet
thus one must do who would speak of the supposed real essences and species of
things, as thought to be made by nature, if it be but only to make it
understood, that there is no such thing signified by the general names which
substances are called by. But because it is difficult by known familiar names
to do this, give me leave to endeavour by an example to make the different
consideration the mind has of specific names and ideas a little more clear;
and to show how the complex ideas of modes are referred sometimes to
archetypes in the minds of other intelligent beings, or, which is the same, to
the signification annexed by others to their received names; and sometimes to
no archetypes at all. Give me leave also to show how the mind always refers
its ideas of substances, either to the substances themselves, or to the
signification of their names, as to the archetypes; and also to make plain the
nature of species or sorting of things, as apprehended and made use of by us;
and of the essences belonging to those species: which is perhaps of more
moment to discover the extent and certainty of our knowledge than we at first
imagine.
44.
Instances of mixed Modes names KINNEAH and NIOUPH.
Let
us suppose Adam, in the state of a grown man, with a good understanding, but
in a strange country, with all things new and unknown about him; and no other
faculties to attain the knowledge of them but what one of this age has now. He
observes Lamech more melancholy than usual, and imagines it to be from a
suspicion he has of his wife Adah, (whom he most ardently loved) that she had
too much kindness for another man. Adam discourses these his thoughts to Eve,
and desires her to take care that Adah commit not folly: and in these
discourses with Eve he makes use of these two new words KINNEAH and NIOUPH. In
time, Adam’s mistake appears, for he finds Lamech’s trouble proceeded from
having killed a man: but yet the two names KINNEAH and NIOUPH, (the one
standing for suspicion in a husband of his wife’s disloyalty to him; and the
other for the act of committing disloyalty,) lost not their distinct
significations. It is plain then, that here were two distinct complex ideas of
mixed modes, with names to them, two distinct species of actions essentially
different; I ask wherein consisted the essences of these two distinct species
of actions? And it is plain it consisted in a precise combination of simple
ideas, different in one from the other. I ask, whether the complex idea in
Adam’s mind, which he called KINNEAH, were adequate or not? And it is plain
it was; for it being a combination of simple ideas, which he, without any
regard to any archetype, without respect to anything as a pattern, voluntarily
put together, abstracted, and gave the name KINNEAH to, to express in short to
others, by that one sound, all the simple ideas contained and united in that
complex one; it must necessarily follow that it was an adequate idea. His own
choice having made that combination, it had all in it he intended it should,
and so could not but be perfect, could not but be adequate; it being referred
to no other archetype which it was supposed to represent.
45.
These words, KINNEAH and NIOUPH, by degrees grew into common use, and
then the case was somewhat altered. Adam’s children had the same faculties,
and thereby the same power that he had, to make what complex ideas of mixed
modes they pleased in their own minds; to abstract them, and make what sounds
they pleased the signs of them: but the use of names being to make our ideas
within us known to others, that cannot be done, but when the same sign stands
for the same idea in two who would communicate their thoughts and discourse
together. Those, therefore, of Adam’s children, that found these two words,
KINNEAH and NIOUPH, in familiar use, could not take them for insignificant
sounds, but must needs conclude they stood for something; for certain ideas,
abstract ideas, they being general names; which abstract ideas were the
essences of the species distinguished by those names. If therefore, they would
use these words as names of species already established and agreed on, they
were obliged to conform the ideas in their minds, signified by these names, to
the ideas that they stood for in other men’s minds, as to their patterns and
archetypes; and then indeed their ideas of these complex modes were liable to
be inadequate, as being very apt (especially those that consisted of
combinations of many simple ideas) not to be exactly conformable to the ideas
in other men’s minds, using the same names; though for this there be usually
a remedy at hand, which is to ask the meaning of any word we understand not of
him that uses it: it being as impossible to know certainly what the words
jealousy and adultery (which I think answer [Hebrew] and [Hebrew]) stand for
in another man’s mind, with whom I would discourse about them; as it was
impossible, in the beginning of language, to know what KINNEAH and NIOUPH
stood for in another man’s mind, without explication; they being voluntary
signs in every one.
46.
Instances of a species of Substance named ZAHAB.
Let
us now also consider, after the same manner, the names of substances in their
first application. One of Adam’s children, roving in the mountains, lights
on a glittering substance which pleases his eye. Home he carries it to Adam,
who, upon consideration of it, finds it to be hard, to have a bright yellow
colour, and an exceeding great weight. These
perhaps, at first, are all the qualities he takes notice of in it; and
abstracting this complex idea, consisting of a substance having that peculiar
bright yellowness, and a weight very great in proportion to its bulk, he gives
the name ZAHAB, to denominate and mark all substances that have these sensible
qualities in them. It is evident now, that, in this case, Adam acts quite
differently from what he did before, in forming those ideas of mixed modes to
which he gave the names KINNEAH and NIOUPH. For there he put ideas together
only by his own imagination, not taken from the existence of anything; and to
them he gave names to denominate all things that should happen to agree to
those his abstract ideas, without considering whether any such thing did exist
or not: the standard there was of his own making. But in the forming his idea
of this new substance, he takes the quite contrary course; here he has a
standard made by nature; and therefore, being to represent that to himself, by
the idea he has of it, even when it is absent, he puts in no simple idea into
his complex one, but what he has the perception of from the thing itself. He
takes care that his idea be conformable to this archetype, and intends the
name should stand for an idea so conformable.
47.
This
piece of matter, thus denominated ZAHAB by Adam, being quite different from
any he had seen before, nobody, I think, will deny to be a distinct species,
and to have its peculiar essence; and that the name ZAHAB is the mark of the
species, and a name belonging to all things partaking in that essence. But
here it is plain the essence Adam made the name ZAHAB stand for was nothing
but a body hard, shining, yellow, and very heavy. But the inquisitive mind of
man, not content with the knowledge of these, as I may say, superficial
qualities, puts Adam upon further examination of this matter. He therefore
knocks, and beats it with flints, to see what was discoverable in the inside:
he finds it yield to blows, but not easily separate into pieces: he finds it
will bend without breaking. Is not now ductility to be added to his former
idea, and made part of the essence of the species that name ZAHAB stands for?
Further trials discover fusibility and fixedness. Are not they also, by the
same reason that any of the others were, to be put into the complex idea
signified by the name ZAHAB? If not, what reason will there be shown more for
the one than the other? If these must, then all the other properties, which
any further trials shall discover in this matter, ought by the same reason to
make a part of the ingredients of the complex idea which the name ZAHAB stands
for, and so be the essence of the species marked by that name. Which
properties, because they are endless, it is plain that the idea made after
this fashion, by this archetype, will be always inadequate.
48.
The Abstract Ideas of Substances always imperfect and therefore
various.
But
this is not all. It would also follow that the names of substances would not
only have, as in truth they have, but would also be supposed to have different
significations, as used by different men, which would very much cumber the use
of language. For if every distinct quality that were discovered in any matter
by any one were supposed to make a necessary part of the complex idea
signified by the common name given to it, it must follow, that men must
suppose the same word to signify different things in different men: since they
cannot doubt but different men may have discovered several qualities, in
substances of the same denomination, which others know nothing of.
49.
Therefore to fix the Nominal Species Real Essence supposed.
To
avoid this therefore, they have supposed a real essence belonging to every
species, from which these proper ties all flow, and would have their name of
the species stand for that. But they, not having any idea of that real essence
in substances, and their words signifying nothing but the ideas they have,
that which is done by this attempt is only to put the name or sound in the
place and stead of the thing having that real essence, without knowing what
the real essence is, and this is that which men do when they speak of species
of things, as supposing them made by nature, and distinguished by real
essences.
50.
Which Supposition is of no Use.
For,
let us consider, when we affirm that ‘all gold is fixed,’ either it means
that fixedness is a part of the definition, i. e., part of the nominal essence
the word gold stands for; and so this affirmation, ‘all gold is fixed,’
contains nothing but the signification of the term gold. Or else it means, that fixedness, not being a part of the
definition of the gold, is a property of that substance itself: in which case
it is plain that the word gold stands in the place of a substance, having the
real essence of a species of things made by nature. In which way of
substitution it has so confused and uncertain a signification, that, though
this proposition—‘gold is fixed’—be in that sense an affirmation of
something real; yet it is a truth will always fail us in its particular
application, and so is of no real use or certainty. For let it be ever so
true, that all gold, i. e. all that has the real essence of gold, is fixed,
what serves this for, whilst we know not, in this sense, WHAT IS OR IS NOT
GOLD? For if we know not the real essence of gold, it is impossible we should
know what parcel of matter has that essence, and so whether IT be true gold or
no.
51.
Conclusion.
To
conclude: what liberty Adam had at first to make any complex ideas of MIXED
MODES by no other pattern but by his own thoughts, the same have all men ever
since had. And the same necessity of conforming his ideas of SUBSTANCES to
things without him, as to archetypes made by nature, that Adam was under, if
he would not wilfully impose upon himself, the same are all men ever since
under too. The same liberty also that Adam had of affixing any new name to any
idea, the same has any one still, (especially the beginners of languages, if
we can imagine any such;) but only with this difference, that, in places where
men in society have already established a language amongst them, the
significations of words are very warily and sparingly to be altered. Because
men being furnished already with names for their ideas, and common use having
appropriated known names to certain ideas, an affected misapplication of them
cannot but be very ridiculous. He that hath new notions will perhaps venture
sometimes on the coining of new terms to express them: but men think it a
boldness, and it is uncertain whether common use will ever make them pass for
current. But in communication with others, it is necessary that we conform the
ideas we make the vulgar words of any language stand for to their known proper
significations, (which I have explained at large already,) or else to make
known that new signification we apply them to.
OF
PARTICLES.
1.
Particles connect Parts, or whole Sentences together.
Besides
words which are names of ideas in the mind, there are a great many others that
are made use of to signify the CONNEXION that the mind gives to ideas, or to
propositions, one with another. The mind, in communicating its thoughts to
others, does not only need signs of the ideas it has then before it, but
others also, to show or intimate some particular action of its own, at that
time, relating to those ideas. This
it does several ways; as _I_S and _I_S NOT, are the general marks, of the
mind, affirming or denying. But besides affirmation or negation, without which
there is in words no truth or falsehood, the mind does, in declaring its
sentiments to others, connect not only the parts of propositions, but whole
sentences one to another, with their several relations and dependencies, to
make a coherent discourse.
2.
In right use of Particles consists the Art of Well-speaking
The
words whereby it signifies what connexion it gives to the several affirmations
and negations, that it unites in one continued reasoning or narration, are
generally called PARTICLES: and it is in the right use of these that more
particularly consists the clearness and beauty of a good style. To think well,
it is not enough that a man has ideas clear and distinct in his thoughts, nor
that he observes the agreement or disagreement of some of them; but he must
think in train, and observe the dependence of his thoughts and reasonings upon
one another. And to express well such methodical and rational thoughts, he
must have words to show what connexion, restriction, distinction, opposition,
emphasis, &c., he gives to each respective part of his discourse. To
mistake in any of these, is to puzzle instead of informing his hearer: and
therefore it is, that those words which are not truly by themselves the names
of any ideas are of such constant and indispensable use in language, and do
much contribute to men’s well expressing themselves.
3.
They say what Relation the Mind gives to its own Thoughts.
This
part of grammar has been perhaps as much neglected as some others
over-diligently cultivated. It is easy for men to write, one after another, of
cases and genders, moods and tenses, gerunds and supines: in these and the
like there has been great diligence used; and particles themselves, in some
languages, have been, with great show of exactness, ranked into their several
orders. But though PREPOSITIONS and CONJUNCTIONS, &c., are names well
known in grammar, and the particles contained under them carefully ranked into
their distinct subdivisions; yet he who would show the right use of particles,
and what significancy and force they have, must take a little more pains,
enter into his own thoughts, and observe nicely the several postures of his
mind in discoursing.
4.
They are all marks of some action or intimation of the mind.
Neither
is it enough, for the explaining of these words, to render them, as is usual
in dictionaries, by words of another tongue which come nearest to their
signification: for what is meant by them is commonly as hard to be understood
in one as another language. They are all marks of some action or intimation of
the mind; and therefore to understand them rightly, the several views,
postures, stands, turns, limitations, and exceptions, and several other
thoughts of the mind, for which we have either none or very deficient names,
are diligently to be studied. Of these there is a great variety, much
exceeding the number of particles that most languages have to express them by:
and therefore it is not to be wondered that most of these particles have
divers and sometimes almost opposite significations. In the Hebrew tongue
there is a particle consisting of but one single letter, of which there are
reckoned up, as I remember, seventy, I am sure above fifty, several
significations.
5.
Instance in But.
‘But’
is a particle, none more familiar in our language: and he that says it is a
discretive conjunction, and that it answers to sed Latin, or mais in French,
thinks he has sufficiently explained it. But yet it seems to me to intimate
several relations the mind gives to the several propositions or parts of them
which it joins by this monosyllable.
First,
‘But to say no more:’ here it intimates a stop of the mind in the course
it was going, before it came quite to the end of it.
Secondly,
‘I saw but two plants;’ here it shows that the mind limits the sense to
what is expressed, with a negation of all other.
Thirdly,’You
pray; but it is not that God would bring you to the true religion.’
Fourthly,
‘But that he would confirm you in your own.’ The first of these BUTS
intimates a supposition in the mind of something otherwise than it should be;
the latter shows that the mind makes a direct opposition between that and what
goes before it.
Fifthly,
‘All animals have sense, but a dog is an animal:’ here it signifies little
more but that the latter proposition is joined to the former, as the minor of
a syllogism.
6.
This Matter of the use of Particles but lightly touched here.
To
these, I doubt not, might be added a great many other significations of this
particle, if it were my business to examine it in its full latitude, and
consider it in all the places it is to be found: which if one should do, I
doubt whether in all those manners it is made use of, it would deserve the
title of DISCRETIVE, which grammarians give to it. But I intend not here a full explication of this sort of
signs. The instances I have given in this one may give occasion to reflect on
their use and force in language, and lead us into the contemplation of several
actions of our minds in discoursing, which it has found a way to intimate to
others by these particles, some whereof constantly, and others in certain
constructions, have the sense of a whole sentence contained in them.
OF
ABSTRACT AND CONCRETE TERMS.
1.
Abstract Terms predicated one on another and why.
The
ordinary words of language, and our common use of them, would have given us
light into the nature of our ideas, if they had been but considered with
attention. The mind, as has been shown, has a power to abstract its ideas, and
so they become essences, general essences, whereby the sorts of things are
distinguished. Now each abstract idea being distinct, so that of any two the
one can never be the other, the mind will, by its intuitive knowledge,
perceive their difference, and therefore in propositions no two whole ideas
can ever be affirmed one of another. This we see in the common use of
language, which permits not any two abstract words, or names of abstract
ideas, to be affirmed one of another. For how near of kin soever they may seem
to be, and how certain soever it is that man is an animal, or rational, or
white, yet every one at first hearing perceives the falsehood of these
propositions: HUMANITY IS ANIMALITY, or RATIONALITY, or WHITENESS: and this is
as evident as any of the most allowed maxims. All our affirmations then are
only in concrete, which is the affirming, not one abstract idea to be another,
but one abstract idea to be joined to another; which abstract ideas, in
substances, may be of any sort; in all the rest are little else but of
relations; and in substances the most frequent are of powers: v.g. ‘a man is
white,’ signifies that the thing that has the essence of a man has also in
it the essence of whiteness, which is nothing but a power to produce the idea
of whiteness in one whose eyes can discover ordinary objects: or, ‘a man is
rational,’ signifies that the same thing that hath the essence of a man hath
also in it the essence of rationality, i.e. a power of reasoning.
2.
They show the Difference of our Ideas.
