thereby made the essence of the distinct species PARRICIDE, whilst the
other makes no distinct species at all? But, though they have made
killing a man's father or mother a distinct species from killing his son
or daughter, yet, in some other cases, son and daughter are taken in
too, as well as father and mother: and they are all equally comprehended
in the same species, as in that of INCEST. Thus the mind in mixed modes
arbitrarily unites into complex ideas such as it finds convenient;
whilst others that have altogether as much union in nature are left
loose, and never combined into one idea, because they have no need of
one name. It is evident then that the mind, by its free choice, gives
a connexion to a certain number of ideas, which in nature have no more
union with one another than others that it leaves out: why else is the
part of the weapon the beginning of the wound is made with taken notice
of, to make the distinct species called STABBING, and the figure and
matter of the weapon left out? I do not say this is done without reason,
as we shall see more by and by; but this I say, that it is done by the
free choice of the mind, pursuing its own ends; and that, therefore,
these species of mixed modes are the workmanship of the understanding.
And there is nothing more evident than that, for the most part, in the
framing these ideas, the mind searches not its patterns in nature, nor
refers the ideas it makes to the real existence of things, but puts such
together as may best serve its own purposes, without tying itself to a
precise imitation of anything that really exists.


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