But in the species of corporeal substances,
though it be the mind that makes the nominal essence, yet, since those
ideas which are combined in it are supposed to have an union in nature
whether the mind joins them or not, therefore those are looked on as
distinct species, without any operation of the mind, either
abstracting, or giving a name to that complex idea.
12. For the originals of our mixed modes, we look no further than
the mind; which also shows them to he the workmanship of the
understanding. Conformable also to what has been said concerning the
essences of the species of mixed modes, that they are the creatures of
the understanding rather than the works of nature; conformable, I say,
to this, we find that their names lead our thoughts to the mind, and
no further. When we speak of justice, or gratitude, we frame to
ourselves no imagination of anything existing, which we would
conceive; but our thoughts terminate in the abstract ideas of those
virtues, and look not further; as they do when we speak of a horse, or
iron, whose specific ideas we consider not as barely in the mind,
but as in things themselves, which afford the original patterns of
those ideas. But in mixed modes, at least the most considerable
parts of them, which are moral beings, we consider the original
patterns as being in the mind, and to those we refer for the
distinguishing of particular beings under names.
Pages:
619
620
621
622
623
624
625
626
627
628
629
630
631
632
633
634
635
636
637
638
639
640
641
642
643