Our reasonings from these ideas will carry us but a
little way in the certain discovery of the other properties in those
masses of matter wherein all these are to be found. Because the
other properties of such bodies, depending not on these, but on that
unknown real essence on which these also depend, we cannot by them
discover the rest; we can go no further than the simple ideas of our
nominal essence will carry us, which is very little beyond themselves;
and so afford us but very sparingly any certain, universal, and useful
truths. For, upon trial, having found that particular piece (and all
others of that colour, weight, and fusibility, that I ever tried)
malleable, that also makes now, perhaps, a part of my complex idea,
part of my nominal essence of gold: whereby though I make my complex
idea to which I affix the name gold, to consist of more simple ideas
than before; yet still, it not containing the real essence of any
species of bodies, it helps me not certainly to know (I say to know,
perhaps it may be to conjecture) the other remaining properties of
that body, further than they have a visible connexion with some or all
of the simple ideas that make up my nominal essence. For example, I
cannot be certain, from this complex idea, whether gold be fixed or
no; because, as before, there is no necessary connexion or
inconsistence to be discovered betwixt a complex idea of a body
yellow, heavy, fusible, malleable; betwixt these, I say, and
fixedness; so that I may certainly know, that in whatsoever body these
are found, there fixedness is sure to be.
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