СНАР. XXVIII. though the ideas of particular relations are capable of being as BOOK II. clear and distinct in the minds of those who will duly consider them as those of mixed modes, and more determinate than those of substances: yet the names belonging to relation are often of as doubtful and uncertain signification as those of substances or mixed modes; and much more than those of simple ideas. Because relative words, being the marks of this comparison, which is made only by men's thoughts, and is an idea only in men's minds, men frequently apply them to different comparisons of things1, according to their own imaginations; which do not always correspond with those of others using the same name. Notion of same, the Rule 20. Thirdly, That in these I call moral relations, I have a The true notion of relation, by comparing the action with the rule, Relation whether the rule be true or false. For if I measure anything is the by a yard, I know whether the thing I measure be longer or whether shorter than that supposed yard, though perhaps the yard any Action I measure by be not exactly the standard: which indeed is is compared to another inquiry. For though the rule be erroneous, and I be true or mistaken in it; yet the agreement or disagreement observable false. in that which I compare with, makes me perceive the relation. Though, measuring by a wrong rule, I shall thereby be brought to judge amiss of its moral rectitude; because I have tried it by that which is not the true rule: yet I am not mistaken in the relation which that action bears to that rule I compare it to, which is agreement or disagreement. 1 The same things, in virtue of different resembling qualities, may be referred to various classes, and so have various names applied to them, BOOK II. 1441 СНАР. XXIX. Ideas, and dis CHAPTER XXIX. OF CLEAR AND OBSCURE, DISTINCT AND CONFUSED IDEAS. - 1. HAVING shown the original of our ideas, and taken a view of their several sorts; considered the difference between the simple and the complex; and observed how the complex ones are divided into those of modes, substances, and relations some clear all which, I think, is necessary to be done by any one who would acquaint himself thoroughly with the progress of the mind, in its apprehension and knowledge of things—it will, and con- perhaps, be thought I have dwelt long enough upon the examination of ideas. I must, nevertheless, crave leave to offer some few other considerations concerning them. tinct, others obscure fused. Clear and obscure The first is, that some are clear and others obscure; some distinct and others confused1. 2. The perception of the mind being most aptly explained by words relating to the sight, we shall best understand what explained by Sight. is meant by clear and obscure in our ideas, by reflecting on what we call clear and obscure in the objects of sight. Light being that which discovers to us visible objects, we give the name of obscure to that which is not placed in a light sufficient to discover minutely to us the figure and colours which are observable in it, and which, in a better light, would be dis 1 On the qualities of ideas (simple and complex) as clear and obscure, distinct and confused, see Leibniz, Nouveaux Essais, Liv. II. ch. xxix. and in Meditationes de Cognitione, Veritate, et Ideis, first published in 1684, in the Acta Eruditorum, five years before the Essay appeared, but of which Locke was probably ignorant. Locke's account of those distinctions is more akin to that in the Port Royal Logic, Pt. I. ch. ix. Descartes makes much of clearness and distinctness as the ultimate criterion of truth; but Locke has here to do with ideas and their qualities, abstracted from the consideration of questions about truth and knowledge. On the terms 'clear' and 'distinct,' cf. 'Epistle to the Reader,' p. 22. CHAP. XXIX. cernible. In like manner, our simple ideas are clear, when BOOK II. they are such as the objects themselves from whence they were taken did or might, in a well-ordered sensation or perception, present them. Whilst the memory retains them thus, and can produce them to the mind whenever it has occasion to consider them, they are clear ideas. So far as they either want anything of the original exactness, or have lost any of their first freshness, and are, as it were, faded or tarnished by time, so far are they obscure. Complex ideas, as they are made up of simple ones, so they are clear, when the ideas that go to their composition are clear, and the number and order of those simple ideas that are the ingredients of any complex one is determinate and certain. 3. The causes of obscurity, in simple ideas, seem to be Causes of Obscurity. either dull organs; or very slight and transient impressions made by the objects; or else a weakness in the memory, not able to retain them as received. For to return again to visible objects, to help us to apprehend this matter. If the organs, or faculties of perception, like wax over-hardened with cold, will not receive the impression of the seal, from the usual impulse wont to imprint it; or, like wax of a temper too soft, will not hold it well, when well imprinted; or else supposing the wax of a temper fit, but the seal not applied with a sufficient force to make a clear impression1: in any of these cases, the print left by the seal will be obscure. This, I suppose, needs no application to make it plainer. and con 4. As a clear idea is that whereof the mind has such a full Distinct and evident perception, as it does receive from an outward fused, object operating duly on a well-disposed organ, so a distinct what. idea is that wherein the mind perceives a difference from all other; and a confused idea is such an one as is not sufficiently distinguishable from another, from which it ought to be different 2. 