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which, in the first general view I had of this fubject, was all that I thought I should have to do: but, upon a nearer approach, I find that there is fo clofe a connexion between ideas and words; and our abftract ideas, and general words, have fo conftant a relation one to another, that it is impoffible to fpeak clearly and diftinctly of our knowledge, which all confifts. in propofitions, without confidering, first the nature, ufe, and fignification of language; which therefore must be the business of the next book.

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Of Words or Language in general.

§. 1. GOD having defigned man for a

Man fitted to

form articulate founds.

fociable creature, made him not only with an inclination, and under a neceffity to have fellowship with thofe of his own kind; but furnished him also with language, which was to be the great inftrument and common tie of fociety. Man therefore had by nature his organs fo fashioned, as to be fit to frame articulate founds, which we call words. But this was not enough to produce language; for parrots, and feveral other birds, will be taught to make articulate founds diftinct enough, which yet, by no means, are capable of language.

To make

them figns of ideas.

§. 2. Befides articulate founds therefore, it was farther neceffary, that he should be able to use these founds as figns of internal conceptions; and to make them ftand as marks for the ideas within his own mind, whereby they might be made known to others, and the thoughts of men's minds be conveyed from one to another.

§. 3. But neither was this fufficient to To make ge. make words so useful as they ought to be. neral figns.

It is not enough for the perfection of language, that founds can be made figns of ideas, unless those signs can be so made ufe of as to comprehend several particular things: for the multiplication of words would have perplexed their ufe, had every particular thing need of a diftinct name to be fignified by. To remedy this inconvenience, language had yet a farther improvement in the use of general terms, whereby one word was made to mark a multitude of particular exiftences: which advantageous ufe of founds was obtained only by the difference of the ideas they were made figns of: thofe names becoming general, which are made to ftand for general ideas, and thofe remaining particular, where the ideas they are used for are particular.

Words ultimately derived from fuch as fignify fenfible ideas.

§. 5. It

§. 4. Befides thefe names which ftand for ideas, there be other words which men make use of, not to fignify any idea, but the want or abfence of fome ideas fimple or complex, or all ideas together; fuch as are nihil in Latin, and in English, ignorance and barrennefs. All which negative or privative words cannot be faid properly to belong to, or fignify no ideas: for then they would be perfectly infignificant founds; but they relate to pofitive ideas, and fignify their abfence. may alfo lead us a little towards the original of all our notions and knowledge, if we remark how great a dependence our words have on common fenfible ideas: and how thofe, which are made ufe of to ftand for actions and notions quite removed from fenfe, have their rife from thence, and from obvious fenfible ideas are transferred to more abftrufe fignifications; and made to ftand for ideas that come not under the cognizance of our fenfes: v. g. to imagine, apprehend, comprehend, adhere, conceive, instil, difguft, disturbance, tranquillity, &c. are all words taken from the operations of fenfible things, and applied to certain modes of thinking. Spirit, in its primary fignification, is breath: angel a meffenger: and I doubt not, but if we could trace them to their sources, we should find, in all languages, the names, which ftand for things that fall not under our fenfes, to have

had

had their first rise from sensible ideas. By which we may give fome kind of guess what kind of notions they were, and whence derived, which filled their minds who were the first beginners of languages: and how nature, even in the naming of things, unawares fuggefted to men the originals and principles of all their knowledge whilft, to give names that might make known to others any operations they felt in themselves, or any other ideas that came not under their fenfes, they were fain to borrow words from ordinary known ideas of fenfation, by that means to make others the more easily to conceive thofe operations they experimented in themselves, which made no outward fenfible appearances: and then when they had got known and agreed names, to fignify those internal operations of their own minds, they were fufficiently furnished to make known by words all their other ideas; fince they could confift of nothing, but either of outward fenfible perceptions, or of the inward operations of their minds about them: we having, as has been proved, no ideas at all, but what originally come either from fenfible objects without, or what we feel within ourfelves, from the inward workings of our own fpirits, of which we are confcious to ourselves within.

