1. Mixed modes stand for abstract ideas, as other general names. The names of mixed modes,
being general, they stand, as has been shewed, for sorts or species of things, each of which has its
peculiar essence. The essences of these species also, as has been shewed, are nothing but the
abstract ideas in the mind, 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 if we take a little
nearer survey of them, we shall find that they have something peculiar, which perhaps may deserve
our attention.
2. First, The abstract ideas they stand for are made by the understanding. The first particularity I
shall observe in them, is, that the abstract ideas, or, if you please, the essences, of the several
species of mixed modes, are made by the understanding, wherein they differ from those of simple
ideas: in which sort the mind has no power to make any one, but only receives such as are
presented to it by the real existence of things operating upon it.
3. Secondly, made arbitrarily, and without patterns. In the next place, these essences of the species
of mixed modes are not only made by the mind, but made very arbitrarily, made without patterns, or
reference to any real existence. Wherein they differ from those of substances, which carry with them
the supposition of some real being, from which they are taken, and to which they are comformable.
But, in its complex ideas of mixed modes, the mind takes a liberty not to follow the existence of
things exactly. It unites and retains certain collections, as so many distinct specific ideas; whilst
others, that as often occur in nature, and are as plainly suggested by outward things, pass
neglected, without particular names or specifications. Nor does the mind, in these of mixed modes,
as in the complex idea of substances, examine them by the real existence of things; or verify them
by patterns containing such peculiar compositions in nature. To know whether his idea of adultery or
incest be right, will a man seek it anywhere amongst things existing? Or is it true because any one
has been witness to such an action? No: but it suffices here, that men have put together such a
collection into one complex idea, that makes the archetype and specific idea, whether ever any such
action were committed in rerum natura or no.
4. How this is done. To understand this right, we must consider wherein this making of these
complex ideas consists; and that is not in the making any new idea, but putting together those which
the mind had before. Wherein the mind does these three things: First, It chooses a certain number;
Secondly, It gives them connexion, and makes them into one idea; Thirdly, It ties them together by a
name. If we examine how the mind proceeds in these, and what liberty it takes in them, we shall
easily observe how these essences of the species of mixed modes are the workmanship of the
mind; and, consequently, that the species themselves are of men's making. Evidently arbitrary, in
that the idea is often before the existence. Nobody can doubt but that these ideas of mixed modes
are made by a voluntary collection of ideas, put together in the mind, independent from any original
patterns in nature, who will but reflect that this sort of complex ideas may be made, abstracted, and
have names given them, and so a species be constituted, before any one individual of that species
ever existed. Who can doubt but the ideas of sacrilege or adultery might be framed in the minds of
men, and have names given them, and so these species of mixed modes be constituted, before
either of them was ever committed; and might be as well discoursed of and reasoned about, and as
certain truths discovered of them, whilst yet they had no being but in the understanding, as well as
now, that they have but too frequently a real existence? Whereby it is plain how much the sorts of
mixed modes are the creatures of the understanding, where they have a being as subservient to all
the ends of real truth and knowledge, as when they really exist. And we cannot doubt but law-
makers have often made laws about species of actions which were only the creatures of their own
understandings; beings that had no other existence but in their own minds. And I think nobody can
deny but that the resurrection was a species of mixed modes in the mind, before it really existed.
6. Instances: murder, incest, stabbing. To see how arbitrarily these essences of mixed modes are
made by the mind, we need but take a view of almost any of them. A little looking into them will
satisfy us, that it is the mind that combines several scattered independent ideas into one complex
one; and, by the common name it gives them, makes them the essence of a certain species, without
regulating itself by any connexion they have in nature. For what greater connexion in nature has the
idea of a man than the idea of a sheep with killing, that this is 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 neighbour, that those are combined into
one complex idea, and thereby made the essence of the distinct species parricide, whilst the other
makes no distinct species at all? But, though they have made killing a man's father or mother a
distinct species from killing his son or daughter, yet, in some other cases, son and daughter are
taken in too, as well as father and mother: and they are all equally comprehended in the same
species, as in that of incest. Thus the mind in mixed modes arbitrarily unites into complex ideas
such as it finds convenient; whilst others that have altogether as much union in nature are left loose,
and never combined into one idea, because they have no need of one name. 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 that it leaves out: why else is the part of the weapon the
beginning of the wound is made with taken notice of, to make the distinct species called stabbing,
and the figure and matter of the weapon left out? I do not say this is done without reason, as we
shall see more by and by; but this I say, that it is done by the free choice of the mind, pursuing its
own ends; and that, therefore, these species of mixed modes are the workmanship of the
understanding. And there is nothing more evident than that, for the most part, in the framing of these
ideas, the mind searches not its patterns in nature, nor refers the ideas it makes to the real
existence of things, but puts such together as may best serve its own purposes, without tying itself
to a precise imitation of anything that really exists.
