objets and their qualities, it would be capable of very little knowledge; though the bodies that affect us were as bufy about us as they are now, and the mind were continually employed in thinking. On this faculty of diftinguishing one thing from another, depends the evidence and certainty of feveral, even very general propofitions, which have paffed for innate truths; because men, overlooking the true caufe why those propofitions find univerfal affent, impute it wholly to native uniform impreffions: whereas it in truth depends upon this clear difcerning faculty of the mind, whereby it perceives two ideas to be the fame, or different. But of this more hereafter. The difference of wit and judg ment. . §. 2. How much the imperfection of accurately difcriminating ideas one from another lies either in the dulnefs or faults of the organs of fenfe; or want of acuteness, exercife, or attention, in the understanding; or haftinefs and precipitancy, natural to fome tempers, I will not here examine: it fuffices to take notice, that this is one of the operations, that the mind may reflect on and obferve in itfelf. It is of that confequence to its other knowledge, that fo far as this faculty is in itself dull, or not rightly made ufe of, for the diftinguishing one thing from another; so far our notions are confused, and our reafon and judgment difturbed or misled. If in having our ideas in the memory ready at hand confifts quickness of parts; in this of having them unconfufed, and being able nicely to diftinguifh one thing from another, where there is but the leaft difference, confifts, in a great measure, the exactnefs of judgment, and clearnefs of reafon, which is to be obferved in one man above another. And hence perhaps may be given fome reafon of that common obfervation, that men, who have a great deal of wit, and prompt memories, have not always the cleareft judgment, deepest reason for wit lying moft in the aflemblage of ideas, and putting thofe together with quicknefs and variety, wherein can be found any resemblance or congruity, thereby to make up pleasant pictures, and agree K 4 or able Book 2. able vifions in the fancy; judgment on the contrary, lies quite on the other fide, in feparating carefully, one from another, ideas, wherein can be found the leaft difference; thereby to avoid being mifled by fimilitude, and by affinity to take one thing for another. This is a way of proceeding quite contrary to metaphor and allufion, wherein for the most part lies that entertainment and pleafantry of wit, which ftrikes fo lively on the fancy, and therefore is fo acceptable to all people; because its beauty appears at firft fight, and there is required no labour of thought to examine what truth or reafon there is in it. The mind, without looking any farther, refts fatisfied with the agreeableness of the picture, and the gaiety of the fancy: and it is a kind of an affront to go about to examine it by the fevere rules of truth and good reafon; whereby it appears, that it confifts in something that is not perfectly conformable to them. Clearnefs alone hinders confufion. §. 3. To the well diftinguishing our ideas, it chiefly contributes, that they be clear and determinate: and where they are fo, it will not breed any confufion or miftake about them, though the fenfes fhould (as fometimes they do) convey them from the fame object differently, on different occafions, and fo feem to err. For though a man in a fever fhould from fugar have a bitter taste, which at another time would produce a fweet one; yet the idea of bitter in that man's mind, would be as clear and diftinct from the idea of fweet, as if he had tafted only gall. Nor does it make any more confufion between the two ideas of fweet and bitter, that the fame fort of body produces at one time one, and at another time another idea by the tafte, than it makes a confufion in two ideas of white and sweet, or white and round, that the fame piece of fugar produces them both in the mind at the fame time. And the ideas of orange-colour and azure, that are produced in the mind by the fame parcel of the infufion of lignum nephriticum, are no lefs diftinct ideas, than thofe of the fame colours, taken from two very different bodies. §. 4. The Comparing. §. 4. The comparing them one with another, in refpect of extent, degrees, time, place, or any other circumstances, is another operation of the mind about its ideas, and is that upon which depends all that large tribe of ideas, comprehended under relations; which of how vaft an extent it is, I fhall have occafion to confider, hereafter. Brutes com pare but imperfectly. §. 5. How far brutes partake in this faculty, is not easy to determine; I imagine they have it not in any great degree: for though they probably have feveral ideas diftinct enough, yet it feems to me to be the prerogative of human understanding, when it has fufficiently diftinguished any ideas, fo as to perceive them to be perfectly different, and fo confequently two, to caft about and confider in what circumftances they are capable to be compared: and therefore, I think, beafts compare not their ideas farther than fome fenfible circumstances annexed to the objects themselves. The other power of comparing, which may be obferved in men, belonging to general ideas, and useful only to abstract reasonings, we may probably conjecture beafts have not. §. 