For we, having need of
general names for present use, stay not for a perfect discovery of all
those qualities which would best show us their most material
differences and agreements; but we ourselves divide them, by certain
obvious appearances, into species, that we may the easier under
general names communicate our thoughts about them. For, having no
other knowledge of any substance but of the simple ideas that are
united in it; and observing several particular things to agree with
others in several of those simple ideas; we make that collection our
specific idea, and give it a general name; that in recording our
thoughts, and in our discourse with others, we may in one short word
designate all the individuals that agree in that complex idea, without
enumerating the simple ideas that make it up; and so not waste our
time and breath in tedious descriptions: which we see they are fain to
do who would discourse of any new sort of things they have not yet a
name for.
31. Essences of species under the same name very different in
different minds. But however these species of substances pass well
enough in ordinary conversation, it is plain that this complex idea,
wherein they observe several individuals to agree, is by different men
made very differently; by some more, and others less accurately.
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