So uncertain are the boundaries of species of
animals to us, who have no other measures than the complex ideas of
our own collecting: and so far are we from certainly knowing what a
man is; though perhaps it will be judged great ignorance to make any
doubt about it. And yet I think I may say, that the certain boundaries
of that species are so far from being determined, and the precise
number of simple ideas which make the nominal essence so far from
being settled and perfectly known, that very material doubts may still
arise about it. And I imagine none of the definitions of the word
man which we yet have, nor descriptions of that sort of animal, are so
perfect and exact as to satisfy a considerate inquisitive person; much
less to obtain a general consent, and to be that which men would
everywhere stick by, in the decision of cases, and determining of life
and death, baptism or no baptism, in productions that might happen.
28. But not so arbitrary as mixed modes. But though these nominal
essences of substances are made by the mind, they are not yet made
so arbitrarily as those of mixed modes. To the making of any nominal
essence, it is necessary, First, that the ideas whereof it consists
have such a union as to make but one idea, how compounded soever.
Secondly, that the particular ideas so united be exactly the same,
neither more nor less.
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