This
distinction of names shows us also the difference of our ideas:
for
if we observe them, we shall find that OUR SIMPLE IDEAS HAVE ALL ABSTRACT AS
WELL AS CONCRETE NAMES: the one whereof is (to speak the language of
grammarians) a substantive, the other an adjective; as whiteness, white;
sweetness, sweet. The like also holds in our ideas of modes and relations; as
justice, just; equality, equal: only with this difference, that some of the
concrete names of relations amongst men chiefly are substantives; as,
paternitas, pater; whereof it were easy to render a reason. But as to our
ideas of substances, we have very few or no abstract names at all. For though
the Schools have introduced animalitas, humanitas, corporietas, and some
others; yet they hold no proportion with that infinite number of names of
substances, to which they never were ridiculous enough to attempt the coining
of abstract ones: and those few that the Schools forged, and put into the
mouths of their scholars, could never yet get admittance into common use, or
obtain the license of public approbation. Which seems to me at least to
intimate the confession of all mankind, that they have no ideas of the real
essences of substances, since they have not names for such ideas: which no
doubt they would have had, had not their consciousness to themselves of their
ignorance of them kept them from so idle an attempt.
And therefore, though they had ideas enough to distinguish gold from a
stone, and metal from wood; yet they but timorously ventured on such terms, as
aurietas and saxietas, metallietas and lignietas, or the like names, which
should pretend to signify the real essences of those substances whereof they
knew they had no ideas. And indeed it was only the doctrine of SUBSTANTIAL
FORMS, and the confidence of mistaken pretenders to a knowledge that they had
not, which first coined and then introduced animalitas and humanitas, and the
like; which yet went very little further than their own Schools, and could
never get to be current amongst understanding men. Indeed, humanitas was a
word in familiar use amongst the Romans; but in a far different sense, and
stood not for the abstract essence of any substance; but was the abstracted
name of a mode, and its concrete humanus, not homo.
OF
THE IMPERFECTION OF WORDS.
1.
Words are used for recording and communicating our Thoughts.
From
what has been said in the foregoing chapters, it is easy to perceive what
imperfection there is in language, and how the very nature of words makes it
almost unavoidable for many of them to be doubtful and uncertain in their
significations. To examine the perfection or imperfection of words, it is
necessary first to consider their use and end: for as they are more or less
fitted to attain that, so they are more or less perfect. We have, in the
former part of this discourse often, upon occasion, mentioned a double use of
words.
First,
One for the recording of our own thoughts.
Secondly,
The other for the communicating of our thoughts to others.
2.
Any Words will serve for recording.
As
to the first of these, FOR THE RECORDING OUR OWN THOUGHTS FOR THE HELP OF OUR
OWN MEMORIES, whereby, as it were, we talk to ourselves, any words will serve
the turn. For since sounds are voluntary and indifferent signs of any ideas, a
man may use what words he pleases to signify his own ideas to himself: and
there will be no imperfection in them, if he constantly use the same sign for
the same idea: for then he cannot fail of having his meaning understood,
wherein consists the right use and perfection of language.
3.
Communication by Words either for civil or philosophical purposes.
Secondly,
As to COMMUNICATION BY WORDS, that too has a double use.
I.
Civil.
II.
Philosophical. First, By, their CIVIL use, I mean such a communication
of thoughts and ideas by words, as may serve for the upholding common
conversation and commerce, about the ordinary affairs and conveniences of
civil life, in the societies of men, one amongst another.
Secondly,
By the PHILOSOPHICAL use of words, I mean such a use of them as may serve to
convey the precise notions of things, and to express in general propositions
certain and undoubted truths, which the mind may rest upon and be satisfied
with in its search after true knowledge.
These two uses are very distinct; and a great deal less exactness will
serve in the one than in the other, as we shall see in what follows.
4.
The imperfection of Words is the Doubtfulness or ambiguity of their
Signification, which is caused by the sort of ideas they stand for.
The
chief end of language in communication being to be understood, words serve not
well for that end, neither in civil nor philosophical discourse, when any word
does not excite in the hearer the same idea which it stands for in the mind of
the speaker. Now, since sounds have no natural connexion with our ideas, but
have all their signification from the arbitrary imposition of men, the
doubtfulness and uncertainty of their signification, which is the imperfection
we here are speaking of, has its cause more in the ideas they stand for than
in any incapacity there is in one sound more than in another to signify any
idea: for in that regard they are all equally perfect.
That
then which makes doubtfulness and uncertainty in the signification of some
more than other words, is the difference of ideas they stand for.
5.
Natural Causes of their Imperfection, especially in those that stand
for Mixed Modes, and for our ideas of Substances.
Words
having naturally no signification, the idea which each stands for
must
be learned and retained, by those who would exchange thoughts, and
hold
intelligible discourse with others, in any language. But this is
the
hardest to be done where,
First,
The ideas they stand for are very complex, and made up of a great number of
ideas put together.
Secondly,
Where the ideas they stand for have no certain connexion in nature; and so no
settled standard anywhere in nature existing, to rectify and adjust them by.
Thirdly,
When the signification of the word is referred to a standard, which standard
is not easy to be known.
Fourthly,
Where the signification of the word and the real essence of the thing are not
exactly the same.
These
are difficulties that attend the signification of several words that are
intelligible. Those which are not intelligible at all, such as names standing
for any simple ideas which another has not organs or faculties to attain; as
the names of colours to a blind man, or sounds to a deaf man, need not here be
mentioned.
In
all these cases we shall find an imperfection in words; which I shall more at
large explain, in their particular application to our several sorts of ideas:
for if we examine them, we shall find that the NAMES OF _M_IXED _M_ODES ARE
MOST LIABLE TO DOUBTFULNESS AND IMPERFECTION, FOR THE TWO FIRST OF THESE
REASONS; and the NAMES OF _S_UBSTANCES CHIEFLY FOR THE TWO LATTER.
6.
The Names of mixed Modes doubtful.
First,
The names of MIXED MODES are, many of them, liable to great uncertainty and
obscurity in their signification.
I.
Because the Ideas they stand for are so complex.
Because
of that GREAT COMPOSITION these complex ideas are often made up of. To make
words serviceable to the end of communication, it is necessary, as has been
said, that they excite in the hearer exactly the same idea they stand for in
the mind of the speaker. Without this, men fill one another’s heads with
noise and sounds; but convey not thereby their thoughts, and lay not before
one another their ideas, which is the end of discourse and language. But when
a word stands for a very complex idea that is compounded and decompounded, it
is not easy for men to form and retain that idea so exactly, as to make the
name in common use stand for the same precise idea, without any the least
variation. Hence it comes to pass that men’s names of very compound ideas,
such as for the most part are moral words, have seldom in two different men
the same precise signification; since one man’s complex idea seldom agrees
with another’s, and often differs from his own—from that which he had
yesterday, or will have tomorrow.
7.
Secondly because they have no Standards in Nature.
Because
the names of mixed modes for the most part WANT STANDARDS IN NATURE, whereby
men may rectify and adjust their significations; therefore they are very
various and doubtful. They are assemblages of ideas put together at the
pleasure of the mind, pursuing its own ends of discourse, and suited to its
own notions; whereby it designs not to copy anything really existing, but to
denominate and rank things as they come to agree with those archetypes or
forms it has made. He that first brought the word SHAM, or WHEEDLE, or BANTER,
in use, put together as he thought fit those ideas he made it stand for; and
as it is with any new names of modes that are now brought into any language,
so it was with the old ones when they were first made use of. Names,
therefore, that stand for collections of ideas which the mind makes at
pleasure must needs be of doubtful signification, when such collections are
nowhere to be found constantly united in nature, nor any patterns to be shown
whereby men may adjust them. What the word MURDER, or SACRILEGE, &c.,
signifies can never be known from things themselves: there be many of the
parts of those complex ideas which are not visible in the action itself; the
intention of the mind, or the relation of holy things, which make a part of
murder or sacrilege, have no necessary connexion with the outward and visible
action of him that commits either: and the pulling the trigger of the gun with
which the murder is committed, and is all the action that perhaps is visible,
has no natural connexion with those other ideas that make up the complex one
named murder. They have their union and combination only from the
understanding which unites them under one name: but, uniting them without any
rule or pattern, it cannot be but that the signification of the name that
stands for such voluntary collections should be often various in the minds of
different men, who have scarce any standing rule to regulate themselves and
their notions by, in such arbitrary ideas.
8.
Common use, or propriety not a sufficient Remedy.
It
is true, common use, that is, the rule of propriety may be supposed here to
afford some aid, to settle the signification of language; and it cannot be
denied but that in some measure it does. Common use regulates the meaning of
words pretty well for common conversation; but nobody having an authority to
establish the precise signification of words, nor determine to what ideas any
one shall annex them, common use is not sufficient to adjust them to
Philosophical Discourses; there being scarce any name of any very complex idea
(to say nothing of others) which, in common use, has not a great latitude, and
which, keeping within the bounds of propriety, may not be made the sign of far
different ideas. Besides, the rule and measure of propriety itself being
nowhere established, it is often matter of dispute, whether this or that way
of using a word be propriety of speech or no. From all which it is evident,
that the names of such kind of very complex ideas are naturally liable to this
imperfection, to be of doubtful and uncertain signification; and even in men
that have a mind to understand one another, do not always stand for the same
idea in speaker and hearer. Though
the names GLORY and GRATITUDE be the same in every man’s mouth through a
whole country, yet the complex collective idea which every one thinks on or
intends by that name, is apparently very different in men using the same
language.
9.
The way of learning these Names contributes also to their Doubtfulness.
The
way also wherein the names of mixed modes are ordinarily learned, does not a
little contribute to the doubtfulness of their signification.
For if we will observe how children learn languages, we shall find
that, to make them understand what the names of simple ideas or substances
stand for, people ordinarily show them the thing whereof they would have them
have the idea; and then repeat to them the name that stands for it; as WHITE,
SWEET, MILK, SUGAR, CAT, DOG. But as for mixed modes, especially the most
material of them, MORAL WORDS, the sounds are usually learned first; and then,
to know what complex ideas they stand for, they are either beholden to the
explication of others, or (which happens for the most part) are left to their
own observation and industry; which being little laid out in the search of the
true and precise meaning of names, these moral words are in most men’s
mouths little more than bare sounds; or when they have any, it is for the most
part but a very loose and undetermined, and, consequently, obscure and
confused signification. And even those themselves who have with more attention
settled their notions, do yet hardly avoid the inconvenience to have them
stand for complex ideas different from those which other, even intelligent and
studious men, make them the signs of. Where shall one find any, either
controversial debate, or familiar discourse, concerning honour, faith, grace,
religion, church, &c., wherein it is not easy to observe the different
notions men have of them? Which is nothing but this, that they are not agreed
in the signification of those words, nor have in their minds the same complex
ideas which they make them stand for, and so all the contests that follow
thereupon are only about the meaning of a sound. And hence we see that, in the
interpretation of laws, whether divine or human, there is no end; comments
beget comments, and explications make new matter for explications; and of
limiting, distinguishing, varying the signification of these moral words there
is no end. These ideas of men’s making are, by men still having the same
power, multiplied in infinitum. Many a man who was pretty well satisfied of
the meaning of a text of Scripture, or clause in the code, at first reading,
has, by consulting commentators, quite lost the sense of it, and by these
elucidations given rise or increase to his doubts, and drawn obscurity upon
the place. I say not this that I think commentaries needless; but to show how
uncertain the names of mixed modes naturally are, even in the mouths of those
who had both the intention and the faculty of speaking as clearly as language
was capable to express their thoughts.
10.
Hence unavoidable Obscurity in ancient Authors.
What
obscurity this has unavoidably brought upon the writings of men who
have
lived in remote ages, and different countries, it will be needless
to
take notice. Since the numerous volumes of learned men, employing
their
thoughts that way, are proofs more than enough, to show what
attention,
study, sagacity, and reasoning are required to find out the
true
meaning of ancient authors. But, there being no writings we have
any
great concernment to be very solicitous about the meaning of, but
those
that contain either truths we are required to believe, or laws
we
are to obey, and draw inconveniences on us when we mistake or
transgress,
we may be less anxious about the sense of other authors;
who,
writing but their own opinions, we are under no greater necessity
to
know them, than they to know ours. Our good or evil depending not on
their
decrees, we may safely be ignorant of their notions: and therefore
in
the reading of them, if they do not use their words with a due
clearness
and perspicuity, we may lay them aside, and without any injury
done
them, resolve thus with ourselves,
Si
non vis intelligi, debes negligi.
11.
Names of Substances of doubtful Signification, because the ideas they
stand for relate to the reality of things.
If
the signification of the names of mixed modes be uncertain, because there be
no real standards existing in nature to which those ideas are referred, and by
which they may be adjusted, the names of SUBSTANCES are of a doubtful
signification, for a contrary reason, viz. because the ideas they stand for
are supposed conformable to the reality of things, and are referred to as
standards made by Nature. In our ideas of substances we have not the liberty,
as in mixed modes, to frame what combinations we think fit, to be the
characteristical notes to rank and denominate things by. In these we must
follow Nature, suit our complex ideas to real existences, and regulate the
signification of their names by the things themselves, if we will have our
names to be signs of them, and stand for them. Here, it is true, we have
patterns to follow; but patterns that will make the signification of their
names very uncertain: for names must be of a very unsteady and various
meaning, if the ideas they stand for be referred to standards without us, that
either cannot be known at all, or can be known but imperfectly and
uncertainly.
12.
Names of Substances referred, I. To real Essences that cannot be known.
The
names of substances have, as has been shown, a double reference in their
ordinary use.
First,
Sometimes they are made to stand for, and so their signification is supposed
to agree to, THE REAL CONSTITUTION OF THINGS, from which all their properties
flow, and in which they all centre. But this real constitution, or (as it is
apt to be called) essence, being utterly unknown to us, any sound that is put
to stand for it must be very uncertain in its application; and it will be
impossible to know what things are or ought to be called a HORSE, or ANTIMONY,
when those words are put for real essences that we have no ideas of at all.
And therefore in this supposition, the names of substances being referred to
standards that cannot be known, their significations can never be adjusted and
established by those standards.
13.
Secondly, To co-existing Qualities, which are known but imperfectly.
Secondly,
The simple ideas that are FOUND TO CO-EXIST IN SUBSTANCES being that which
their names immediately signify, these, as united in the several sorts of
things, are the proper standards to which their names are referred, and by
which their significations may be best rectified. But neither will these
archetypes so well serve to this purpose as to leave these names without very
various and uncertain significations. Because these simple ideas that
co-exist, and are united in the same subject, being very numerous, and having
all an equal right to go into the complex specific idea which the specific
name is to stand for, men, though they propose to themselves the very same
subject to consider, yet frame very different ideas about it; and so the name
they use for it unavoidably comes to have, in several men, very different
significations. The simple qualities which make up the complex ideas, being
most of them powers, in relation to changes which they are apt to make in, or
receive from other bodies, are almost infinite. He that shall but observe what
a great variety of alterations any one of the baser metals is apt to receive,
from the different application only of fire; and how much a greater number of
changes any of them will receive in the hands of a chymist, by the application
of other bodies, will not think it strange that I count the properties of any
sort of bodies not easy to be collected, and completely known, by the ways of
inquiry which our faculties are capable of. They being therefore at least so
many, that no man can know the precise and definite number, they are
differently discovered by different men, according to their various skill,
attention, and ways of handling; who therefore cannot choose but have
different ideas of the same substance, and therefore make the signification of
its common name very various and uncertain. For the complex ideas of
substances, being made up of such simple ones as are supposed to co-exist in
nature, every one has a right to put into his complex idea those qualities he
has found to be united together. For, though in the substance of gold one
satisfies himself with colour and weight, yet another thinks solubility in
aqua regia as necessary to be joined with that colour in his idea of gold, as
any one does its fusibility; solubility in aqua regia being a quality as
constantly joined with its colour and weight as fusibility or any other;
others put into it ductility or fixedness, &c., as they have been taught
by tradition or experience. Who of all these has established the right
signification of the word, gold? Or who shall be the judge to determine?
Each has his standard in nature, which he appeals to, and with reason
thinks he has the same right to put into his complex idea signified by the
word gold, those qualities, which, upon trial, he has found united; as another
who has not so well examined has to leave them out; or a third, who has made
other trials, has to put in others. For the union in nature of these qualities
being the true ground of their union in one complex idea, who can say one of
them has more reason to be put in or left out than another? From hence it will
unavoidably follow, that the complex ideas of substances in men using the same
names for them, will be very various, and so the significations of those names
very uncertain.
14.
Thirdly, To co-existing Qualities which are known but imperfectly.