Diftribution.

§. 6. But to understand better the ufe and force of language, as fubfervient to inftruction and knowledge, it will be convenient to confider,

First, To what it is that names, in the use of language, are immediately applied.

Secondly, Since all (except proper) names are general, and so stand not particularly for this or that fingle thing, but for forts and ranks of things; it will be neceffary to confider, in the next place, what the forts and kinds, or, if you rather like the Latin names, what the fpecies and genera of things are; wherein they confift, and how they come to be made. These being (as they ought) well looked into, we fhall the better come to find the right ufe of words, the natural advantages and defects of language, and the remedies. that ought to be used, to avoid the inconveniences of obfcurity

obfcurity or uncertainty in the fignification of words, without which it is impoffible to difcourfe with any clearness, or order, concerning knowledge: which being converfant about propofitions, and thofe most commonly univerfal ones, has greater connexion with words than perhaps is fufpected.

Thefe confiderations therefore fhall be the matter of the following chapters.

Words are fenfible figns neceffary, for

communication.

CHA P. II.

Of the Signification of Words.

§. I.

MA

AN, though he has great variety of thoughts, and fuch, from which others, as well as himself, might receive profit and delight; yet they are all within his own breaft, invifible and hidden from others, nor can of themfelves be made appear. The comfort and advantage of fociety not being to be had without communication of thoughts, it was neceffary that man fhould find out fome external fenfible figns, whereof those invifible ideas, which his thoughts are made up for, might be made known to others. For this purpose nothing was fo fit, either for plenty or quicknefs, as thofe articulate founds, which with fo much ease and variety he found himself able to make. Thus we may conceive how words, which were by nature fo well adapted to that purpose, come to be made ufe of by men, as the figns of their ideas; not by any natural connexion that there is between particular articulate founds and certain ideas, for then there would be but one language amongst all men: but by a voluntary impofition, whereby fuch a word is made arbitrarily the mark of fuch an idea. The use then of words is to be fenfible marks of ideas; and the ideas they stand for are their proper and immediate fignification.

Words are the fenfible figns of his,

ideas who uses them.

§. 2. The ufe men have of thefe marks being either to record their own thoughts for the affiftance of their own memory, or as it were to bring out their ideas, and lay them before the view of others; words in their primary or immediate fignification ftand for nothing but the ideas in the mind of him that ufes them, how imperfectly foever or carelessly thofe ideas are collected from the things which they are fuppofed to reprefent. When a man fpeaks to another, it is that he may be understood; and the end of fpeech is, that those founds, as marks, may make known his ideas to the hearer. That then which words are the marks of are the ideas of the fpeaker: nor can any one apply them, as marks, immediately to any thing elfe, but the ideas that he himself hath. For this would be to make them figns of his own conceptions, and yet apply them to other ideas; which would be to make them figns, and not figns, of his ideas at the fame time; and fo in effect to have no fignification at all. Words being voluntary figns, they cannot be voluntary figns impofed by him on things he knows not. That would be to make them figns of nothing, founds without fignification. A man cannot make his words the figns either of qualities in things, or of conceptions in the mind of another, whereof he has none in his own. Till he has fome ideas of his own, he cannot suppose them to correfpond with the conceptions of another man; nor can he use any figns for them: for thus they would be the figns of he knows not what, which is in truth to be the figns of nothing. But when he represents to himself other men's ideas by fome of his own, if he confent to give them the fame names that other men do, it is ftill to his own ideas; to ideas that he has, and not to ideas that he has not.

§. 3. This is fo neceffary in the use of language, that in this respect the knowing and the ignorant, the learned and unlearned, ufe the words they speak (with any meaning) all alike. They, in every man's mouth, fstand for the ideas he has, and which he would express by them. A child having taken notice of nothing in

the

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