Because an artificial thing being a
production of man, which the artificer designed, and therefore well
knows the idea of, the name of it is supposed to stand for no other
idea, nor to import any other essence, than what is certainly to be
known, and easy enough to be apprehended. For the idea or essence of
the several sorts of artificial things, consisting for the most part
in nothing but the determinate figure of sensible parts, and sometimes
motion depending thereon, which the artificer fashions in matter, such
as he finds for his turn; it is not beyond the reach of our
faculties to attain a certain idea thereof; and so settle the
signification of the names whereby the species of artificial things
are distinguished, with less doubt, obscurity, and equivocation than
we can in things natural, whose differences and operations depend upon
contrivances beyond the reach of our discoveries.
41. Artificial things of distinct species. I must be excused here if
I think artificial things are of distinct species as well as
natural: since I find they are as plainly and orderly ranked into
sorts, by different abstract ideas, with general names annexed to
them, as distinct one from another as those of natural substances. For
why should we not think a watch and pistol as distinct species one
from another, as a horse and a dog; they being expressed in our
minds by distinct ideas, and to others by distinct appellations?
42.
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