And
the ideas of orange-colour and azure, that are produced in the mind by
the same parcel of the infusion of lignum nephriticum, are no less
distinct ideas than those of the same 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 circumstances, is another
operation of the mind about its ideas, and is that upon which
depends all that large tribe of ideas comprehended under relation;
which, of how vast an extent it is, I shall have occasion to
consider hereafter.
5. Brutes compare but imperfectly. How far brutes partake in this
faculty, is not easy to determine. I imagine they have it not in any
great degree: for, though they probably have several ideas distinct
enough, yet it seems to me to be the prerogative of human
understanding, when it has sufficiently distinguished any ideas, so as
to perceive them to be perfectly different, and so consequently two,
to cast about and consider in what circumstances they are capable to
be compared. And therefore, I think, beasts compare not their ideas
further than some sensible circumstances annexed to the objects
themselves. The other power of comparing, which may be observed in
men, belonging to general ideas, and useful only to abstract
reasonings, we may probably conjecture beasts have not.
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