But in substances, it is not so. For though in that called gold,
one puts into his complex idea what another leaves out, and vice
versa: yet men do not usually think that therefore the species is
changed: because they secretly in their minds refer that name, and
suppose it annexed to a real immutable essence of a thing existing, on
which those properties depend. He that adds to his complex idea of
gold that of fixedness and solubility in aqua regia, which he put
not in it before, is not thought to have changed the species; but only
to have a more perfect idea, by adding another simple idea, which is
always in fact joined with those other, of which his former complex
idea consisted. But this reference of the name to a thing, whereof
we have not the idea, is so far from helping at all, that it only
serves the more to involve us in difficulties. For by this tacit
reference to the real essence of that species of bodies, the word gold
(which, by standing for a more or less perfect collection of simple
ideas, serves to design that sort of body well enough in civil
discourse) comes to have no signification at all, being put for
somewhat whereof we have no idea at all, and so can signify nothing at
all, when the body itself is away. For however it may be thought all
one, yet, if well considered, it will be found a quite different
thing, to argue about gold in name, and about a parcel in the body
itself, v.
Pages:
724
725
726
727
728
729
730
731
732
733
734
735
736
737
738
739
740
741
742
743
744
745
746
747
748