The booksellers preparing for the Fourth Edition of my Essay, gave
me notice of it, that I might, if I had leisure, make any additions or
alterations I should think fit. Whereupon I thought it convenient to
advertise the reader, that besides several corrections I had made here
and there, there was one alteration which it was necessary to mention,
because it ran through the whole book, and is of consequence to be
rightly understood. What I thereupon said was this:-
Clear and distinct ideas are terms which, though familiar and
frequent in men's mouths, I have reason to think every one who uses
does not perfectly understand. And possibly 'tis but here and there
one who gives himself the trouble to consider them so far as to know
what he himself or others precisely mean by them. I have therefore
in most places chose to put determinate or determined, instead of
clear and distinct, as more likely to direct men's thoughts to my
meaning in this matter. By those denominations, I mean some object
in the mind, and consequently determined, i.e. such as it is there
seen and perceived to be. This, I think, may fitly be called a
determinate or determined idea, when such as it is at any time
objectively in the mind, and so determined there, it is annexed, and
without variation determined, to a name or articulate sound, which
is to be steadily the sign of that very same object of the mind, or
determinate idea.
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