* 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.
ANSWER.
The Difference between Essence and Existence is known to all Men. And what is here said of Eternal Names instead of Eternal Truth, has been long ago sufficiently rejected.