THe ordinary Words of Language, and our common use of them, would have given us light into the nature of our Ideas, if they had been but considered with attention The Mind, as has been shewn, has a power to abstract its Ideas, and so they become Essences, general Essences, whereby the Sorts of Things are distinguished: Now each abstract Idea being distinct, so that the one can never be the other, the Mind will, by its intuitive Knowledge, perceive their difference; and therefore in Propositions, no two whole Ideas can ever be affirmed one of another. This we see in the common use of Language, which permits not any two abstract Words, or Names of abstract Ideas, to be affirmed one of another. For how near of kin soever they may seem to be, and how certain soever it is, that Man is an Animal, or rational, or white, yet every one, at first hearing, perceives the falshood of these Propositions; Humanity is Animality, or Rationality, or Whiteness: And this is as evident, as any of the most allow'd Maxims. All our Affirmations then are only in concrete, which is the affirming, not one abstract Idea to be another, but one abstract Idea be join'd to another; which abstract Ideas, in Substances, may be of any sort; in all the rest, are little else but of Relations; and in Substances, the most frequent are of Powers; v. g. a Man is white, signifies, that the thing that has the Essence of a Man, has also in it the Essence of Whiteness, which is nothing but a power to produce the Idea of Whiteness in one, whose Eyes can discover ordinary Objects; or a Man is rational, signifies, that the same thing that hath the Essence of a Man, hath also in it the Essence of Rationality, i. e. a power of Reasoning.
This distinction of Names, shews us also the difference of our Ideas: For if we observe them, we shall find, that our simple Ideas have all abstract, as well as concrete Names: The one whereof is (to speak the Language of Grammarians) a Substantive, the other an Adjective; as Whiteness, White; Sweetness, Sweet. The like also holds in our Ideas of Modes and Relations; as Justice, Just; Equality, Equal; only with this difference, That some of the concrete Names of Relations, amongst Men chiefly, are Substantives; as Paternitas, Pater; whereof it were easie to render a Reason. But as to our Ideas of Substances, we have very few or no abstract Names at all. For though the Schools have introduced Animalitas, Humanitas, Corporietas, and some others; yet they hold no proportion with that infinite number of Names of Substances, to which they never were rediculous enough to attempt the coining of abstract ones: and those few that the Schools forged, and put into the mouths of their Scholars, could never yet get admittance into common use, or obtain the license of publick approbation. Which seems to me at least to intimate the confession of all Mankind, that they have no Ideas of the real Essences of Substances, since they have not Names for such Ideas: which no doubt they would have had, had not their consciousness to themselves of their ignorance of them, kept them from so idle an attempt. And therefore though they had Ideas enough to distinguish Gold from a Stone, and Metal from Wood; yet they but timerously ventured on such terms, as Aurietas and Saxietas, Metallietas and Lignietas, or the like names, which should pretend to signifie the real Essences of those Substances, whereof they knew they had no Idea. And indeed, it was only the Doctrine of substantial Forms, and the confidence of shameless Pretenders to a knowledge that they had not, which first coined, and then introduced Animalitas, and Humanitas, and the like; which yet went very little farther than their own Schools, and could never get to be current amongst understanding Men. Indeed, Humanitas was a Word, familiar amongst the Romans; but in a far different sense, and stood not for the abstract Essence of any Substance; but was the abstract Name of a Mode, and its concrete Humanus, not Homo.