of which having any diftinct perception at all, can I have any idea of its effence, which is the cause that it has that particular fhining yellowness, a greater weight than any thing I know of the fame bulk, and a fitness to have its colour changed by the touch of quickfilver. If any one will fay, that the real effence and internal conftitution, on which thefe properties depend, is not the figure, fize and arrangement or connection of its folid parts, but fomething elfe, called its particular form; I am farther from having any idea of its real effence, than I was before: for I have an idea of a figure, fize and situation of folid parts in general, though I have none of the particular figure, fize, or putting together of parts, whereby the qualities above-mentioned are produced; which qualities I find in that particular parcel of matter that is on my finger, and not in another parcel of matter, with which I cut the pen I write with. But when I am told, that fomething befides the figure, fize and posture of the folid parts of that body, is its effence, fomething called fubftantial form; of that, I confefs, I have no idea at all, but only of the found form, which is far enough from an idea of its real effence, or conftitution. The like ignorance as I have of the real effence of this particular fubftance, I have alfo of the real effence of all other natural ones; of which effences, I confefs I have no diftinct ideas at all; and I am apt to fuppofe others, when they examine their own knowledge, will find in themfelves, in this one point, the fame fort of ignorance.

§ 7.

Now then, when men apply to this particular parcel of matter on my finger a general name already in ufe, and denominate it gold, do they not ordinarily, or are they not understood to give it that name as belonging to a particular fpecies of bodies, having a real internal effence by having of which effence, this particular fubftance comes to be of that fpecies, and to be called by that name? If it be fo, as it is plain it is, the name, by which things are marked, as having that effence, muft be referred primarily to that effence; and confequently the

idea to which that name is given, must be referred also to that effence, and be intended to reprefent it; which effence, fince they who fo ufe the names know not, their ideas of fubftances must be all adequate in that refpect, as not containing in them that real effence which the mind intends they should.

§ 8. Ideas of Subfiances, as Collections of their Qualities, are all inadequate.

SECONDLY, Thofe who neglecting that useless fuppofition of unknown real effences, whereby they are diftinguished, endeavour to copy the fubftances that exist in the world, by putting together the ideas of those senfible qualities which are found co-existing in them, though they come much nearer a likeness of them, than those who imagine they know not what real fpecific effences; yet they arrive not at perfectly adequate ideas of thofe fubftances they would thus copy into their minds, nor do thofe copies exactly and fully contain all that is to be found in their archetypes; because those qualities and powers of fubftances whereof we make their complex ideas, are fo many and various, that no man's complex idea contains them all. That our abftract ideas of fubftances do not contain in them all the fimple ideas that are united in the things themselves, is evident, in that men do rarely put into their complex. idea of any fubftance, all the fimple ideas they do know to exift in it; because endeavouring to make the fignification of their specific names as clear and as little cum-berfome as they can, they make their fpecific ideas of the forts of fubftances, for the most part, of a few of thofe fimple ideas which are to be found in them; but thefe having no original precedency or right to be put in, and make the fpecific idea more than others that are left out, it is plain, that both these ways our ideas of fubfances are deficient and inadequate. The fimple ideas, whereof we make our complex ones of fubftances, are: all of them (bating only the figure and bulk of fome forts) powers, which being relations to other fubftances, we can never be fure that we know all the powers that are in any one body, till we have tried what changes.

E S

it is fitted to give to or receive from other fubftances, in their feveral ways of application, which being impoffible to be tried upon any one body, much lefs upon all, it is impoffible we fhould have adequate ideas of any fubftance made up of a collection of all its properties.

$9.

WHOSOEVER firft lit on a parcel of that fort of fubftance we denote by the word gold, could not rationally take the bulk and figure he obferved in that lump to depend on its real effence or internal conftitution; therefore those never went into his idea of that species of body, but its peculiar colour, perhaps, and weight, were the first he abstracted from it, to make the complex idea of that fpecies, which both are but powers, the one to affect our eyes after fuch a manner, and to produce in us that idea we call yellow, and the other to force upwards any other body of equal bulk, they being put into a pair of equal scales, one against another. Another, perhaps, added to thefe the ideas of fufibility and fixedness, two other paffive powers, in relation to the operation of fire upon it; another, its ductility and folubility in aq. regia, two other powers relating to the operation of other bodies, in changing its outward figure or feparation of it into infenfible parts. Thefe, or part , of thefe, put together, ufually make the complex idea in mens minds, of that fort of body we call gold.

