idea made after this fashion, by this
archetype, will be always inadequate.

48. The Abstract Ideas of Substances always imperfect and therefore
various.

But this is not all. It would also follow that the names of substances
would not only have, as in truth they have, but would also be supposed
to have different significations, as used by different men, which would
very much cumber the use of language. For if every distinct quality
that were discovered in any matter by any one were supposed to make a
necessary part of the complex idea signified by the common name given
to it, it must follow, that men must suppose the same word to signify
different things in different men: since they cannot doubt but different
men may have discovered several qualities, in substances of the same
denomination, which others know nothing of.

49. Therefore to fix the Nominal Species Real Essence supposed.

To avoid this therefore, they have supposed a real essence belonging to
every species, from which these proper ties all flow, and would have
their name of the species stand for that. But they, not having any idea
of that real essence in substances, and their words signifying nothing
but the ideas they have, that which is done by this attempt is only to
put the name or sound in the place and stead of the thing having that
real essence, without knowing what the real essence is, and this is that
which men do when they speak of species of things, as supposing them
made by nature, and distinguished by real essences.

50. Which Supposition is of no Use.

For, let us consider, when we affirm that 'all gold is fixed,' either
it means that fixedness is a part of the definition, i. e., part of the
nominal essence the word gold stands for; and so this affirmation, 'all
gold is fixed,' contains nothing but the signification of the term gold.
Or else it means, that fixedness, not being a part of the definition of
the gold, is a property of that substance itself: in which case it is
plain that the word gold stands in the place of a substance, having the
real essence of a species of things made by nature. In which way of
substitution it has so confused and uncertain a signification,
that, though this proposition--'gold is fixed'--be in that sense an
affirmation of something real; yet it is a truth will always fail us in
its particular application, and so is of no real use or certainty. For
let it be ever so true, that all gold, i. e. all th