Besides,
there is scarce any particular thing existing, which, in some of its simple
ideas, does not communicate with a greater, and in others a less number of
particular beings: who shall determine in this case which are those that are
to make up the precise collection that is to be signified by the specific
name? or can with any just authority prescribe, which obvious or common
qualities are to be left out; or which more secret, or more particular, are to
be put into the signification of the name of any substance? All which
together, seldom or never fail to produce that various and doubtful
signification in the names of substances, which causes such uncertainty,
disputes, or mistakes, when we come to a philosophical use of them.
15.
With this imperfection, they may serve for civil, but not well for
philosophical Use.
It
is true, as to civil and common conversation, the general names of substances,
regulated in their ordinary signification by some obvious qualities, (as by
the shape and figure in things of known seminal propagation, and in other
substances, for the most part by colour, joined with some other sensible
qualities,) do well enough to design the things men would be understood to
speak of: and so they usually conceive well enough the substances meant by the
word gold or apple, to distinguish the one from the other. But in
PHILOSOPHICAL inquiries and debates, where general truths are to be
established, and consequences drawn from positions laid down, there the
precise signification of the names of substances will be found not only not to
be well established but also very hard to be so. For example: he that shall
make malleability, or a certain degree of fixedness, a part of his complex
idea of gold, may make propositions concerning gold, and draw consequences
from them, that will truly and clearly follow from gold, taken in such a
signification: but yet such as another man can never be forced to admit, nor
be convinced of their truth, who makes not malleableness, or the same degree
of fixedness, part of that complex idea that the name gold, in his use of it,
stands for.
16.
Instance, Liquor.
This
is a natural and almost unavoidable imperfection in almost all the names of
substances, in all languages whatsoever, which men will easily find when, once
passing from confused or loose notions, they come to more strict and close
inquiries. For then they will be convinced how doubtful and obscure those
words are in their signification, which in ordinary use appeared very clear
and determined. I was once in a meeting of very learned and ingenious
physicians, where by chance there arose a question, whether any liquor passed
through the filaments of the nerves. The
debate having been managed a good while, by variety of arguments on both
sides, I (who had been used to suspect, that the greatest part of disputes
were more about the signification of words than a real difference in the
conception of things) desired, that, before they went any further on in this
dispute, they would first examine and establish amongst them, what the word
LIQUOR signified. They at first were a little surprised at the proposal; and
had they been persons less ingenious, they might perhaps have taken it for a
very frivolous or extravagant one: since there was no one there that thought
not himself to understand very perfectly what the word liquor stood for; which
I think, too, none of the most perplexed names of substances. However, they
were pleased to comply with my motion; and upon examination found that the
signification of that word was not so settled or certain as they had all
imagined; but that each of them made it a sign of a different complex idea.
This made them perceive that the main of their dispute was about the
signification of that term; and that they differed very little in their
opinions concerning SOME fluid and subtle matter, passing through the conduits
of the nerves; though it was not so easy to agree whether it was to be called
LIQUOR or no, a thing, which, when considered, they thought it not worth the
contending about.
17.
Instance, Gold.
How
much this is the case in the greatest part of disputes that men are engaged so
hotly in, I shall perhaps have an occasion in another place to take notice.
Let us only here consider a little more exactly the fore-mentioned instance of
the word GOLD, and we shall see how hard it is precisely to determine its
signification. I think all agree to make it stand for a body of a certain
yellow shining colour; which being the idea to which children have annexed
that name, the shining yellow part of a peacock’s tail is properly to them
gold. Others finding fusibility joined with that yellow colour in certain
parcels of matter, make of that combination a complex idea to which they give
the name gold, to denote a sort of substances; and so exclude from being gold
all such yellow shining bodies as by fire will be reduced to ashes; and admit
to be of that species, or to be comprehended under that name gold, only such
substances as having that shining yellow colour, will by fire be reduced to
fusion, and not to ashes. Another, by the same reason, adds the weight, which,
being a quality as straightly joined with that colour as its fusibility, he
thinks has the same reason to be joined in its idea, and to be signified by
its name: and therefore the other made up of body, of such a colour and
fusibility, to be imperfect; and so on of all the rest: wherein no one can
show a reason why some of the inseparable qualities, that are always united in
nature, should be put into the nominal essence, and others left out, or why
the word gold, signifying that sort of body the ring on his finger is made of,
should determine that sort rather by its colour, weight, and fusibility, than
by its colour, weight, and solubility in aqua regia: since the dissolving it
by that liquor is as inseparable from it as the fusion by fire, and they are
both of them nothing but the relation which that substance has to two other
bodies, which have a power to operate differently upon it. For by what right
is it that fusibility comes to be a part of the essence signified by the word
gold, and solubility but a property of it? Or why is its colour part of the
essence, and its malleableness but a property? That which I mean is this, That
these being all but properties, depending on its real constitution, and
nothing but powers, either active or passive, in reference to other bodies, no
one has authority to determine the signification of the word gold (as referred
to such a body existing in nature) more to one collection of ideas to be found
in that body than to another: whereby the signification of that name must
unavoidably be very uncertain. Since,
as has been said, several people observe several properties in the same
substance; and I think I may say nobody all. And therefore we have but very
imperfect descriptions of things, and words have very uncertain
significations.
18.
The Names of simple Ideas the least doubtful.
From
what has been said, it is easy to observe what has been before remarked, viz.
that the NAMES OF SIMPLE IDEAS are, of all others, the least liable to
mistakes, and that for these reasons. First, Because the ideas they stand for,
being each but one single perception, are much easier got, and more clearly
retained, than the more complex ones, and therefore are not liable to the
uncertainty which usually attends those compounded ones of substances and
mixed modes, in which the precise number of simple ideas that make them up are
not easily agreed, so readily kept in mind. And, Secondly, Because they are
never referred to any other essence, but barely that perception they
immediately signify: which reference is that which renders the signification
of the names of substances naturally so perplexed, and gives occasion to so
many disputes. Men that do not perversely use their words, or on purpose set
themselves to cavil, seldom mistake, in any language which they are acquainted
with, the use and signification of the name of simple ideas.
WHITE and SWEET, YELLOW and BITTER, carry a very obvious meaning with
them, which every one precisely comprehends, or easily perceives he is
ignorant of, and seeks to be informed. But what precise collection of simple
ideas MODESTY or FRUGALITY stand for, in another’s use, is not so certainly
known. And however we are apt to think we well enough know what is meant by
GOLD or IRON; yet the precise complex idea others make them the signs of is
not so certain: and I believe it is very seldom that, in speaker and hearer,
they stand for exactly the same collection.
Which must needs produce mistakes and disputes, when they are made use
of in discourses, wherein men have to do with universal propositions, and
would settle in their minds universal truths, and consider the consequences
that follow from them.
19.
And next to them, simple Modes.
By
the same rule, the names of SIMPLE MODES are, next to those of simple ideas,
least liable to doubt and uncertainty; especially those of figure and number,
of which men have so clear and distinct ideas. Who ever that had a mind to
understand them mistook the ordinary meaning of SEVEN, or a TRIANGLE? And in
general the least compounded ideas in every kind have the least dubious names.
20.
The most doubtful are the Names of very compounded mixed Modes and
Substances.
Mixed
modes, therefore, that are made up but of a few and obvious simple ideas, have
usually names of no very uncertain signification. But the names of mixed
modes, which comprehend a great number of simple ideas, are commonly of a very
doubtful and undetermined meaning, as has been shown. The names of substances,
being annexed to ideas that are neither the real essences, nor exact
representations of the patterns they are referred to, are liable to yet
greater imperfection and uncertainty, especially when we come to a
philosophical use of them.
21.
Why this Imperfection charged upon Words.
The
great disorder that happens in our names of substances, proceeding, for the
most part, from our want of knowledge, and inability to penetrate into their
real constitutions, it may probably be wondered why I charge this as an
imperfection rather upon our words than understandings. This exception has so
much appearance of justice, that I think myself obliged to give a reason why I
have followed this method. I must
confess, then, that, when I first began this Discourse of the Understanding,
and a good while after, I had not the least thought that any consideration of
words was at all necessary to it. But when, having passed over the original
and composition of our ideas, I began to examine the extent and certainty of
our knowledge, I found it had so near a connexion with words, that, unless
their force and manner of signification were first well observed, there could
be very little said clearly and pertinently concerning knowledge: which being
conversant about truth, had constantly to do with propositions. And though it
terminated in things, yet it was for the most part so much by the intervention
of words, that they seemed scarce separable from our general knowledge. At
least they interpose themselves so much between our understandings, and the
truth which it would contemplate and apprehend, that, like the medium through
which visible objects pass, the obscurity and disorder do not seldom cast a
mist before our eyes, and impose upon our understandings. If we consider, in
the fallacies men put upon themselves, as well as others, and the mistakes in
men’s disputes and notions, how great a part is owing to words, and their
uncertain or mistaken significations, we shall have reason to think this no
small obstacle in the way to knowledge; which I conclude we are the more
carefully to be warned of, because it has been so far from being taken notice
of as an inconvenience, that the arts of improving it have been made the
business of men’s study, and obtained the reputation of learning and
subtilty, as we shall see in the following chapter. But I am apt to imagine,
that, were the imperfections of language, as the instrument of knowledge, more
thoroughly weighed, a great many of the controversies that make such a noise
in the world, would of themselves cease; and the way to knowledge, and perhaps
peace too, lie a great deal opener than it does.
22.
This should teach us Moderation in imposing our own Sense of old
Authors.
Sure
I am that the signification of words in all languages, depending very much on
the thoughts, notions, and ideas of him that uses them, must unavoidably be of
great uncertainty to men of the same language and country. This is so evident
in the Greek authors, that he that shall peruse their writings will find in
almost every one of them, a distinct language, though the same words. But when
to this natural difficulty in every country, there shall be added different
countries and remote ages, wherein the speakers and writers had very different
notions, tempers, customs, ornaments, and figures of speech, &c., every
one of which influenced the signification of their words then, though to us
now they are lost and unknown; it would become us to be charitable one to
another in our interpretations or misunderstandings of those ancient writings;
which, though of great concernment to be understood, are liable to the
unavoidable difficulties of speech, which (if we except the names of simple
ideas, and some very obvious things) is not capable, without a constant
defining the terms, of conveying the sense and intention of the speaker,
without any manner of doubt and uncertainty to the hearer. And in discourses
of religion, law, and morality, as they are matters of the highest
concernment, so there will be the greatest difficulty.
23.
Especially of the Old and New Testament Scriptures.
The
volumes of interpreters and commentators on the Old and New Testament are but
too manifest proofs of this. Though everything said in the text be infallibly
true, yet the reader may be, nay, cannot choose but be, very fallible in the
understanding of it. Nor is it to be wondered, that the will of God, when
clothed in words, should be liable to that doubt and uncertainty which
unavoidably attends that sort of conveyance, when even his Son, whilst clothed
in flesh, was subject to all the frailties and inconveniences of human nature,
sin excepted. And we ought to magnify his goodness, that he hath spread before
all the world such legible characters of his works and providence, and given
all mankind so sufficient a light of reason, that they to whom this written
word never came, could not (whenever they set themselves to search) either
doubt of the being of a God, or of the obedience due to him. Since then the precepts of Natural Religion are plain, and
very intelligible to all mankind, and seldom come to be controverted; and
other revealed truths, which are conveyed to us by books and languages, are
liable to the common and natural obscurities and difficulties incident to
words; methinks it would become us to be more careful and diligent in
observing the former, and less magisterial, positive, and imperious, in
imposing our own sense and interpretations of the latter.
OF
THE ABUSE OF WORDS.
1.
Woeful abuse of Words.
Besides
the imperfection that is naturally in language, and the obscurity and
confusion that is so hard to be avoided in the use of words, there are several
WILFUL faults and neglects which men are guilty of in this way of
communication, whereby they render these signs less clear and distinct in
their signification than naturally they need to be.
2.
First, Words are often employed without any, or without clear Ideas.
FIRST,
In this kind the first and most palpable abuse is, the using of words without
clear and distinct ideas; or, which is worse, signs without anything
signified. Of these there are two sorts:--
I.
Some words introduced without clear ideas annexed to them, even in
their first original.
One
may observe, in all languages, certain words that, if they be examined, will
be found in their first original, and their appropriated use, not to stand for
any clear and distinct ideas. These, for the most part, the several sects of
philosophy and religion have introduced. For their authors or promoters,
either affecting something singular, and out of the way of common
apprehensions, or to support some strange opinions, or cover some weakness of
their hypothesis, seldom fail to coin new words, and such as, when they come
to be examined, may justly be called INSIGNIFICANT TERMS. For, having either
had no determinate collection of ideas annexed to them when they were first
invented; or at least such as, if well examined, will be found inconsistent,
it is no wonder, if, afterwards, in the vulgar use of the same party, they
remain empty sounds, with little or no signification, amongst those who think
it enough to have them often in their mouths, as the distinguishing characters
of their Church or School, without much troubling their heads to examine what
are the precise ideas they stand for. I shall not need here to heap up
instances; every man’s reading and conversation will sufficiently furnish
him. Or if he wants to be better stored, the great mint-masters of this kind
of terms, I mean the Schoolmen and Metaphysicians (under which I think the
disputing natural and moral philosophers of these latter ages may be
comprehended) have wherewithal abundantly to content him.
3.
II. Other Words, to which ideas were annexed at first, used afterwards
without distinct meanings.
Others
there be who extend this abuse yet further, who take so little care to lay by
words, which, in their primary notation have scarce any clear and distinct
ideas which they are annexed to, that, by an unpardonable negligence, they
familiarly use words which the propriety of language HAS affixed to very
important ideas, without any distinct meaning at all. WISDOM, GLORY, GRACE,
&c., are words frequent enough in every man’s mouth; but if a great many
of those who use them should be asked what they mean by them, they would be at
a stand, and not know what to answer: a plain proof, that, though they have
learned those sounds, and have them ready at their tongues ends, yet there are
no determined ideas laid up in their minds, which are to be expressed to
others by them.
4.
This occasioned by men learning Names before they have the Ideas the
names belong to.
Men
having been accustomed from their cradles to learn words which are easily got
and retained, before they knew or had framed the complex ideas to which they
were annexed, or which were to be found in the things they were thought to
stand for, they usually continue to do so all their lives; and without taking
the pains necessary to settle in their minds determined ideas, they use their
words for such unsteady and confused notions as they have, contenting
themselves with the same words other people use; as if their very sound
necessarily carried with it constantly the same meaning. This, though men make
a shift with in the ordinary occurrences of life, where they find it necessary
to be understood, and therefore they make signs till they are so; yet this
insignificancy in their words, when they come to reason concerning either
their tenets or interest, manifestly fills their discourse with abundance of
empty unintelligible noise and jargon, especially in moral matters, where the
words for the most part standing for arbitrary and numerous collections of
ideas, not regularly and permanently united in nature, their bare sounds are
often only thought on, or at least very obscure and uncertain notions annexed
to them. Men take the words they find in use amongst their neighbours; and
that they may not seem ignorant what they stand for, use them confidently,
without much troubling their heads about a certain fixed meaning; whereby,
besides the ease of it, they obtain this advantage, That, as in such
discourses they seldom are in the right, so they are as seldom to be convinced
that they are in the wrong; it being all one to go about to draw those men out
of their mistakes who have no settled notions, as to dispossess a vagrant of
his habitation who has no settled abode. This I guess to be so; and every one
may observe in himself and others whether it be so or not.
5.
Secondly Unsteady Application of them.
SECONDLY,
Another great abuse of words is INCONSTANCY in the use of them. It is hard to
find a discourse written on any subject, especially of controversy, wherein
one shall not observe, if he read with attention, the same words (and those
commonly the most material in the discourse, and upon which the argument
turns) used sometimes for one collection of simple ideas, and sometimes for
another; which is a perfect abuse of language. Words being intended for signs
of my ideas, to make them known to others, not by any natural signification,
but by a voluntary imposition, it is plain cheat and abuse, when I make them
stand sometimes for one thing and sometimes for another; the wilful doing
whereof can be imputed to nothing but great folly, or greater dishonesty. And
a man, in his accounts with another may, with as much fairness make the
characters of numbers stand sometimes for one and sometimes for another
collection of units: v.g. this character 3, stand sometimes for three,
sometimes for four, and sometimes for eight, as in his discourse or reasoning
make the same words stand for different collections of simple ideas. If men
should do so in their reckonings, I wonder who would have to do with them? One
who would speak thus in the affairs and business of the world, and call 8
sometimes seven, and sometimes nine, as best served his advantage, would
presently have clapped upon him, one of the two names men are commonly
disgusted with. And yet in
arguings and learned contests, the same sort of proceedings passes commonly
for wit and learning; but to me it appears a greater dishonesty than the
misplacing of counters in the casting up a debt; and the cheat the greater, by
how much truth is of greater concernment and value than money.
