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Show ViftinFJ and Confufed Jdeas. - Book II. ot elfe a weaknefs in the Memory, not able to retain them as received, For to return again to vilible.Objects, to help us to apprehend this matter. If the Organs, or FaculnesofPerceptton, l1ke Wax over-hardned with Cold will not receive the lmpreffion of the Seal, from the ufual im pulfc wont' to imprint it; or,like Wax of a temper too foft,will not hold it well when well imprinted; or elfe fuppoling the Wax of a temper fir, but th~ Seal not applied with a fufficient force, to make a clear lmprraion: In any of theie cafes, the print left by the "Seal, will be obfcure. This I fuppofe, needs no application to make it plainer. §. 4· As a clear Jd•a is that whereof the Mind has a full and evident perception, fo a dijlinll Jdea is that wherein the Mind perceives a difference from all other ; and a c.nfuftd Idea is fuch an one, as is not fufliciently dillinguifhable from another, from which it ought to be different. §. >· tf no Idea beconfufed, but fuch as is not fufficiently difilnguiflJ· .able from aoother, from which it iliould be different, it will be hard, may •ny one fay, to find anywhere a confufed Idea. For let any Idea be aa it will, it can be no other but fuch as the Mind perceives it to be 1 and that very perception, fufficiently di!l:inguiilies it from all other Idw which cannot be other, i. •· different, without being perceived to be f~ No Idea therefore can l>e undi!l:inguifhable from another, from which it ought to be different, unlefsyou would have it different from it felf: for from all other, it is evidently different. • • _§. ~· To remove this difficulty, and to help us to conceive aright, what 1t 1s, that makes the co~fufion, ./d,as are at any time chargeable with, we mu£1: confider, thatThmgs are fuppofed d1fferent enough to have different Names, whereby to be marked, and difcourfed of apart, upon any occ:J• fion: And there is nothing more evident, than that the greate£1: part of d1fferent Names, are fuppofed to !land for different Things. Now every Idta a Man has, being vifibly what it is, and di!l:inCl: from all other Jdw but it felf, that which makes it confuftd is, when it is fuch, that it may.; well be cal!ed by another Name,as that which it is exprelfed by: the dif. fcrence wh1ch keep the Thmgs (to be ranked under thofe two different Names) di!l:in~ , and makes them belong rather to the one , than the other of them, bemg left out ; and fa the di!l:inCl:ion which was in· tended to be kept up by .rho~e different Names, is quite 1~£1:. §. 7. The Defaults whtcb ufually occajion this Conjujion I think are chiefly thefe following : ' ' Firj/, When any complex Idta (for 'tis complex Ideas that are moll liable to confufion) is made up of too fma/1 a numbtr of jimplt Jd<as, and fuch only as are common to other Tlungs, whereby the differences, that make 1t deferve a d1fferent Name, are left out. Thus he, that has an Ura made up of barely the lif!>ple ones. of a Bea£1: with Spots, has but a confufed !tlto of a Leopard, 1t not bem!\ thereby fu!'liciently di!l:ingui· n,ed from a Lynx, and feve~l other forts ol Bea!l:s that are fpotted. 5o tl~at f~ch an Uta, though It hath the peculiar Name Leopard, is not difhnglllfi\ ablc from thofe deligned by the Names Lynx or Panther and may as well c~me under the Name Lynx, as Leopard: How mu~h the cu!l:om of defimng of Words by general terms contributes t<> make the Ideas we would exprefs by them, confufed a~d undetermined, !leave others to confider. Thts ~~evident, that confufed Id<as are fuch as render the Ufc of Words uncerta~n, and take away the benefit of diflinCl: Names. When the Id<as, for wluch we ufed different terms, have not a difference anfwe.ra~leto thetr dJflmCl:Names, and focannot be di!l:in<>uifhed by them, there 1t JS that they are truly confufed. " §. 