Because those qualities and powers of substances,
whereof we make their complex ideas, are so many and various, that
no man's complex idea contains them all. That our complex ideas of
substances do not contain in them all the simple ideas that are united
in the things themselves is evident, in that men do rarely put into
their complex idea of any substance all the simple ideas they do
know to exist in it. Because, endeavouring to make the signification
of their names as clear and as little cumbersome as they can, they
make their specific ideas of the sorts of substance, for the most
part, of a few of those simple ideas which are to be found in them:
but these having no original precedency, or right to be put in, and
make the specific idea, more than others that are left out, it is
plain that both these ways our ideas of substances are deficient and
inadequate. The simple ideas whereof we make our complex ones of
substances are all of them (bating only the figure and bulk of some
sorts) powers; which being relations to other substances, we can never
be sure that we know all the powers that are in any one body, till
we have tried what changes it is fitted to give to or receive from
other substances in their several ways of application: which being
impossible to be tried upon any one body, much less upon all, it is
impossible we should have adequate ideas of any substance made up of a
collection of all its properties.
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