6.
Thirdly, Affected Obscurity, as in the Peripatetic and other sects of
Philosophy.
THIRDLY.
Another abuse of language is an AFFECTED OBSCURITY; by either applying old
words to new and unusual significations; or introducing new and ambiguous
terms, without defining either; or else putting them so together, as may
confound their ordinary meaning. Though the Peripatetick philosophy has been
most eminent in this way, yet other sects have not been wholly clear of it.
There are scarce any of them that are not cumbered with some difficulties
(such is the imperfection of human knowledge,) which they have been fain to
cover with obscurity of terms, and to confound the signification of words,
which, like a mist before people’s eyes, might hinder their weak parts from
being discovered. That BODY and EXTENSION in common use, stand for two
distinct ideas, is plain to any one that will but reflect a little. For were
their signification precisely the same, it would be as proper, and as
intelligible to say, ‘the body of an extension,’ as the ‘extension of a
body;’ and yet there are those who find it necessary to confound their
signification. To this abuse, and the mischiefs of confounding the
signification of words, logic, and the liberal sciences as they have been
handled in the schools, have given reputation; and the admired Art of
Disputing hath added much to the natural imperfection of languages, whilst it
has been made use of and fitted to perplex the signification of words, more
than to discover the knowledge and truth of things: and he that will look into
that sort of learned writings, will find the words there much more obscure,
uncertain, and undetermined in their meaning, than they are in ordinary
conversation.
7.
Logic and Dispute have must have contributed to this.
This
is unavoidably to be so, where men’s parts and learning are estimated by
their skill in disputing. And if reputation and reward shall attend these
conquests, which depend mostly on the fineness and niceties of words, it is no
wonder if the wit of man so employed, should perplex, involve, and subtilize
the signification of sounds, so as never to want something to say in opposing
or defending any question; the victory being adjudged not to him who had truth
on his side, but the last word in the dispute.
8.
Calling it Subtlety.
This,
though a very useless skill, and that which I think the direct opposite to the
ways of knowledge, hath yet passed hitherto under the laudable and esteemed
names of SUBTLETY and ACUTENESS, and has had the applause of the schools, and
encouragement of one part of the learned men of the world. And no wonder,
since the philosophers of old, (the disputing and wrangling philosophers I
mean, such as Lucian wittily and with reason taxes,) and the Schoolmen since,
aiming at glory and esteem, for their great and universal knowledge, easier a
great deal to be pretended to than really acquired, found this a good
expedient to cover their ignorance, with a curious and inexplicable web of
perplexed words, and procure to themselves the admiration of others, by
unintelligible terms, the apter to produce wonder because they could not be
understood; whilst it appears in all history, that these profound doctors were
no wiser nor more useful than their neighbours, and brought but small
advantage to human life or the societies wherein they lived; unless the
coining of new words, where they produced no new things to apply them to, or
the perplexing or obscuring the signification of old ones, and so bringing all
things into question and dispute, were a thing profitable to the life of man,
or worthy commendation and reward.
9.
This Learning very little benefits Society.
For,
notwithstanding these learned disputants, these all-knowing doctors, it was to
the unscholastic statesman that the governments of the world owed their peace,
defence, and liberties; and from the illiterate and contemned mechanic (a name
of disgrace) that they received the improvements of useful arts. Nevertheless,
this artificial ignorance, and learned gibberish, prevailed mightily in these
last ages, by the interest and artifice of those who found no easier way to
that pitch of authority and dominion they have attained, than by amusing the
men of business, and ignorant, with hard words, or employing the ingenious and
idle in intricate disputes about unintelligible terms, and holding them
perpetually entangled in that endless labyrinth. Besides, there is no such way
to gain admittance, or give defence to strange and absurd doctrines, as to
guard them round about with legions of obscure, doubtful, and undefined words.
Which yet make these retreats more like the dens of robbers, or holes of
foxes, than the fortresses of fair warriors; which, if it be hard to get them
out of, it is not for the strength that is in them, but the briars and thorns,
and the obscurity of the thickets they are beset with. For untruth being
unacceptable to the mind of man, there is no other defence left for absurdity
but obscurity.
10.
But destroys the instruments of Knowledge and communication.
Thus
learned ignorance, and this art of keeping even inquisitive men from true
knowledge, hath been propagated in the world, and hath much perplexed, whilst
it pretended to inform the understanding. For we see that other well-meaning
and wise men, whose education and parts had not acquired that ACUTENESS, could
intelligibly express themselves to one another; and in its plain use make a
benefit of language. But though unlearned men well enough understood the words
white and black; &c., and had constant notions of the ideas signified by
those words; yet there were philosophers found who had learning and subtlety
enough to prove that snow was black; i.e. to prove that white was black.
Whereby they had the advantage to destroy the instruments and means of
discourse, conversation, instruction, and society; whilst, with great art and
subtlety, they did no more but perplex and confound the signification of
words, and thereby render language less useful than the real defects of it had
made it; a gift which the illiterate had not attained to.
11.
As useful as to confound the sound that the Letters of the Alphabet
stand for.
These
learned men did equally instruct men’s understandings, and profit their
lives, as he who should alter the signification of known characters, and, by a
subtle device of learning, far surpassing the capacity of the illiterate,
dull, and vulgar, should in his writing show that he could put A for B, and D
for E, &c., to the no small admiration and benefit of for his reader. It
being as senseless to put BLACK, which is a word agreed on to stand for one
sensible idea, to put it, I say, for another, or the contrary idea; i.e. to
call SNOW BLACK, as to put this mark A, which is a character agreed on to
stand for one modification of sound, made by a certain motion of the organs of
speech, for B, which is agreed on to stand for another modification of sound,
made by another certain mode of the organs of speech.
12.
This Art has perplexed Religion and Justice.
Nor
hath this mischief stopped in logical niceties, or curious empty speculations;
it hath invaded the great concernments of human life and society; obscured and
perplexed the material truths of law and divinity; brought confusion,
disorder, and uncertainty into the affairs of mankind; and if not destroyed,
yet in a great measure rendered useless, these two great rules, religion and
justice. What have the greatest part of the comments and disputes upon the
laws of God and man served for, but to make the meaning more doubtful, and
perplex the sense? What have been the effect of those multiplied curious
distinctions, and acute niceties, but obscurity and uncertainty, leaving the
words more unintelligible, and the reader more at a loss? How else comes it to
pass that princes, speaking or writing to their servants, in their ordinary
commands are easily understood; speaking to their people, in their laws, are
not so? And, as I remarked before, doth it not often happen that a man of an
ordinary capacity very well understands a text, or a law, that he reads, till
he consults an expositor, or goes to counsel; who, by that time he hath done
explaining them, makes the words signify either nothing at all, or what he
pleases.
13.
and ought not to pass for Learning.
Whether
any by-interests of these professions have occasioned this, I will not here
examine; but I leave it to be considered, whether it would not be well for
mankind, whose concernment it is to know things as they are, and to do what
they ought, and not to spend their lives in talking about them, or tossing
words to and fro;--whether it would not be well, I say, that the use of words
were made plain and direct; and that language, which was given us for the
improvement of knowledge and bond of society, should not be employed to darken
truth and unsettle people’s rights; to raise mists, and render
unintelligible both morality and religion? Or that at least, if this will
happen, it should not be thought learning or knowledge to do so?
14.
IV. Fourthly, by taking Words for Things.
FOURTHLY,
Another great abuse of words is, the TAKING THEM FOR THINGS.
This, though it in some degree concerns all names in general, yet more
particularly affects those of substances. To this abuse those men are most
subject who most confine their thoughts to any one system, and give themselves
up into a firm belief of the perfection of any received hypothesis: whereby
they come to be persuaded that the terms of that sect are so suited to the
nature of things, that they perfectly correspond with their real existence.
Who is there that has been bred up in the Peripatetick philosophy, who does
not think the Ten Names, under which are ranked the Ten Predicaments, to be
exactly conformable to the nature of things? Who is there of that school that
is not persuaded that SUBSTANTIAL FORMS, VEGETATIVE SOULS, ABHORRENCE OF A
VACUUM, INTENTIONAL SPECIES, &c., are something real? These words men have
learned from their very entrance upon knowledge, and have found their masters
and systems lay great stress upon them: and therefore they cannot quit the
opinion, that they are conformable to nature, and are the representations of
something that really exists. The Platonists have their SOUL OF THE WORLD, and
the Epicureans their ENDEAVOR TOWARDS MOTION in their atoms when at rest.
There is scarce any sect in philosophy has not a distinct set of terms that
others understand not. But yet
this gibberish, which, in the weakness of human understanding, serves so well
to palliate men’s ignorance, and cover their errors, comes, by familiar use
amongst those of the same tribe, to seem the most important part of language,
and of all other the terms the most significant: and should AERIAL and
OETHERIAL VEHICLES come once, by the prevalency of that doctrine, to be
generally received anywhere, no doubt those terms would make impressions on
men’s minds, so as to establish them in the persuasion of the reality of
such things, as much as Peripatetick FORMS and INTENTIONAL SPECIES have
heretofore done. 15. Instance, in
Matter.
How
much names taken for things are apt to mislead the understanding, the
attentive reading of philosophical writers would abundantly discover; and that
perhaps in words little suspected of any such misuse.
I shall instance in one only, and that a very familiar one. How many
intricate disputes have there been about MATTER, as if there were some such
thing really in nature, distinct from BODY; as it is evident the word matter
stands for an idea distinct from the idea of body? For if the ideas these two
terms stood for were precisely the same, they might indifferently in all
places be put for one another. But we see that though it be proper to say,
There is one matter of all bodies, one cannot say, There is one body of all
matters: we familiarly say one body is bigger than another; but it sounds
harsh (and I think is never used) to say one matter is bigger than another.
Whence comes this, then? Viz. from
hence: that, though matter and body be not really distinct, but wherever there
is the one there is the other; yet matter and body stand for two different
conceptions, whereof the one is incomplete, and but a part of the other. For
body stands for a solid extended figured substance, whereof matter is but a
partial and more confused conception; it seeming to me to be used for the
substance and solidity of body, without taking in its extension and figure:
and therefore it is that, speaking of matter, we speak of it always as one,
because in truth it expressly contains nothing but the idea of a solid
substance, which is everywhere the same, everywhere uniform. This being our
idea of matter, we no more conceive or speak of different MATTERS in the world
than we do of different solidities; though we both conceive and speak of
different bodies, because extension and figure are capable of variation.
But, since solidity cannot exist without extension and figure, the
taking matter to be the name of something really existing under that
precision, has no doubt produced those obscure and unintelligible discourses
and disputes, which have filled the heads and books of philosophers concerning
materia prima; which imperfection or abuse, how far it may concern a great
many other general terms I leave to be considered. This, I think, I may at
least say, that we should have a great many fewer disputes in the world, if
words were taken for what they are, the signs of our ideas only; and not for
things themselves. For, when we
argue about MATTER, or any the like term, we truly argue only about the idea
we express by that sound, whether that precise idea agree to anything really
existing in nature or no. And if men would tell what ideas they make their
words stand for, there could not be half that obscurity or wrangling in the
search or support of truth that there is.
16.
This makes Errors lasting.
But
whatever inconvenience follows from this mistake of words, this I am sure,
that, by constant and familiar use, they charm men into notions far remote
from the truth of things. It would be a hard matter to persuade any one that
the words which his father, or schoolmaster, the parson of the parish, or such
a reverend doctor used, signified nothing that really existed in nature: which
perhaps is none of the least causes that men are so hardly drawn to quit their
mistakes, even in opinions purely philosophical, and where they have no other
interest but truth. For the words
they have a long time been used to, remaining firm in their minds, it is no
wonder that the wrong notions annexed to them should not be removed.
17.
Fifthly, by setting them in the place of what they cannot signify.
V.
FIFTHLY, Another abuse of words is, THE SETTING THEM IN THE PLACE OF THINGS
WHICH THEY DO OR CAN BY NO MEANS SIGNIFY. We may observe that, in the general
names of substances, whereof the NOMINAL essences are only known to us, when
we put them into propositions, and affirm or deny anything about them, we do
most commonly tacitly suppose or intend, they should stand for the REAL
essence of a certain sort of substances.
For, when a man says gold is malleable, he means and would insinuate
something more than this, That what I call gold is malleable, (though truly it
amounts to no more,) but would have this understood, viz.
That gold, i.e. what has the real essence of gold, is malleable; which
amounts to thus much, that malleableness depends on, and is inseparable from
the real essence of gold. But a man, not knowing wherein that real essence
consists, the connexion in his mind of malleableness is not truly with an
essence he knows not, but only with the sound gold he puts for it. Thus, when
we say that ANIMAL RATIONALE is, and animal imflume bipes latis unguibus is
not a good definition of a man; it is plain we suppose the name man in this
case to stand for the real essence of a species, and would signify that ‘a
rational animal’ better described that real essence than ‘a two-legged
animal with broad nails, and without feathers.’ For else, why might not
Plato as properly make the word [word in Greek], or MAN, stand for his complex
idea, made up of the idea of a body, distinguished from others by a certain
shape and other outward appearances, as Aristotle make the complex idea to
which he gave the name [word in Greek], or MAN, of body and the faculty of
reasoning joined together; unless the name [word in Greek], or MAN, were
supposed to stand for something else than what it signifies; and to be put in
the place of some other thing than the idea a man professes he would express
by it?
18.
VI. Putting them for the real Essences of Substances.
It
is true the names of substances would be much more useful, and propositions
made in them much more certain, were the real essences of substances the ideas
in our minds which those words signified. And it is for want of those real
essences that our words convey so little knowledge or certainty in our
discourses about them; and therefore the mind, to remove that imperfection as
much as it can, makes them, by a secret supposition, to stand for a thing
having that real essence, as if thereby it made some nearer approaches to it.
For, though the word MAN or GOLD signify nothing truly but a complex idea of
properties united together in one sort of substances; yet there is scarce
anybody, in the use of these words, but often supposes each of those names to
stand for a thing having the real essence on which these properties depend.
Which is so far from diminishing the imperfection of our words, that by a
plain abuse it adds to it, when we would make them stand for something, which,
not being in our complex idea, the name we use can no ways be the sign of.
19.
Hence we think Change of our Complex Ideas of Substances not to change
their Species.
This
shows us the reason why in MIXED MODES any of the ideas that make the
composition of the complex one being left out or changed, it is allowed to be
another thing, i.e. to be of another species, as is plain in CHANCE-MEDLEY,
MANSLAUGHTER, MURDER, PARRICIDE, &c. The reason whereof is, because the
complex idea signified by that name is the real as well as nominal essence;
and there is no secret reference of that name to any other essence but that.
But in SUBSTANCES, it is not so. For though in that called GOLD, one puts into
his complex idea what another leaves out, and vice versa: yet men do not
usually think that therefore the species is changed: because they secretly in
their minds refer that name, and suppose it annexed to a real immutable
essence of a thing existing, on which those properties depend. He that adds to
his complex idea of gold that of fixedness and solubility in AQUA REGIA, which
he put not in it before, is not thought to have changed the species; but only
to have a more perfect idea, by adding another simple idea, which is always in
fact joined with those other, of which his former complex idea consisted. But
this reference of the name to a thing, whereof we have not the idea, is so far
from helping at all, that it only serves the more to involve us in
difficulties. For by this tacit reference to the real essence of that species
of bodies, the word GOLD (which, by standing for a more or less perfect
collection of simple ideas, serves to design that sort of body well enough in
civil discourse) comes to have no signification at all, being put for somewhat
whereof we have no idea at all, and so can signify nothing at all, when the
body itself is away. For however it may be thought all one, yet, if well
considered, it will be found a quite different thing, to argue about gold in
name, and about a parcel in the body itself, v.g. a piece of leaf-gold laid
before us; though in discourse we are fain to substitute the name for the
thing.
