1. No knowledge without discernment.
Another faculty we may take notice of in our minds is that of discerning
and distinguishing between the several ideas it has. It is not enough to have a confused perception of something in
general. Unless the mind had a distinct perception of different objects and their qualities, it would be capable of
very little knowledge, though the bodies that affect us were as busy about us as they are now, and the mind were
continually employed in thinking. On this faculty of distinguishing one thing from another depends the evidence
and certainty of several, even very general, propositions, which have passed for innate truths;--because men,
overlooking the true cause why those propositions find universal assent, impute it wholly to native uniform
impressions; whereas it in truth depends upon this clear discerning faculty of the mind, whereby it perceives two
ideas to be the same, or different. But of this more hereafter.
