7. Instance, bat and bird.
Whether a bat be a bird or no, is not a question, Whether a bat be another thing than
indeed it is, or have other qualities than indeed it has; for that would be extremely absurd to doubt of. But the
question is, (1) Either between those that acknowledged themselves to have but imperfect ideas of one or both of
this sort of things, for which these names are supposed to stand. And then it is a real inquiry concerning the nature
of a bird or a bat, to make their yet imperfect ideas of it more complete; by examining whether all the simple ideas
to which, combined together, they both give the name bird, be all to be found in a bat: but this is a question only
of inquirers (not disputers) who neither affirm nor deny, but examine: Or, (2) It is a question between disputants;
whereof the one affirms, and the other denies that a bat is a bird. And then the question is barely about the
signification of one or both these words; in that they not having both the same complex ideas to which they give
these two names, one holds and the other denies, that these two names may be affirmed one of another. Were they
agreed in the signification of these two names, it were impossible they should dispute about them. For they would
presently and clearly see (were that adjusted between them), whether all the simple ideas of the more general
name bird were found in the complex idea of a bat or no; and so there could be no doubt whether a bat were a bird
or no. And here I desire it may be considered, and carefully examined, whether the greatest part of the disputes in
the world are not merely verbal, and about the signification of words; and whether, if the terms they are made in
were defined, and reduced in their signification (as they must be where they signify anything) to determined
collections of the simple ideas they do or should stand for, those disputes would not end of themselves, and
immediately vanish. I leave it then to be considered, what the learning of disputation is, and how well they are
employed for the advantage of themselves or others, whose business is only the vain ostentation of sounds; i.e.,
those who spend their lives in disputes and controversies. When I shall see any of those combatants strip all his
terms of ambiguity and obscurity, (which every one may do in the words he uses himself), I shall think him a
champion for knowledge, truth, and peace, and not the slave of vain-glory, ambition, or a party.
