_Against the Fifth Meditation. Of the Essence of material things._
* _As when for Example, I imagine a Triangle, tho perhaps such a Figure
exists no where out of my thoughts, nor ever will exist, yet the Nature
thereof is determinate, and its Essence or Form is immutable and eternal,
which is neither made by me nor depends on my mind, as appears from this,
that many propositions may be demonstrated of this Triangle._
If a Triangle be _no where_, I understand not how it can have _any
Nature_, for what is _no where_, is not, and therefore has not a _Being_,
or any _Nature_.
A Triangle in the _Mind_ arises from a Triangle _seen_, or from one made
up of what has been _seen_, but when once we have given the name of a
_Triangle_ to a thing (from which we think the _Idea_ of a _Triangle_
arises) tho the Triangle it self perish, yet the _name_ continues; In
the like manner, when we have once conceived in our thought, _That all
the Angles of a Triangle are equal to two right ones_, and when we have
given this other name (viz. _Having its three Angles equal to two right
ones_) to a Triangle, tho afterwards there were no such thing in the
World, yet the _Name_ would still continue, and this Proposition, _A
Triangle is a Figure having three Angles equal to two right Ones_, would
be _eternally true_. But the Nature of a Triangle will not be eternal if
all Triangles were destroy’d.
This Proposition likewise, _A Man is an Animal_, will be _true_ to
_Eternity_, because the Word _Animal_ will eternally signifie what the
Word _Man_ signifies; but certainly if _Mankind_ perish, _Humane Nature_
will be no longer.
From whence ’tis Manifest, That _Essence_ as ’tis distinguish’d from
_Existence_ is nothing more than the _Copulation_ of _Names_ by this word
_Is_, and therefore _Essence_ without _Existence_ is meerly a _Fiction_
of our own; and as the _Image_ of a _Man_ in the _Mind_ is to a _Man_, so
it seems _Essence_ is to _Existence_. Or as this Proposition _Socrates
is a Man_, is to this, _Socrates Is or Exists_, so is the _Essence_ of
_Socrates_ to his Existence. Now this Proposition, _Socrates is a Man_,
when _Socrates_ does not exist, signifies only the Connection of the
Names, and the word _Is_ carries under it the _Image_ of the _unity_ of
the thing, which is called by these _Two Names_.