20.
The Cause of this Abuse, a supposition of Nature’s working always
regularly, in setting boundaries to Species.
That
which I think very much disposes men to substitute their names for the real
essences of species, is the supposition before mentioned, that nature works
regularly in the production of things, and sets the boundaries to each of
those species, by giving exactly the same real internal constitution to each
individual which we rank under one general name. Whereas any one who observes
their different qualities can hardly doubt, that many of the individuals,
called by the same name, are, in their internal constitution, as different one
from another as several of those which are ranked under different specific
names. This supposition, however, that the same precise and internal
constitution goes always with the same specific name, makes men forward to
take those names for the representatives of those real essences; though indeed
they signify nothing but the complex ideas they have in their minds when they
use them. So that, if I may so say, signifying one thing, and being supposed
for, or put in the place of another, they cannot but, in such a kind of use,
cause a great deal of uncertainty in men’s discourses; especially in those
who have thoroughly imbibed the doctrine of SUBSTANTIAL FORMS, whereby they
firmly imagine the several species of things to be determined and
distinguished.
21.
This Abuse contains two false Suppositions.
But
however preposterous and absurd it be to make our names stand for ideas we
have not, or (which is all one) essences that we know not, it being in effect
to make our words the signs of nothing; yet it is evident to any one who ever
so little reflects on the use men make of their words, that there is nothing
more familiar. When a man asks whether this or that thing he sees, let it be a
drill, or a monstrous foetus, be a MAN or no; it is evident the question is
not, Whether that particular thing agree to his complex idea expressed by the
name man: but whether it has in it the real essence of a species of things
which he supposes his name man to stand for. In which way of using the names
of substances, there are these false suppositions contained:--
First,
that there are certain precise essences according to which nature makes all
particular things, and by which they are distinguished into species. That
everything has a real constitution, whereby it is what it is, and on which its
sensible qualities depend, is past doubt: but I think it has been proved that
this makes not the distinction of species as WE rank them, nor the boundaries
of their names.
Secondly,
this tacitly also insinuates, as if we had IDEAS of these proposed essences.
For to what purpose else is it, to inquire whether this or that thing have the
real essence of the species man, if we did not suppose that there were such a
specifick essence known? Which yet is utterly false. And therefore such
application of names as would make them stand for ideas which we have not,
must needs cause great disorder in discourses and reasonings about them, and
be a great inconvenience in our communication by words.
22.
VI. Sixthly, by proceeding upon the supposition that the WOrds we use
have a certain and evident Signification which other men cannot but
understand.
SIXTHLY,
there remains yet another more general, though perhaps less observed, abuse of
words; and that is, that men having by a long and familiar use annexed to them
certain ideas, they are apt to imagine SO NEAR AND NECESSARY A CONNEXION
BETWEEN THE NAMES AND SIGNIFICATION THEY USE THEM IN, that they forwardly
suppose one cannot but understand what their meaning is; and therefore one
ought to acquiesce in the words delivered, as if it were past doubt that, in
the use of those common received sounds, the speaker and hearer had
necessarily the same precise ideas. Whence presuming, that when they have in
discourse used any term, they have thereby, as it were, set before others the
very thing they talked of. And so likewise taking the words of others, as
naturally standing for just what they themselves have been accustomed to apply
them to, they never trouble themselves to explain their own, or understand
clearly others’ meaning. From whence commonly proceeds noise, and wrangling,
without improvement or information; whilst men take words to be the constant
regular marks of agreed notions, which in truth are no more but the voluntary
and unsteady signs of their own ideas. And yet men think it strange, if in
discourse, or (where it is often absolutely necessary) in dispute, one
sometimes asks the meaning of their terms: though the arguings one may every
day observe in conversation make it evident, that there are few names of
complex ideas which any two men use for the same just precise collection. It
is hard to name a word which will not be a clear instance of this. LIFE is a
term, none more familiar. Any one almost would take it for an affront to be
asked what he meant by it. And yet if it comes in question, whether a plant
that lies ready formed in the seed have life; whether the embryo in an egg
before incubation, or a man in a swoon without sense or motion, be alive or
no; it is easy to perceive that a clear, distinct, settled idea does not
always accompany the use of so known a word as that of life is. Some gross and
confused conceptions men indeed ordinarily have, to which they apply the
common words of their language; and such a loose use of their words serves
them well enough in their ordinary discourses or affairs.
But this is not sufficient for philosophical inquiries. Knowledge and
reasoning require precise determinate ideas. And though men will not be so
importunately dull as not to understand what others say, without demanding an
explication of their terms; nor so troublesomely critical as to correct others
in the use of the words they receive from them: yet, where truth and knowledge
are concerned in the case, I know not what fault it can be, to desire the
explication of words whose sense seems dubious; or why a man should be ashamed
to own his ignorance in what sense another man uses his words; since he has no
other way of certainly knowing it but by being informed. This abuse of taking
words upon trust has nowhere spread so far, nor with so ill effects, as
amongst men of letters. The multiplication and obstinacy of disputes, which
have so laid waste the intellectual world, is owing to nothing more than to
this ill use of words. For though it be generally believed that there is great
diversity of opinions in the volumes and variety of controversies the world is
distracted with; yet the most I can find that the contending learned men of
different parties do, in their arguings one with another, is, that they speak
different languages. For I am apt to imagine, that when any of them, quitting
terms, think upon things, and know what they think, they think all the same:
though perhaps what they would have be different.
23.
The Ends of Language: First, To convey our Ideas.
To
conclude this consideration of the imperfection and abuse of language. The
ends of language in our discourse with others being chiefly these three:
First, to make known one man’s thoughts or ideas to another; Secondly, to do
so with as much ease and quickness as possible; and, Thirdly, thereby to
convey the knowledge of things: language is either abused or deficient, when
it fails of any of these three.
First,
Words fail in the first of these ends, and lay not open one man’s ideas to
another’s view: 1. When men have names in their mouths without any
determinate ideas in their minds whereof they are the signs: or, 2.
When they apply the common received names of any language to ideas, to
which the common use of that language does not apply them: or 3. When they
apply them very unsteadily, making them stand now for one, and by and by for
another idea.
24.
Secondly, To do it with Quickness.
Secondly,
Men fail of conveying their thoughts with the quickness and ease that may be,
when they have complex ideas without having any distinct names for them. This
is sometimes the fault of the language itself, which has not in it a sound yet
applied to such a signification; and sometimes the fault of the man, who has
not yet learned the name for that idea he would show another.
25.
Thirdly, Therewith to convey the Knowledge of Things.
Thirdly,
there is no knowledge of things conveyed by men’s words, when their ideas
agree not to the reality of things. Though it be a defect that has its
original in our ideas, which are not so conformable to the nature of things as
attention, study and application might make them, yet it fails not to extend
itself to our words too, when we use them as signs of real beings, which yet
never had any reality or existence.
26.
How Men’s Words fail in all these: First, when used without any
ideas.
First,
He that hath words of any language, without distinct ideas in his mind to
which he applies them, does, so far as he uses them in discourse, only make a
noise without any sense or signification; and how learned soever he may seem,
by the use of hard words or learned terms, is not much more advanced thereby
in knowledge, than he would be in learning, who had nothing in his study but
the bare titles of books, without possessing the contents of them. For all
such words, however put into discourse, according to the right construction of
grammatical rules, or the harmony of well-turned periods, do yet amount to
nothing but bare sounds, and nothing else.
27.
Secondly, when complex ideas are without names annexed to them.
Secondly,
He that has complex ideas, without particular names for them, would be in no
better case than a bookseller, who had in his warehouse volumes that lay there
unbound, and without titles, which he could therefore make known to others
only by showing the loose sheets, and communicate them only by tale. This man
is hindered in his discourse, for want of words to communicate his complex
ideas, which he is therefore forced to make known by an enumeration of the
simple ones that compose them; and so is fain often to use twenty words, to
express what another man signifies in one.
28.
Thirdly, when the same sign is not put for the same idea.
Thirdly,
He that puts not constantly the same sign for the same idea, but uses the same
word sometimes in one and sometimes in another signification, ought to pass in
the schools and conversation for as fair a man, as he does in the market and
exchange, who sells several things under the same name.
29.
Fourthly, when words are diverted from their common use.
Fourthly,
He that applies the words of any language to ideas different from those to
which the common use of that country applies them, however his own
understanding may be filled with truth and light, will not by such words be
able to convey much of it to others, without defining his terms. For however
the sounds are such as are familiarly known, and easily enter the ears of
those who are accustomed to them; yet standing for other ideas than those they
usually are annexed to, and are wont to excite in the mind of the hearers,
they cannot make known the thoughts of him who thus uses them.
30.
Fifthly, when they are names of fantastical imaginations.
Fifthly,
He that imagined to himself substances such as never have been, and filled his
head with ideas which have not any correspondence with the real nature of
things, to which yet he gives settled and defined names, may fill his
discourse, and perhaps another man’s head, with the fantastical imaginations
of his own brain, but will be very far from advancing thereby one jot in real
and true knowledge.
31.
Summary.
He
that hath names without ideas, wants meaning in his words, and speaks only
empty sounds. He that hath complex ideas without names for them, wants liberty
and dispatch in his expressions, and is necessitated to use periphrases. He
that uses his words loosely and unsteadily will either be not minded or not
understood. He that applies his names to ideas different from their common
use, wants propriety in his language, and speaks gibberish. And he that hath
the ideas of substances disagreeing with the real existence of things, so far
wants the materials of true knowledge in his understanding, and hath instead
thereof chimeras.
32.
How men’s words fail when they stand for Substances.
In
our notions concerning Substances, we are liable to all the former
inconveniences: v. g. he that uses the word TARANTULA, without having any
imagination or idea of what it stands for, pronounces a good word; but so long
means nothing at all by it. 2. He that, in a newly-discovered country, shall
see several sorts of animals and vegetables, unknown to him before, may have
as true ideas of them, as of a horse or a stag; but can speak of them only by
a description, till he shall either take the names the natives call them by,
or give them names himself. 3. He that uses the word BODY sometimes for pure
extension, and sometimes for extension and solidity together, will talk very
fallaciously. 4. He that gives the name HORSE to that idea which common usage
calls MULE, talks improperly, and will not be understood. 5. He that thinks
the name CENTAUR stands for some real being, imposes on himself, and mistakes
words for things.
33.
How when they stand for Modes and Relations.
In
Modes and Relations generally, we are liable only to the four first of these
inconveniences; viz. 1. I may have in my memory the names of modes, as
GRATITUDE or CHARITY, and yet not have any precise ideas annexed in my
thoughts to those names, 2. I may have ideas, and not know the names that
belong to them: v. g. I may have the idea of a man’s drinking till his
colour and humour be altered, till his tongue trips, and his eyes look red,
and his feet fail him; and yet not know that it is to be called DRUNKENNESS.
3. I may have the ideas of virtues or vices, and names also, but apply them
amiss: v. g. when I apply the name FRUGALITY to that idea which others call
and signify by this sound, COVETOUSNESS. 4. I may use any of those names with
inconstancy. 5. But, in modes and relations, I cannot have ideas disagreeing
to the existence of things: for modes being complex ideas, made by the mind at
pleasure, and relation being but by way of considering or comparing two things
together, and so also an idea of my own making, these ideas can scarce be
found to disagree with anything existing; since they are not in the mind as
the copies of things regularly made by nature, nor as properties inseparably
flowing from the internal constitution or essence of any substance; but, as it
were, patterns lodged in my memory, with names annexed to them, to denominate
actions and relations by, as they come to exist. But the mistake is commonly
in my giving a wrong name to my conceptions; and so using words in a different
sense from other people:
I
am not understood, but am thought to have wrong ideas of them, when I give
wrong names to them. Only if I put in my ideas of mixed modes or relations any
inconsistent ideas together, I fill my head also with chimeras; since such
ideas, if well examined, cannot so much as exist in the mind, much less any
real being ever be denominated from them.
34.
Seventhly, Language is often abused by Figurative Speech.
Since
wit and fancy find easier entertainment in the world than dry truth and real
knowledge, figurative speeches and allusion in language will hardly be
admitted as an imperfection or abuse of it. I confess, in discourses where we
seek rather pleasure and delight than information and improvement, such
ornaments as are borrowed from them can scarce pass for faults. But yet if we
would speak of things as they are, we must allow that all the art of rhetoric,
besides order and clearness; all the artificial and figurative application of
words eloquence hath invented, are for nothing else but to insinuate wrong
ideas, move the passions, and thereby mislead the judgment; and so indeed are
perfect cheats: and therefore, however laudable or allowable oratory may
render them in harangues and popular addresses, they are certainly, in all
discourses that pretend to inform or instruct, wholly to be avoided; and where
truth and knowledge are concerned, cannot but be thought a great fault, either
of the language or person that makes use of them. What and how various they
are, will be superfluous here to take notice; the books of rhetoric which
abound in the world, will instruct those who want to be informed: only I
cannot but observe how little the preservation and improvement of truth and
knowledge is the care and concern of mankind; since the arts of fallacy are
endowed and preferred. It is evident how much men love to deceive and be
deceived, since rhetoric, that powerful instrument of error and deceit, has
its established professors, is publicly taught, and has always been had in
great reputation: and I doubt not but it will be thought great boldness, if
not brutality, in me to have said thus much against it. Eloquence, like the
fair sex, has too prevailing beauties in it to suffer itself ever to be spoken
against. And it is in vain to
find fault with those arts of deceiving, wherein men find pleasure to be
deceived.
OF
THE REMEDIES OF THE FOREGOING IMPERFECTIONS AND ABUSES OF WORDS.
1.
Remedies are worth seeking.
The
natural and improved imperfections of languages we have seen above at large:
and speech being the great bond that holds society together, and the common
conduit, whereby the improvements of knowledge are conveyed from one man and
one generation to another, it would well deserve our most serious thoughts to
consider, what remedies are to be found for the inconveniences above
mentioned.
2.
Are not easy to find.
I
am not so vain as to think that any one can pretend to attempt the perfect
reforming the languages of the world, no not so much as of his own country,
without rendering himself ridiculous. To require that men should use their
words constantly in the same sense, and for none but determined and uniform
ideas, would be to think that all men should have the same notions, and should
talk of nothing but what they have clear and distinct ideas of: which is not
to be expected by any one who hath not vanity enough to imagine he can prevail
with men to be very knowing or very silent. And he must be very little skilled
in the world, who thinks that a voluble tongue shall accompany only a good
understanding; or that men’s talking much or little should hold proportion
only to their knowledge.
3.
But yet necessary to those who search after Truth.
But
though the market and exchange must be left to their own ways of talking, and
gossipings not be robbed of their ancient privilege: though the schools, and
men of argument would perhaps take it amiss to have anything offered, to abate
the length or lessen the number of their disputes; yet methinks those who
pretend seriously to search after or maintain truth, should think themselves
obliged to study how they might deliver themselves without obscurity,
doubtfulness, or equivocation, to which men’s words are naturally liable, if
care be not taken.
4.
Misuse of Words the great Cause of Errors.
For
he that shall well consider the errors and obscurity, the mistakes and
confusion, that are spread in the world by an ill use of words, will find some
reason to doubt whether language, as it has been employed, has contributed
more to the improvement or hindrance of knowledge amongst mankind. How many
are there, that, when they would think on things, fix their thoughts only on
words, especially when they would apply their minds to moral matters? And who
then can wonder if the result of such contemplations and reasonings, about
little more than sounds, whilst the ideas they annex to them are very confused
and very unsteady, or perhaps none at all; who can wonder, I say, that such
thoughts and reasonings end in nothing but obscurity and mistake, without any
clear judgment or knowledge?
5.
Has made men more conceited and obstinate.
