Thus the
mind in mixed modes arbitrarily unites into complex ideas such as it
finds convenient; whilst others that have altogether as much union
in nature are left loose, and never combined into one idea, because
they have no need of one name. It is evident then that the mind, by
its free choice, gives a connexion to a certain number of ideas, which
in nature have no more union with one another than others that it
leaves out: why else is the part of the weapon the beginning of the
wound is made with taken notice of, to make the distinct species
called stabbing, and the figure and matter of the weapon left out? I
do not say this is done without reason, as we shall see more by and
by; but this I say, that it is done by the free choice of the mind,
pursuing its own ends; and that, therefore, these species of mixed
modes are the workmanship of the understanding. And there is nothing
more evident than that, for the most part, in the framing of these
ideas, the mind searches not its patterns in nature, nor refers the
ideas it makes to the real existence of things, but puts such together
as may best serve its own purposes, without tying itself to a
precise imitation of anything that really exists.
7. But still subservient to the end of language, and not made at
random. But, though these complex ideas or essences of mixed modes
depend on the mind, and are made by it with great liberty, yet they
are not made at random, and jumbled together without any reason at
all.
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