So necessary is it to quit the common notion of
species and essences, if we will truly look into the nature of things,
and examine them by what our faculties can discover in them as they
exist, and not by groundless fancies that have been taken up about
them.
17. Words and species. I have mentioned this here, because I think
we cannot be too cautious that words and species, in the ordinary
notions which we have been used to of them, impose not on us. For I am
apt to think therein lies one great obstacle to our clear and distinct
knowledge, especially in reference to substances: and from thence
has risen a great part of the difficulties about truth and
certainty. Would we accustom ourselves to separate our
contemplations and reasonings from words, we might in a great
measure remedy this inconvenience within our own thoughts: but yet
it would still disturb us in our discourse with others, as long as
we retained the opinion, that species and their essences were anything
else but our abstract ideas (such as they are) with names annexed to
them, to be the signs of them.
18. Recapitulation. Wherever we perceive the agreement or
disagreement of any of our ideas, there is certain knowledge: and
wherever we are sure those ideas agree with the reality of things,
there is certain real knowledge. Of which agreement of our ideas
with the reality of things, having here given the marks, I think, I
have shown wherein it is that certainty, real certainty, consists.
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