This
inconvenience, in an ill use of words, men suffer in their own private
meditations: but much more manifest are the disorders which follow from it, in
conversation, discourse, and arguings with others. For language being the great conduit, whereby men convey
their discoveries, reasonings, and knowledge, from one to another, he that
makes an ill use of it, though he does not corrupt the fountains of knowledge,
which are in things themselves, yet he does, as much as in him lies, break or
stop the pipes whereby it is distributed to the public use and advantage of
mankind. He that uses words without any clear and steady meaning, what does he
but lead himself and others into errors? And he that designedly does it, ought
to be looked on as an enemy to truth and knowledge. And yet who can wonder
that all the sciences and parts of knowledge have been so overcharged with
obscure and equivocal terms, and insignificant and doubtful expressions,
capable to make the most attentive or quick-sighted very little, or not at
all, the more knowing or orthodox: since subtlety, in those who make
profession to teach or defend truth, hath passed so much for a virtue: a
virtue, indeed, which, consisting for the most part in nothing but the
fallacious and illusory use of obscure or deceitful terms, is only fit to make
men more conceited in their ignorance, and more obstinate in their errors.
6.
Addicted to Wrangling about sounds.
Let
us look into the books of controversy of any kind, there we shall see that the
effect of obscure, unsteady, or equivocal terms is nothing but noise and
wrangling about sounds, without convincing or bettering a man’s
understanding. For if the idea be not agreed on, betwixt the speaker and
hearer, for which the words stand, the argument is not about things, but
names. As often as such a word whose signification is not ascertained betwixt
them, comes in use, their understandings have no other object wherein they
agree, but barely the sound; the things that they think on at that time, as
expressed by that word, being quite different.
7.
Instance, Bat and Bird.
Whether
a BAT be a BIRD or no, is not a question, Whether a bat be another thing than
indeed it is, or have other qualities than indeed it has; for that would be
extremely absurd to doubt of. But the question is, (i) Either between those
that acknowledged themselves to have but imperfect ideas of one or both of
this sort of things, for which these names are supposed to stand. And then it
is a real inquiry concerning the NATURE of a bird or a bat, to make their yet
imperfect ideas of it more complete; by examining whether all the simple ideas
to which, combined together, they both give name bird, be all to be found in a
bat: but this is a question only of inquirers (not disputers) who neither
affirm nor deny, but examine: Or, (2) It is a question between disputants;
whereof the one affirms, and the other denies that a bat is a bird. And then
the question is barely about the signification of one or both these WORDS; in
that they not having both the same complex ideas to which they give these two
names, one holds and the other denies, that these two names may be affirmed
one of another. Were they agreed in the signification of these two names, it
were impossible they should dispute about them. For they would presently and
clearly see (were that adjusted between them,) whether all the simple ideas of
the more general name bird were found in the complex idea of a bat or no; and
so there could be no doubt whether a bat were a bird or no. And here I desire
it may be considered, and carefully examined, whether the greatest part of the
disputes in the world are not merely verbal, and about the signification of
words; and whether, if the terms they are made in were defined, and reduced in
their signification (as they must be where they signify anything) to
determined collections of the simple ideas they do or should stand for, those
disputes would not end of themselves, and immediately vanish. I leave it then
to be considered, what the learning of disputation is, and how well they are
employed for the advantage of themselves or others, whose business is only the
vain ostentation of sounds; i. e. those who spend their lives in disputes and
controversies. When I shall see
any of those combatants strip all his terms of ambiguity and obscurity, (which
every one may do in the words he uses himself,) I shall think him a champion
for knowledge, truth, and peace, and not the slave of vain-glory, ambition, or
a party.
8.
Remedies.
To
remedy the defects of speech before mentioned to some degree, and to prevent
the inconveniences that follow from them, I imagine the observation of these
following rules may be of use, till somebody better able shall judge it worth
his while to think more maturely on this matter, and oblige the world with his
thoughts on it.
First
Remedy: To use no Word without an Idea annexed to it.
First,
A man shall take care to use no word without a signification, no name without
an idea for which he makes it stand. This rule will not seem altogether
needless to any one who shall take the pains to recollect how often he has met
with such words as INSTINCT, SYMPATHY, and ANTIPATHY, &c., in the
discourse of others, so made use of as he might easily conclude that those
that used them had no ideas in their minds to which they applied them, but
spoke them only as sounds, which usually served instead of reasons on the like
occasions. Not but that these words, and the like, have very proper
significations in which they may be used; but there being no natural connexion
between any words and any ideas, these, and any other, may be learned by rote,
and pronounced or writ by men who have no ideas in their minds to which they
have annexed them, and for which they make them stand; which is necessary they
should, if men would speak intelligibly even to themselves alone.
9.
Second Remedy: To have distinct, determinate Ideas annexed to Words,
especially in mixed Modes.
Secondly,
It is not enough a man uses his words as signs of some ideas:
those
he annexes them to, if they be simple, must be clear and distinct; if complex,
must be determinate, i.e. the precise collection of simple ideas settled in
the mind, with that sound annexed to it, as the sign of that precise
determined collection, and no other. This is very necessary in names of modes,
and especially moral words; which, having no settled objects in nature, from
whence their ideas are taken, as from their original, are apt to be very
confused. JUSTICE is a word in every man’s mouth, but most commonly with a
very undetermined, loose signification; which will always be so, unless a man
has in his mind a distinct comprehension of the component parts that complex
idea consists of and if it be decompounded, must be able to resolve it still
only till he at last comes to the simple ideas that make it up: and unless
this be done, a man makes an ill use of the word, let it be justice, for
example, or any other. I do not say, a man needs stand to recollect, and make
this analysis at large, every time the word justice comes in his way: but this
at least is necessary, that he have so examined the signification of that
name, and settled the idea of all its parts in his mind, that he can do it
when he pleases. If any one who makes his complex idea of justice to be, such
a treatment of the person or goods of another as is according to law, hath not
a clear and distinct idea what LAW is, which makes a part of his complex idea
of justice, it is plain his idea of justice itself will be confused and
imperfect. This exactness will, perhaps, be judged very troublesome; and
therefore most men will think they may be excused from settling the complex
ideas of mixed modes so precisely in their minds. But yet I must say, till
this be done, it must not be wondered, that they have a great deal of
obscurity and confusion in their own minds, and a great deal of wrangling in
their discourse with others.
10.
And distinct and conformable ideas in Words that stand for Substances.
In
the names of substances, for a right use of them, something more is required
than barely DETERMINED IDEAS. In these the names must also be CONFORMABLE TO
THINGS AS THEY EXIST; but of this I shall have occasion to speak more at large
by and by. This exactness is absolutely necessary in inquiries after
philosophical knowledge, and in controversies about truth. And though it would
be well, too, if it extended itself to common conversation and the ordinary
affairs of life; yet I think that is scarce to be expected. Vulgar notions
suit vulgar discourses: and both, though confused enough, yet serve pretty
well the market and the wake. Merchants
and lovers, cooks and tailors, have words wherewithal to dispatch their
ordinary affairs: and so, I think, might philosophers and disputants too, if
they had a mind to understand, and to clearly understood.
11.
Third Remedy: To apply Words to such ideas as common use has annexed
them to.
Thirdly,
it is not enough that men have ideas, determined ideas, for which they make
these signs stand; but they must also take care to apply their words as near
as may be to such ideas as common use has annexed them to. For words,
especially of languages already framed, being no man’s private possession,
but the common measure of commerce and communication, it is not for any one at
pleasure to change the stamp they are current in, nor alter the ideas they are
affixed to; or at least, when there is a necessity to do so, he is bound to
give notice of it. Men’s intentions in speaking are, or at least should be,
to be understood; which cannot be without frequent explanations, demands, and
other the like incommodious interruptions, where men do not follow common use.
Propriety of speech is that which gives our thoughts entrance into other men’s
minds with the greatest ease and advantage: and therefore deserves some part
of our care and study, especially in the names of moral words. The proper
signification and use of terms is best to be learned from those who in their
writings and discourses appear to have had the clearest notions, and applied
to them their terms with the exactest choice and fitness. This way of using a
man’s words, according to the propriety of the language, though it have not
always the good fortune to be understood; yet most commonly leaves the blame
of it on him who is so unskilful in the language he speaks, as not to
understand it when made use of as it ought to be.
12.
Fourth Remedy: To declare the meaning in which we use them.
Fourthly,
But, because common use has not so visibly annexed any signification to words,
as to make men know always certainly what they precisely stand for: and
because men, in the improvement of their knowledge, come to have ideas
different from the vulgar and ordinary received ones, for which they must
either make new words, (which men seldom venture to do, for fear of being
thought guilty of affectation or novelty,) or else must use old ones in a new
signification: therefore, after the observation of the foregoing rules, it is
sometimes necessary, for the ascertaining the signification of words, to
DECLARE THEIR MEANING; where either common use has left it uncertain and
loose, (as it has in most names of very complex ideas;) or where the term,
being very material in the discourse, and that upon which it chiefly turns, is
liable to any doubtfulness or mistake.
13.
And that in three Ways.
As
the ideas men’s words stand for are of different sorts, so the way of making
known the ideas they stand for, when there is occasion, is also different. For
though DEFINING be thought the proper way to make known the proper
signification of words; yet there are some words that will not be defined, as
there are others whose precise meaning cannot be made known but by definition:
and perhaps a third, which partake somewhat of both the other, as we shall see
in the names of simple ideas, modes, and substances.
14.
In Simple Ideas, either by synonymous terms, or by showing examples.
I.
First, when a man makes use of the name of any simple idea, which he
perceives is not understood, or is in danger to be mistaken, he is obliged, by
the laws of ingenuity and the end of speech, to declare his meaning, and make
known what idea he makes it stand for. This, as has been shown, cannot be done
by definition: and therefore, when a synonymous word fails to do it, there is
but one of these ways left. First, Sometimes the NAMING the subject wherein that simple
idea is to be found, will make its name to be understood by those who are
acquainted with that subject, and know it by that name. So to make a
countryman understand what FEUILLEMORTE colour signifies, it may suffice to
tell him, it is the colour of withered leaves falling in autumn.
Secondly, but the only sure way of making known the signification of
the name of any simple idea, is BY PRESENTING TO HIS SENSES THAT SUBJECT WHICH
MAY PRODUCE IT IN HIS MIND, and make him actually have the idea that word
stands for.
15.
In mixed Modes, by Definition.
II.
Secondly, Mixed modes, especially those belonging to morality, being
most of them such combinations of ideas as the mind puts together of its own
choice, and whereof there are not always standing patterns to be found
existing, the signification of their names cannot be made known, as those of
simple ideas, by any showing: but, in recompense thereof, may be perfectly and
exactly defined. For they being combinations of several ideas that the mind of
man has arbitrarily put together, without
reference
to any archetypes, men may, if they please, exactly know the
ideas
that go to each composition, and so both use these words in a certain and
undoubted signification, and perfectly declare, when there is occasion, what
they stand for. This, if well considered, would lay great blame on those who
make not their discourses about MORAL things very clear and distinct. For
since the precise signification of the names of mixed modes, or, which is all
one, the real essence of each species is to be known, they being not of nature’s,
but man’s making, it is a great negligence and perverseness to discourse of
moral things with uncertainty and obscurity; which is more pardonable in
treating of natural substances, where doubtful terms are hardly to be avoided,
for a quite contrary reason, as we shall see by and by.
16.
Morality capable of Demonstration.
Upon
this ground it is that I am bold to think that morality is capable of
demonstration, as well as mathematics: since the precise real essence of the
things moral words stand for may be perfectly known, and so the congruity and
incongruity of the things themselves be certainly discovered; in which
consists perfect knowledge. Nor let any one object, that the names of
substances are often to be made use of in morality, as well as those of modes,
from which will arise obscurity. For, as to substances, when concerned in
moral discourses, their divers natures are not so much inquired into as
supposed: v.g. when we say that man is subject to law, we mean nothing by man
but a corporeal rational creature: what the real essence or other qualities of
that creature are in this case is no way considered. And, therefore, whether a
child or changeling be a man, in a physical sense, may amongst the naturalists
be as disputable as it will, it concerns not at all the moral man, as I may
call him, which is this immovable, unchangeable idea, a corporeal rational
being. For, were there a monkey, or any other creature, to be found that had
the use of reason to such a degree, as to be able to understand general signs,
and to deduce consequences about general ideas, he would no doubt be subject
to law, and in that sense be a MAN, how much soever he differed in shape 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 of 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.
Definitions can make moral Discourse clear.
This
I have here mentioned, by the by, to show of what consequence it is for men,
in their names of mixed modes, and consequently in all their moral discourses,
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 ingenuousness (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.
18.
And is the only way in which the meaning of mixed Modes can be made
known.
Another
reason that makes the defining of mixed modes so necessary, especially 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 nowhere 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.
19.
In Substances, both by showing and by defining.
III.
Thirdly, for the explaining the signification of the names of
substances, as they stand for the ideas we have of their distinct species,
both the forementioned ways, 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 characteristic mark is found, which we take to be the
most distinguishing idea of that species.
These
leading or characteristical (as I may call them) ideas, in the
sorts
of animals and vegetables, are (as has been before remarked,
ch
vi. Section 29 and ch. ix. Section 15) mostly figure; and in inanimate
bodies,
colour; and in some, both together. Now,
20.
Ideas of the leading Qualities of Substances are best got by showing.
These
leading sensible qualities are those which make the chief ingredients of our
specific ideas, and consequently the most observable and invariable part in
the definitions of our specific names, as attributed 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 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 ill-shaped 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.
And can hardly be made known otherwise.
Now
these leading qualities are best made known by showing, and can hardly be made
known otherwise. For the shape of a horse or cassowary 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 as is evident in those who are used to this metal, who 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 difference. The like may
be said of those other simple ideas, peculiar in 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.
22.
The Ideas of the Powers of Substances are best known by Definition.
But
because many of the simple ideas that make up our specific ideas of substances
are powers which lie not obvious to our senses in the things as they
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 aqua 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.
23.
A Reflection on the Knowledge of corporeal things possessed by Spirits
separate from bodies.
Hence
we may take notice, how much the foundation of all our knowledge 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 perceive how all their properties and operations flow from
thence: but the manner how they come by that knowledge exceeds our
conceptions.
24.
Ideas of Substances must also be conformable to Things.
Fourthly,
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 of
that word, but must go a little further, 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 inconveniences 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 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 imaginations; and it
matters not much for the improvement of our knowledge how they are called.
25.
Not easy to be made so.
It
were therefore to be wished, That men versed in physical inquiries, and
acquainted with the several sorts of natural bodies, would set down those
simple ideas wherein they observe the individuals of each sort constantly to
agree. This would remedy a great deal of that confusion which comes from
several persons applying the same name to a collection of a smaller or greater
number of sensible qualities, proportionably as they have been more or less
acquainted with, or accurate in examining, the qualities of any sort of things
which come under one denomination. But
a dictionary of this sort, containing, as it were, a natural history, requires
too many hands as well as too much time, cost, pains, and sagacity ever to be
hoped for; and till that be done, we must content ourselves with such
definitions of the names of substances as explain the sense men use them in.
And it would be well, where there is occasion, if they would afford us so
much. This yet is not usually done; but men talk to one another, and dispute
in words, whose meaning is not agreed between them, out of a mistake that the
significations of common words are certainly established, and the precise
ideas they stand for perfectly known; and that it is a shame to be ignorant of
them. Both which suppositions are false, no names of complex ideas having so
settled determined significations, that they are constantly used for the same
precise ideas. Nor is it a shame for a man to have a certain knowledge of
anything, but by the necessary ways of attaining it; and so it is no discredit
not to know what precise idea any sound stands for in another man’s mind,
without he declare it to me by some other way than barely using that sound,
there being no other way, without such a declaration, certainly to know it.
