An Essay Concerning Humane Understanding Vol II Chapter V. - Of the Names of Mixed Modes and Relations
by John Locke
1. Mixed modes stand for abstract Ideas, as other general Names.
The names of MIXED MODES, being general, they stand, as has been shewed,
for sorts or species of things, each of which has its peculiar essence.
The essences of these species also, as has been shewed, are nothing but
the abstract ideas in the mind, to which the name is annexed. Thus far
the names and essences of mixed modes have nothing but what is common to
them with other ideas: but if we take a little nearer survey of them, we
shall find that they have something peculiar, which perhaps may deserve
our attention.
2. First, The abstract Ideas they stand for are made by the
Understanding.
The first particularity I shall observe in them, is, that the abstract
ideas, or, if you please, the essences, of the several species of mixed
modes, are MADE BY THE UNDERSTANDING, wherein they differ from those of
simple ideas: in which sort the mind has no power to make any one, but
only receives such as are presented to it by the real existence of
things operating upon it.
3. Secondly, Made arbitrarily, and without Patterns.
In the next place, these essences of the species of mixed modes are not
only made by the mind, but MADE VERY ARBITRARILY, MADE WITHOUT PATTERNS,
OR REFERENCE TO ANY REAL EXISTENCE. Wherein they differ from those of
substances, which carry with them the supposition of some real being,
from which they are taken, and to which they are conformable. But, in
its complex ideas of mixed modes, the mind takes a liberty not to
follow the existence of things exactly. It unites and retains certain
collections, as so many distinct specific ideas; whilst others, that as
often occur in nature, and are as plainly suggested by outward things,
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
them, and so a species be constituted, before any one individual of
that species ever existed. Who can doubt but the ideas of SACRILEGE or
ADULTERY might be framed in the minds of men, and have names given them,
and so these species of mixed modes be constituted, before either of
them was ever committed; and might be as well discoursed of and reasoned
about, and as certain truths discovered of them, whilst yet they had no
being but in the understanding, as well as now, that they have but too
frequently a real existence? Whereby it is plain how much the sorts of
mixed modes are the creatures of the understanding, where they have a
being as subservient to all the ends of real truth and knowledge, as
when they really exist. And we cannot doubt but law-makers have often
made laws about species of actions which were only the creatures of
their own understandings; beings that had no other existence but in
their own minds. And I think nobody can deny but that the RESURRECTION
was a species of mixed modes in the mind, before it really existed.
6. Instances: Murder, Incest, Stabbing.
To see how arbitrarily these essences of mixed modes are made by the
mind, we need but take a view of almost any of them. A little looking
into them will satisfy us, that it is the mind that combines several
scattered independent ideas into one complex one; and, by the common
name it gives them, makes them the essence of a certain species, without
regulating itself by any connexion they have in nature. For what greater
connexion in nature has the idea of a man than the idea of a sheep with
killing, that this is made a particular species of action, signified by
the word MURDER, and the other not? Or what union is there in nature
between the idea of the relation of a father with killing than that of
a son or neighbour, that those are combined into one complex idea, and
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
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 other 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 murder 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.
8. Whereof the intranslatable Words of divers Languages are a Proof.
A moderate skill in different languages will easily satisfy one of the
truth of this, it being so obvious to observe great store of words in
one language which have not any that answer them in another. Which
plainly shows that those of one country, by their customs and manner of
life, have found occasion to make several complex ideas, and given names
to them, which others never collected into specific ideas. This could
not have happened if these species were the steady workmanship of
nature, and not collections made and abstracted by the mind, in order to
naming, and for the convenience of communication. The terms of our law,
which are not empty sounds, will hardly find words that answer them in
the Spanish or Italian, no scanty languages; much less, I think, could
any one translate them into the Caribbee or Westoe tongues: and the
VERSURA of the Romans, or CORBAN of the Jews, have no words in other
languages to answer them; the reason whereof is plain, from what has
been said. Nay, if we look a little more nearly into this matter, and
exactly compare different languages, we shall find that, though they
have words which in translations and dictionaries are supposed to answer
one another, yet there is scarce one often amongst the names of complex
ideas, especially of mixed modes, that stands for the same precise idea
which the word does that in dictionaries it is rendered by. There are
no ideas more common and less compounded than the measures of time,
extension, and weight; and the Latin names, HORA, PES, LIBRA, are
without difficulty rendered by the English names, HOUR, FOOT, and POUND:
but yet there is nothing more evident than that the ideas a Roman
annexed to these Latin names, were very far different from those which
an Englishman expresses by those English ones. And if either of these
should make use of the measures that those of the other language
designed by their names, he would be quite out in his account. These are
too sensible proofs to be doubted; and we shall find this much more so
in the names of more abstract and compounded ideas, such as are the
greatest part of those which make up moral discourses: whose names, when
men come curiously to compare with those they are translated into, in
other languages, they will find very few of them exactly to correspond
in the whole extent of their significations.
