much lefs after it had ceafed, fuch a motion of the organs in the bird's voice, as fhould conform it to the notes of a foreign found, which imitation can be of not ufe to the bird's prefervation. But which is more, it cannot, with any appearance of reafon, be fuppofed: (much lefs proved) that birds, without fenfe and memory, can approach their notes nearer and nearer by degrecs to a tune played yesterday; which if they have no idea of in their memory, is no where, nor can be a pattern for them to imitate, or which any repeated effays can bring them nearer to. Since there is no reafon why the found of a pipe should leave traces in their brains, which not at firft, but by their after endeavours, fhould produce the like founds; and why the. founds they make themfelves, fhould not make traces: which they should follow, as well as thofe of the pipe,.. is impoffible to conceive.

CHAP. XI.

OF DISCERNING AND OTHER OPERATIONS OF THE MIND.

$ 1. No Knowledge without Difcernment. ANOTHER faculty we may take notice of in our minds, is that of difcerning and distinguishing between the feveral ideas it has. It is not enough to have a confufed perception of fomething in general: unless the mind had a diftinct perception of different objects 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 distinguishing one thing from another, depends the evi-: dence and certainty of feveral even very general prop ofitions, 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.

§2. The Difference of Wit and Judgment. How much the imperfection of accurately difcriminating ideas one from another, lies either in the dulnefs or faults of the organs of fense; or want of acuteness, exercise, or attention, in the understanding; or haftiness 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 itself. It is of that confequence to its other knowledge, that fo far as this faculty is in itfelf dull, or not rightly made ufe of, for the diftinguishing one thing from another; fo far our notions are confused, and our reafon and judgment difturbed or mifled. 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 distinguish one thing from another, where there is but the leaft difference, confifts, in a great measure, the exactness of judgment, and clearness of reason, which is to be obferved in one man above another. And hence perhaps may be given fome reason of that common obfervation, that men, who have a great deal of wit, and prompt memories, have not always the cleareft judgment, or deepest reafon for wit lying moft in the affemblage 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 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 misled 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 first fight, and there is required no labour of thoughts to examine what truth or reason 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 fomething that is not perfectly conformable to them.

3. Clearness alone hinders Confufion.

To the well diftinguifhing our ideas, it chiefly contrib utes, that they be clear and determinate: and where they are fo, it will not breed any confufion or mistake about them, though the fenfes fhould (as fometimes they do) convey them from the fame object differently, on dif ferent occafions, and seem to err. For though a man in a fever should 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 sweet and bitter, that the fame fort of body produces at one time one, and at another time another idea by the taste, 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 less distinct ideas, than thofe of the fame colours, taken from two very different bodies."

§ 4. Comparing.

THE COMPARING them one with another, in respect of extent, degrees, time, place, or any other circumftances, 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.

§ 5. Brutes compare but imperfectly How far brutes partake in this faculty, is not eafy to determine; I imagine they have it not in any great degree: for though they probably have feveral ideas distinct

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 dif ferent, and so 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 abftract reafonings, we may probably conjecture beafts have not.

§ 6. Compounding.

THE next operation we may obferve in the mind about its ideas, is COMPOSITION; whereby it puts together feveral of those fimple ones it has received from fenfation and reflection, and combines them into complex ones. Under this of compofition may be reckoned alfo 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 feveral perches, we frame that of a furlong.

$ 7. Brutes compound but little.

In this alfo, I fuppofe, brutes come far fhort of men : for though they take in, and retain together several combinations of fimple ideas; as, poffibly the shape, fmell, and voice of his mafter, make up the complex idea a dog has of him, or rather are fo many diftinct marks, whereby he knows him; yet I do not think they do of themfelves 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 inagine: for I have been credibly informed, that a bitch will nurfe, 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 mifs them, or to have any fenfe that their number is leffened.

§ 8. Naming.

WHEN children have, by repeated fenfations, got ideas fixed in their memories, they begin, by degrees, to learn the ufe of figns. And when they have got the fkill to apply the organs of speech to the framing of articulate founds, they begin to make use of words, to fig nify their ideas to others. These 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 their firft ufe of language.

$9. Abtraction.

THE ufe of words then being to ftand as outward marks of our internal ideas, and thofe 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 confidering them as they are in the mind fuch appearances, feparate from all other existences, and the circumftances of real exiftence, as time, place, or any other concomitant ideas. This is called ABSTRACTION, whereby ideas, taken from particular beings, become general reprefentatives of all of the fame kind, and their names general names, applicable to whatever exifts conformable to fuch abstract 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 ftandard to rank real existences into forts, as they agree with these patterns, and to denominate them accordingly. Thus the