John Locke

“ Thus you shall find a distracted man fancying himself a king, with a right inference require suitable attendance, respect, and obedience : others who have thought themselves made of glass, have used the caution necessary to preserve such brittle bodies. Hence it comes to pass that a man who is very sober, and of a right understanding in all other things, may in one particular be as frantic as any in Bedlam ; if either by any sudden very strong impression, or long fixing his fancy upon one sort of thoughts, incoherent ideas have been cemented together so powerfully, as to remain united. ”

“ Difference between idiots and madmen. In fine, the defect in naturals seems to proceed from want of quickness, activity, and motion in the intellectual faculties, whereby they are deprived of reason ; whereas madmen, on the other side, seem to suffer by the other extreme. For they do not appear to me to have lost the faculty of reasoning, but having joined together some ideas very wrongly, they mistake them for truths ; and they err as men do that argue right from wrong principles. ”

“ On this faculty of distinguishing one thing from another depends the evidence and certainty of several, even very general, propositions, which have passed for innate truths ; – because men, overlooking the true cause why those propositions find universal assent, impute it wholly to native uniform impressions ; whereas it in truth depends upon this clear discerning faculty of the mind, whereby it perceives two ideas to be the same, or different. ”

“ To deal truly, this is the only way that I can discover, whereby the ideas of things are brought into the understanding. If other men have either innate ideas or infused principles, they have reason to enjoy them ; and if they are sure of it, it is impossible for others to deny them the privilege that they have above their neighbours. ”

“ But there are degrees of madness, as of folly ; the disorderly jumbling ideas together is in some more, and some less. In short, herein seems to lie the difference between idiots and madmen : that madmen put wrong ideas together, and so make wrong propositions, but argue and reason right from them ; but idiots make very few or no propositions, and reason scarce at all. ”

“ Another faculty we may take notice of in our minds is that of discerning and distinguishing between the several ideas it has. It is not enough to have a confused perception of something in general. Unless the mind had a distinct perception of different objects and their qualities, it would be capable of very little knowledge, though the bodies that affect us were as busy about us as they are now, and the mind were continually employed in thinking. ”

“ Brutes abstract not, yet are not bare machines. Nor can it be imputed to their want of fit organs to frame articulate sounds, that they have no use or knowledge of general words ; since many of them, we find, can fashion such sounds, and pronounce words distinctly enough, but never with any such application. And, on the other side, men who, through some defect in the organs, want words, yet fail not to express their universal ideas by signs, which serve them instead of general words, a faculty which we see beasts come short in. ”

“ And hence perhaps may be given some reason of that common observation, – that men who have a great deal of wit, and prompt memories, have not always the clearest judgment or deepest reason. For wit lying most in the assemblage of ideas, and putting those together with quickness and variety, wherein can be found any resemblance or congruity, thereby to make up pleasant pictures and agreeable visions in the fancy ”

“ Those who cannot distinguish, compare, and abstract, would hardly be able to understand and make use of language, or judge or reason to any tolerable degree ; but only a little and imperfectly about things present, and very familiar to their senses. ”

“ Secondly, Because observing the faculties of the mind, how they operate about simple ideas, – which are usually, in most men’s minds, much more clear, precise, and distinct than complex ones, – we may the better examine and learn how the mind extracts, denominates, compares, and exercises, in its other operations about those which are complex, wherein we are much more liable to mistake. ”

“ If in having our ideas in the memory ready at hand consists quickness of parts ; in this, of having them unconfused, and being able nicely to distinguish one thing from another, where there is but the least difference, consists, in a great measure, the exactness of judgment, and clearness of reason, which is to be observed in one man above another. ”

“ Brutes abstract not. If it may be doubted whether beasts compound and enlarge their ideas that way to any degree ; this, I think, I may be positive in, – that the power of abstracting is not at all in them ; and that the having of general ideas is that which puts a perfect distinction betwixt man and brutes, and is an excellency which the faculties of brutes do by no means attain to. For it is evident we observe no footsteps in them of making use of general signs for universal ideas ”

“ For I have been credibly informed that a bitch will nurse, play with, and be fond of young foxes, as much as, and in place of her puppies, if you can but get them once to suck her so long that her milk may go through them. And those animals which have a numerous brood of young ones at once, appear not to have any knowledge of their number ”

“ When children have, by repeated sensations, got ideas fixed in their memories, they begin by degrees to learn the use of signs. And when they have got the skill to apply the organs of speech to the framing of articulate sounds, they begin to make use of words, to signify their ideas to others. ”

“ 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 ”

“ First, Because several of these faculties being exercised at first principally about simple ideas, we might, by following nature in its ordinary method, trace and discover them, in their rise, progress, and gradual improvements. ”