of the action with the rule is called moral rectitude. The rule is only a collection of several simple ideas; that the action may conform to the rule, it is only necessary that the simple ideas belonging to it should correspond to those which the law requires. If we examine the particulars of the complex idea, murder, we shall find them to be a collection of simple ideas derived from sensation or reflection: 1st.-From reflection on the operations of our minds, we have the ideas of willing, considering, purposing before hand, malice, or wishing ill to another; and also, of life, or perception, and self motion. 2dly. From sensation we have the collection of those simple sensible ideas which are to be found in a man, and of some action whereby we put an end to perception and motion in the man; all which simple ideas are comprehended in the word murder: finding this collection of simple ideas agree or disagree with the esteem of the country I have been bred in, I call the action virtuous or vicious; making the will of a supreme invisible law-maker my rule, I call it good or evil, sin or duty; or comparing it with the civil Law of the country, I call it lawful or unlawful, a crime or not.

Our actions are to be considered in two ways; as collections of simple ideas, (which I call mixed modes,) such as drunkenness, lying, which are as much positive ideas as any of our most simple ideas; and as good, bad, or indifferent; and in this respect

they are relative, being compared with some rule: thus, the challenging and fighting with a man, being an action distinguished from all others by particular ideas, is called duelling; which considered in relation to the Law of God, is sin,-to the Law of Fashion, in some countries, valour and virtue, to the Municipal Laws of some governments, a capital crime. The distinction between the names of the positive mode and the relation is as obvious as in substances; where one name, man, signifies the thing; and another father, denotes the relation. The denominations of actions often mislead us, when no distinction is made between the positive idea of the action, and the reference it has to a rule: thus the taking from another his own without his knowledge or allowance, is properly called stealing; but that name commonly signifying both the moral pravity of the action, and its contrariety to the law, men are apt to condemn whatever is called stealing as an ill action: yet the taking away his sword from a madman to prevent mischief, though properly called stealing, as the name of a mixed mode, when compared with the law of God, is not a sin or transgression. All relations terminate in simple ideas; for when a man says "honey is sweeter than wax❞—it is plain his thoughts in this relation terminate in the simple idea, sweetness. We have ordinarily at least as clear a notion of the relation as of its foundation: if I know what it is for

one man to be born of a woman, so do I know what it is for another to be born of the same woman; and thus I have perhaps a clearer notion of a brother, than I have of a birth: but relative words, only denoting ideas existing in men's minds, are frequently of uncertain signification, as men will apply them differently. Measuring by a wrong rule, I may judge amiss of the moral rectitude of an action, though I am not mistaken in the relation it bears to the rule.

CHAP. XXIX.

OF CLEAR AND DISTINCT, OBSCURE AND

CONFUSED IDEAS.

WE shall best understand what is meant by clear and obscure in our ideas, by reflecting on what we call clear and obscure in the objects of sight. Light being that which discovers to us visible objects, we give the name of obscure to that which is not placed in a light sufficient to discover minutely to us the figure and colours which are observable in it:—in like manner our simple ideas are clear when they are such as the objects themselves, whence they were taken, did or might, in a well-ordered sensation or perception, present them, while the memory retains

them thus, and can produce them to the mind, they are clear ideas; when they want any thing of their original exactness, they are obscure.-Complex ideas are clear, when the ideas that compose them are clear, and in their number and order determinate and certain.

The causes of obscurity in simple ideas seem to be either dull organs, or very slight and transient impressions made by the objects, or else a weakness in the memory, not able to retain them as received: so wax may be too hard to receive an impression, too soft to retain it, or be impressed with a force not sufficient to make a clear impression.

A clear idea, then, is that whereof the mind has such a full and evident perception, as is received from an outward object operating duly on a well disposed organ. A distinct idea is that wherein the mind perceives a difference from every other:-and a confused idea is one not sufficiently distinguishable from another from which it ought to be different. But it may be said that no idea can be any other than such as the mind perceives it to be, and that the very perception of it sufficiently distinguishes it from all others, so that it will be hard to find any where a confused idea.In answer towhich, it must be observed, that the confusion lies in the names; distinct names being supposed always to denote different things. The faults which occasion confusion are chiefly these: Complex ideas,

(which are most liable to confusion) being made up of too few simple ones, and such only as are common to other things; thus, he that has an idea made up of simple ones only, of a beast with spots, has but a confused idea of a leopard; it not being sufficiently distinguished from a lynx, and several other spotted beasts-Our simple ideas being jumbled together in à disorderly manner; as in a picture, where the colours make very unusual figures, which appear to represent no particular object, but which when placed in a proper light shews the colours and lines in a due order and proportion, so that you discover the object it represents :-and the using of terms with no precise signification, so that the same term at different times stands for very different ideas.

Where there are supposed two different ideas, marked by two different names, which are not as distinguishable as the sounds that stand for them, there never fails to be confusion: to prevent this, we should unite in our complex idea, as precisely as possible, all those ingredients whereby it is differenced from others, and steadily apply the same name to them so united in a determinate number and order: but this not 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. Our complex ideas may be very clear and distinct in one part, and very