6. The next operation we may obferve Compoundin the mind about its ideas, is compofition; ing. whereby it puts together feveral of thofe fimple ones it has received from fenfation and reflection, and combines them into complex ones. Under this of composition may be reckoned also that of enlarging; wherein though the compofition does not fo much appear as in more complex ones, yet it is nevertheless a putting feveral ideas together, though of the fame kind. Thus by adding feveral units together, we make the idea of a dozen; and, putting together the repeated ideas of several perches, we frame that of a furlong. Brutes com pound but little. §. 7. In this alfo, I fuppofe, brutes come far fhort of men: for though they take in, and retain together feveral combinations of fimple ideas, as poffibly the fhape, smell, and voice of his master make up the complex idea a dog has of him, or rather are so many distinct marks whereby he knows him; him; yet I do not think they do of themselves ever compound them, and make complex ideas. And perhaps even where we think they have complex ideas, it is only one fimple one that directs them in the knowledge of feveral things, which poffibly they diftinguish lefs by their fight than we imagine: for I have been credibly informed that a bitch will nurse, play with, and be fond of young foxes, as much as, and in place of, her puppies; if you can but get them once to fuck her fo long, that her milk may go through them. And thofe animals, which have a numerous brood of young ones at once, appear not to have any knowledge of their number: for though they are mightily concerned for any of their young that are taken from them whilft they are in fight or hearing; yet if one or two of them be ftolen from them in their abfence, or without noife, they appear not to miss them, or to have any fenfe that their number is leffened. Naming. §. 8. When children have, by repeated fenfations, got ideas fixed in their memories, they begin by degrees to learn the use of signs. And when they have got the fkill to apply the organs of fpeech to the framing of articulate founds, they begin to make ufe of words, to fignify their ideas to others, Thefe verbal figns they fometimes borrow from others, and fometimes make themfelves, as one may obferve among the new and unusual names children often give to things in the firft ufe of language. §. 9. The use of words then being to Abstraction, ftand as outward marks of our internal ideas, and thofe ideas being taken from particular things, if every particular idea that we take in fhould have a diftinct name, names must be endless. To prevent this, the mind makes the particular ideas, received from particular objects, to become general; which is done by confidering them as they are in the mind, fuch appearances, feparate from all other exiftences, and the circumftances of real exiftence, as time, place, or any other concomitant ideas. This is called abftraction, whereby ideas, taken from particular beings, become gen general reprefentatives of all of the fame kind, and their names general names, applicable to whatever exifts conformable to fuch abftract ideas. Such precife naked appearances in the mind, without confidering how, whence, or with what others they came there, the understanding lays up (with names commonly annexed to them) as the standard to rank real existences into forts, as they agree with thefe patterns, and to denominate them accordingly. Thus the fame colour being obferved to-day in chalk or fnow, which the mind yefterday received from milk, it confiders that appearance alone, makes it a reprefentative of all of that kind; and having given it the name whitenefs, it by that found fignifies the fame quality, wherefoever to be imagined or met with and thus univerfals, whether ideas or terms, are made.. Brutes ab ftract not. §. 10. If it may be doubted, whether beafts compound and enlarge their ideas. that way to any degree; this, I think, I may be pofitive in, that the power of abftracting is not at all in them; and that the having of general ideas, is that which puts a perfect diftinction betwixt man and brutes, and is an excellency which the faculties of brutes do by no means attain to. For it is evident we obferve no footsteps in them of making ufe of general figns for univerfal ideas; from which we have reafon to imagine, that they have not the faculty of abftracting, or making general ideas, fince they have no use of words, or any other general figns, §. 11. Nor can it be imputed to their want of fit organs to frame articulate founds, that they have no use or knowledge of general words; fince many of them, we find, can fashion fuch founds, and pronounce words diftinctly enough, but-never with any fuch application. And on the other fide, men, who through fome defect in the organs want words, yet fail not to exprefs their univerfal ideas by figns, which ferve them instead of general words; a faculty which we fee beaíts come fhort in. And therefore I think we may fuppofe, that it is in this that the.fpecies of brutes are difcriminated from |