never yet get admittance into common ufe, or obtain the licence of public approbation; which feems to me at least to intimate the confeffion of all mankind, that they have no ideas of the real effences of fubftances, fince they have not names for fuch ideas; which no doubt they would have had, had not their consciousness to themselves of their ignorance of them, kept them from fo idle an attempt. And therefore, though they had ideas enough to diftinguish gold from ftone, and metal from wood, yet they but timorously ventured on fuch terms, as aurietas and saxietas, metallietas and lignietas, or the like names, which should pretend to fignify the real effences of thofe fubftances, whereof they knew they had no ideas. And indeed it was only the doctrine of fubftantial forms, and the confidence of miftaken pretenders to a knowledge that they had not, which firft coined, and then introduced animalitas, and humanitas, and the like; which yet went very little farther than their own schools, and could never get to be current amongst understanding men. Indeed, humanitas was a word familiar amongst the Romans, but in a far different fenfe, and flood not for the abftract effence of any substance, but was the abftract name of a made, and its concrete humanus, not homo.

CHAP. IX.

OF THE IMPERFECTION OF WORDS.

§ 1. Words are used for recording and communicating our Thoughts.

FR

ROM what has been faid in the foregoing chapters, it is cafy to perceive what imperfection there is in language, and how the very nature of words makes it almost unavoidable for many of them to be doubtful and uncertain in their fignifications. To examine the perfection or imperfection of words, it is neceffary first to confider their use and end; fór as they are more or lefs fitted to attain that, fo are they more or lefs perfect. We have in the former part of this difcourfe, often upon occafion mentioned a double ufe of words.

Firft, One for the recording of our own thoughts. Secondly, The other for the communicating of our thoughts to others.

§2. Any Words will ferve for recording. As to the first of thefe, for the recording our own thoughts for the help of our own memories, whereby, as it were, we talk to ourselves, any words will ferve the turn; for fince founds are voluntary and indifferent figns of any ideas, a man may use what words he pleases, to fignify his own ideas to himself; and there will be no imperfection in them, if he conftantly use the fame fign for the fame idea, for then he cannot fail of having his meaning understood, wherein confifts the right ufe and perfection of language.

§3. Communication by words, Civil or Philofophical. SECONDLY, As to communication of words, that too has a double use.

I. Civil.

II. Philofophical.

First, By their civil ufe, I mean fuch a communication of thoughts and ideas by words, as may ferve for the upholding common converfation and commerce, about the ordinary affairs and conveniencies of civil life, in the focieties of men one amongst another.

Secondly, By the philofophical ufe of words, I mean fuch an ufe of them, as may ferve to convey the precise notions of things, and to exprefs, in general propofitions, certain and undoubted truths, which the mind may reft upon and be fatisfied with, in its fearch after true knowledge. These two ufes are very diftinct; and a great deal lefs exactnefs will ferve in the one than in the other, as we shall fee in what follows.

§ 4. The Imperfection of Words is the Doubtfulness of their Signification.

THE chief end of language in communication being to be understood, words ferve not for that end, neither in civil nor philofophical difcourfe, when any word does not excite in the hearer the fame idea which it stands for in the mind of the speaker. Now fince founds have

no natural connection with our ideas, but have all their fignification from the arbitrary impofition of men, the doubtfulness and uncertainty of their fignification, which is the imperfection we here are fpeaking of, has its caufe more in the ideas they ftand for, than in any incapacity there is in one found more than in another to fignify any idea; for in that regard they are all equally perfect.

That then which makes doubtfulness and uncertainty in the fignification of fome more than other words, is the difference of ideas they ftand for.

$5. Caufes of their Imperfection.

WORDS having naturally no fignification, the idea which each stands for must be learned and retained by those, who would exchange thoughts, and hold intelligible difcourfe with others in any language. But this is hardeft to be done, where,

First, The ideas they ftand for are very complex, and made up of a great number of ideas put together.

Secondly, Where the ideas they ftand for have no certain connection in nature, and fo no fettled ftandard, any where in nature exifting, to rectify and adjust them by.

