An Essay Concerning Human Understanding / Ein Versuch über den menschlichen Verstand. Auswahlausgabe. John Locke
An Essay Concerning Human Understanding / Ein Versuch über den menschlichen Verstand. Auswahlausgabe
they be criminal, or no. […]
§ 10. Thirdly, The Law of Opinion or Reputation. Vertue and Vice are Names pretended, and supposed every where to stand for actions in their own nature right and wrong: And as far as they really are so applied, they so far are co-incident with the divine Law above-mentioned. But yet, whatever is pretended, this is visible, that these Names, Vertue and Vice, in the particular instances of their application, through the several Nations and Societies of Men in the World, are constantly [352]attributed only to such actions, as in each Country and Society are in reputation or discredit. […] though Men uniting into politick Societies, have resigned up to the publick the disposing of all their Force, so that they cannot employ it against any Fellow-Citizen, any farther than the Law of the Country directs; yet they retain still the power of Thinking well or ill; approving or disapproving of the actions of those whom they live amongst, and converse with: And by this approbation and dislike they establish amongst themselves, what they will call Vertue and Vice.
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§ 15. To conceive rightly of Moral Actions, we must take notice of them, under this two-fold Consideration. First, As they are in themselves each made up of such a Collection of simple Ideas. Thus Drunkenness, or Lying, signify such or such a Collection of simple Ideas, which I call mixed Modes: and in this Sense, they are as much positive absolute Ideas, as the drinking of a Horse, or speaking of a Parrot. Secondly, Our Actions are considered, as Good, Bad, or Indifferent; and in this respect, they are Relative, it being their Conformity to, or Disagreement with some Rule, that makes them to be regular or irregular, Good or Bad: and so, as far as they are compared with a Rule, and thereupon denominated, they come under Relation. […]
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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