10. Not the substantial form, which we know less. Those,
therefore, who have been taught that the several species of substances
had their distinct internal substantial forms, and that it was those
forms which made the distinction of substances into their true species
and genera, were led yet further out of the way by having their
minds set upon fruitless inquiries after "substantial forms"; wholly
unintelligible, and whereof we have scarce so much as any obscure or
confused conception in general.
11. That the nominal essence is that only whereby we distinguish
species of substances, further evident, from our ideas of finite
spirits and of God. That our ranking and distinguishing natural
substances into species consists in the nominal essences the mind
makes, and not in the real essences to be found in the things
themselves, is further evident from our ideas of spirits. For the mind
getting, only by reflecting on its own operations, those simple
ideas which it attributes to spirits, it hath or can have no other
notion of spirit but by attributing all those operations it finds in
itself to a sort of beings; without consideration of matter. And
even the most advanced notion we have of GOD is but attributing the
same simple ideas which we have got from reflection on what we find in
ourselves, and which we conceive to have more perfection in them
than would be in their absence; attributing, I say, those simple ideas
to Him in an unlimited degree.
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