The way to
prevent it is to collect and unite into one complex idea, as precisely
as is possible, all those ingredients whereby it is differenced from
others; and to them, so united in a determinate number and order,
apply steadily the same name. But this neither accommodating men's
ease or vanity, nor serving any design but that of naked truth,
which is not always the thing aimed at, such exactness is rather to be
wished than hoped for. And since the loose application of names, to
undetermined, variable, and almost no ideas, serves both to cover
our own ignorance, as well as to perplex and confound others, which
goes for learning and superiority in knowledge, it is no wonder that
most men should use it themselves, whilst they complain of it in
others. Though I think no small part of the confusion to be found in
the notions of men might, by care and ingenuity, be avoided, yet I
am far from concluding it everywhere wilful. Some ideas are so
complex, and made up of so many parts, that the memory does not easily
retain the very same precise combination of simple ideas under one
name: much less are we able constantly to divine for what precise
complex idea such a name stands in another man's use of it. From the
first of these, follows confusion in a man's own reasonings and
opinions within himself; from the latter, frequent confusion in
discoursing and arguing with others.
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