For if, according to the useless imagination of the Schools,
any one supposes the term gold to stand for a species of things set
out by nature, by a real essence belonging to it, it is evident he
knows not what particular substances are of that species; and so
cannot with certainty affirm anything universally of gold. But if he
makes gold stand for a species determined by its nominal essence,
let the nominal essence, for example, be the complex idea of a body of
a certain yellow colour, malleable, fusible, and heavier than any
other known;- in this proper use of the word gold, there is no
difficulty to know what is or is not gold. But yet no other quality
can with certainty be universally affirmed or denied of gold, but what
hath a discoverable connexion or inconsistency with that nominal
essence. Fixedness, for example, having no necessary connexion that we
can discover, with the colour, weight, or any other simple idea of our
complex one, or with the whole combination together; it is
impossible that we should certainly know the truth of this
proposition, that all gold is fixed.
9. No discoverable necessary connexion between nominal essence of
gold and other simple ideas. As there is no discoverable connexion
between fixedness and the colour, weight, and other simple ideas of
that nominal essence of gold; so, if we make our complex idea of gold,
a body yellow, fusible, ductile, weighty, and fixed, we shall be at
the same uncertainty concerning solubility in aqua regia, and for
the same reason.
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