stances stand for things as supposed to have certain real essences, whereby they are of this or that species: and names standing for nothing but the ideas that are in men's minds, they must consequently refer their ideas to such real essences, as to their archetypes: yet if you demand what those essences are, it is plain men are quite ignorant of them: whence the ideas they have in their minds, being referred to real essences as to unknown archetypes, are so far from being adequate that they cannot be supposed to be any representations of them at all. Our complex ideas of substances are certain collections of simple ideas constantly observed to exist together; but such a complex idea cannot be the real essence of any substance; for then the properties we discover in the body would depend on that complex idea and be deducible from it, and their necessary connexion with it be known; just as all properties of a triangle depend on, and (as far as they are discoverable) are deducible from the complex idea of three lines including a space:-but in our complex ideas of substances no such ideas are contained, on which all the other qualities found in them depend. The common idea men have of iron is a body of a certain colour, weight and hardness; and a property they consider belonging to it is malleableness: but this property has no necessary connexion with that complex idea, or any part of it; and there is no more reason to think that malleable

ness depends on its colour, weight, and hardness, than thatthese qualities depend on its malleableness. The farthest I can go then, is only to presume that the real essence of a body, or that internal constitution on which its qualities depend, is nothing but the figure, size, and connexion of its solid parts.

2dly, Those who neglect the useless supposition of unknown real essences, and endeavour to copy substances by putting together the simple ideas which make up our complex ideas of them, do not arrive at perfectly adequate ideas of them, because the copies never exactly and fully contain all that is to be found in their archetypes; and, besides, wishing to make their specific names as clear and as little cumbersome as possible, they only combine a few of those simple ideas which they know are to be found in them :—so that as we never can know all

of a

the powers that are in any one body, our Idea of a substance can never be adequate, or made up collection of all its properties. Whoever first met with a lump of gold could not rationally suppose that its bulk and figure depend on its essence; these then did not go into his idea of that species of body; its peculiar weight and colour were perhaps the first qualities he put into his idea of the Species: now these are both but powers, the one producing the idea of yellow, and the other of its outweighing a body of equal bulk put into a pair of equal scales:

-another may have added to these the ideas of fusibility and fixedness, two passive powers in relation to the operation of fire upon it;-and another those of ductility and solubility in aqua regia. But no one who has considered the properties of bodies in general, or of this in particular, can doubt that gold has infinite other properties as inseparable from its internal constitution, as its colour and weight.

Our simple ideas then, or ideas of the powers of things are copies, but adequate ;—Our complex ideas, or ideas of substances, are also copies, but inadequate; our ideas of modes and relations are archetypes, and so cannot but be adequate.

CHAP. XXXII.

OF TRUE AND FALSE IDEAS.

THOUGH Truth and Falshood belong in propriety of speech only to propositions, yet ideas (with some deviation from the strict signification of the word) are often termed true or false. Ideas being only appearances or perceptions in our minds cannot, any more than the names of things, be properly called true or false: but when the mind has passed some judgment on its ideas, that is, has affirmed or denied something of them, then in popular language we call them true or false.

Ideas may be called true or false according as they

are justly or not referred to things with which we suppose them conformable; as 1st, when the mind supposes any one of its ideas conformable to that in another man's mind, called by the same common name: 2dly, When it supposes any idea conformable to some real existence: Sdly, When it supposes any idea to comprehend the real constitution or essence of any thing.

The mind makes these suppositions chiefly concerning its abstract complex ideas; for its great business being knowledge, in order to make each perception the more comprehensive, the mind binds things up into bundles, and ranks them into sorts; so that whatever knowledge it gets of any one, it may with assurance extend to all of that sort; for this reason we collect things, under comprehensive ideas with names annexed to them, into Genera and Species, i. e. Kinds and Sorts.

Simple ideas are least of all liable to be false; because a man may easily learn what those simple ideas are which the names in common use stand for, by referring them to external objects. Complex ideas are much more liable to be false; and those of mixed modes more than those of substances; for some few remarkable sensible qualities serve ordinarily to distinguish substances; but it is not so easy to determine of several actions, whether they are to be called Justice or Cruelty, Liberality or Prodigality: and

the reason of this seems to be, that we have no sensible standard any where, but only the definition of the name, so that we can only refer our ideas to the ideas of those who are thought to use those names in the most proper signification.

Our simple ideas, being barely such perceptions as the powers of external objects produce in us, cannot be false: nor does it signify whether the mind believes these ideas to be in the things themselves or not; blueness being equally a mark of distinction in a violet, whether we suppose the idea of blue to be in the violet itself or only in our mind.-Even though the same object should produce different ideas in some men's minds, yet to each man his idea would be equally true, provided the same object always produced the same idea; because he would be able to distinguish things for his own use, and the only falshood would be in the names he might apply to communicate his ideas to others: I am however apt to think that the ideas produced by any object in different men's minds are most commonly very nearly and undiscernibly alike. Neither can our complex ideas of modes be false; for they are purely arbitrary: thus, the idea of a man who will not afford himself such meat, drink, cloathing, and other conveniences of life, as his riches would supply, and his station requires, is not a false one, but represents an action either as I find or imagine it; though when I give