The defaults which usually
occasion this confusion, I think, are chiefly these following:
Complex Ideas made up of too few simple ones. First, when any
complex idea (for it is 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. So that such an idea, though it hath the peculiar name
leopard, is not distinguishable from those designed by the names
lynx or panther, and may as well come under the name lynx as
leopard. How much the custom of defining of words by general terms
contributes to make the ideas we would express by them confused and
undetermined, I leave others to consider. This is evident, that
confused ideas are such as render the use of words uncertain, and take
away the benefit of distinct names. When the ideas, for which we use
different terms, have not a difference answerable to their distinct
names, and so cannot be distinguished by them, there it is that they
are truly confused.
8.
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