7. But still subservient to the end of language, and not made at random. But, though these complex
ideas or essences of mixed modes depend on the mind, and are made by it with great liberty, yet
they are not made at random, and jumbled together without any reason at all. Though these
complex ideas be not always copied from nature, yet they are always suited to the end for which
abstract ideas are made: and though they be combinations made of ideas that are loose enough,
and have as little union in themselves as several others to which the mind never gives a connexion
that combines them into one idea; yet they are always made for the convenience of communication,
which is the chief end of language. The use of language is, by short sounds, to signify with ease and
dispatch general conceptions; wherein not only abundance of particulars may be contained, but also
a great variety of independent ideas collected into one complex one. In the making therefore of the
species of mixed modes, men have had regard only to such combinations as they had occasion to
mention one to another. Those they have combined into distinct complex ideas, and given names
to; whilst others, that in nature have as near a union, are left loose and unregarded. For, to go no
further than human actions themselves, if they would make distinct abstract ideas of all the varieties
which might be observed in them, the number must be infinite, and the memory confounded with the
plenty, as well as overcharged to little purpose. 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 neighbour, it is because of the different
heinousness of the crime, and the distinct punishment is, due to the murdering a man's father and
mother, different to what ought to be inflicted on the murderer of a son or neighbour; and therefore
they find it necessary to mention it by a distinct name, which is the end of making that distinct
combination. But though the ideas of mother and daughter are so differently treated, in reference to
the idea of killing, that the one is joined with it to make a distinct abstract idea with a name, and so a
distinct species, and the other not; yet, in respect of carnal knowledge, they are both taken in under
incest: and that still for the same convenience of expressing under one name, and reckoning of one
species, such unclean mixtures as have a peculiar turpitude beyond others; and this to avoid
circumlocutions and tedious descriptions.
8. Whereof the intranslatable words of divers languages are a proof. 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 plainly shows that
those of one country, by their customs and manner of life, have found occasion to make several
complex ideas, and given names to them, which others never collected into specific ideas. This
could not have happened if these species were the steady workmanship of nature, and not
collections made and abstracted by the mind, in order to naming, and for the convenience of
communication. The terms of our law, which are not empty sounds, will hardly find words that
answer them in the Spanish or Italian, no scanty languages; much less, I think, could any one
translate them into the Caribbee or Westoe tongues: and the versura of the Romans, or corban of
the Jews, have no words in other languages to answer them; the reason whereof is plain, from what
has been said. Nay, if we look a little more nearly into this matter, and exactly compare different
languages, we shall find that, though they have words which in translations and dictionaries are
supposed to answer one another, yet there is scarce one of ten amongst the names of complex
ideas, especially of mixed modes, that stands for the same precise idea which the word does that in
dictionaries it is rendered by. There are no ideas more common and less compounded than the
measures of time, extension and weight; and the Latin names, hora, pes, libra, are without difficulty
rendered by the English names, hour, foot, and pound: but yet there is nothing more evident than
that the ideas a Roman annexed to these Latin names, were very far different from those which an
Englishman expresses by those English ones. And if either of these should make use of the
measures that those of the other language designed by their names, he would be quite out in his
account. These are too sensible proofs to be doubted; and we shall find this much more so in the
names of more abstract and compounded ideas, such as are the greatest part of those which make
up moral discourses: whose names, when men come curiously to compare with those they are
translated into, in other languages, they will find very few of them exactly to correspond in the whole
extent of their significations.
