into certain classes under names, by their real essences,
that are so far from our discovery or comprehension. A blind man may as
soon sort things by their colours, and he that has lost his smell as
well distinguish a lily and a rose by their odours, as by those internal
constitutions which he knows not. He that thinks he can distinguish
sheep and goats by their real essences, that are unknown to him, may
be pleased to try his skill in those species called CASSIOWARY and
QUERECHINCHIO; and by their internal real essences determine the
boundaries of those species, without knowing the complex idea of
sensible qualities that each of those names stand for, in the countries
where those animals are to be found.

10. Not the substantial Form, which know Not.

Those, therefore, who have been taught that the several species of
substances had their distinct internal SUBSTANTIAL FORMS, and that it
was those FORMS which made the distinction of substances into their true
species and genera, were led yet further out of the way by having their
minds set upon fruitless inquiries after 'substantial forms'; wholly
unintelligible, and whereof we have scarce so much as any obscure or
confused conception in general.

11. That the Nominal Essence is that only whereby we distinguish Species
of Substances, further evident, from our ideas of finite Spirits and of
God.

That our ranking and distinguishing natural substances into species
consists in the nominal essences the mind makes, and not in the real
essences to be found in the things themselves, is further evident from
our ideas of spirits. For the mind getting, only by reflecting on its
own operations, those simple ideas which it attributes to spirits, it
hath or can have no other notion of spirit but by attributing all those
operations it finds in itself to a sort of beings; without consideration
of matter. And even the most advanced notion we have of GOD is but
attributing the same simple ideas which we have got from reflection on
what we find in ourselves, and which we conceive to have more perfection
in them than would be in their absence; attributing, I say, those simple
ideas to Him in an unlimited degree. Thus, having got from reflecting on
ourselves the idea of existence, knowledge, power and pleasure--each of
which we find it better to have than to want; and the more we have of
each the better--joining all these together, with infinity to each of
them, we have the complex