Ideas of modes and relations are archetypes, and cannot but be adequate. §. 14. Thirdly, complex ideas of modes and relations are originals, and archetypes; are not copies, nor made after the pattern of any real existence, to which the mind intends them to be conformable, and exactly to answer. These 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 that it should, 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. T Truth and falfhood properly belong to propofitions. §. I. HOUGH truth and falfhood belong, in propriety of fpeech, only to propofitions; yet ideas are oftentimes termed true or falfe (as what words are there, that are not ufed with great latitude, and with fome deviation from their strict and proper fignifications?) Though, I think, that, when ideas themselves are termed true or falfe, there is still fome fecret or tacit propofition, which is the foundation of that denomination: as we fhall fee, if we examine the particular occafions wherein they come to be called true or falfe. In all which, we fhall find fome kind of affirmation or negation, which is the reafon of that denomination. For our ideas, being nothing but bare appearances or perceptions in our minds, cannot properly and fimply in themselves be faid to be true or falfe, no more than a fingle name of any thing can be faid to be true or falfe. Metaphyfical truth contains a tacit propofition. §. 2. Indeed both ideas and words may be faid to be true in a metaphyfical sense of the word truth, as all other things, that any way exift, are faid to be true; i. e. really to be fuch as they exift. Though in things called true, even in that fenfe, there is perhaps a fecret reference to our ideas, looked upon as the ftandards of that truth, which amounts to a mental propofition, though it be usually not taken notice of. No idea, as an appearance in the mind, true or falfe. §. 3. But it is not in that metaphyfical fense of truth which we inquire here, when we examine whether our ideas are capable of being true or falfe; but in the more ordinary acceptation of thofe words: and fo I fay, that the ideas in our minds being only so many perceptions, or appearances there, none of them are falfe: the idea of a centaur having no more falfhood in it, when it appears in our minds, than the name centaur has falfhood in it, when it is pronounced by our mouths or written on paper. For truth or falfhood lying always in fome affirmation, or negation, mental or verbal, our ideas are not capable, any of them, of being falfe, till the mind paffes fome judgment on them; that is, affirms or denies fomething of them. Ideas referred to any thing may be true or falfe. §. 4. Whenever the mind refers any of its ideas to any thing extraneous to them, they are then capable to be called true or falfe. Because the mind in fuch a reference makes a tacit fuppofition of their conformity to that thing: which fuppofition, as it happens to be true or falfe, fo the ideas themfelves come to be denominated. The most usual cafes wherein this happens, are thefe following: Other men's ideas, real existence, and fuppofed real effences, are what men ufually refer their ideas to. §. 5. First, when the mind fuppofes any idea it has conformable to that in other men's minds, called by the fame common name; v. g. when the mind intends or judges its ideas of juftice, temperance, religion, to be the fame with what other men give thofe names to. Secondly, Secondly, when the mind supposes any idea it has in itfelf to be conformable to fome real exiftence. Thus the two ideas, of a man and a centaur, fupposed to be the ideas of real fubftances, are the one true, and the other false; the one having a conformity to what has really exifted, the other not. Thirdly, when the mind refers any of its ideas to that real constitution and effence of any thing, whereon all its properties depend: and thus the greatest part, if not all our ideas of fubftances, are falfe. The caufe of fuch re ferences. §. 6. These fuppofitions the mind is very apt tacitly to make concerning its own ideas. But yet, if we will examine it, we fhall find it is chiefly, if not only, concerning its abftract complex ideas. For the natural tendency of the mind being towards knowledge; and finding that, if it fhould proceed by and dwell upon only particular things, its progrefs would be very flow, and its work endlefs; therefore to fhorten its way to knowledge, and make each perception more comprehenfive; the first thing it does, as the foundation of the easier enlarging its knowledge, either by contemplation of the things themselves that it would know, or conference with others about them, is to bind them into bundles, and rank them fo into forts, that what knowledge it gets of any of them it may thereby with affurance extend to all of that fort; and fo advance by larger steps in that, which is its great bufinefs, knowledge. This, as I have elsewhere fhown, is the reafon why we collect things under comprchenfive ideas, with names annexed to them, into genera and fpecies, i. e. into kinds and forts. §. 