460 ON SOME METAPHYSICAL $eBJECTë. And why may we not suppose that natural beings are in some measure, at least, left under the saine sort of uncertainty ? A tincture of gambogia is yellow ; add a small tincture of. ultrama- rine to it, and it becomes doubtful whether it is yellow or green : Put in several more degrees of ultramarine, so as to overwhelm the garnbogia, and the yellow is quite lost ; it is a doubt then whether it be greenor blue. The gold of Africa and that of the East- Indies usually differ in their colour, one being more ruddy than the other ; perhaps a few more degrees of redness with a small alteration of the weight, might make achymist doubt whe- ther it were gold or no. Silver and baser metal are sometimes so intermingled in the mines, that it is hard to say whether this clod be true silver ore. So by different graftings and artful uni- ons of different kinds of trees, the fruit thereof may so change its qualities, as to be ranked under a new kind, whether of pears or apples, &c. Nor are instances wanting amongst animal be- ings : A creaturemay be born so monstrous, with so manyparts or properties like a man, and so many like a monkey, that we may be at a loss whether tocall it a monkey or a man; and much more may such a thing happen in the species of horses and asses, dogs and foxes; and there is a creature which we call a bat, which we doubt whether to place among the species of birds or beasts. Yet it must be granted, that natural beings which are the works of God, have, or seem to have something more of a regu- lar and constant limitation of their essences than moral or arti- ficial beings which are the works of man. God the Creator in the course of his providence generally keeps up the successive production of natural beings, whether meteors, metals, plants, or animals, in such a regular uniformity, as to establish or main- tain such constant and real boundaries of their different species, as are sufficient for all the uses of the natural world, and for the purposes of human life ; and therefore in all ordinary cases we may say, that God has given boundaries to the different species of natural things ; but the hints which have here been given, do also sufficiently prove the falsehood of that axiom of the schools, viz. " That all natures or essences of things are unchangeable, or that they consist in an indivisible point," and that other axiom also, that in essences there are no degrees. See what is written on this subject in Logic, part 1st, chap. 6. sect. 6. And Mr. Locke has discoursed on this subject very copiously, in his trea- tise on the Human Understanding, book III. chap. 3, 4, 5 and 6. where he seems to make the ranging of all beings into different species, to be only the work of the mind of man, and that the essences of all things, as we distinguish them, are mere nominal essences. So far as I can recollect his sentiments, lie scarce al- lows any more real and established bounds of distinction between
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