But it is plain that in our complex ideas of substances are not
contained such ideas, on which all the other qualities that are to
be found in them do depend. The common idea men have of iron is, a
body of a certain colour, weight, and hardness; and a property that
they look on as belonging to it, is malleableness. But yet this
property has no necessary connexion with that complex idea, or any
part of it: and there is no more reason to think that malleableness
depends on that colour, weight, and hardness, than that colour or that
weight depends on its malleableness. And yet, though we know nothing
of these real essences, there is nothing more ordinary than that men
should attribute the sorts of things to such essences. The
particular parcel of matter which makes the ring I have on my finger
is forwardly by most men supposed to have a real essence, whereby it
is gold; and from whence those qualities flow which I find in it, viz.
its peculiar colour, weight, hardness, fusibility, fixedness, and
change of colour upon a slight touch of mercury, &c. This essence,
from which all these properties flow, when I inquire into it and
search after it, I plainly perceive I cannot discover: the furthest
I can go is, only to presume that, it being nothing but body, its real
essence or internal constitution, on which these qualities depend, can
be nothing but the figure, size, and connexion of its solid parts;
of neither of which having any distinct perception at all can I have
any idea of its essence: which is the cause that it has that
particular shining yellowness; a greater weight than anything I know
of the same bulk; and a fitness to have its colour changed by the
touch of quicksilver.
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