1 There is a passage in the Theaetetus in analogy with this. 2 According to the usage of Leibniz and others, an idea is clear when it is so apprehended as to be distinguished as a whole from other ideas, and it is XXIX. BOOK II. 5. If no idea be confused, but such as is not sufficiently distinguishable from another from which it should be different, CHAP. it will be hard, may any one say, to find anywhere a confused Objection, idea. For, let any idea be as it will, it can be no other but such as the mind perceives it to be; and that very perception sufficiently distinguishes it from all other ideas, which cannot be other, i.e. different, without being perceived to be so. No idea, therefore, can be undistinguishable from another from which it ought to be different, unless you would have it different from itself: for from all other it is evidently different. Confusion of Ideas is in 6. To remove this difficulty, and to help us to conceive aright what it is that makes the confusion ideas are at any Reference time chargeable with, we must consider, that things ranked to their Names. Defaults which make this Confusion. under distinct names are supposed different enough to be distinguished, that so each sort by its peculiar name may be marked, and discoursed of apart upon any occasion: and there is nothing more evident, than that the greatest part of different names are supposed to stand for different things. Now every idea a man has, being visibly what it is, and distinct from all other ideas but itself; that which makes it confused, is, when it is such that it may as well be called by another name as that which it is expressed by; the difference which keeps the things (to be ranked under those two different names) distinct, and makes some of them belong rather to the one and some of them to the other of those names, being left out; and so the distinction, which was intended to be kept up by those different names, is quite lost. 7. The defaults which usually occasion this confusion, I think, are chiefly these following: First, when any complex idea (for it is complex ideas that First, com- are most liable to confusion) is made up of too small a number plex Ideas made up of of simple ideas, and such only as are common to other things, whereby the differences that make it deserve a different name, too few when its several parts are not thus in detail. Locke's method for relieving complex ideas of these defects would be, to recall into the view of conscious. ness, the simple ideas of which they consist. XXIX. ones. or their jumbled are left out. Thus, he that has an idea made up of barely BOOK II. the simple ones of a beast with spots, has but a confused idea. СНАР. of a leopard; it not being thereby sufficiently distinguished from a lynx, and several other sorts of beasts that are spotted. simple So that such an idea, though it hath the peculiar name leopard, is not distinguishable from those designed by the names lynx or panther, and may as well come under the name lynx as leopard. How much the custom of defining of words by general terms contributes to make the ideas we would express by them confused and undetermined, I leave others to consider. This is evident, that confused ideas are such as render the use of words uncertain, and take away the benefit of distinct names. When the ideas, for which we use different terms, have not a difference answerable to their distinct names, and so cannot be distinguished by them, there it is that they are truly confused. 8. Secondly, Another fault which makes our ideas confused Secondly, is, when, though the particulars that make up any idea are in simple number enough, yet they are so jumbled together, that it is ones not easily discernible whether it more belongs to the name disorderly that is given it than to any other. There is nothing properer together. to make us conceive this confusion than a sort of pictures, usually shown as surprising pieces of art, wherein the colours, as they are laid by the pencil on the table itself, mark out very odd and unusual figures, and have no discernible order in their position. This draught, thus made up of parts wherein no symmetry nor order appears, is in itself no more a confused thing, than the picture of a cloudy sky; wherein, though there be as little order of colours or figures to be found, yet nobody thinks it a confused picture. What is it, then, that makes it be thought confused, since 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 confused. I answer, That which makes it be thought confused is, the applying it to some name to which it does no more discernibly belong than to some other: v.g. when it is said to be the picture of a man, or Cæsar, then any one with reason counts it confused; because it is not discernible in that state to belong more to the name man, or Cæsar, than to the name baboon, or Pompey: which are supposed to stand for different ideas from those |