this is the cause of no small obscurity and confusion in men's thoughts
and discourses.

I know there are not words enough in any language to answer all the
variety of ideas that enter into men's discourses and reasonings. But
this hinders not but that when any one uses any term, he may have in his
mind a determined idea, which he makes it the sign of, and to which he
should keep it steadily annexed during that present discourse. Where he
does not, or cannot do this, he in vain pretends to clear or distinct
ideas: it is plain his are not so; and therefore there can be expected
nothing but obscurity and confusion, where such terms are made use of
which have not such a precise determination.

Upon this ground I have thought determined ideas a way of speaking less
liable to mistakes, than clear and distinct: and where men have got such
determined ideas of all that they reason, inquire, or argue about, they
will find a great part of their doubts and disputes at an end; the
greatest part of the questions and controversies that perplex mankind
depending on the doubtful and uncertain use of words, or (which is the
same) indetermined ideas, which they are made to stand for. I have made
choice of these terms to signify, (1) Some immediate object of the mind,
which it perceives and has before it, distinct from the sound it uses as
a sign of it. (2) That this idea, thus determined, i.e. which the mind
has in itself, and knows, and sees there, be determined without any
change to that name, and that name determined to that precise idea. If
men had such determined ideas in their inquiries and discourses, they
would both discern how far their own inquiries and discourses went, and
avoid the greatest part of the disputes and wranglings they have with
others.