7. If therefore we will warily attend to the motions of the mind, and obferve what courfe it usually takes in its way to knowledge; we fhall, I think, find that the mind having got an idea, which it thinks it may have use of, either in contemplation or discourse, the first thing it does is to abftract it, and then get a name to it; and fo lay it up in its ftore-house, the memory, as containing the effence of a fort of things, of which that name is always to be the mark. Hence it is, that we may often obferve, that when any one fees a new thing of a kind that he knows not, he prefently afks what it is, meaning by that inquiry nothing but the name. As if the name carried with it the knowledge of the fpecies, or the effence of it; whereof it is indeed ufed as the mark, and is generally fuppofed annexed to it. Caufe of fuch references. §. 8. But this abstract idea being fomething in the mind between the thing that exifts, and the name that is given to it; it is in our ideas, that both the rightness of our knowledge, or the propriety or intelligibleness of our speaking, confifts. And hence it is, that men are fo forward to fuppofe, that the abftract ideas they have in their minds are fuch as agree to the things existing without them, to which they are referred; and are the fame also, to which the names they give them do by the ufe and propriety of that language belong. For without this double conformity of their ideas, they find they fhould both think amifs of things in themfelves, and talk of them unintelligibly to others. Simple ideas, may be falfe in reference to others of the fame name, but are leaft liable to be fo. §. 9. First then, I fay, that when the truth of our ideas is judged of, by the conformity they have to the ideas which other men have, and commonly fignify by the fame name, they may be any of them falfe. But yet fimple ideas are leaft of all liable to be fo mistaken; because a man by his fenfes, and every day's obfervation, may easily fatisfy himself what the fimple ideas are, which their several names that are in common ufe ftand for: they being but few in number, and fuch as if he doubts or mistakes in, he may easily rectify by the objects they are to be found in. Therefore it is feldom, that any one miftakes in his names of fimple ideas; or applies the name red to the idea green; or the name fweet to the idea bitter much lefs are men apt to confound the names of ideas belonging to different fenfes; and call a colour by the name of a tafte, &c. whereby it is evident, that the fimple ideas they call by any name, are commonly. the the fame that others have and mean when they use the fame names. Ideas of mixed modes most liable to be falfe in this fenfe, §. 10. Complex ideas are much more liable to be falfe in this refpect: and the complex ideas of mixed modes, much more than those of fubftances: because in fubftances (efpecially thofe which the common and unborrowed names of any language are applied to) fome remarkable fenfible qualities, ferving ordinarily to diftinguish one fort from another, cafily prefervé thofe, who take any care in the ufe of their words, from applying them to forts of fubftances, to which they do not at all belong. But in mixed modes we are much more uncertain; it being not fo eafy to determine of feveral actions, whether they are to be called juftice or cruelty, liberality or prodigality. And fo in referring our ideas to thofe of other men, called by the fame names, ours may be false; and the idea in our minds, which we exprefs by the word juftice, may perhaps be that which ought to have another name. Or at least to falfe. §. 11. But whether or no our ideas of mixed modes are more liable than any fort be thought to be different from thofe of other men, which are marked by the fame names; this at leaft is certain, that this fort of falfhood is much more familiarly attributed to our ideas of mixed modes, than to any other. When a man is thought to have a falfe idea of juftice, or gratitude, or glory, it is for no other reason, but that his agrees not with the ideas which each of thofe names are the figns of in other men. §. 12. The reafon whereof feems to me And why. to be this, that the abftract ideas of mixed modes, being men's voluntary combinations of fuch a precife collection of fimple ideas; and fo the effence of each fpecies being made by men alone, whereof we have no other fenfible ftandard exifting any where, but the name itself, or the definition of that name: we having nothing elfe to refer thefe our ideas of mixed modes to, as a ftandard to which we would conform them, but the ideas of those who are thought to use those names in their most proper fignifications; and fo as our ideas conform or differ from them, they pass for true |