Though these complex ideas be not always copied from nature,
yet they are always suited to the end for which abstract ideas are
made: and though they be combinations made of ideas that are loose
enough, and have as little union in themselves as several others to
which the mind never gives a connexion that combines them into one
idea; yet they are always made for the convenience of communication,
which is the chief end of language. The use of language is, by short
sounds, to signify with ease and dispatch general conceptions; wherein
not only abundance of particulars may be contained, but also a great
variety of independent ideas collected into one complex one. In the
making therefore of the species of mixed modes, men have had regard
only to such combinations as they had occasion to mention one to
another. Those they have combined into distinct complex ideas, and
given names to; whilst others, that in nature have as near a union,
are left loose and unregarded. For, to go no further than human
actions themselves, if they would make distinct abstract ideas of
all the varieties which might be observed in them, the number must
be infinite, and the memory confounded with the plenty, as well as
overcharged to little purpose. It suffices that men make and name so
many complex ideas of these mixed modes as they find they have
occasion to have names for, in the ordinary occurrence of their
affairs.
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