Imágenes de páginas
PDF
EPUB

23. Species not diftinguifhed by Generation. NOR let any one fay, that the power of propagation in animals by the mixture of male and female, and in plants by feeds, keeps the fuppofed real fpecies diftinct and entire; for granting this to be true, it would help us in the diftinction of the fpecies of things no farther than the tribes of animals and vegetables. What must we do for. the reft? But in thofe two it is not fufficient; for, if hiftory lie not, women have conceived by drills; and what real fpecies, by that measure, fuch a production will be in nature, will be a new question. And we have reason to think this is not impoffible, fince mules and jumarts, the one from the mixture of an afs and a mare, the other from the mixture of a bull and a mare, are fo frequent in the world. I once faw a creature that was the iffue of a cat and a rat, and had the plain marks of both about it, wherein nature appeared to have followed the pattern of neither fort alone, but to have jumbled them both together; to which, he that fhall add the monftrous productions that are fo frequently to be met with in nature, will find it hard, even in the race of animals, to determine by the pedigree of what fpecies every animal's iffue is, and be at a lofs about the real effence, which he thinks certainly conveyed by generation, and has alone a right to the fpecific name. But farther, if the fpecies of animals and plants are to be diftinguished. only by propagation, muft I go to the Indies to fee the fire and dam of the one, and the plant from which the feed was gathered that produced the other, to know whether this be a tyger, or that tea?

$24. Not by fubftantial Forms.

UPON the whole matter, it is evident, that it is their own collections of fenfible qualities, that men make the ef fences of their feveral forts of fubftances, and that their real internal ftructures are not confidered by the greatest part of men in the forting them; much lefs were any fubftantial forms ever thought on by any, but those who have in this one part of the world learned the language of the schools; and yet thofe ignorant men, who pretend not any infight into the real effences, nor

trouble themselves about substantial forms, but are content with knowing things one from another by their fenfible qualities, are often better acquainted with their differences, can more nicely diftinguish them from their ufes, and better know what they may expect from each, than these learned quick-fighted men, who look fo deep into them, and talk fo confidently of fomething more

hidden and essential.

§ 25. The Specific Effences are made by the Mind. BUT fuppofing that the real effences of fubftances were difcoverable by thofe that would feverely apply themfelves to that inquiry, yet we could not reasonably think that the ranking of things under general names was regulated by thofe internal real conftitutions, or any thing elle but their obvious appearances; fince languages in all countries, have been eftablifhed long before sciences; fo that they have not been philofophers, or logicians, or fuch who have troubled themselves about forms and effences, that have made the general names that are in use amongst the feveral nations of men; but thofe more or lefs comprehenfive terms have for the moft part, in all languages, received their birth and fignification from ignorant and illiterate people, who forted and denominated things by thofe fenfible qualities they found in them; 'thereby to fignify them, when abfent, to others, whether they had an occafion to mention a fort or a particular thing.

§ 26. Therefore very various and uncertain. SINCE then it is evident, that we fort and name fubftances by their nominal, and not by their real effences, the next thing to be confidered is, how and by whom these effences come to be made. As to the latter, it is evident they are made by the mind, and not by nature; for were they nature's workmanship, they could not be so various and different in feveral men, as experience tells us they are. For if we will examine it, we fhall not find the nominal effence of any one fpecies of fubftances in all men the fame; no, not of that which of all others we are the most intimately acquainted with. It could nor poffibly be, that the abftract idea to which the name

man is given, thould be different in feveral men, if it were of nature's making; and that to one it should be animal rationale, and to another animal implume bipes latis unguibus. He that annexes the name man, to a complex idea made up of fenfe and spontaneous motion, joined to a body of fuch a fhape,has thereby one effence of the fpecies man; and he that, upon farther examination, adds rationality, has another effence of the species he calls man; by which means, the fame individual will be a true man to the one, which is not fo to the other. I think, there is fcarce any one will allow this upright figure, fo well known, to be the effential difference of the Species man; and yet how far men determine of the forts of animals rather by their fhape than defcent, is very vifible, fince it has been more than once debated, whether feveral human fetus's fhould be preferved or received to baptifm or no, only because of the difference of their outward configuration from the ordinary make of children, without knowing whether they were not as capable of reafon, as infants caft in another mould; fome whereof, though of an approved fhape, are never capable of as much appearance of reafon, all their lives, as is to be found in an ape or an elephant, and never give any figus of being acted by a rational foul; whereby it is evident, that the outward figure, which only was found wanting, and not the faculty of reafon, which nobody could know would be wanting in its due feafon, was made effential to the human species. The learned divine and lawyer, muft, on fuch occafions, renounce his facred definition of animal rationale, and fubftitute fome other effence of the human fpecies. Monfieur Menage furnishes us with an example worth the taking notice of on this occafion. When the Abbot of St Martin, fays he, was born, he had fo little of the figure of a man, that it beSpoke him rather a monster. It was for fome time under deliberation, whether he should be baptized or no. However,

