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Of Clear and Obscure, Distinct and Confused Ideas

§ 1. […] it will, 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. The first is, That some are clear, and others obscure; some distinct, and others confused.

§ 2. The Perception of the Mind, being most aptly explained by Words relating to the Sight, we shall best understand what 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 discernible. In like manner, our simple Ideas are clear, when 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, when-ever it has occasion to consider them, they are clear Ideas. So far as they either want any thing 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 [356]of those Simple Ideas, that are the Ingredients of any Complex one, is determinate and certain.

§ 3. The cause of Obscurity in simple Ideas, seems to be 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. […]

§ 4. As a clear Idea is that whereof the Mind has such a full and evident perception, as it does receive from an outward Object operating duly on a well-disposed Organ, so a distinct 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.

§ 5. If no Idea be confused, but such as is not sufficiently distinguishable from another, from which it should be different, it will be hard, may any one say, to find any where a confused 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 it self: for from all other, it is evidently different.

§ 6. To remove this difficulty, and to help us to conceive aright, what it is, that makes the confusion, Ideas are at any time chargeable with, we must consider, that Things ranked [358]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 ’tis complex Ideas that are most liable to confusion) is made up of too small a number of simple Ideas, and such only as are common to other Things, whereby the differences, that make it deserve a different Name, are left out. Thus he, that has an Idea made up of barely the simple ones of a Beast with Spots, has but a confused Idea of a Leopard; it not being thereby sufficiently distinguished from a Lynx, and several other sorts of Beasts that are spotted. […]

§ 8. Secondly, Another default, which makes our Ideas confused, is, when though the particulars that make up any Idea, are in number enough; yet they are so jumbled together, [360]that it is not easily discernible, whether it more belongs to the Name that is given it, than to any other. […]

§ 9. Thirdly, A third defect that frequently gives the name of Confused, to our Ideas, is when any one of them is uncertain, and undetermined. Thus we may observe Men, who not forbearing to use the ordinary Words of their Language, till they have learn’d their precise signification, change the Idea, they make this or that term stand for, almost as often as they use it. […]

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§ 11. Confusion, making it a difficulty to separate two Things that should be separated, concerns always two Ideas; and those most, which most approach one another. Whenever therefore we suspect any Idea to be confused, we must examine what other it is in danger to be confounded with, or which it cannot easily be separated from, and that will always be found an Idea belonging to another Name, and so should be a different Thing, from which yet it is not sufficiently distinct: being either the same with it, or making a part of it, or, at least, as properly call’d by that Name, as the other it is ranked under; and so keeps not that difference from that other Idea, which the different Names import.

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§ 13. Our complex Ideas being made up of Collections, and so variety of simple ones, may accordingly be very clear and distinct in one part, and very obscure and confused in another. In a Man who speaks of a Chiliaëdron, or a Body of a thousand sides, the Idea of the Figure may be very confused, though that [362]of the Number be very distinct; so that he being able to discourse, and demonstrate concerning that part of his complex Idea, which depends upon the Number of Thousand, he is apt to think, he has a distinct Idea of a Chiliaedron; though it be plain, he has no precise Idea of its Figure, so as to distinguish it, by that, from one that has but 999 sides: The not observing whereof, causes no small Error in Men’s Thoughts, and Confusion in their Discourses.

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§ 15. Having frequently in our Mouths the Name Eternity, we are apt to think, we have a positive comprehensive Idea of it, which is as much as to say, that there is no part of that Duration, which is not clearly contained in our Idea. ’Tis true, that he that thinks so, may have a very clear Idea of Duration […]: But it not being possible for him to include in his Idea of any Duration, let it be as great as it will, the whole Extent together of a Duration, where he supposes no end, that part of his Idea, which is still beyond the Bounds of that large Duration, he represents to his own Thoughts, is very obscure and undetermined. […]

§ 16. […] when we talk of the divisibility of Matter in infinitum, […] we have but very obscure, and confused Ideas of Corpuscles, or minute Bodies, so to be divided, when by former Divisions, they are reduced to a smalness much exceeding the perception of any of our Senses; and so all that we have clear, and distinct Ideas of, is of what Division in general, or abstractly is, and the Relation of Totum and Pars: But of the bulk of the Body, to be thus infinitely divided after certain Progressions, I think, we have no clear, nor distinct Idea at all. […] we [364]have no more a clear Idea of infinite Parts in Matter, than we have a clear Idea of an infinite Number […]: endless Divisibility giving us no more a clear and distinct Idea of actually infinite Parts, than endless Addibility (if I may so speak) gives us a clear and distinct Idea of an actually infinite Number. They both being only in a Power still of increasing the Number, be it already as great as it will. So that of what remains to be added, (wherein consists the Infinity,) we have but an obscure, imperfect, and confused Idea. […]