But this
fantasticalness relates more to propriety of speech, than reality of
ideas. For a man to be undisturbed in danger, sedately to consider
what is fittest to be done, and to execute it steadily, is a mixed
mode, or a complex idea of an action which may exist. But to be
undisturbed in danger, without using one's reason or industry, is what
is also possible to be; and so is as real an idea as the other. Though
the first of these, having the name courage given to it, may, in
respect of that name, be a right or wrong idea; but the other,
whilst it has not a common received name of any known language
assigned to it, is not capable of any deformity, being made with no
reference to anything but itself.
5. Complex ideas of substances are real, when they agree with the
existence of things. Thirdly, Our complex ideas of substances, being
made all of them in reference to things existing without us, and
intended to be representations of substances as they really are, are
no further real than as they are such combinations of simple ideas
as are really united, and co-exist in things without us. On the
contrary, those are fantastical which are made up of such
collections of simple ideas as were really never united, never were
found together in any substance: v.g. a rational creature,
consisting of a horse's head, joined to a body of human shape, or such
as the centaurs are described: or, a body yellow, very malleable,
fusible, and fixed, but lighter than common water: or an uniform,
unorganized body, consisting, as to sense, all of similar parts,
with perception and voluntary motion joined to it.
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