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 those 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.

MAN, though he has great va

riety 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 themselves 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 invisible ideas, which his thoughts are made up for, might be made known to others. For this purpofe 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 ftand for are their proper and immediate fignification.

Words are the fenfible figns of his ufes them.

ideas who

§. 2. The ufe men have of these marks being either to record their own thoughts for the affistance 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 uses 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 else, 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 fuppofe 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 reprefents to himself other men's ideas by fome of his own, if he consent 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 fpeak (with any meaning) all alike. They, in every man's mouth, ftand for the ideas he has, and which he would exprefs by them. A child having taken notice of nothing in

the

the metal he hears called gold, but the bright shining yellow colour, he applies the word gold only to his own idea of that colour, and nothing elfe; and therefore calls the fame colour in a peacock's tail gold. Another that hath better obferved, adds to fhining yellow great weight: and then the found gold, when he ufes it, ftands for a complex idea of a fhining yellow and very weighty fubftance. Another adds to thofe qualities fufibility and then the word gold fignifies to him a body, bright, yellow, fufible, and very heavy. Another adds malleability. Each of thefe ufes equally the word gold, when they have occafion to express the idea which they have applied it to: but it is evident, that each can apply it only to his own idea; nor can he make it stand as a fign of fuch a complex idea as he

has not.

Words often fecretly referred, firft to the ideas in other men's minds.

§. 4. But though words, as they are used by men, can properly and immediately fignify nothing but the ideas that are in the mind of the speaker; yet they in their thoughts give them a fecret reference to

two other things.

First, They fuppofe their words to be marks of the ideas in the minds alfo of other men, with whom they communicate: for else they should talk in vain, and could not be understood, if the founds they applied to one idea were fuch as by the hearer were applied to another; which is to fpeak two languages. But in this, men ftand not ufually to examine, whether the idea they and thofe they difcourfe with have in their minds, be the fame: but think it enough that they use the word, as they imagine, in the common acceptation of that language; in which they fuppofe, that the idea they make it a fign of is precisely the fame, to which the understanding men of that country apply that

name.

Secondly, to

§. 5. Secondly, Because men would not the reality of be thought to talk barely of their own things. imaginations but of things as really they are; therefore they often fuppofe the words to ftand alfo for the reality of things. But this relating more particularly

particularly to fubftances, and their names, as perhaps the former does to fimple ideas and modes, we shall fpeak of thefe two different ways of applying words more at large, when we come to treat of the names of fixed modes, and fubftances in particular: though give me leave here to fay, that it is a perverting the use of words, and brings unavoidable obfcurity and confufion into their fignification, whenever we make them stand for any thing, but thofe ideas we have in our own minds.

Words by ufe readily excite ideas.

§. 6. Concerning words alfo it is farther to be confidered: first, that they being immediately the figns of men's ideas, and by that means the inftruments whereby men communicate their conceptions, and exprefs to another those thoughts and imaginations they have within their own breafts; there comes by constant use to be fuch a connexion between certain founds and the ideas they ftand for, that the names heard, almost as readily excite certain ideas, as if the objects themselves, which are apt to produce them, did actually affect the fenses. Which is manifeftly fo in all obvious fenfible qualities; and in all substances, that frequently and familiarly occur to us.

Words often

used without

fignification.

§. 7. Secondly, That though the proper and immediate fignification of words are ideas in the mind of the fpeaker, yet because by familiar ufe from our cradles we come to learn certain articulate founds very perfectly, and have them readily on our tongues, and always at hand in our memories, but yet are not always careful to examine, or fettle their fignifications perfectly; it often happens that men, even when they would apply themselves to an attentive confideration, do fet their thoughts more on words than things. Nay, because words are many of them learned before the ideas are known for which they stand; therefore fome, not only children, but men, speak feveral words no otherwife than parrots do, only because they have learned them, and have been accuftomed to thofe founds. But fo far as words are of ufe and fignification, fo far is there a conftant conVOL, I.

Ff

nexion

nexion between the found and theidea, and a defignation that the one ftands for the other; without which application of them, they are nothing but fo much infigni

ficant noife.

Their fignification perfectly arbitrary.

§. 8. Words by long and familiar use, as has been faid, come to excite in men certain ideas fo conftantly and readily, that they are apt to fuppofe a natural connection between them. But that they fignify only men's peculiar ideas, and that by a perfect arbitrary impofition, is evident, in that they often fail to excite in others. (even that use the fame language) the fame ideas we take them to be the figns of: and every man has fo inviolable a liberty to make words ftand for what ideas The pleases, that no one hath the power to make others have the fame ideas in their minds that he has, when they use the fame words that he does. And therefore the great Auguftus himself, in the poffeffion of that power which ruled the world, acknowledged he could not make a new Latin word: which was as much as to fay, that he could not arbitrarily appoint what - idea any found fhould be a fign of, in the mouths and common language of his fubjects. It is true, common use by a tacit confent appropriates certain founds to certain ideas in all languages, which fo far limits the fignification of that found, that unless a man applies it to the fame idea, he does not speak properly: and let me add, that unless a man's words excite the fame ideas in the hearer, which he makes them ftand for in fpeaking, he does not fpeak intelligibly. But whatever be the confequence of any man's ufing of words differently, either from their general meaning, or the particular fenfe of the perfon to whom he addreffes them, this is certain, their fignification, in his use of them, is limited to his ideas, and they can be figns of nothing else.

CHAP.