And thus anything is true
gold, perfect metal. All which determination of the species, it is
plain, depends on the understanding of man, making this or that
complex idea.
36. Nature makes the similitudes of substances. This, then, in
short, is the case: Nature makes many particular things, which do
agree one with another in many sensible qualities, and probably too in
their internal frame and constitution: but it is not this real essence
that distinguishes them into species; it is men who, taking occasion
from the qualities they find united in them, and wherein they
observe often several individuals to agree, range them into sorts,
in order to their naming, for the convenience of comprehensive
signs; under which individuals, according to their conformity to
this or that abstract idea, come to be ranked as under ensigns: so
that this is of the blue, that the red regiment; this is a man, that a
drill: and in this, I think, consists the whole business of genus
and species.
37. The manner of sorting particular beings the work of fallible
men, though nature makes things alike. I do not deny but nature, in
the constant production of particular beings, makes them not always
new and various, but very much alike and of kin one to another: but
I think it nevertheless true, that the boundaries of the species,
whereby men sort them, are made by men; since the essences of the
species, distinguished by different names, are, as has been proved, of
man's making, and seldom adequate to the internal nature of the things
they are taken from.
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