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.