Indeed the necessity of communication by language brings men to an agreement
in the signification of common words, within some tolerable latitude, that may
serve for ordinary conversation: and so a man cannot be supposed wholly
ignorant of the ideas which are annexed to words by common use, in a language
familiar to him. But common use being but a very uncertain rule, which reduces
itself at last to the ideas of particular men, proves often but a very
variable standard. But though such a Dictionary as I have above mentioned will
require too much time, cost, and pains to be hoped for in this age; yet
methinks it is not unreasonable to propose, that words standing for things
which are known and distinguished by their outward shapes should be expressed
by little draughts and prints made of them. A vocabulary made after this
fashion would perhaps with more ease, and in less time, teach the true
signification of many terms, especially in languages of remote countries or
ages, and settle truer ideas in men’s minds of several things, whereof we
read the names in ancient authors, than all the large and laborious comments
of learned critics. Naturalists,
that treat of plants and animals, have found the benefit of this way: and he
that has had occasion to consult them will have reason to confess that he has
a clearer idea of APIUM or IBEX, from a little print of that herb or beast,
than he could have from a long definition of the names of either of them. And
so no doubt he would have of STRIGIL and SISTRUM, if, instead of CURRYCOMB and
CYMBAL, (which are the English names dictionaries render them by,) he could
see stamped in the margin small pictures of these instruments, as they were in
use amongst the ancients. TOGA, TUNICA, PALLIUM, are words easily translated
by GOWN, COAT, and CLOAK; but we have thereby no more true ideas of the
fashion of those habits amongst the Romans, than we have of the faces of the
tailors who made them. Such things as these, which the eye distinguishes by
their shapes, would be best let into the mind by draughts made of them, and
more determine the signification of such words, than any other words set for
them, or made use of to define them. But this is only by the bye.
26.
V. Fifth Remedy: To use the same word constantly in the same sense.
Fifthly,
If men will not be at the pains to declare the meaning of their words, and
definitions of their terms are not to be had, yet this is the least that can
be expected, that, in all discourses wherein one man pretends to instruct or
convince another, he should use the same word constantly in the same sense. If
this were done, (which nobody can refuse without great disingenuity,) many of
the books extant might be spared; many of the controversies in dispute would
be at an end; several of those great volumes, swollen with ambiguous words,
now used in one sense, and by and by in another, would shrink into a very
narrow compass; and many of the philosophers (to mention no other) as well as
poets works, might be contained in a nutshell.
27.
When not so used, the Variation is to be explained.
But
after all, the provision of words is so scanty in respect to that infinite
variety of thoughts, that men, wanting terms to suit their precise notions,
will, notwithstanding their utmost caution, be forced often to use the same
word in somewhat different senses. And though in the continuation of a
discourse, or the pursuit of an argument, there can be hardly room to digress
into a particular definition, as often as a man varies the signification of
any term; yet the import of the discourse will, for the most part, if there be
no designed fallacy, sufficiently lead candid and intelligent readers into the
true meaning of it; but where there is not sufficient to guide the reader,
there it concerns the writer to explain his meaning, and show in what sense he
there uses that term.
OF
KNOWLEDGE AND PROBABILITY SYNOPSIS OF THE FOURTH BOOK.
Locke’s
review of the different sorts of ideas, or appearances of what exists, that
can be entertained in a human understanding, and of their relations to words,
leads, in the Fourth Book, to an investigation of the extent and validity of
the Knowledge that our ideas bring within our reach; and into the nature of
faith in Probability, by which assent is extended beyond Knowledge, for the
conduct of life. He finds (ch. i, ii) that Knowledge is either an intuitive, a
demonstrative, or a sensuous perception of absolute certainty, in regard to
one or other of four sorts of agreement or disagreement on the part of
ideas:--(1) of each idea with itself, as identical, and different from every
other; (2) in their abstract relations to one another; (3) in their necessary
connexions, as qualities and powers coexisting in concrete substances; and (4)
as revelations to us of the final realities of existence. The unconditional
certainty that constitutes Knowledge is perceptible by man only in regard to
the first, second, and fourth of these four sorts: in all general propositions
only in regard to the first and second; that is to say, in identical
propositions, and in those which express abstract relations of simple or mixed
modes, in which nominal and real essences coincide, e. g. propositions in pure
mathematics and abstract morality (chh. iii, v-viii). The fourth sort, which
express certainty as to realities of existence, refer to any of three
realities. For every man is able to perceive with absolute certainty that he
himself exists, that God must exist, and that finite beings other than himself
exist;--the first of these perceptions being awakened by all our ideas, the
second as the consequence of perception of the first, and the last in the
reception of our simple ideas of sense (chh. i. Section 7; ii. Section 14;
iii. Section 21; iv, ix-xi). Agreement of the third sort, of necessary
coexistence of simple ideas as qualities and powers in particular substances,
with which all physical inquiry is concerned, lies beyond human Knowledge; for
here the nominal and real essences are not coincident: general propositions of
this sort are determined by analogies of experience, in judgments that are
more or less probable: intellectually necessary science of nature presupposes
Omniscience; man’s interpretations of nature have to turn upon presumptions
of Probability (chh. iii. Sections 9-17; iv. SectionS 11-17; vi, xiv-xvi).
In forming their stock of Certainties and Probabilities men employ the
faculty of reason, faith in divine revelation, and enthusiasm (chh.
xvii-xix); much misled by the last, as well as by other causes of ‘wrong
assent’ (ch. xx), when they are at work in ‘the three great provinces of
the intellectual world’ (ch. xxi), concerned respectively with (1) ‘things
as knowable’ (physica); (2) ‘actions as they depend on us in order to
happiness’ (practica); and (3) methods for interpreting the signs of what
is, and of what ought to be, that are presented in our ideas and words
(logica).
OF
KNOWLEDGE IN GENERAL.
1.
Our Knowledge conversant about our Ideas only.
Since
the mind, in all its thoughts and reasonings, hath no other immediate object
but its own ideas, which it alone does or can contemplate, it is evident that
our knowledge is only conversant about them.
2.
Knowledge is the Perception of the Agreement or Disagreement of two
Ideas.
KNOWLEDGE
then seems to me to be nothing but THE PERCEPTION OF THE CONNEXION OF AND
AGREEMENT, OR DISAGREEMENT AND REPUGNANCY OF ANY OF OUR IDEAS. In this alone
it consists.
Where
this perception is, there is knowledge, and where it is not, there, though we
may fancy, guess, or believe, yet we always come short of knowledge. For when
we know that white is not black, what do we else but perceive, that these two
ideas do not agree? When we possess ourselves with the utmost security of the
demonstration, that the three angles of a triangle are equal to two right
ones, what do we more but perceive, that equality to two right ones does
necessarily agree to, and is inseparable from, the three angles of a triangle?
3.
This Agreement or Disagreement may be any of four sorts.
But
to understand a little more distinctly wherein this agreement or disagreement
consists, I think we may reduce it all to these four sorts:
I.
IDENTITY, or DIVERSITY. II. RELATION. III. CO-EXISTENCE, or NECESSARY
CONNEXION. IV. REAL EXISTENCE.
4.
First, Of Identity, or Diversity in ideas.
FIRST,
As to the first sort of agreement or disagreement, viz. IDENTITY or DIVERSITY.
It is the first act of the mind, when it has any sentiments or ideas at all,
to perceive its ideas; and so far as it perceives them, to know each what it
is, and thereby also to perceive their difference, and that one is not
another. This is so absolutely necessary, that without it there could be no
knowledge, no reasoning, no imagination, no distinct thoughts at all. By this
the mind clearly and infallibly perceives each idea to agree with itself, and
to be what it is; and all distinct ideas to disagree, i. e. the one not to be
the other: and this it does without pains, labour, or deduction; but at first
view, by its natural power of perception and distinction. And though men of
art have reduced this into those general rules, WHAT IS, IS, and IT IS
IMPOSSIBLE FOR THE SAME THING TO BE AND NOT TO BE, for ready application in
all cases, wherein there may be occasion to reflect on it: yet it is certain
that the first exercise of this faculty is about particular ideas. A man
infallibly knows, as soon as ever he has them in his mind, that the ideas he
calls WHITE and ROUND are the very ideas they are; and that they are not other
ideas which he calls RED or SQUARE. Nor can any maxim or proposition in the
world make him know it clearer or surer than he did before, and without any
such general rule. This then is the first agreement or disagreement which the
mind perceives in its ideas; which it always perceives at first sight: and if
there ever happen any doubt about it, it will always be found to be about the
names, and not the ideas themselves, whose identity and diversity will always
be perceived, as soon and clearly as the ideas themselves are; nor can it
possibly be otherwise.
5.
Secondly, Of abstract Relations between ideas.
SECONDLY,
the next sort of agreement or disagreement the mind perceives in any of its
ideas may, I think, be called RELATIVE, and is nothing but the perception of
the RELATION between any two ideas, of what kind soever, whether substances,
modes, or any other. For, since all distinct ideas must eternally be known not
to be the same, and so be universally and constantly denied one of another,
there could be no room for any positive knowledge at all, if we could not
perceive any relation between our ideas, and find out the agreement or
disagreement they have one with another, in several ways the mind takes of
comparing them.
6.
Thirdly, Of their necessary Co-existence in Substances.
THIRDLY,
The third sort of agreement or disagreement to be found in our ideas, which
the perception of the mind is employed about, is CO-EXISTENCE or
NON-CO-EXISTENCE in the SAME SUBJECT; and this belongs particularly to
substances. Thus when we pronounce concerning gold, that it is fixed, our
knowledge of this truth amounts to no more but this, that fixedness, or a
power to remain in the fire unconsumed, is an idea that always accompanies and
is joined with that particular sort of yellowness, weight, fusibility,
malleableness, and solubility in AQUA REGIA, which make our complex idea
signified by the word gold.
7.
Fourthly, Of real Existence agreeing to any idea.
FOURTHLY,
The fourth and last sort is that of ACTUAL REAL EXISTENCE agreeing to any
idea.
Within
these four sorts of agreement or disagreement is, I suppose, contained all the
knowledge we have, or are capable of. For all the inquiries we can make
concerning any of our ideas, all that we know or can affirm concerning any of
them, is, That it is, or is not, the same with some other; that it does or
does not always co-exist with some other idea in the same subject; that it has
this or that relation with some other idea; or that it has a real existence
without the mind. Thus, ‘blue is not yellow,’ is of identity. ‘Two
triangles upon equal bases between two parallels are equal,’ is of relation.
‘Iron is susceptible of magnetical impressions,’ is of co-existence. ‘God
is,’ is of real existence. Though identity and co-existence are truly
nothing but relations, yet they are such peculiar ways of agreement or
disagreement of our ideas, that they deserve well to be considered as distinct
heads, and not under relation in general; since they are so different grounds
of affirmation and negation, as will easily appear to any one, who will but
reflect on what is said in several places of this ESSAY.
I
should now proceed to examine the several degrees of our knowledge, but that
it is necessary first, to consider the different acceptations of the word
KNOWLEDGE.
8.
Knowledge is either actual or habitual.
There
are several ways wherein the mind is possessed of truth; each of which is
called knowledge.
I.
There is ACTUAL KNOWLEDGE, which is the present view the mind has of
the agreement or disagreement of any of its ideas, or of the relation they
have one to another.
II.
A man is said to know any proposition, which having been once laid
before his thoughts, he evidently perceived the agreement or disagreement of
the ideas whereof it consists; and so lodged it in his memory, that whenever
that proposition comes again to be reflected on, he, without doubt or
hesitation, embraces the right side, assents to, and is certain of the truth
of it. This, I think, one may call HABITUAL KNOWLEDGE. And thus a man may be
said to know all those truths which are lodged in his memory, by a foregoing
clear and full perception, whereof the mind is assured past doubt as often as
it has occasion to reflect on them. For our finite understandings being able
to think clearly and distinctly but on one thing at once, if men had no
knowledge of any more than what they actually thought on, they would all be
very ignorant: and he that knew most, would know but one truth, that being all
he was able to think on at one time.
9.
Habitual Knowledge is of two degrees.
Of
habitual knowledge there are, also, vulgarly speaking, two degrees:
First,
The one is of such truths laid up in the memory as, whenever they occur to the
mind, it ACTUALLY PERCEIVES THE RELATION is between those ideas. And this is
in all those truths whereof we have an intuitive knowledge; where the ideas
themselves, by an immediate view, discover their agreement or disagreement one
with another.
Secondly,
The other is of such truths whereof the mind having been convinced, it RETAINS
THE MEMORY OF THE CONVICTION, WITHOUT THE PROOFS. Thus, a man that remembers certainly that he once perceived
the demonstration, that the three angles of a triangle are equal to two right
ones, is certain that he knows it, because he cannot doubt the truth of it. In
his adherence to a truth, where the demonstration by which it was at first
known is forgot, though a man may be thought rather to believe his memory than
really to know, and this way of entertaining a truth seemed formerly to me
like something between opinion and knowledge; a sort of assurance which
exceeds bare belief, for that relies on the testimony of another;--yet upon a
due examination I find it comes not short of perfect certainty, and is in
effect true knowledge. That which is apt to mislead our first thoughts into a
mistake in this matter is, that the agreement or disagreement of the ideas in
this case is not perceived, as it was at first, by an actual view of all the
intermediate ideas whereby the agreement or disagreement of those in the
proposition was at first perceived; but by other intermediate ideas, that show
the agreement or disagreement of the ideas contained in the proposition whose
certainty we remember. For example: in this proposition, that ‘the three
angles of a triangle are equal to two right ones,’ one who has seen and
clearly perceived the demonstration of this truth knows it to be true, when
that demonstration is gone out of his mind; so that at present it is not
actually in view, and possibly cannot be recollected: but he knows it in a
different way from what he did before. The agreement of the two ideas joined
in that proposition is perceived; but it is by the intervention of other ideas
than those which at first produced that perception. He remembers, i.e.
he knows (for remembrance is but the reviving of some past knowledge)
that he was once certain of the truth of this proposition, that the three
angles of a triangle are equal to two right ones. The immutability of the same
relations between the same immutable things is now the idea that shows him,
that if the three angles of a triangle were once equal to two right ones, they
will always be equal to two right ones. And hence he comes to be certain, that
what was once true in the case, is always true; what ideas once agreed will
always agree; and consequently what he once knew to be true, he will always
know to be true; as long as he can remember that he once knew it. Upon this
ground it is, that particular demonstrations in mathematics afford general
knowledge. If then the perception, that the same ideas will ETERNALLY have the
same habitudes and relations, be not a sufficient ground of knowledge, there
could be no knowledge of general propositions in mathematics; for no
mathematical demonstration would be any other than particular: and when a man
had demonstrated any proposition concerning one triangle or circle, his
knowledge would not reach beyond that particular diagram. If he would extend
it further, he must renew his demonstration in another instance, before he
could know it to be true in another like triangle, and so on: by which means
one could never come to the knowledge of any general propositions. Nobody, I
think, can deny, that Mr. Newton certainly knows any proposition that he now
at any time reads in his book to be true; though he has not in actual view
that admirable chain of intermediate ideas whereby he at first discovered it
to be true. Such a memory as that, able to retain such a train of particulars,
may be well thought beyond the reach of human faculties, when the very
discovery, perception, and laying together that wonderful connexion of ideas,
is found to surpass most readers’ comprehension. But yet it is evident the
author himself knows the proposition to be true, remembering he once saw the
connexion of those ideas; as certainly as he knows such a man wounded another,
remembering that he saw him run him through. But because the memory is not
always so clear as actual perception, and does in all men more or less decay
in length of time, this, amongst other differences, is one which shows that
DEMONSTRATIVE knowledge is much more imperfect than INTUITIVE, as we shall see
in the following chapter.
OF
THE DEGREES OF OUR KNOWLEDGE.
1.
Of the degrees, or differences in clearness, of our Knowledge:
I.
Intuitive
All
our knowledge consisting, as I have said, in the view the mind has of its own
ideas, which is the utmost light and greatest certainty we, with our
faculties, and in our way of knowledge, are capable of, it may not be amiss to
consider a little the degrees of its evidence. The different clearness of our
knowledge seems to me to lie in the different way of perception the mind has
of the agreement or disagreement of any of its ideas. For if we will reflect
on our own ways of thinking, we will find, that sometimes the mind perceives
the agreement or disagreement of two ideas IMMEDIATELY BY THEMSELVES, without
the intervention of any other: and this I think we may call INTUITIVE
KNOWLEDGE. For in this the mind is at no pains of proving or examining, but
perceives the truth as the eye doth light, only by being directed towards it.
Thus the mind perceives that WHITE is not BLACK, that a CIRCLE is not a
TRIANGLE, that THREE are more than TWO and equal to ONE AND TWO. Such kinds of
truths the mind perceives at the first sight of the ideas together, by bare
intuition; without the intervention of any other idea: and this kind of
knowledge is the clearest and most certain that human frailty is capable of.
