The particular ringing sound there is in gold,
distinct from the sound of other bodies, has no particular name
annexed to it, no more than the particular yellow that belongs to that
metal.
22. The Ideas of the powers of substances are best known by
definition. But because many of the simple ideas that make up our
specific ideas of substances are powers which lie not obvious to our
senses in the things as they ordinarily appear; therefore, in the
signification of our names of substances, some part of the
signification will be better made known by enumerating those simple
ideas, than by showing the substance itself. For, he that to the
yellow shining colour of gold, got by sight, shall, from my
enumerating them, have the ideas of great ductility, fusibility,
fixedness, and solubility in aqua regia, will have a perfecter idea of
gold than he can have by seeing a piece of gold, and thereby
imprinting in his mind only its obvious qualities. But if the formal
constitution of this shining, heavy, ductile thing, (from whence all
these its properties flow), lay open to our senses, as the formal
constitution or essence of a triangle does, the signification of the
word gold might as easily be ascertained as that of triangle.
23. A reflection on the knowledge of corporeal things possessed by
spirits separate from bodies.
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