land and sea; and porpoises have the warm blood and entrails of a hog. Some brutes seem to have as much reason as some men: and the animal and vegetable kingdoms are so nearly joined, that if you take the lowest of the one, and the highest of the other, there will be very little perceivable difference between them. If we consider the power and wisdom of the maker, we have reason to think it suitable to the magnificent harmony of the universe, that the species of creatures should ascend from us towards his infinite perfection, as we see them descend by gentle degrees from us :-but we are much more remote from the perfection of God than from the lowest state of being.

If I were to ask, whether ice and water were two distinct species, I doubt not that I should be answered in the affirmative; and rightly: but if a West-Indian, who had never heard of ice, coming into England in winter, should find that the water in his bason at night was frozen in the morning, and should call it hardened water, would this be to him a new species distinct from water? I think it would be answered no: no more than congealed jelly is a distinct species from fluid jelly. If this be so, 'tis plain that our distinct species are only different complex ideas with distinct names.

In order to be able to distinguish beings into species according to precise essences, we should know

1st, Whether nature always designs that things should partake of certain essences, and 2dly, whether she always attains the essence she designs: of both these things the monstrous births of some animals give us reason to doubt: 3dly, whether what we call monsters are really a distinct species; and 4thly, we ought to have ideas of these essences.

The essence of any thing in respect of us is the whole complex idea marked by the name: when this and the real essence are convertible terms, the one may be put for the other without absurdity: some then make extension the essence of body, and rationality the essence of man; yet we cannot say that one extension moves another by impulse, or that rationality is capable of conversation: here then the terms extension and rationality cannot be put for body and

man.

Suppose there were discoverable real essences in things, still the names of things must always have been regulated by obvious appearances; for Languages in all countries have been established long before the sciences. Monsieur Menage gives us an example, which shews how little we are able to determine the essence of an animal, either from the faculties of the mind, or the shape of the body:-The abbot of St. Martin was born with so little of the figure of a man, that it was for some time doubted whether he should be baptized or not: however, he was baptized, and

I

declared a man provisionally, til! time should shew what he would prove. He was called all his life the Abbot Malotrů.

The nominal essences of substances are not made so arbitrarily as those of mixed modes: the ideas of which they consist must have such an union as to make but one idea however compounded; and the ideas so united must be always the same. Though these ideas are really copied from nature, yet the number of ideas combined in them depends upon the care or fancy of him that makes them. In vegetables and animals the species is generally determined by the shape; in other things by the colour, Names thus formed serve well enough for common intercourse, but by no means comprehend in a settled signification a precise number of simple ideas.

The more general our ideas are, the more incomplete and partial they must be; because many distinguishing particulars are omitted, and such qualities only are combined as are common to several sorts: but in these cases brevity is more required than precision. The Genus then, or more comprehensive kind, is but a partial conception of what is contained in the species; and the Species, or more limited kind, is but an incomplete idea of what is to be found in the individual. Nature makes the similitude between things, and from that similitude man makes the species. A silent and a striking watch are but

one species to those who have but one name for them; but whoever 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. Hence we may see why the species of artificial things are in general more clearly distinguished than of natural things; for being the productions of men, and their essence consisting for the most part in nothing but the determinate figure and sometimes motion of sensible parts, we are able to attain more certain ideas of them, and settle their names with greater precision.

Substances alone of all our sorts of ideas have particular or proper names: for in simple ideas, modes and relations, it seldom happens that men have occasion to mention 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 are, which are the agents.

CHAP. VII.

OF PARTICLES.

BESIDES the names of ideas, there are many words which signify the connexion the mind gives to

Ideas, or Propositions. The mind not only wants signs of ideas, but signs of its own actions, relating to those ideas: these words by which it signifies the connexion it gives to several affirmations and negations united in one continued reasoning or narration, are generally called particles; and in the right use of these more particularly consists the clearness and beauty of a good style.

To think well, it is not enough to have clear ideas, nor to observe their agreement or disagreement; but we must think with method, and observe the dependence of our thoughts and reasonings upon one another. To express such thoughts well, we must have words to shew the connexion, restriction, distinction, opposition, emphasis, &c. of each part of our discourse. Hence the necessity of those words which are not truly the names of ideas.

Of the parts of grammar this perhaps has been as much too neglected, as others have been too laboured. They have with great shew of exactness, been ranked into their several orders: but he who would shew their proper significancy and force must take a little more pains, enter into his own thoughts, and observe nicely the several postures of his mind in discoursing: for they are all marks of some action or intimation of the mind. The number of particles in any language is scarcely sufficient to express all the views of the mind; and therefore most of them have divers,