11 CHAP. X. BOOK II. his rational age1. This is a privilege so little known to most men, that it seems almost incredible to those who, after the ordinary way, measure all others by themselves; but yet, when considered, may help us to enlarge our thoughts towards greater perfections of it, in superior ranks of spirits. For this of Monsieur Pascal was still with the narrowness that human minds are confined to here,-of having great variety of ideas only by succession, not all at once. Whereas the several degrees of angels may probably have larger views; and some of them be endowed with capacities able to retain together, and constantly set before them, as in one picture, all their past knowledge at once. This, we may conceive, would be no small advantage to the knowledge of a thinking man,-if all his past thoughts and reasonings could be always present to him 2. And therefore we may suppose it one of those ways, wherein the knowledge of separate spirits may exceedingly surpass ours.] Brutes have Memory. 10. This faculty of laying up and retaining the ideas that are brought into the mind, several other animals seem to have to a great degree, as well as man. For, to pass by other instances, birds learning of tunes, and the endeavours one may observe in them to hit the notes right, put it past doubt with me, that they have perception, and retain ideas in their memories, and use them for patterns. For it seems to me impossible that they should endeavour to conform their voices to notes (as it is plain they do) of which they had no ideas. For, though I should grant sound may mechanically cause a certain motion of the animal spirits in the brains of those birds, whilst the tune is actually playing; and that motion may be continued on to the muscles of the wings, and so the bird mechanically be driven away by certain noises, because this may tend to the bird's preservation; yet that can never be supposed a reason why it should cause mechanically-either whilst the tune is playing, much 1 This about Pascal must be taken with allowance. That he never forgot anything 'which he tried to retain' is what Madame Perier records of him. 2 Instead of' existing' as they mostly do in the state of being only revivable, and that bit by bit, not all simultaneously; and with large portions incapable of resuscitation in this life, under normal conditions at least. CHAP. X. less after it has ceased-such a motion of the organs in the BOOK II. bird's voice as should conform it to the notes of a foreign sound, which imitation can be of no use to the bird's preservation. But, which is more, it cannot with any appearance of reason be supposed (much less proved) that birds, without sense and memory, can approach their notes nearer and nearer by degrees to a tune played yesterday; which if they have no idea of in their memory, is now nowhere, nor can be a pattern for them to imitate, or which any repeated essays can bring them nearer to. Since there is no reason why the sound of a pipe should leave traces in their brains, which, not at first, but by their after-endeavours, should produce the like sounds; and why the sounds they make themselves, should not make traces which they should follow, as well as those of the pipe, is impossible to conceive1. 1 The phenomena and laws of unconscious cerebration were imperfectly known when Locke wrote. BOOK II. without ment. CHAPTER XI. OF DISCERNING, AND OTHER OPERATIONS OF THE MIND1. 1. ANOTHER faculty we may take notice of in our minds CHAP. XI. is that of discerning and distinguishing between the several No Know- ideas it has 2. It is not enough to have a confused perception ledge of something in general. Unless the mind had a distinct Discern- 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 depends 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. But of this more hereafter. The Difference of Wit 2. How much the imperfection of accurately discriminating ideas one from another lies, either in the dulness or faults and Judg of the organs of sense; or want of acuteness, exercise, or ment. attention in the understanding; or 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 con It is with the operations of elaborative thought that this chapter is concerned. 2 Locke's descendants, we are told, have neglected the study of discrimina tion or dissociation for that of associa tion of ideas; although 'experience is trained by both association and dissociation.' (See James's Psychology, i. p. 487.) CHAP. XI. sequence to its other knowledge, that so far as this faculty is BOOK II. in itself dull, or not rightly made use of, for the distinguishing one thing from another,—so far our notions 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 fancy1; 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 2. This is a way of proceeding quite contrary to metaphor and allusion; wherein for the most part lies that entertainment and pleasantry of wit, which strikes so lively on the fancy, and therefore is 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, 1 Wit, according to Hobbes, is 'quick discernment of similitude in things otherwise much unlike, or of dissimilitude in things that otherwise appear the same.' It is thus more akin to imagination than to intellect proper. 2 This is only one way in which the faculty of comparison, or of elabora tive affirmation and denial, is exercised. Locke further modifies the meaning of 'judgment' in the Fourth Book, where he distinguishes it from 'knowledge,' and confines it to presumption of probability only. See Bk. IV. chh. xiv, xv, xvi. The exer- 1441 CHAP. XI. BOOK II. without looking any further, rests satisfied with the agreeableness of the picture and the gaiety of the fancy. And it is a kind of affront to go about to examine it, by the severe rules of truth and good reason; whereby it appears that it consists in something that is not perfectly conformable to them. Clearness alone hinders 3. To the well distinguishing our ideas, it chiefly contributes that they be clear and determinate. And when Confusion. 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 orangecolour 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. Brutes compare but im 4. 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 relation; which, of how vast an extent it is, I shall have occasion to consider hereafter 1. 5. How far brutes partake in this faculty, is not easy to determine. I imagine they have it not in any great degree: perfectly. for, though they probably have several ideas distinct enough, yet it seems to me to be the prerogative of human under 1 See chh. xxv-xxviii. |