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.


5. 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