and proveth things by,)
which by a pretty surprizing uncouthness in conceit of
expression doth affect and amuse the fancy, stirring in it
some wonder, and breeding some delight thereto.

And about sixty years later, despite the work of Hobbes and Locke in
calling attention to the importance of semantics, the confusion still
existed. According to John Oldmixon (_Essay on Criticism_, 1727, p.
21), "Wit and Humour, Wit and good Sense, Wit and Wisdom, Wit and
Reason, Wit and Craft; nay, Wit and Philosophy, are with us almost the
same Things." Some such confusion is apparent in the definition
presented by the _Essay on Wit_ (1748, p. 6).

In general it was recognized that there were two main kinds of wit.
Both fancy and judgment, said Hobbes (_Human Nature_, X, sect. 4), are
usually understood in the term _wit_; and wit seems to be "a tenuity
and agility of spirits," opposed to the sluggishness of spirits
assumed to be characteristic of dull people. Sometimes wit was used in
this sense to translate the words _ingenium_ or _l'esprit_. But
Hobbes's disciple Walter Charleton objected to making it the
equivalent of _ingenium_, which, he said, rather signified a man's
natural inclination--that is, genius. Instead, he described wit as
either the faculty of understanding, or an act or effect of that
faculty; and understanding is made up of both judgment and
Imagination. The Ample or Happy Wit exhibits a fine blend of the two
(_Brief Discourse concerning the Different Wits of Men_, 1669, pp. 10,
17-19). In this sense wit combines quickness and solidity of mind.

In the other, and more restricted sense, wit was made identical with
fancy (or imagination) and distinguished sharply from reason or
judgment. So Hobbes, recording a popular meaning of wit, remarked
(_Leviathan_. I, viii) that people who discover rarely observed
similitudes in objects that otherwise are much unlike, are said to
have a good wit. And judgment, directly opposed to it, was taken to be
the faculty of discerning differences in objects that are
superficially alike. (Between this idea of wit as discovering likeness
in things unlike, and the Platonic idea of discovering the One in the
Many, the Augustans made no connection.) A similar distinction between
wit and judgment was made by Charleton, Robert Boyle, John Locke, and
many others. The full implication lying in Hobbes's definition can be
seen in Walter Charleton, who said (_Brief Discourse_, pp