9. This shows Species to be made for Communication.
The reason why I take so particular notice of this is, that we may not
be mistaken about GENERA and SPECIES, and their ESSENCES, as if they
were things regularly and constantly made by nature, and had a real
existence in things; when they appear, upon a more wary survey, to
be nothing else but an artifice of the understanding, for the easier
signifying such collections of ideas as it should often have occasion to
communicate by one general term; under which divers particulars, as far
forth as they agreed to that abstract idea, might be comprehended. And
if the doubtful signification of the word SPECIES may make it sound
harsh to some, that I say the species of mixed modes are 'made by the
understanding'; yet, I think, it can by nobody be denied that it is the
mind makes those abstract complex ideas to which specific names are
given. And if it be true, as it is, that the mind makes the patterns for
sorting and naming of things, I leave it to be considered who makes the
boundaries of the sort or species; since with me SPECIES and SORT have
no other difference than that of a Latin and English idiom.
10. In mixed Modes it is the Name that ties the Combination of simple
ideas together, and makes it a Species.
The near relation that there is between SPECIES, ESSENCES, and their
GENERAL NAME, at least in mixed modes, will further appear when we
consider, that it is the name that seems to preserve those essences, and
give them their lasting duration. For, the connexion between the loose
parts of those complex ideas being made by the mind, this union, which
has no particular foundation in nature, would cease again, were there
not something that did, as it were, hold it together, and keep the parts
from scattering. Though therefore it be the mind that makes the
collection, it is the name which is as it were the knot that ties them
fast together. What a vast variety of different ideas does the word
TRIUMPHUS hold together, and deliver to us as one species! Had this name
been never made, or quite lost, we might, no doubt, have had
descriptions of what passed in that solemnity: but yet, I think, that
which holds those different parts together, in the unity of one complex
idea, is that very word annexed to it; without which the several parts
of that would no more be thought to make one thing, than any other show,
which having never been made but once, had never been united into one
complex idea, under one denomination. How much, therefore, in mixed
modes, the unity necessary to any essence depends on the mind; and how
much the continuation and fixing of that unity depends on the name in
common use annexed to it, I leave to be considered by those who look
upon essences and species as real established things in nature.
11.
Suitable to this, we find that men speaking of mixed modes, seldom
imagine or take any other for species of them, but such as are set out
by name: because they, being of man's making only, in order to naming,
no such species are taken notice of, or supposed to be, unless a name be
joined to it, as the sign of man's having combined into one idea several
loose ones; and by that name giving a lasting union to the parts which
would otherwise cease to have any, as soon as the mind laid by that
abstract idea, and ceased actually to think on it. But when a name
is once annexed to it, wherein the parts of that complex idea have
a settled and permanent union, then is the essence, as it were,
established, and the species looked on as complete. For to what purpose
should the memory charge itself with such compositions, unless it were
by abstraction to make them general? And to what purpose make them
general, unless it were that they might have general names for the
convenience of discourse and communication? Thus we see, that killing a
man with a sword or a hatchet are looked on as no distinct species of
action; but if the point of the sword first enter the body, it passes
for a distinct species, where it has a distinct name, as in England, in
whose language it is called STABBING: but in another country, where it
has not happened to be specified under a peculiar name, it passes not
for a distinct species. But in the species of corporeal substances,
though it be the mind that makes the nominal essence, yet, since those
ideas which are combined in it are supposed to have an union in nature
whether the mind joins them or not, therefore those are looked on as
distinct species, without any operation of the mind, either abstracting,
or giving a name to that complex idea.
12. For the Originals of our mixed Modes, we look no further than the
Mind; which also shows them to be the Workmanship of the Understanding.
