第36章 Distinction(1)

Distinction and division are (if I mistake not the import of the words)very different things,the one being the perception of a difference that nature has placed in things,the other our making a division where there is yet none.At least,if I may be permitted to consider them in this sense,I think I may say of them that one of them is the most necessary and conducive to true knowledge that can be,the other,when too much made use of,serves only to puzzle and confound the understanding.To observe every the least difference that is in things argues a quick and clear sight,and this keeps the understanding steady and right in its way to knowledge.

But though it be useful to discern every variety [that]is to be found in nature,yet it is not convenient to consider every difference that is in things and divide them into distinct classes under every such difference.This will run us,if followed,into particulars (for every individual has something that differences it from another),and we shall be able to establish no general truths,or else at least shall be apt to perplex the mind about them.The collection of several things into several classes gives the mind more general and larger Viennese but we must take care to unite them only in that and so far as they do agree,for so far they may be united under the consideration.

For entity itself that comprehend rational conceptions.If we would well sleigh and keep in our minds what it is we are considering,that would best instruct us Ashen we should or should not branch into further distinctions,which are to be taken only from a due contemplation of things;to which there is nothing more opposite than the art of verbal distinctions,made at pleasure in learned and arbitrarily invented terms,to be applied at a venture without comprehending or conceiving any distinct notions,and so altogether fitted to artificial talk or empty noise in dispute without any clearing of difficulties or advance in knowledge.

Whatsoever subject we examine and Should get knowledge in lie should,I think,make as general and as large as it trill bear;nor can there be any danger of this if the idea of it be settled and determined;for if that be so,we shall easily distinguish it from any other idea,though comprehended under the same name.For it is to fence against the entanglements of equivocal words and the great art of sophistry which lies in them that distinctions have been multiplied and their use thought so necessary.But had every distinct abstract idea a distinct known name,there would be little need of these multiplied scholastic distinctions,though there would be nevertheless as much need still of the mind's observing the differences that are in things and discriminating them thereby one from another.

It is not therefore the right way to knots ledge to hunt after and fill the head with abundance of artificial and scholastic distinctions,wherewith learned men's writings are often filled;and we sometimes find That they treat of so divided and subdivided that the mind of the most attentive reader loses the sight of it,as it is more than probable the writer himself did;for in things crumbled into dust it is in vain to affect or pretend order or expect clearness.