For if two abstract complex ideas differ either
in number or sorts of their component parts, they make two
different, and not one and the same essence. In the first of these,
the mind, in making its complex ideas of substances, only follows
nature; and puts none together which are not supposed to have a
union in nature. Nobody joins the voice of a sheep with the shape of a
horse; nor the colour of lead with the weight and fixedness of gold,
to be the complex ideas of any real substances; unless he has a mind
to fill his head with chimeras, and his discourse with
unintelligible words. Men observing certain qualities always joined
and existing together, therein copied nature; and of ideas so united
made their complex ones of substances. For, though men may make what
complex ideas they please, and give what names to them they will; yet,
if they will be understood when they speak of things really
existing, they must in some degree conform their ideas to the things
they would speak of; or else men's language will be like that of
Babel; and every man's words, being intelligible only to himself,
would no longer serve to conversation and the ordinary affairs of
life, if the ideas they stand for be not some way answering the common
appearances and agreement of substances as they really exist.
29. Our nominal essences of substances usually consist of a few
obvious qualities observed in things.
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