It is evident now, that,
in this case, Adam acts quite differently from what he did before, in
forming those ideas of mixed modes to which he gave the names KINNEAH
and NIOUPH. For there he put ideas together only by his own imagination,
not taken from the existence of anything; and to them he gave names to
denominate all things that should happen to agree to those his abstract
ideas, without considering whether any such thing did exist or not: the
standard there was of his own making. But in the forming his idea of
this new substance, he takes the quite contrary course; here he has
a standard made by nature; and therefore, being to represent that to
himself, by the idea he has of it, even when it is absent, he puts in no
simple idea into his complex one, but what he has the perception of from
the thing itself. He takes care that his idea be conformable to this
archetype, and intends the name should stand for an idea so conformable.
47.
This piece of matter, thus denominated ZAHAB by Adam, being quite
different from any he had seen before, nobody, I think, will deny to be
a distinct species, and to have its peculiar essence; and that the name
ZAHAB is the mark of the species, and a name belonging to all things
partaking in that essence. But here it is plain the essence Adam made
the name ZAHAB stand for was nothing but a body hard, shining, yellow,
and very heavy. But the inquisitive mind of man, not content with the
knowledge of these, as I may say, superficial qualities, puts Adam upon
further examination of this matter. He therefore knocks, and beats it
with flints, to see what was discoverable in the inside: he finds it
yield to blows, but not easily separate into pieces: he finds it will
bend without breaking. Is not now ductility to be added to his former
idea, and made part of the essence of the species that name ZAHAB stands
for? Further trials discover fusibility and fixedness. Are not they
also, by the same reason that any of the others were, to be put into the
complex idea signified by the name ZAHAB? If not, what reason will there
be shown more for the one than the other? If these must, then all the
other properties, which any further trials shall discover in this
matter, ought by the same reason to make a part of the ingredients of
the complex idea which the name ZAHAB stands for, and so be the essence
of the species marked by that name. Which properties, because they are
endless, it is plain that the
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