very sounds. For to hope to produce an idea of light or color, by a sound however formed, is to expect that sounds should be visible and colors audible, and to make the ears do the office of all the other senses; which is all one as to say that we might taste, smell, and see by the ears, a sort of philosophy worthy of Sancho Pança, who had the faculty to see Dulcinea by hearsay. A studious blind man, who had mightily beat his head about visible objects, and made use of the explication of his books and friends to understand those names of light and colors which often came in his way, bragged one day that he understood what scarlet signified; and on his friend demanding what scarlet was? the blind man answered, It was like the sound of a trumpet. Just such an understanding of the name of any other simple idea will he have, who hopes to get it only from a definition, or other words made use of to explain it.

The case is quite otherwise in complex ideas, which consisting of several simple ones, it is in the power of words standing for the several ideas that make that composition, to imprint complex ideas on the mind which were never there before, and may be defined, provided that none of the terms of the definition stand for any such simple ideas, which he, to whom the explication is made, has never yet had in his thoughts. Thus the word statue may be explained to a blind man by other words, when picture cannot; his senses having given him the idea of figure, but not of colors; which words therefore cannot excite in him.

He that should use the word rainbow to one who knew the colors, but had not seen the phenomenon, might define the word so as to make it understood: but that definition could never make a blind man understand it.

When by means of experience we have our minds stored with simple ideas, and know the names for them, then we are in a condition to define: but when any

Locke.

term stands for a simple idea that a man has never yet had in his mind, it is impossible by words to make known its meaning to him.

But the names of simple ideas, though undefinable, are generally less doubtful than those of mixed modes and substances; because standing for one simple perception, men for the most part agree in their signification. There is not a multiplicity of simple ideas to be put together, which makes the doubtfulness in the names of mixed modes, nor a supposed unknown essence, which makes the difficulty in the names of substances.

This farther may be observed concerning simple ideas and their names, that they have but few ascents in linea predicamentali, as it is called, that is, from the lowest species to the highest genus; for the lowest species being but one simple idea, nothing can be left out of it, so that it shall agree with some other simple idea in a common name. Nothing can be left out of the ideas of white and red to make them agree in appearance, and so have a common name; but the com→ plex idea of man, leaving out his rationality, agrees with brute in the more general idea and name of animal. When, to avoid enumerations, men would comprehend several simple ideas under one name, they use a word which denotes the mode of acquiring them; for to comprehend white, red, and yellow under the name of color, signifies that such ideas are acquired by sight: but to comprehend both colors, sounds, and the like simple ideas under a more general term, they use a word which signifies all such as we acquire by only one sense. And so the general term quality, in its ordinary acceptation, comprehends colors, sounds, tastes, smells, and tangible qualities, with distinction from extension, number, motion, pleasure and pain, which make impressions on the mind, and introduce their ideas by more senses than one. The names of simple ideas, substances, and mixed modes have also

this difference; that those of mixed modes stand for ideas perfectly arbitrary; those of substances are not perfectly so, but refer to a pattern, though with some latitude; and those of simple ideas are not arbitrary at all. The names of simple modes differ little from those of simple ideas.

CHAPTER V.

Of the Names of mixed Modes and Relations.

The names of mixed modes stand for species of things, each of which has its essence. The essences of these species are nothing but abstract ideas to which the name is annexed. Thus far the names and essences of mixed modes have nothing but what is common to them with other ideas: but taking a nearer survey, we shall find that they have something peculiar which may deserve our attention.

Abstract ideas, or the essences of the several species of mixed modes, are made by the understanding, wherein they differ from simple ideas, which are only received from objects presented to the mind. In the next place, they are not only made, but made arbitrarily, wherein they differ from those of substances, which carry with them the supposition of some real being. But in its complex ideas of mixed modes the mind follows not the existence of things exactly, nor does. it verify them by patterns containing such peculiar compositions in nature.

To understand this aright we must consider wherein this making of these complex ideas consists; that it is not in making new ideas, but putting together those which the mind had before: wherein the mind, 1. chooses a certain number; 2. gives them a connexion; 3. ties them together by a name.

Nobody can doubt but that these ideas of mixed modes are voluntarily made by the mind, independent of any original patterns in nature, who will reflect that this

sort of complex ideas may be made and have names, and a species be constituted, before any individuals of the species ever existed. The ideas of sacrilege and adultery might be framed before either of them was committed; and we cannot doubt that lawmakers have often made laws about species of actions that were only the creatures of their own understanding; and nobody can deny but that the resurrection was a species of mixed modes in the mind before it existed.

A little looking into these mixed modes will satisfy us that the mind makes them the essence of a certain species, without regulating itself by any connexion they have in nature. For what greater connexion has the idea of a man than the idea of a sheep with killing; that this was made a particular species of action, signified by the word murder, and the other not? Or what union is there in nature, between the idea of the relation of a father with killing, than that of a son or neighbor, that those are combined into one complex idea, and thereby made the essence of the distinct species parricide, while the other make no distinct species at all? It is evident then that the mind by its free choice gives a connexion to a certain number of ideas, which in nature have no more union with one another than others it leaves out.

But though these complex ideas are made by the mind with great liberty, yet they are not made at random; and though not always copied from nature, yet they are always suited to the end for which they are made. The use of language is by short sounds to signify general conceptions. In making mixed modes men therefore have had regard to such combinations as they had occasion to mention to one another. It suffices that men make and name so many complex ideas of these mixed modes, as they find they have occasion to have names for in the ordinary occurrence of their affairs. If they join to the idea of killing, the idea of father or mother, and so make a distinct species from

killing a man's son or neighbor, it is because of the different heinousness of the crime, and the distinct punishment due to it; and therefore they find it necessary to mention it by a distinct name.

A moderate skill in different languages will easily satisfy one of the truth of this, it being so obvious to observe great store of words in one language, which have not any that answer them in another: which shows that the customs of one country have given occasion to make complex ideas which other people have never collected into specific ideas. The terms of our law will hardly find words that answer them in the Spanish or Italian and the versura of the Romans, and the corban of the Jews, have no words in other languages to answer them. There are no ideas more common and less compounded than the measure of time, extension, and weight; and the Latin names, hora, pes, libra, are without difficulty rendered by the English names hour, foot, pound; but the ideas a Roman annexed to these Latin names were far different from those which an Englishman expresses by those English ones; and much more is this the case in more abstract ideas, such as generally make up moral discourses. The reason why I take so particular notice of this is, that we may not be mistaken about genera and species, and their essences, as if they were things regularly made by nature, when they appear to be nothing but an artifice of the understanding for signifying such collections of ideas as it should have occasion to communicate by one general term.

The near relation that there is between species, essences, and their general name, will appear when we consider that it is the name that preserves those essences and gives them their lasting duration. What a vast variety of different ideas does the word triumphus hold together and deliver to us as one species! Without the name we might have had a description of what passed in that solemnity, but it is the word that holds