Note 5 — ON THE WRITINGS OF HOBBES

The passage in Locke is as follows:

‘If in having our ideas in the memory ready at hand, consists quickness of parts, in this of having them unconfused and being able nicely to distinguish one thing from another, where there is but the least difference, consists in a great measure the exactness of judgment and clearness of reason, which is to be observed in one man above another. And hence perhaps may be given some reason of that common observation that men who have a great deal of wit and prompt memories, have not always the clearest judgment, or deepest reason. For wit lying most in the assemblage of ideas, and putting them together with quickness and variety, wherein can be found any resemblance or congruity, thereby to make up pleasant pictures and agreeable visions in the fancy; judgment on the contrary lies quite on the other side, in separating carefully one from another ideas wherein can be found the least difference, thereby to avoid being misled by similitude and by affinity to take one thing for another.’—Locke’s Essay, vol. i. p. 143.