hich gives a right to
that name; the having the essence, and the having that conformity, must
needs be the same thing: since to be of any species, and to have a right
to the name of that species, is all one. As, for example, to be a MAN,
or of the SPECIES man, and to have right to the NAME man, is the same
thing. Again, to be a man, or of the species man, and have the ESSENCE
of a man, is the same thing. Now, since nothing can be a man, or have a
right to the name man, but what has a conformity to the abstract idea
the name man stands for, nor anything be a man, or have a right to the
species man, but what has the essence of that species; it follows, that
the abstract idea for which the name stands, and the essence of the
species, is one and the same. From whence it is easy to observe, that
the essences of the sorts of things, and, consequently, the sorting of
things, is the workmanship of the understanding that abstracts and makes
those general ideas.

13. They are the Workmanship of the Understanding, but have their
Foundation in the Similitude of Things.

I would not here be thought to forget, much less to deny, that Nature,
in the production of things, makes several of them alike: there is
nothing more obvious, especially in the races of animals, and all things
propagated by seed. But yet I think we may say, THE SORTING OF THEM
UNDER NAMES IS THE WORKMANSHIP OF THE UNDERSTANDING, TAKING OCCASION,
FROM THE SIMILITUDE IT OBSERVES AMONGST THEM, TO MAKE ABSTRACT GENERAL
IDEAS, and set them up in the mind, with names annexed to them, as
patterns or forms, (for, in that sense, the word FORM has a very proper
signification,) to which as particular things existing are found to
agree, so they come to be of that species, have that denomination, or
are put into that CLASSIS. For when we say this is a man, that a horse;
this justice, that cruelty; this a watch, that a jack; what do we else
but rank things under different specific names, as agreeing to those
abstract ideas, of which we have made those names the signs? And what
are the essences of those species set out and marked by names, but those
abstract ideas in the mind; which are, as it were, the bonds between
particular things that exist, and the names they are to be ranked under?
And when general names have any connexion with particular beings, these
abstract ideas are the medium that unites them: so that the essences of
species, as distinguished and denominated by us