§ 10.

But no one who hath confidered the properties of bodies in general, or this fort in particular, can doubt that this called gold has infinite other properties not contained in that complex idea. Some who have examined this fpecies more accurately, could, I believe, enumerate ten times as many properties in gold, all of them as infeparable from its internal conftitution, as its colour or weight; and it is probable, if any one knew all the properties that are by divers men known of this metal, there would an hundred times as many ideas go to the conplex idea of gold, as any one man yet has in his, and ye. perhaps that not be the thoufandth part of what is to be difcovered in it; the changes which that one body

is apt to receive, and make in other bodies, upon a due application, exceeding far not only what we know, but what we are apt to imagine; which will not appear fo much a paradox to any one, who will but confider how far men are yet from knowing all the properties of that one, no very compound figure, a triangle, though it be no small number that are already by mathematicians discovered of it.

§ 11. Ideas of Subflances, as Collections of their Qualities, are all inadequate.

So that all our complex ideas of fubftances are imperfect and inadequate, which would be fo alfo in mathematical figures, if we were to have our complex ideas of them, only by collecting their properties in reference to other figures. How uncertain and imperfect would our ideas be of an ellipfis, if we had no other idea of it, but fome few of its properties? Whereas, having in our plain idea the whole effence of that figure, we from thence discover those properties, and demonftratively fee how they flow, and are infeparable from it.

§ 12. Simple Ideas xruña, and adequate. THUS the mind has three forts of abstract ideas, or no-minal effences:

FIRST, Simple ideas, which are tvña, or copies, but yet certainly adequate; because being intended to exprefs nothing but the power in things to produce in the mind fuch a fenfation, that fenfation, when it is produced, cannot but be the effect of that power. So the paper I write on having the power, in the light, (I speak according to the common notion of light) to produce in me the fenfation which I call white, it cannot but be the effect of such a power in fomething without the mind, fince the mind has not the power to produce any fuch idea in itfelf; and being meant for nothing elfe but the effect of fuch a power, that fimple idea is real and adequate; the fenfation of white, in my mind, being the effect of that power which is in the paper to produce it, is perfectly adequate to that power, or elfe that power would produce a different idea.

13. Ideas of Subftances are exruña, inadequate. SECONDLY, The complex ideas of fubftances are ectypes, copies too, but not perfect ones, not adequate, which is very evident to the mind, in that it plainly perceives that whatever collection of fimple ideas it makes of any fubftance that exifts, it cannot be fure that it exactly anfwers all that are in that fubftance, fince not having tried all the operations of all other fubftances upon it, and found all the alterations it would receive from or cause in other substances, it cannot have an exact adequate collection of all its active and paffive capacities, and fo not have an adequate complex idea of the powers of any fubftance exifting, and its relations, which is that fort of complex idea of fubftances we have; and after all, if we could have, and actually had, in our complex idea, an exact collection of all the fecondary qualities or powers of any fubftance, we should not yet thereby have an idea of the effence of that thing; for fince the powers or qualities that are obfervable by us, are not the real effence of that fubflance, but depend on it, and flow from it, any collection whatfoever of these qualities cannot be the real effence of that thing; whereby it is plain, that our ideas of fubftances are not adequate, are not what the mind intends them to be. Beides, a man has no idea of fubftance in general, nor knows what fubftance is in itself.

§14. Ideas of Modes and Relations are Archetypes, and cannot but be adequate.

THIRDLY, Complex ideas of modes and relations are originals and archetypes, are not copies, nor made after the pattern of any real exiftence, to which the mind intends them to be conformable, and exactly to answer; thefe being fuch collections of fimple ideas, that the mind itself puts together, and fuch collections, that each of them contains in it precifely all that the mind intends it fhould, they are archetypes and effences of modes that may exift, and fo are defigned only for, and belong only to fuch modes, as when they do exift, have an exact conformity with thofe complex ideas. The ideas, therefore, of modes and relations, cannot but be adequate.