9. This shows species to be made for communication. 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 and constantly made by nature, and had a real existence in things; when they
appear, upon a more wary survey, to be nothing else but an artifice of the understanding, for the
easier signifying such collections of ideas as it should often have occasion to communicate by one
general term; under which divers particulars, as far forth as they agreed to that abstract idea, might
be comprehended. And if the doubtful signification of the word species may make it sound harsh to
some, that I say the species of mixed modes are "made by the understanding"; yet, I think, it can by
nobody be denied that it is the mind makes those abstract complex ideas to which specific names
are given. And if it be true, as it is, that the mind makes the patterns for sorting and naming of
things, I leave it to be considered who makes the boundaries of the sort or species; since with me
species and sort have no other difference than that of a Latin and English idiom.
10. In mixed modes it is the name that ties the combination of simple ideas together, and makes it a
species. The near relation that there is between species, essences, and their general name, at least
in mixed modes, will further appear when we consider, that it is the name that seems to preserve
those essences, and give them their lasting duration. For, the connexion between the loose parts of
those complex ideas being made by the mind, this union, which has no particular foundation in
nature, would cease again, were there not something that did, as it were, hold it together, and keep
the parts from scattering. Though therefore it be the mind that makes the collection, it is the name
which is as it were the knot that ties them fast together. What a vast variety of different ideas does
the word triumphus hold together, and deliver to us as one species! Had this name been never
made, or quite lost, we might, no doubt, have had descriptions of what passed in that solemnity: but
yet, I think, that which holds those different parts together, in the unity of one complex idea, is that
very word annexed to it; without which the several parts of that would no more be thought to make
one thing, than any other show, which having never been made but once, had never been united
into one complex idea, under one denomination. How much, therefore, in mixed modes, the unity
necessary to any essence depends on the mind; and how much the continuation and fixing of that
unity depends on the name in common use annexed to it, I leave to be considered by those who
look upon essences and species as real established things in nature.
11. Suitable to this, we find that men speaking of mixed modes, seldom imagine or take any other
for species of them, but such as are set out by name: because they, being of man's making only, in
order to naming, no such species are taken notice of, or supposed to be, unless a name be joined to
it, as the sign of man's having combined into one idea several loose ones; and by that name giving
a lasting union to the parts which would otherwise cease to have any, as soon as the mind laid by
that abstract idea, and ceased actually to think on it. But when a name is once annexed to it,
wherein the parts of that complex idea have a settled and permanent union, then is the essence, as
it were, established, and the species looked on as complete. For to what purpose should the
memory charge itself with such compositions, unless it were by abstraction to make them general?
And to what purpose make them general, unless it were that they might have general names for the
convenience of discourse and communication? Thus we see, that killing a man with a sword or a
hatchet are looked on as no distinct species of action; but if the point of the sword first enter the
body, it passes for a distinct species, where it has a distinct name, as in England, in whose
language it is called stabbing: but in another country, where it has not happened to be specified
under a peculiar name, it passes not for a distinct species. But in the species of corporeal
substances, though it be the mind that makes the nominal essence, yet, since those ideas which are
combined in it are supposed to have an union in nature whether the mind joins them or not,
therefore those are looked on as distinct species, without any operation of the mind, either
abstracting, or giving a name to that complex idea.
12. For the originals of our mixed modes, we look no further than the mind; which also shows them
to he the workmanship of the understanding. Conformable also to what has been said concerning
the essences of the species of mixed modes, that they are the creatures of the understanding rather
than the works of nature; conformable, I say, to this, we find that their names lead our thoughts to
the mind, and no further. When we speak of justice, or gratitude, we frame to ourselves no
imagination of anything existing, which we would conceive; but our thoughts terminate in the
abstract ideas of those virtues, and look not further; as they do when we speak of a horse, or iron,
whose specific ideas we consider not as barely in the mind, but as in things themselves, which
afford the original patterns of those ideas. But in mixed modes, at least the most considerable parts
of them, which are moral beings, we consider the original patterns as being in the mind, and to
those we refer for the distinguishing of particular beings under names. And hence I think it is that
these essences of the species of mixed modes are by a more particular name called notions; as, by
a peculiar right, appertaining to the understanding.
