because a mutable idea (if we will allow it to be one
idea) cannot belong to one name rather than another, and so loses
the distinction that distinct names are designed for.
10. Confusion without reference to names, hardly conceivable. By
what has been said, we may observe how much names, as supposed
steady signs of things, and by their difference to stand for, and keep
things distinct that in themselves are different, are the occasion
of denominating ideas distinct or confused, by a secret and unobserved
reference the mind makes of its ideas to such names. This perhaps will
be fuller understood, after what I say of Words in the third Book
has been read and considered. But without taking notice of such a
reference of ideas to distinct names, as the signs of distinct things,
it will be hard to say what a confused idea is. And therefore when a
man designs, by any name, a sort of things, or any one particular
thing, distinct from all others, the complex idea he annexes to that
name is the more distinct, the more particular the ideas are, and
the greater and more determinate the number and order of them is,
whereof it is made up. For, the more it has of these, the more it
has still of the perceivable differences, whereby it is kept
separate and distinct from all ideas belonging to other names, even
those that approach nearest to it, and thereby all confusion with them
is avoided.
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