10. Ideas of mixed modes most liable to be false in this sense.
Complex ideas are much more liable to be false in
this respect; and the complex ideas of mixed modes, much more than those of substances; because in substances
(especially those which the common and unborrowed names of any language are applied to) some remarkable
sensible qualities, serving ordinarily to distinguish one sort from another, easily preserve those who take any care
in the use of their words, from applying them to sorts of substances to which they do not at all belong. But in
mixed modes we are much more uncertain; it being not so easy to determine of several actions, whether they are
to be called justice or cruelty, liberality or prodigality. And so in referring our ideas to those of other men, called
by the same names, ours may be false; and the idea in our minds, which we express by the word justice, may
perhaps be that which ought to have another name.