Thirdly, Where the fignification of the word is referred to a standard, which standard is not fo eafy to be known.

Fourthly, Where the fignification of the word, and the real effence of the thing, are not exactly the fame.

Thefe are difficulties that attend the fignification of feveral words that are intelligible: those which are not intelligible at all, such as names standing for any fimple ideas, which another has not organs or faculties to attain, as the names of colours to a blind man, or founds to a deaf man, need not here be mentioned.

In all these cafes we fhall find an imperfection in words, which I fhall more at large explain, in their particular application to our feveral forts of ideas: For if we examine them, we fhall find that the names of mixed modes are most liable to doubtfulness and imperfection, for the two

firft of these reasons; and the names of fubftances chiefly for

the two latter.

§ 6. The Names of mixed Modes doubtful. FIRST, the names of mixed modes are many of them liable to great uncertainty and obfcurity in their fignifi

cation.

First, Because the Ideas they ftand for are fo complex.

I. Because of that great compofition thefe complex ideas are often made up of. To make words ferviceable to the end of communication, it is neceffary (as has been faid) that they excite in the hearer exactly the fame idea they ftand for in the mind of the fpeaker. Without this, men fill one another's heads with noife and founds, but convey not thereby their thoughts, and lay not before one another their ideas, which is the end of discourse and language. But when a word stands for a very complex idea that is compounded and decompounded, it is not easy for men to form and retain that idea fo exactly, as to make the name in common use ftand for the fame precife idea without any the least variation. Hence it comes to pafs, that mens names of very compound ideas, fuch as for the most part are moral words, have seldom, in two different men, the fame precife fignification; fince one man's complex idea feldom agrees with another's, and often differs from his own, from that which he had yesterday, or will have to

morrow.

7. Secondly, Because they have no Standards.

II. BECAUSE the names of mixed modes, for the most part, want standards in nature, whereby men may rectify and adjust their fignifications; therefore they are very various and doubtful. They are affemblages of ideas put together at the pleasure of the mind, purfuing its own ends of difcourfe, and fuited to its own notions; whereby it defigns not to copy any thing really existing, but to denominate and rank things, as they come to agree, with thofe archetypes or forms it has made. He that first brought the word ham, wheedle, or banter in ufe, put together, as he thought fit, thofe ideas he made it ftand for And as it is with any new names of modes,

that are now brought into any language, fo was it with the old ones, when they were firft made ufe of. Names therefore that ftand for collections of ideas which the mind makes at pleasure, must needs be of doubtful fignification, when fuch collections are no where to be found conftantly united in nature, nor any patterns to be shown whereby men may adjuft them. What the word murder, or facrilege, &c. fignifies, can never be known from things themselves: There be many of the parts of thofe complex ideas, which are not visible in the action itself; the intention of the mind, or the rela tion of holy things, which make a part of murder or fa crilege, have no neceflary connection with the outward and visible action of him that commits either; and the pulling the trigger of the gun with which the murder is commited, and is all the action that perhaps is vifible, has no natural connection with thofe other ideas that make up the complex one, named murder. They have their union and combination only from the understanding, which unites them under one name; but uniting them without any rule or pattern, it cannot be but that the fignification of the name that ftands for fuch voluntary collections, fhould be often various in the minds of different men, who have scarce any ftanding rule to regulate themfelves and their notions by, in fuch arbitrary ideas.

$ 8. Propriety not a fufficient Remedy.

It is true, common ufe, that is the rule of propriety, may be fuppofed here to afford fome aid, to fettle the fignification of language; and it cannot be denied but that in fome measure it does. Common use regulates the meaning of words pretty well for common converfation; but nobody having an authority to establish the precife fignification of words, nor determine to what ideas any one fhall annex them, common ufe is not fufficient to adjust them to philofophical discourses; there being scarce any name of any very complex idea (to say nothing of others), which in common ufe has not a great latitude, and which, keeping within the bounds of propriety, may not be made the fign of far different ideas. Befides, the