8. Chap. XXVIII. ViftinCl and confufod !dear, §.8. Suo,dly, .Another default, which makes our Jd<as confufed,is, whed though the par~1culars that make up a.n:l:' Jd,a, are in number enough 1 ret they are fa JUmbJeJ togetbtr, that It IS not eafiJy difcemabJe Whether 1t more belongs to the Name that is given it, than to any othe~. There is nothing properer to make us conceive this Confufion, than a fort of Pidures ufually fl1cwn, as fur prizing Pieces of Art, wherein the Colours, as they are laid by the Pencil on the Table itfelf, mark out very odd and unufnal Figures, and have no difcernable order in their Polition. This ~ught, thus made up of parts, wherein no Symmetry nor Order appears, JS, m 1t felf, no more a confufed Tlung, than the picture of a cloudy Sky 1 wherein though the:e be as little order of Colours, o: Figures to be faund, yet no body tlunks lt a confufed Pu~ture. What is It then, that makes it be thought confufed, Iince the want of Symmetry does not: as it is plain it does not; for another Draught made, barely in imitation of this, could not be called confufed ? I anfwer, That which makes it be thought confufed, is the applying it to fome Name, to which it does no more difcer• nably belong, thah to fome other; v. g. when it is faid to be the Pi. <'lure of a Man,. or C111jar, then anyone with reafon counts it confu. fed : becaufe it is not difcernable, in that fiate, to belong more to the name M~n, or Cti!Jar, than to the name Baboon, or Pompry; which are lilppofed to fiand for different :Ideas , from thofe lignified by Man , or Cllifar. But when a cylindrical Mirrour, placed right, hath reduced thofC irregular Lines on the Table,into their due order and proportion, then the Confufion ceafes, and the Eye prefently fees, that it is a Man, or Cillfar r i. •. that it belongs to thofe Names ; a·nd that it is l[uBiciently di!l:ingui· lbable from a Baboon, or Pompey; i. t. from the Ideas lignified by thofe Names. Jufi thus it is with our Id<as, which are, as it were, the Pictures of Things. Noone of thefe mental Draughts, however the parts are put lllgether, can be called confufed, (for they are plainly difcernible as they are,) till it be ranked under fome ordinary Name, to which it eannot be diti:erned to belong, any more than it does to fome other Name, of an al· lowed different lignification. . · §. 9· Thirdly, A third defect that frequently gives the name of Confufed, to our Ideas, is when any one of them is uncertain, and Nnduermi•ed, Thus we may obfcrve Men, who not forbearing to ufetheordinary Words ohheir Language, till tltey have learn'd their precife lignification,. change the IJ<a, they make this or that term !land for, almo£1: as often as they ufe it. He that does this, out of uncertainty of what he iliould leave out, or put into his Idea of Churd;, or Idolatry, every time he thinks of either, ~nd holds not !l:eadyto any one precife Combination of Jd<as, that makes It up, is faid to have a confufed Jd<a ofldolatry, or the Church: Though this be !l:ill for the fame reafon that the former,viz.Becaufea mutable ld•a (if We will allow it to be one Jd<a) cannot belong to one Name, rather than another; and folofes thedi!l:inc!tion,thatdi!l:in<!lNames ue deligned lOr. §. to. By what has been faid, we may obferve how inuch Names, as fuppofed !l:eady ligns of Things, and by their difference to fiand for, and keep Things di!l:inCl:, that in themfelves are dtfferent, are the occajion if d<,.mi•ating Idtas diftinll or co•fuftd, by a fecret a~d unobfcrvedrefeltn<; e, the Mind makes of its Id<as to fuch Names. TillS, perhaps, w!IJ be fuller under!l:ood, after what I fay of Words, in the Third Book, J~as been read and conlidered.But without taking notice of fuch a reference of Ide•• to diflinct Names, as the ligns of di!l:intt Things, it will be hard to fay What a confufed Idea is. And therefore when a Man deligns,b.yaay Name, . a |
