Part I, Chapter 11: Of another Cause which introduces Confusion into our Thoughts and Discourses, which is, that we attach them to Words
WE have already said that the necessity which we have for employing outward signs in order to make ourselves understood, causes us so to attach our ideas to words that we often consider the words more than the things, Now this is one of the most common causes of the confusion of our thoughts and discourse.
For it must be remarked, that though men have often different ideas of the same things, they employ, nevertheless, the same words to express them; as the idea which a pagan philosopher has of virtue is not the same as that which a theologian has of it, while, nevertheless, each expresses his idea by the same word, virtue.
Further, the same men, in different ages, have considered the same things in very different ways, and have nevertheless, always collected these various ideas under a single name; so that, on pronouncing that word, or in hearing it pronounced, we are easily perplexed, sometimes taking it for one idea, sometimes for another. For example, man having perceived that he had in him something, whatever it might be, which effected his nourishment and growth, called this soul, and extended that idea to what resembled it, not only in animals, but even in plants. And having further seen that he thought, he further called by the name of soul that which was the principle of thought within; whence it has happened, that through that resemblance of name, he has taken for the same thing that which thought, and that which caused the body to be nourished and to increase. In the same way, the word life has been applied equally to that which is the cause of animal activity, and to the thinking principle, which are two things utterly different in their nature.
In the same way, there is much of equivocation in the words sense, and sensations, even when these words are taken only in relation to the five bodily senses; for three things commonly take place in us when we use our senses, as when, for instance, we see anything. The first is—that certain movements are made in the bodily organs, as the eye and the brain; the second—that these movements give occasion to our mind of conceiving something, as when following from the movement which is made in our eye, by the reflection of light in the drops of rain opposite the sun, it has the ideas of red, of blue, and of orange; the third is—the judgment we form of that which we see, as of the rainbow, to which we attribute these colours, and which we conceive of a certain size, of a certain figure, and at a certain distance. The first of these three things is in our body alone; the two others only in our soul, although on occasion of what passes in the body; and we nevertheless comprehend all three, although so different, under the same name of sense, and sensations, of sight, hearing, &c. For when we say that the eye sees, that the ear hears, that cannot be understood simply in relation to the movement of the bodily organ, since it is very clear that the eye has no perception of the objects which strike it, and that it cannot judge of them. We say, on the contrary, that we have not seen a person who is present before us, and who strikes our eyes, when we have not noticed him. And then we take the word sight for the thought which is formed in our soul, in consequence of what passes in our eye and in our brain; and, according to that signification of the word see, it is the mind which sees, and not the body, as Plato maintains, and Cicero after him, in these words:—" Nos enim ne nunc quidem oculis cernimus ea quae videmus. Neque enim est ullus sensus in corpore. Viae quasi quaedam sunt ad oculos, ad aures, ad nares, a sede animi perforatae. Itaque saepe aut cogitationibus aut aliqua vi morbi impediti, apertis atque integris, et oculis, et auribus, nec videmus nec audimus: ut facile intelligi possit, animum et videre et audire, non eas partes quae quasi fenestrae sunt animi.” Finally, the words sense, sight, hearing, &c., are taken for the last of these three things;
that is to say, for the judgment which the mind forms from the perceptions which it has, on occasion of that which takes place in the bodily organs, when we say the senses are deceived: as, when we see in the water a crooked stick, and when the sun appears to us to be only two feet in diameter. For it is certain there cannot be anything at all of error or of falsehood, either in what passes in the bodily organ, or in the single perception of the soul, which is only a simple apprehension; but that all the error arises solely from our having judged wrongfully,—in concluding, for example, that the sun was only two feet in diameter, because its great distance makes that image which is formed of it in the centre of our eye, about the same size as that which would be formed there of an object of two feet in diameter, placed at a certain distance more proportionate to our common manner of seeing. But since we have made this judgment from our infancy, and are so accustomed to it, that we make it at the same instant in which we see the sun, with scarcely any reflection, we attribute it to the sight, and say, that we see objects greater, or smaller, according as they are nearer or further away from us, although it is our mind, and not our eye, which judges of their greatness or smallness.
All languages are full of a multitude of similar words, which, having only a single sound, are nevertheless signs of ideas altogether different. But it must be remarked, that when an equivocal name signifies two things which have no relation to each other, and which men have never confounded in their thoughts, it is then almost impossible that we can be deceived, and that it can become the cause of any error, as no one, with any common sense, would be deceived by the ambiguity of the word ram, which signifies an animal, and a sign of the zodiac. Whereas, when the equivocation arises from the error of men themselves, who have, by mistake, confounded different ideas, as in the word soul, it is difficult to be undeceived, since we supposed that those who first used these words thoroughly understood them; and thus we often content ourselves with pronouncing these, without ever examining if the idea which we have of them is clear and distinct; and we attribute even to that which we call by the same word, that which agrees only with ideas of things incompatible, without perceiving that this arises only from our having confounded two different things under the same name.