CHAPTER XI.

OF DISCERNING, AND OTHER OPERATIONS OF THE MIND.

No knowledge without discerning.-Another Faculty we may take notice of in our minds is that of Discerning, and distinguishing between the several ideas it has. It is not enough to have a confused perception of something in general: unless the mind had a distinct perception of different objects and their qualities, it would be capable of very little Knowledge; though the bodies that affect us were as busy about us as they are now, and the mind were continually employed in Thinking. On this faculty of distinguishing one thing from another, depend the evidence and certainty of several even very general propositions, which have passed for innate truths; because men, overlooking the true cause why those propositions find universal assent, impute it wholly to native uniform impressions; whereas it in truth depends upon this clear Discerning faculty of the mind, whereby it perceives two ideas to be the same or different.

The difference of wit and judgment.-How much the imperfection of accurately discriminating ideas, one from another, lies either in [1.] the dulness or faults of the organs of sense, or [2.] want of acuteness, exercise, or attention in the Understanding, or [3.] hastiness and precipitancy natural to some tempers, I will not here examine: it suffices to take notice, that this is one of the operations that the mind may reflect on and observe in itself. It is of that consequence to its other Knowledge, that so far as this faculty is in itself dull, or not rightly made use of for the distinguishing one thing from another, so far our no

tions are confused, and our Reason and Judgment disturbed or misled. If in having our ideas in the memory ready at hand consists quickness of parts; in this of having them unconfused, and being able nicely to distinguish one thing from another where there is but the least difference, consists in a great measure the exactness of Judgment and clearness of Reason which is to be observed in one man above another. And hence, perhaps, may be given some reason of that common observation,—that men who have a great deal of Wit and prompt Memories have not always the clearest Judgment or deepest Reason. For, Wit lying most in the assemblage of ideas, and putting those together with quickness and variety wherein can be found any resemblance or congruity, thereby to make up pleasant pictures and agreeable visions in the fancy; Judgment, on the contrary, lies quite on the other side, in separating carefully one from another ideas wherein can be found the least difference; thereby to avoid being misled by similitude and by affinity, to take one thing for another. This is a way of proceeding quite contrary to Metaphor and Allusion, wherein for the most part lie that entertainment and pleasantry of Wit which strike so lively on the fancy, and [are] therefore so acceptable to all people; because its beauty appears at first sight, and there is required no labour of thought to examine what truth or reason there is in it. The mind, without looking any farther, rests satisfied 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 severe rules of truth and good reason: whereby it appears that it con

are so many distinct marks whereby he knows 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 simple one that directs them in the knowledge of several things, which possibly they distinguish less by their sight than we imagine. Those 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 one of their young that [is] taken from them whilst they are in sight or hearing, yet if one or two of them be stolen from them in their absence or without noise, they appear not to miss them, nor to have any sense that their number is lessened.

Naming. When children have by repeated sensations got ideas fixed in their memories, they begin by degrees to learn the use of Signs. And when they have got the skill to apply the organs of speech to the framing of articulate sounds, they begin to make use of Words to signify their ideas to others. These verbal signs they sometimes borrow from others; and sometimes make themselves, as one may observe among the new and unusual names children often give to things in their first use of Language.

Abstracting. The use of Words, then, being to stand as outward marks of our internal ideas, and those ideas being taken from particular things, if every particular idea that we take in should have a distinct 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 considering them as they are in the

mind, such appearances separate from all other existences, and [from] the circumstances of real existence, as time, place, or any other concomitant ideas. This is called Abstraction, whereby ideas taken from particular beings become general representatives of all of the same kind; and their names general names, applicable to whatever exists conformable to such abstract ideas. Such precise, naked appearances in the mind, without considering how, whence, or with what others they came there, the Understanding lays up (with names commonly annexed to them) as the standards [by which] to rank real existences into sorts, as they agree with these patterns, and to denominate them accordingly. Thus, the same colour being observed to-day in chalk or snow which the mind yesterday received from milk, it considers [that] that appearance alone makes it a representative of all of that kind: and having given it the name "whiteness," it by that sound signifies the same quality wheresoever to be imagined or met with; and thus universals, whether ideas or terms, are made.

Brutes abstract not. This, I think, I may be positive in, that the power of Abstracting is not at all in brutes; and that the having of general ideas is that which puts a perfect distinction between Man and Brutes. For it is evident we observe no footsteps in them of making use of general signs for universal ideas; from which we have reason to imagine, that they have not the faculty of Abstracting or making general ideas, since they have no use of words, or any other general signs.

Nor can it be imputed to their want of fit organs to frame articulate sounds, that they have no use or know

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sists in something that is not perfectly conformable to them.

Clearness alone hinders confusion.—To the well distinguishing our ideas it chiefly contributes that they be clear and determinate; and where they are so, it will not breed any confusion or mistake about them; though the senses should (as sometimes they do) convey them from the same object differently on different occasions, and so seem to err. For though a man in a fever should from sugar have a bitter taste, which at another time would produce a sweet one, yet the idea of bitter in that man's mind would be as clear and distinct from the idea of sweet as if he had tasted only gall. Nor does it make any more confusion between the two ideas of sweet and bitter, that the same sort of body produces at one time one and at another time another idea by the taste, than it makes a confusion in two ideas of white and sweet, or white and round, that the same piece of sugar produces them both in the mind at the same time. And the ideas of orange-colour and azure that are produced in the mind by the same parcel of the infusion of lignum nephriticum, are no less distinct ideas than those of the same colours taken from two very different bodies.

Comparing. The Comparing them one with another, in respect 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 vast an extent it is, I shall have occasion to consider hereafter.

Brutes compare but imperfectly.-How far brutes par