ther, ufually make the complex idea in men's 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 be an hundred times as many ideas go to the complex idea of gold, as any one man yet has in his; and yet perhaps that not be the thousandth 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 difcovered of it.

Ideas of fub

ftances, as collections of their quali

ties, are all inadequate.

§. 11. 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 difcover those properties, and demonftratively fee how they flow, and are infeparable from it.

§. 12. Thus the mind has three forts of Simple ideas, abstract ideas or nominal effences: ἔκλυπα, and Firft, fimple ideas, which are xlura, or adequate. copies; but yet certainly adequate. Becaufe being intended to exprefs nothing but the power in things to

Dd 3

produce

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 fpeak according to the common notion of light) to produce in men the fenfation which I call white, it cannot but be the effect of fuch a power, in fomething without the mind; fince the mind has not the power to produce any fuch idea in itself, and being meant for nothing else 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.

Ideas of fub§. 13. Secondly, the complex ideas of stances are fubftances are ectypes, copies too; but not ἔκλυπα, inaperfect ones, not adequate which is very dequate. 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 sure that it exactly answers all that are in that substance: fince not having tried all the operations of all other substances upon it, and found all the alterations it would receive from, or caufe in, other fubftances, 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 would have, and actually had, in our complex idea, an exact collection of all the fecondary qualities or powers of any substance, 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 fubftance, but depend on it, and flow from it, any collection whatfoever of thefe 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. Befides, 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 ade

§. 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. Thefe being fuch collections of quate. fimple ideas, that the mind itfelf puts together, and fuch collections, that each of them contains in it precifely all that the mind intends that it fhould, they are archetypes and effences of modes that may exist; and fo are defigned only for, and belong only to, fuch modes as, when they do exist, have an exact conformity with those complex ideas. The ideas therefore of modes and relations cannot but be adequate.

T

Truth and

falfhood properly belong to propofitions.

J. 1. 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 used 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 ftill 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 reason 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 con

tains a tacit propofition.

$. 2. Indeed both ideas and words may be faid to be true in a metaphyfical fenfe 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 exist. Though in things called true, even in that fenfe, there is perhaps a fecret reference to our ideas, looked upon as the standards of that truth, which amounts to a mental proposition, though it be ufually not taken notice of.

No idea, as an appearance in the mind, true or falfe.

§. 3. But it is not in that metaphyfical sense of truth which we inquire here, when we examine whether our ideas are capable of being true or false; but in the more ordinary acceptation of those words: and fo I fay, that the ideas in our minds being only fo 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. Becaufe 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 false, fo the ideas themfelves come to be denominated. The moft ufual cafes wherein this happens, are these following:

Other men's ideas, real existence, and fuppofed real effences, are what men ufually refer

their ideas to.

§. 5. First, when the mind. fupposes 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 those names to.

Secondly,

Secondly, when the mind supposes any idea it has in itself to be conformable to fome real exiftence. Thus the two ideas, of a man and a centaur, fuppofed to be the ideas of real substances, 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 shown, is the reafon why we collect things under comprehenfive 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 difcourfe, 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