University of Virginia Library

Search this document 
  
  
  
  

expand section 
expand section1. 
expand section2. 
collapse section3. 
expand section1. 
expand section2. 
expand section3. 
expand section4. 
collapse section5. 
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
13. Their being made by the understanding without patterns, shows the reason why they are so compounded.
  
  
  
expand section6. 
expand section7. 
expand section8. 
expand section9. 
expand section10. 
expand section11. 
expand section4. 

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.