The
foundation of all those qualities which are the ingredients of our
complex idea, is something quite different: and had we such a
knowledge of that constitution of man, from which his faculties of
moving, sensation, and reasoning, and other powers flow, and on
which his so regular shape depends, as it is possible angels have, and
it is certain his Maker has, we should have a quite other idea of
his essence than what now is contained in our definition of that
species, be it what it will: and our idea of any individual man
would be as far different from what it is now, as is his who knows all
the springs and wheels and other contrivances within of the famous
clock at Strasburg, from that which a gazing countryman has of it, who
barely sees the motion of the hand, and hears the clock strike, and
observes only some of the outward appearances.
4. Nothing essential to individuals. That essence, in the ordinary
use of the word, relates to sorts, and that it is considered in
particular beings no further than as they are ranked into sorts,
appears from hence: that, take but away the abstract ideas by which we
sort individuals, and rank them under common names, and then the
thought of anything essential to any of them instantly vanishes: we
have no notion of the one without the other, which plainly shows their
relation.
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