That men
(especially such as have been bred up in the learning taught in this
part of the world) do suppose certain specific essences of substances,
which each individual in its several kinds is made conformable to
and partakes of, is so far from needing proof that it will be
thought strange if any one should do otherwise. And thus they
ordinarily apply the specific names they rank particular substances
under, to things as distinguished by such specific real essences.
Who is there almost, who would not take it amiss if it should be
doubted whether he called himself a man, with any other meaning than
as having the real essence of a man? And yet if you demand what
those real essences are, it is plain men are ignorant, and know them
not. From whence it follows, that the ideas they have in their
minds, being referred to real essences, as to archetypes which are
unknown, must be so far from being adequate that they cannot be
supposed to be any representation of them at all. The complex ideas we
have of substances are, as it has been shown, certain collections of
simple ideas that have been observed or supposed constantly to exist
together. But such a complex idea cannot be the real essence of any
substance; for then the properties we discover in that body would
depend on that complex idea, and be deducible from it, and their
necessary connexion with it be known; 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.
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