98 Mr. Vigors' s Reply to some Oh sensations 



lars."* — " The reason," he again resumes, " why I take so par- 

 ticular 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 oc- 

 casion to communicate by one general term ; under which divers 

 particulars, as far forth as they agreed to that abstract idea, might 

 be comprehended."+ 



One of the chief causes which this eminent philosopher assigns 

 for our not being able '' to rank and sort things, and consequently 

 to denominate them by their real essences," is, " because we know 

 them not. Our faculties carry us no farther towards the know- 

 ledge and distinction of substances, than a collection of those sen- 

 sible ideas which we observe in them ; which however made 

 with the greatest diligence and exactness we are capable of, yet 

 is more remote from the true internal constitution, from which 

 those qualities flow, than, as I said, a countryman's is from the 

 contrivance of that famous clock at Strasburgh, whereof he only 

 sees the outward figure and motions. There is not so contemptible 

 la plant or animal that does not confound the most enlarged 

 understanding. — The workmanship of the all-wise and powerful 

 God, in the great fabrick of the universe, and every part thereof, 

 farther exceeds the capacity and comprehension of the most in- 

 quisitive and intelligent man, than the best contrivance of the 

 most ingenious man doth the conceptions of the most ignorant of 

 rational creatures. Therefore we in vain pretend to range things 

 into sorts, and dispose them into certain classes, under names, by 

 their real essences, that are so far from our discovery and com- 

 prehension."! Still, however, although it must be insisted upon 

 that genera owe their origin to a mental operation, it must be 



* Essay on Human Understanding. Book 3. chapt. 3. §20. Works, Vol. II. 

 p. 172. Ed. 1812. 



i'lb. Book 3. chap. 5. § 9. Works. Vol. 11. p. 187. 



t lb. Book 3. chapt. 6. S ^- Works. Vol. II. p. 198—9. 