13. Their being made by the understanding without patterns, shows the reason why they are so
compounded. Hence, likewise, we may learn why the complex ideas of mixed modes are commonly
more compounded and decompounded than those of natural substances. Because they being the
workmanship of the understanding, pursuing only its own ends, and the conveniency of expressing
in short those ideas it would make known to another, it does with great liberty unite often into one
abstract idea things that, in their nature, have no coherence; and so under one term bundle together
a great variety of compounded and decompounded ideas. Thus the name of procession: what a
great mixture of independent ideas of persons, habits, tapers, orders, motions, sounds, does it
contain in that complex one, which the mind of man has arbitrarily put together, to express by that
one name? Whereas the complex ideas of the sorts of substances are usually made up of only a
small number of simple ones; and in the species of animals, these two, viz., shape and voice,
commonly make the whole nominal essence.
14. Names of mixed modes stand always for their real essences, which are the workmanship of our
minds. Another thing we may observe from what has been said is, That the names of mixed modes
always signify (when they have any determined signification) the real essences of their species. For,
these abstract ideas being the workmanship of the mind, and not referred to the real existence of
things, there is no supposition of anything more signified by that name, but barely that complex idea
the mind itself has formed; which is all it would have expressed by it; and is that on which all the
properties of the species depend, and from which alone they all flow: and so in these the real and
nominal essence is the same; which, of what concernment it is to the certain knowledge of general
truth, we shall see hereafter.
15. Why their names are usually got before their ideas. This also may show us the reason why for
the most part the names of fixed modes are got before the ideas they stand for are perfectly known.
Because there being no species of these ordinarily taken notice of but what have names, and those
species, or rather their essences, being abstract complex ideas, made arbitrarily by the mind, it is
convenient, if not necessary, to know the names, before one endeavour to frame these complex
ideas: unless a man will fill his head with a company of abstract complex ideas, which, others
having no names for, he has nothing to do with, but to lay by and forget again. I confess that, in the
beginning of languages, it was necessary to have the idea before one gave it the name: and so it is
still, where, making a new complex idea, one also, by giving it a new name, makes a new word. But
this concerns not languages made, which have generally pretty well provided for ideas which men
have frequent occasion to have and communicate; and in such, I ask whether it be not the ordinary
method, that children learn the names of mixed modes before they have their ideas? What one of a
thousand ever frames the abstract ideas of glory and ambition, before he has heard the names of
them? In simple ideas and substances I grant it is otherwise, which, being such ideas as have a real
existence and union in nature, the ideas and names are got one before the other, as it happens.
16. Reason of my being so large on this subject. What has been said here of mixed modes is, with
very little difference, applicable also to relations; which, since every man himself may observe, I may
spare myself the pains to enlarge on: especially, since what I have here said concerning Words in
this third Book, will possibly be thought by some to be much more than what so slight a subject
required. I al ow it might be brought into a narrower compass; but I was willing to stay my reader on
an argument that appears to me new and a little out of the way, (I am sure it is one I thought not of
when I began to write,) that, by searching it to the bottom, and turning it on every side, some part or
other might meet with every one's thoughts, and give occasion to the most averse or negligent to
reflect on a general miscarriage, which, though of great consequence, is little taken notice of. When
it is considered what a pudder is made about essences, and how much all sorts of knowledge,
discourse, and conversation are pestered and disordered by the careless and confused use and
application of words, it will perhaps be thought worth while thoroughly to lay it open. And I shall be
pardoned if I have dwelt long on an argument which I think, therefore, needs to be inculcated,
because the faults men are usually guilty of in this kind, are not only the greatest hindrances of true
knowledge, but are so wel thought of as to pass for it. Men would often see what a small pittance of
reason and truth, or possibly none at all, is mixed with those huffing opinions they are swelled with;
if they would but look beyond fashionable sounds, and observe what ideas are or are not
comprehended under those words with which they are so armed at all points, and with which they so
confidently lay about them. I shall imagine I have done some service to truth, peace, and learning, if,
by any enlargement on this subject, I can make men reflect on their own use of language; and give
them reason to suspect, that, since it is frequent for others, it may also be possible for them, to have
sometimes very good and approved words in their mouths and writings, with very uncertain, little, or
no signification. And therefore it is not unreasonable for them to be wary herein themselves, and not
to be unwilling to have them examined by others. With this design, therefore, I shall go on with what
I have further to say concerning this matter.