17. Fifthly, by setting them in the place of what they cannot signify.
V. Fifthly Another abuse of words is the setting them
in the place of things which they do or can by no means signify. We may observe that in the general names of
substances whereof the nominal essences are only known to us when we put them into propositions, and affirm or
deny anything about them, we do most commonly tacitly suppose or intend, they should stand for the real essence
of a certain sort of substances. For, when a man says gold is malleable, he means and would insinuate something
more than this. That what I call gold is malleable, (though truly it amounts to no more,) but would have this
understood, viz., That gold, i.e., what has the real essence of gold, is malleable; which amounts to thus much, that
malleableness depends on, and is inseparable from the real essence of gold. But a man, not knowing wherein that
real essence consists, the connexion in his mind of malleableness is not truly with an essence he knows not, but
only with the sound gold he puts for it. Thus, when we say that animal rationale is, and animal implume bipes latis
unguibus is not a good definition of a man; it is plain we suppose the name man in this case to stand for the real
essence of a species, and would signify that "a rational animal" better described that real essence than "a
two-legged animal with broad nails, and without feathers." For else, why might not Plato as properly make the
word ἄνθρωος, or man, stand for his complex idea, made up of the idea of a body, distinguished from others by a
certain shape and other outward appearances, as Aristotle make the complex idea to which he gave the name
ἄνθρωος, or man, of body and the faculty of reasoning joined together; unless the name ἄνθρωος, or man, were
supposed to stand for something else than what it signifies; and to be put in the place of some other thing than the
idea a man professes he would express by it?
