This is a way of proceeding
quite contrary to metaphor and allusion; wherein for the most part
lies that entertainment and pleasantry of wit, which strikes so lively
on the fancy, and therefore is so acceptable to all people, because
its beauty appears at first sight, and there is required no labor of
thought to examine what truth or reason there is in it. The mind,
without looking any further, rests satisfied with the agreeableness of
the picture and the gaiety of the fancy. And it is a kind of affront
to go about to examine it, by the severe rules of truth and good
reason; whereby it appears that it consists in something that is not
perfectly conformable to them.
3. Clearness done hinders confusion. To the well distinguishing
our ideas, it chiefly contributes that they be clear and
determinate. And when they are so, it will not breed any confusion
or mistake about them, though the senses should (as sometimes they do)
convey them from the same object differently on different occasions,
and so seem to err. For, though a man in a fever should from sugar
have a bitter taste, which at another time would produce a sweet
one, yet the idea of bitter in that man's mind would be as clear and
distinct from the idea of sweet as if he had tasted only gall. Nor
does it make any more confusion between the two ideas of sweet and
bitter, that the same sort of body produces at one time one, and at
another time another idea by the taste, than it makes a confusion in
two ideas of white and sweet, or white and round, that the same
piece of sugar produces them both in the mind at the same time.
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