Conformable also to what has been said concerning the essences of the
species of mixed modes, that they are the creatures of the understanding
rather than the works of nature; conformable, I say, to this, we find
that their names lead our thoughts to the mind, and no further. When we
speak of JUSTICE, or GRATITUDE, we frame to ourselves no imagination of
anything existing, which we would conceive; but our thoughts terminate
in the abstract ideas of those virtues, and look not further; as they do
when we speak of a HORSE, or IRON, whose specific ideas we consider not
as barely in the mind, but as in things themselves, which afford the
original patterns of those ideas. But in mixed modes, at least the most
considerable parts of them, which are moral beings, we consider the
original patterns as being in the mind, and to those we refer for the
distinguishing of particular beings under names. And hence I think it
is that these essences of the species of mixed modes are by a more
particular name called NOTIONS; as, by a peculiar right, appertaining to
the understanding.
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.
14. Names of mixed Modes stand alway for their real Essences, which are
the workmanship of our minds.
Another thing we may observe from what has been said is, That the
names of mixed modes always signify (when they have any determined
signification) the REAL essences of their species. For, these abstract
ideas being the workmanship of the mind, and not referred to the real
existence of things, there is no supposition of anything more signified
by that name, but barely that complex idea the mind itself has formed;
which is all it would have expressed by it; and is that on which all the
properties of the species depend, and from which alone they all flow:
and so in these the real and nominal essence is the same; which, of what
concernment it is to the certain knowledge of general truth, we shall
see hereafter.
15. Why their Names are usually got before their Ideas.
This also may show us the reason why for the most part the names of
mixed modes are got before the ideas they stand for are perfectly known.
Because there being no species of these ordinarily taken notice of but
what have names, and those species, or rather their essences, being
abstract complex ideas, made arbitrarily by the mind, it is convenient,
if not necessary, to know the names, before one endeavour to frame
these complex ideas: unless a man will fill his head with a company
of abstract complex ideas, which, others having no names for, he has
nothing to do with, but to lay by and forget again. I confess that, in
the beginning of languages, it was necessary to have the idea before one
gave it the name: and so it is still, where, making a new complex idea,
one also, by giving it a new name, makes a new word. But this concerns
not languages made, which have generally pretty well provided for ideas
which men have frequent occasion to have and communicate; and in such, I
ask whether it be not the ordinary method, that children learn the names
of mixed modes before they have their ideas? What one of a thousand ever
frames the abstract ideas of GLORY and AMBITION, before he has heard the
names of them? In simple ideas and substances I grant it is otherwise;
which, being such ideas as have a real existence and union in nature,
the ideas and names are got one before the other, as it happens.
16. Reason of my being so large on this Subject.
What has been said here of MIXED MODES is, with very little difference,
applicable also to RELATIONS; which, since every man himself may
observe, I may spare myself the pains to enlarge on: especially, since
what I have here said concerning Words in this third Book, will possibly
be thought by some to this be much more than what so slight a subject
required. I allow it might be brought into a narrower compass; but I was
willing to stay my reader on an argument that appears to me new and a
little out of the way, (I am sure it is one I thought not of when I
began to write,) that, by searching it to the bottom, and turning it on
every side, some part or other might meet with every one's thoughts, and
give occasion to the most averse or negligent to reflect on a general
miscarriage, which, though of great consequence, is little taken notice
of. When it is considered what a pudder is made about ESSENCES, and how
much all sorts of knowledge, discourse, and conversation are pestered
and disordered by the careless and confused use and application of
words, it will perhaps be thought worth while thoroughly to lay it open.
And I shall be pardoned if I have dwelt long on an argument which I
think, therefore, needs to be inculcated, because the faults men are
usually guilty of in this kind, are not only the greatest hindrances of
true knowledge, but are so well thought of as to pass for it. Men would
often see what a small pittance of reason and truth, or possibly none at
all, is mixed with those huffing opinions they are swelled with; if they
would but look beyond fashionable sounds, and observe what IDEAS are or
are not comprehended under those words with which they are so armed at
all points, and with which they so confidently lay about them. I shall
imagine I have done some service to truth, peace, and learning, if, by
any enlargement on this subject, I can make men reflect on their own use
of language; and give them reason to suspect, that, since it is frequent
for others, it may also be possible for them, to have sometimes very
good and approved words in their mouths and writings, with very
uncertain, little, or no signification. And therefore it is not
unreasonable for them to be wary herein themselves, and not to be
unwilling to have them examined by others. With this design, therefore,
I shall go on with what I have further to say concerning this matter.