This part of knowledge is irresistible, and, like bright sunshine, forces
itself immediately to be perceived, as soon as ever the mind turns its view
that way; and leaves no room for hesitation, doubt, or examination, but the
mind is presently filled with the clear light of it. IT IS ON THIS INTUITION
THAT DEPENDS ALL THE CERTAINTY AND EVIDENCE OF ALL OUR KNOWLEDGE; which
certainty every one finds to be so great, that he cannot imagine, and
therefore not require a greater: for a man cannot conceive himself capable of
a greater certainty than to know that any idea in his mind is such as he
perceives it to be; and that two ideas, wherein he perceives a difference, are
different and not precisely the same. He that demands a greater certainty than
this, demands he knows not what, and shows only that he has a mind to be a
sceptic, without being able to be so. Certainty
depends so wholly on this intuition, that, in the next degree of knowledge
which I call demonstrative, this intuition is necessary in all the connexions
of the intermediate ideas, without which we cannot attain knowledge and
certainty.
2.
II. Demonstrative.
The
next degree of knowledge is, where the mind perceives the agreement or
disagreement of any ideas, but not immediately. Though wherever the mind
perceives the agreement or disagreement of any of its ideas, there be certain
knowledge; yet it does not always happen, that the mind sees that agreement or
disagreement, which there is between them, even where it is discoverable; and
in that case remains in ignorance, and at most gets no further than a probable
conjecture. The reason why the mind cannot always perceive presently the
agreement or disagreement of two ideas, is, because those ideas, concerning
whose agreement or disagreement the inquiry is made, cannot by the mind be so
put together as to show it. In this case then, when the mind cannot so bring
its ideas together as by their immediate comparison, and as it were
juxta-position or application one to another, to perceive their agreement or
disagreement, it is fain, BY THE INTERVENTION OF OTHER IDEAS, (one or more, as
it happens) to discover the agreement or disagreement which it searches; and
this is that which we call REASONING. Thus, the mind being willing to know the
agreement or disagreement in bigness between the three angles of a triangle
and two right ones, cannot by an immediate view and comparing them do it:
because the three angles of a triangle cannot be brought at once, and be
compared with any other one, or two, angles; and so of this the mind has no
immediate, no intuitive knowledge. In this case the mind is fain to find out
some other angles, to which the three angles of a triangle have an equality;
and, finding those equal to two right ones, comes to know their equality to
two right ones.
3.
Demonstration depends on clearly perceived proofs.
Those
intervening ideas, which serve to show the agreement of any two others, are
called PROOFS; and where the agreement and disagreement is by this means
plainly and clearly perceived, it is called DEMONSTRATION; it being SHOWN to
the understanding, and the mind made to see that it is so. A quickness in the
mind to find out these intermediate ideas, (that shall discover the agreement
or disagreement of any other,) and to apply them right, is, I suppose, that
which is called SAGACITY.
4.
As certain, but not so easy and ready as Intuitive Knowledge.
This
knowledge, by intervening proofs, though it be certain, yet the evidence of it
is not altogether so clear and bright, nor the assent so ready, as in
intuitive knowledge. For, though in demonstration the mind does at last
perceive the agreement or disagreement of the ideas it considers; yet it is
not without pains and attention: there must be more than one transient view to
find it. A steady application and pursuit are required to this discovery: and
there must be a progression by steps and degrees, before the mind can in this
way arrive at certainty, and come to perceive the agreement or repugnancy
between two ideas that need proofs and the use of reason to show it.
5.
The demonstrated conclusion not without Doubt, precedent to the
demonstration.
Another
difference between intuitive and demonstrative knowledge is, that, though in
the latter all doubt be removed when, by the intervention of the intermediate
ideas, the agreement or disagreement is perceived, yet before the
demonstration there was a doubt; which in intuitive knowledge cannot happen to
the mind that has its faculty of perception left to a degree capable of
distinct ideas; no more than it can be a doubt to the eye (that can distinctly
see white and black), Whether this ink and this paper be all of a colour. If
there be sight in the eyes, it will, at first glimpse, without hesitation,
perceive the words printed on this paper different from the colour of the
paper: and so if the mind have the faculty of distinct perception, it will
perceive the agreement or disagreement of those ideas that produce intuitive
knowledge. If the eyes have lost the faculty of seeing, or the mind of
perceiving, we in vain inquire after the quickness of sight in one, or
clearness of perception in the other.
6.
Not so clear as Intuitive Knowledge.
It
is true, the perception produced by demonstration is also very clear; yet it
is often with a great abatement of that evident lustre and full assurance that
always accompany that which I call intuitive: like a face reflected by several
mirrors one to another, where, as long as it retains the similitude and
agreement with the object, it produces a knowledge; but it is still, in every
successive reflection, with a lessening of that perfect clearness and
distinctness which is in the first; till at last, after many removes, it has a
great mixture of dimness, and is not at first sight so knowable, especially to
weak eyes. Thus it is with
knowledge made out by a long train of proof.
7.
Each Step in Demonstrated Knowledge must have Intuitive Evidence.
Now,
in every step reason makes in demonstrative knowledge, there is an intuitive
knowledge of that agreement or disagreement it seeks with the next
intermediate idea which it uses as a proof: for if it were not so, that yet
would need a proof; since without the perception of such agreement or
disagreement, there is no knowledge produced: if it be perceived by itself, it
is intuitive knowledge: if it cannot be perceived by itself, there is need of
some intervening idea, as a common measure, to show their agreement or
disagreement. By which it is plain, that every step in reasoning that produces
knowledge, has intuitive certainty; which when the mind perceives, there is no
more required but to remember it, to make the agreement or disagreement of the
ideas concerning which we inquire visible and certain. So that to make
anything a demonstration, it is necessary to perceive the immediate agreement
of the intervening ideas, whereby the agreement or disagreement of the two
ideas under examination (whereof the one is always the first, and the other
the last in the account) is found. This
intuitive perception of the agreement or disagreement of the intermediate
ideas, in each step and progression of the demonstration, must also be carried
exactly in the mind, and a man must be sure that no part is left out: which,
because in long deductions, and the use of many proofs, the memory does not
always so readily and exactly retain; therefore it comes to pass, that this is
more imperfect than intuitive knowledge, and men embrace often falsehood for
demonstrations.
8.
Hence the Mistake, ex praecognitis, et praeconcessis.
The
necessity of this intuitive knowledge, in each step of scientifical or
demonstrative reasoning, gave occasion, I imagine, to that mistaken axiom,
That all reasoning was EX PRAECOGNITIS ET PRAECONCESSIS: which, how far it is
a mistake, I shall have occasion to show more at large, when I come to
consider propositions, and particularly those propositions which are called
maxims, and to show that it is by a mistake that they are supposed to be the
foundations of all our knowledge and reasonings.
9.
Demonstration not limited to ideas of mathematical Quantity.
[It
has been generally taken for granted, that mathematics alone are capable of
demonstrative certainty: but to have such an agreement or disagreement as may
intuitively be perceived, being, as I imagine, not the privilege of the ideas
of number, extension, and figure alone, it may possibly be the want of due
method and application in us, and not of sufficient evidence in things, that
demonstration has been thought to have so little to do in other parts of
knowledge, and been scarce so much as aimed at by any but mathematicians.] For
whatever ideas we have wherein the mind can perceive the immediate agreement
or disagreement that is between them, there the mind is capable of intuitive
knowledge; and where it can perceive the agreement or disagreement of any two
ideas, by an intuitive perception of the agreement or disagreement they have
with any intermediate ideas, there the mind is capable of demonstration: which
is not limited to ideas of extension, figure, number, and their modes.
10.
Why it has been thought to be so limited.
The
reason why it has been generally sought for, and supposed to be only in those,
I imagine has been, not only the general usefulness of those sciences; but
because, in comparing their equality or excess, the modes of numbers have
every the least difference very clear and perceivable: and though in extension
every the least excess is not so perceptible, yet the mind has found out ways
to examine, and discover demonstratively, the just equality of two angles, or
extensions, or figures: and both these, i. e. numbers and figures, can be set
down by visible and lasting marks, wherein the ideas under consideration are
perfectly determined; which for the most part they are not, where they are
marked only by names and words.
11.
Modes of Qualities not demonstrable like modes of Quantity.
But
in other simple ideas, whose modes and differences are made and counted by
degrees, and not quantity, we have not so nice and accurate a distinction of
their differences as to perceive, or find ways to measure, their just
equality, or the least differences. For those other simple ideas, being
appearances of sensations produced in us, by the size, figure, number, and
motion of minute corpuscles singly insensible; their different degrees also
depend upon the variation of some or of all those causes: which, since it
cannot be observed by us, in particles of matter whereof each is too subtile
to be perceived, it is impossible for us to have any exact measures of the
different degrees of these simple ideas. For, supposing the sensation or idea
we name whiteness be produced in us by a certain number of globules, which,
having a verticity about their own centres, strike upon the retina of the eye,
with a certain degree of rotation, as well as progressive swiftness; it will
hence easily follow, that the more the superficial parts of any body are so
ordered as to reflect the greater number of globules of light, and to give
them the proper rotation, which is fit to produce this sensation of white in
us, the more white will that body appear, that from an equal space sends to
the retina the greater number of such corpuscles, with that peculiar sort of
motion. I do not say that the nature of light consists in very small round
globules; nor of whiteness in such a texture of parts as gives a certain
rotation to these globules when it reflects them: for I am not now treating
physically of light or colours. But this I think I may say, that I cannot (and
I would be glad any one would make intelligible that he did) conceive how
bodies without us can any ways affect our senses, but by the immediate contact
of the sensible bodies themselves, as in tasting and feeling, or the impulse
of some sensible particles coming from them, as in seeing, hearing, and
smelling; by the different impulse of which parts, caused by their different
size, figure, and motion, the variety of sensations is produced in us.
12.
Particles of light and simple ideas of colour.
Whether
then they be globules or no; or whether they have a verticity about their own
centres that produces the idea of whiteness in us; this is certain, that the
more particles of light are reflected from a body, fitted to give them that
peculiar motion which produces the sensation of whiteness in us; and possibly
too, the quicker that peculiar motion is,--the whiter does the body appear
from which the greatest number are reflected, as is evident in the same piece
of paper put in the sunbeams, in the shade, and in a dark hole; in each of
which it will produce in us the idea of whiteness in far different degrees.
13.
The secondary Qualities of things not discovered by Demonstration.
Not
knowing, therefore, what number of particles, nor what motion of them, is fit
to produce any precise degree of whiteness, we cannot DEMONSTRATE the certain
equality of any two degrees of whiteness; because we have no certain standard
to measure them by, nor means to distinguish every the least real difference,
the only help we have being from our senses, which in this point fail us. But
where the difference is so great as to produce in the mind clearly distinct
ideas, whose differences can be perfectly retained, there these ideas or
colours, as we see in different kinds, as blue and red, are as capable of
demonstration as ideas of number and extension. What I have here said of
whiteness and colours, I think holds true in all secondary qualities and their
modes.
14.
III. Sensitive Knowledge of the particular Existence of finite beings
without us.
These
two, viz. intuition and demonstration, are the degrees of our KNOWLEDGE;
whatever comes short of one of these, with what assurance soever embraced, is
but FAITH or OPINION, but not knowledge, at least in all general truths. There
is, indeed, another perception of the mind, employed about THE PARTICULAR
EXISTENCE OF FINITE BEINGS WITHOUT US, which, going beyond bare probability,
and yet not reaching perfectly to either of the foregoing degrees of
certainty, passes under the name of KNOWLEDGE. There can be nothing more
certain than that the idea we receive from an external object is in our minds:
this is intuitive knowledge. But whether there be anything more than barely
that idea in our minds; whether we can thence certainly infer the existence of
anything without us, which corresponds to that idea, is that whereof some men
think there may be a question made; because men may have such ideas in their
minds, when no such thing exists, no such object affects their senses. But yet
here I think we are provided with an evidence that puts us past doubting. For
I ask any one, Whether he be not invincibly conscious to himself of a
different perception, when he looks on the sun by day, and thinks on it by
night; when he actually tastes wormwood, or smells a rose, or only thinks on
that savour or odour? We as plainly find the difference there is between any
idea revived in our minds by our own memory, and actually coming into our
minds by our senses, as we do between any two distinct ideas. If any one say,
a dream may do the same thing, and all these ideas may be produced, in us
without any external objects; he may please to dream that I make him this
answer:--I. That it is no great matter, whether I remove his scruple or no:
where all is but dream, reasoning and arguments are of no use, truth and
knowledge nothing. 2. That I believe he will allow a very manifest difference
between dreaming of being in the fire, and being actually in it. But yet if he
be resolved to appear so sceptical as to maintain, that what I call being
actually in the fire is nothing but a dream; and that we cannot thereby
certainly know, that any such thing as fire actually exists without us: I
answer, That we certainly finding that pleasure or pain follows upon the
application of certain objects to us, whose existence we perceive, or dream
that we perceive, by our senses; this certainty is as great as our happiness
or misery, beyond which we have no concernment to know or to be. So that, I
think, we may add to the two former sorts of knowledge this also, of the
existence of particular external objects, by that perception and consciousness
we have of the actual entrance of ideas from them, and allow these three
degrees of knowledge, viz. INTUITIVE, DEMONSTRATIVE, and SENSITIVE; in each of
which there are different degrees and ways of evidence and certainty.
15.
Knowledge not always clear, where the Ideas that enter into it are
clear.
But
since our knowledge is founded on and employed about our ideas only, will it
not follow from thence that it is conformable to our ideas; and that where our
ideas are clear and distinct, or obscure and confused, our knowledge will be
so too? To which I answer, No: for our knowledge consisting in the perception
of the agreement or disagreement of any two ideas, its clearness or obscurity
consists in the clearness or obscurity of that perception, and not in the
clearness or obscurity of the ideas themselves: v. g. a man that has as clear
ideas of the angles of a triangle, and of equality to two right ones, as any
mathematician in the world, may yet have but a very obscure perception of
their AGREEMENT, and so have but a very obscure knowledge of it. [But ideas
which, by reason of their obscurity or otherwise, are confused, cannot produce
any clear or distinct knowledge; because, as far as any ideas are confused, so
far the mind cannot perceive clearly whether they agree or disagree.
Or
to express the same thing in a way less apt to be misunderstood:
he
that hath not determined ideas to the words he uses, cannot make propositions
of them of whose truth he can be certain.]
OF
THE EXTENT OF HUMAN KNOWLEDGE.
1.
Extent of our Knowledge.
Knowledge,
as has been said, lying in the perception of the agreement or
disagreement
of any of our ideas, it follows from hence, That,
First,
it extends no further than we have Ideas.
First,
we can have knowledge no further than we have IDEAS.
2.
Secondly, It extends no further than we can perceive their Agreement or
Disagreement.
Secondly,
That we can have no knowledge further than we can have PERCEPTION of that
agreement or disagreement. Which perception being: 1. Either by INTUITION, or the immediate comparing any two
ideas; or, 2. By REASON,
examining the agreement or disagreement of two ideas, by the intervention of
some others; or, 3. By SENSATION, perceiving the existence of particular
things: hence it also follows:
3.
Thirdly, Intuitive Knowledge extends itself not to all the relation of
all our Ideas.
Thirdly,
That we cannot have an INTUITIVE KNOWLEDGE that shall extend itself to all our
ideas, and all that we would know about them; because we cannot examine and
perceive all the relations they have one to another, by juxta-position, or an
immediate comparison one with another. Thus,
having the ideas of an obtuse and an acute angled triangle, both drawn from
equal bases, and between parallels, I can, by intuitive knowledge, perceive
the one not to be the other, but cannot that way know whether they be equal or
no; because their agreement or disagreement in equality can never be perceived
by an immediate comparing them: the difference of figure makes their parts
incapable of an exact immediate application; and therefore there is need of
some intervening qualities to measure them by, which is demonstration, or
rational knowledge.
4.
Fourthly, Nor does Demonstrative Knowledge.
Fourthly,
It follows, also, from what is above observed, that our RATIONAL KNOWLEDGE
cannot reach to the whole extent of our ideas:
because between two different ideas we would examine, we cannot always find such mediums as we can connect one to another with an intuitive knowledge in all the parts of the deducti