Speech metaphorical more than we imagine; insensible things, & their modes, circumstances, &c. being exprest for the most part by words borrow'd from things sensible. Hence manyfold mistakes.
S.
The grand mistake is that we think we have ideas of the [pg 071] operations of our minds[222]. Certainly this metaphorical dress is an argument we have not.
Qu. How can our idea of God be complex & compounded, when his essence is simple & uncompounded? V. Locke, b. 2. c. 23. s. 35[223].
G.
The impossibility of defining or discoursing clearly of such things proceeds from the fault & scantiness of language, as much perhaps as from obscurity & confusion of thought. Hence I may clearly and fully understand my own soul, extension, &c., and not be able to define them[224].
M.
The substance wood a collection of simple ideas. See Locke, b. 2. c. 26. s. 1.
Mem. concerning strait lines seen to look at them through an orbicular lattice.