conceptions, we cannot go beyond those simple ideas. And even in those which seem most remote from all we have to do with, and do infinitely surpass anything we can perceive in ourselves by reflection; or discover by sensation in other things, we can attain to nothing but those simple ideas, which we originally received from sensation or reflection; as is evident in the complex ideas we have of angels, and particularly of God himself.
Thirdly, That most of the simple ideas that make up our complex ideas of substances, when truly considered, are only POWERS, however we are apt to take them for positive qualities; v.g. the greatest part of the ideas that make our complex idea of GOLD are yellowness, great weight, ductility, fusibility, and solubility in AQUA REGIA, &c., all united together in an unknown SUBSTRATUM: all which ideas are nothing else but so many relations to other substances; and are not really in the gold, considered barely in itself, though they depend on those real and primary qualities of its internal constitution, whereby it has a fitness differently to operate, and be operated on by several other substances.