ABSTRACT
The names of substances are the nominal essences men form from the real things but which cannot designate them since the people have no knowledge of all the basic atomic, or corpuscularian internal relations of the substances being named. In this paper, Of Ethics in General, Locke deprecates a moral theory that concerns itself merely with the analysis of moral terms, for ethics should consider species of action in the world, as justice, temperance, and fortitude, drunkenness and theft. Several entries on demonstration occur at the same place in the Commentaries where the people find remarks expressive of Berkeley's completed views on the nature of spirit and there is, no doubt, a connection between the two sets of thoughts. If demonstration can be only of names which represent ideas and ideas of spiritual activity are systematically unknowable and impossible, then moral demonstration is impossible inasmuch as morality is a matter which primarily concerns the will, or volitions.
