in their progress, and keep them in ignorance and error all their lives. Some of them I shall take notice of, and endeavor to point out proper remedies for, in the following discourse.
3. Reasoning.—Besides the want of determined ideas,[1] and of sagacity and exercise in finding out and laying in order intermediate ideas, there are three miscarriages that men are guilty of, in reference to their reason, whereby this faculty is hindered in them from that service it might do and was designed for. And he that reflects upon the actions and discourses of mankind will find their defects in this kind very frequent and very observable.
1. The first is of those who seldom reason at all, but do and think according to the example of others, whether parents, neighbors, ministers, or who[2] else they are pleased to make choice of to have an implicit faith in, for the saving of themselves the pains and trouble of thinking and examining for themselves.
2. The second is of those who put passion in the place of reason, and being resolved that shall govern their actions and arguments, neither use their own, nor
- ↑ Determined ideas. Locke states elsewhere that he uses determined or determinate in the sense of clear and distinct. Read the latter part of the “Epistle to the Reader” preceding the “Essay on the Human Understanding.” Cf. also the “Essay” itself, Bk, IT. ch. xxix. § 4.
- ↑ Who. What is the syntax of this word? Just here it may be noted that there will be found in this Essay many expressions that cannot be analyzed or parsed according to the rules of grammar, but, as G. H. Lewes has said, “There is no cause for not understanding Locke. If his language be occasionally loose and wavering, his meaning is always to be gathered from the context.”
