7. Defaults which make this confusion.
The defaults which usually occasion this confusion, I think, are chiefly
these following:
Complex Ideas made up of too few simple ones. First, when any complex idea (for it is complex ideas that are
most liable to confusion) is made up of too small a number of simple ideas, and such only as are common to other
things, whereby the differences that make it deserve a different name, are left out. Thus, he that has an idea made
up of barely the simple ones of a beast with spots, has but a confused idea of a leopard; it not being thereby
sufficiently distinguished from a lynx, and several other sorts of beasts that are spotted. So that such an idea,
though it hath the peculiar name leopard, is not distinguishable from those designed by the names lynx or panther,
and may as well come under the name lynx as leopard. How much the custom of defining of words by general
terms contributes to make the ideas we would express by them confused and undetermined, I leave others to
consider. This is evident, that confused ideas are such as render the use of words uncertain, and take away the
benefit of distinct names. When the ideas, for which we use different terms, have not a difference answerable to
their distinct names, and so cannot be distinguished by them, there it is that they are truly confused.
