cies 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.

Men determine the sorts.

35. 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 no, 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 malleableness out of 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 whatsoever 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 any thing is true gold, perfect

metal.

metal. All which determination of the species, it is plain, depends on the understanding of man, making this or that complex idea.

Nature

makes the

§. 36. This then, in short, is the case: nature makes many particular things which do agree one with another, in many sensi- similitude. ble 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 comprehenfive 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. 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.

Each ab

stract idea is

an essence.

§. 38. 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 some body 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

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.

Genera and

§. 39. How much the making of species species are in and genera is in order to general names, and how much general names are necessary,

order to

naming. 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 watch-maker 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 physies, 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

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 terins for the same idea, and signify no more, nor no other thing but a watch. Just thus, I think, it is in natural things. No-body 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 the 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 or no.

Species of artificialthings

less confused

than natural.

§. 40. 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 to settle the signification of

the

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.

Artificial things of dis

6. 41. I must be excused here if I think artificial things are of distinct species as tinct species. 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.

Substances alone have

proper

names.

§. 42. This is farther 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.

Difficulty to treat of words.

§. 43. 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