It is
just the same, and to the same purpose, when any term standing for any
one or more of the simple ideas, that altogether make up that
complex idea which is called man, is affirmed of the term man:- v.g.
suppose a Roman signified by the word homo all these distinct ideas
united in one subject, corporietas, sensibilitas, potentia se
movendi rationalitas, risibilitas; he might, no doubt, with great
certainty, universally affirm one, more, or all of these together of
the word homo, but did no more than say that the word homo, in his
country, comprehended in its signification all these ideas. Much
like a romance knight, who by the word palfrey signified these ideas:-
body of a certain figure, four-legged, with sense, motion, ambling,
neighing, white, used to have a woman on his back- might with the same
certainty universally affirm also any or all of these of the word
palfrey: but did thereby teach no more, but that the word palfrey,
in his or romance language, stood for all these, and was not to be
applied to anything where any of these was wanting. But he that
shall tell me, that in whatever thing sense, motion, reason, and
laughter, were united, that thing had actually a notion of God, or
would be cast into a sleep by opium, made indeed an instructive
proposition: because neither having the notion of God, nor being
cast into sleep by opium, being contained in the idea signified by the
word man, we are by such propositions taught something more than
barely what the word man stands for: and therefore the knowledge
contained in it is more than verbal.
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