So that we may truly say, such a manner of
sorting of things is the workmanship of men.
38. Each abstract idea, with a name to it, makes a nominal
essence. One thing I doubt not but will seem very strange in this
doctrine, which is, that from what has been said it will follow,
that each abstract idea, with a name to it, makes a distinct
species. But who can help it, if truth will have it so? For so it must
remain till somebody can show us the species of things limited and
distinguished by something else; and let us see that general terms
signify not our abstract ideas, but something different from them. I
would fain know why a shock and a hound are not as distinct species as
a spaniel and an elephant. We have no other idea of the different
essence of an elephant and a spaniel, than we have of the different
essence of a shock and a hound; all the essential difference,
whereby we know and distinguish them one from another, consisting only
in the different collection of simple ideas, to which we have given
those different names.
39. How genera and species are related to naming. How much the
making of species and genera is in order to general names; and how
much general names are necessary, if not to the being, yet at least to
the completing of a species, and making it pass for such, will appear,
besides what has been said above concerning ice and water, in a very
familiar example.
Pages:
664
665
666
667
668
669
670
671
672
673
674
675
676
677
678
679
680
681
682
683
684
685
686
687
688