be found any likeness, is a fault in the understanding on the other side which will not fail to mislead it, and by thus lumping of things, hinder the mind from distinct and accurate conceptions of them.
32. Similes.— To which let me here add another near of kin to this, at least in name, and that is letting the mind, upon the suggestion of any new notion, run immediately after similes to make it the clearer to itself, which, though it may be a good way and useful in the explaining our thoughts to others, yet it is by no means a right method to settle true notions of anything in ourselves, because similes always fail in some part, and come short of that exactness which our conceptions should have to things if we would think aright. This indeed makes men plausible talkers, for those are always most acceptable in discourse[1] who have the way to let their thoughts into other men’s minds with the greatest ease and facility; whether those thoughts are well formed and correspond with things matters not; few men care to be instructed but at an easy rate. They who in their discourse strike the fancy, and take the hearers’ conceptions along with them as fast as their words flow, are the applauded talkers, and go for the only men of clear thoughts. Nothing contributes so much to this as similes, whereby men think they themselves understand better, because
- ↑ Most acceptable in discourse. Locke himself is said by his biographers to have been most fascinating in conversation.
