Locke, John (1632-1704)

An Essay Concerning Humane Understanding

London

1690, 1694, 1695, 1700, 1706

"It is impossible that Men should ever truly seek, or certainly discover the Agreement or Disagreement of Ideas themselves, whilst their Thoughts flutter about, or stick only in Sounds of doubtful and uncertain significations Mathematicians abstracting their Thoughts from Names, and accustoming themselves to set before their Minds the Ideas themselves, that they would consider, and not Sounds instead of them, have avoided thereby a great part of that perplexity, puddering, and confusion, which has so much hindred Mens progress in other parts of Knowledge; who sticking in Words of undetermined and uncertain signification, were unable to distinguish True from False, Certain from Probable, Consistent from Inconsistent, in their own Opinions."

§. 30. Thirdly, Where we have adequate Ideas, and where there is a certain and discoverable connexion between them, yet we are often ignorant, for want of tracing those Ideas we have, or may have, and finding out those intermediate Ideas, which may shew us what habitude of agreement or disagreement they have one with another. And thus many are ignorant of mathematical Truths, not out of any imperfection of their Faculties, or uncertainty in the Things themselves; but for want of application in acquiring, examining, and by due ways comparing those Ideas. That which has most contributed to hinder the due tracing of our Ideas, and finding out their Relations, and Agreements or Disagreements one with another, has been, I suppose, the ill use of Words. It is impossible that Men should ever truly seek, or certainly discover the Agreement or Disagreement of Ideas themselves, whilst their Thoughts flutter about, or stick only in Sounds of doubtful and uncertain significations Mathematicians abstracting their Thoughts from Names, and accustoming themselves to set before their Minds the Ideas themselves, that they would consider, and not Sounds instead of them, have avoided thereby a great part of that perplexity, puddering, and confusion, which has so much hindred Mens progress in other parts of Knowledge; who sticking in Words of undetermined and uncertain signification, were unable to distinguish True from False, Certain from Probable, Consistent from Inconsistent, in their own Opinions: Whereby the increase brought into the Stock of real Knowledge has been very little, in proportion to the Schools, Disputes, and Writings, the World has been fill'd with; whilst Men, being lost in the great Wood of Words, knew not whereabout they were, how far their Discoveries were advanced, or what was wanting in their own, or the general Stock of Knowledge. Had Men, in their discoveries of the material, done, as they have in those of the intellectual World, involved all in the obscurity of uncertain and doubtful terms and ways of talking, Volumes writ of Navigation and Voyages, Theories and Stories of Zones and Tydes multiplied and disputed; nay, Ships built, and Fleets set out, would never have taught us the way beyond the Line; and the Antipodes would be still as much unknown, as when it was declared Heresie to hold there were any. But having spoken sufficiently of Words, and the ill or careless use, that is commonly made of them, I shall not say any thing more of it here.
(IV.iii.30, pp. 280-281)

Motion::Flutter

Searching in EEBO-TCP

Locke began composition as early as 1671 (Drafts A and B).

I find over 25 entries in the ESTC (1690, 1694, 1695, 1700, 1706, 1710, 1715, 1721, 1726, 1731, 1735, 1741, 1748, 1753, 1759, 1760, 1765, 1768, 1775, 1777, 1786, 1788, 1793, 1795, 1796, 1798). See also the many abridgements issued in the period.

First published as An Essay Concerning Humane Understanding. In Four Books. (London: Printed by Eliz. Holt, for Thomas Basset, at the George in Fleetstreet, near St. Dunstan's Church, 1690). <Link to EEBO><EEBO-TCP>

Searching first in a Past Masters edition based on the 12th Edition of Locke's Works and proofread against the 1959 Fraser edition. More recent searches in EEBO-TCP.

Reading John Locke's An Essay Concerning Human Understanding, ed. Peter Nidditch (Oxford, Oxford UP, 1975)--against which I have checked the text searched in Past Masters. Note, Nidditch's text is based on 4th ed. of 1700.

07/28/2014