By what has been said, we may observe how much names, as supposed steady signs of things, and by their difference to stand for, and keep things distinct that in themselves are different, are the occasion of denominating ideas distinct or confused, by a secret and unobserved reference the mind makes of its ideas to such names.  This perhaps will be fuller understood, after what I say of Words in the third Book has been read and considered.  But without taking notice of such a reference of ideas to distinct names, as the signs of distinct things, it will be hard to say what a confused idea is.  And therefore when a man designs, by any name, a sort of things, or any one particular thing, distinct from all others, the complex idea he annexes to that name is the more distinct, the more particular the ideas are, and the greater and more determinate the number and order of them is, whereof it is made up.  For, the more it has of these, the more it has still of the perceivable differences, whereby it is kept separate and distinct from all ideas belonging to other names, even those that approach nearest to it, and thereby all confusion with them is avoided.

11.  Confusion concerns always two Ideas.

Confusion making it a difficulty to separate two things that should be separated, concerns always two ideas; and those most which most approach one another.  Whenever, therefore, we suspect any idea to be confused, we must examine what other it is in danger to be confounded with, or which it cannot easily be separated from; and that will always be found an idea belonging to another name, and so should be a different thing, from which yet it is not sufficiently distinct:  being either the same with it, or making a part of it, or at least as properly called by that name as the other it is ranked under; and so keeps not that difference from that other idea which the different names import.

12.  Causes of confused Ideas.

This, I think, is the confusion proper to ideas; which still carries with it a secret reference to names.  At least, if there be any other confusion of ideas, this is that which most of all disorders men’s thoughts and discourses:  ideas, as ranked under names, being those that for the most part men reason of within themselves, and always those which they commune about with others.  And therefore where there are supposed two different ideas, marked by two different names, which are not as distinguishable as the sounds that stand for them, there never fails to be confusion; and where any ideas are distinct as the ideas of those two sounds they are marked by, there can be between them no confusion.  The way to prevent it is to collect and unite into one complex idea, as precisely as is possible, all those ingredients whereby it is differenced from others; and to them, so united in a determinate number and order, apply steadily the same name.  But this neither accommodating men’s ease or vanity, nor serving any design