he was baptized and declared a man provifičnally [till time fhould fhow what he would prove.] Nature had moulded him fo untowardly, that he was called all his life the Abbot Malotrue, i. e. Il-fhaped. He was of Caen. Menagi

ana, 278-430. This child, we fee, was very near being excluded out of the species of man barely by his fhape. He cfcaped very narrowly as he was; and it is certain, a figure a little more oddly turned had caft him, and he had been executed as a thing not to be allowed to pafs for a mang and yet there can be no reason given, why, if the lineaments of his face had been a little altered, a rational foul could not have been lodged in him; why a vifage fomewhat longer, or a nofe flatter, or a wider mouth, could not have confifted, as well as the rest of his ill fi gure, with fuch a foul, fuch parts, as made him, disfigured as he was, capable to be a dignitary in the church.

$27.

WHEREIN, then, would I gladly know, confifts the precife and unmoveable boundaries of that fpecies? It is plain, if we examine, there is no fuch thing made by nature eftablished by her amongst men. The real effence of that, or any other fort of fubftances, it is evident, we know not, and therefore are fo undetermined in our nominal effences, which we make ourselves, that if feveral men were to be afked concerning fome oddly fhaped fetus, as foon as born, whether it were man or no, it is paft doubt one fhould meet with different anfwers; which could not happen, if the nominal effences, whereby we limit and diftinguish the fpecies of fubftances, were not made by man with fome liberty, but were exactly copied from precife boundaries fet by nature, whereby it diftinguifhed all fubftances into certain fpecies. Who would undertake to refolve what fpecies that monster was of, which is mentioned by Licetus, lib. 1. c. 3. with a man's head and hog's body? Or those other, which to the bodies of men had the heads of beafts, as dogs, horfes, &c.? If any of thefe creatures had lived, and could have fpoke, it would have increased the difficulty. Had the upper part to the middle been of human shape, and all below fwine, had it been murder to deftroy it? or, muft the bishop have been confulted, whether it were man enough to be admitted to the font or no? as, I have been told, it happened in France fome years fince, in fomewhat a like cafe. So

uncertain are the boundaries of fpecies of animals to us, who have no other measures than the complex ideas of our own collecting; and so far are we from certainly knowing what a man is, though, perhaps, it will be judged great ignorance to make any doubt about it. And yet, I think, I may fay, that the certain boundaries of that fpecies are fo far from being determined, and the precife number of fimple ideas, which make the nominal effence, fo far from being fettled and perfectly known, that very material doubts may ftill arife about it; and I imagine, none of the definitions of the word man, which we yet have, nor defcriptions of that fort of animal, are fo perfect and exact, as to fatisfy a confiderate inquifitive perfon, much lefs to obtain a general confent, and to be that which men would every where ftick by in the decifion of cafes, and determining of life and death, baptifm or no baptifm, in productions that might happen.

$28. But not fo arbitrary as Mixed Modes. BUT though thefe nominal effences of fubftances are made by the mind, they are not yet made fo arbitrarily as those of mixed modes. To the making of any nominal effence, it is neceffary, First, That the ideas whereof it confifts, have fuch an union as to make but one idea, how compounded foever: Secondly, That the particular ideas fo united be exactly the fame, neither more nor less; for if two abftract complex ideas differ either in number or forts of their component parts, they make two different, and not one and the fame effence. In the first of thefe, the mind, in making its complex ideas of fubftances, only follows nature, and puts none together which are not fuppofed to have an union in nature. Nobody joins the voice of a fheep with the fhape of a horfe, nor the colour of lead with the weight and fixednefs of gold, to be the complex ideas of any real substances, unless he has a mind to fill his head with chimeras, and his difcourfe with unintelligible words. Men obferving certain qualities always joined and exifting together, therein copied nature, and of ideas fo united, made their complex ones of fubftances.

« AnteriorContinuar »