1. Words are used for recording and communicating our thoughts. From what has been said in the
foregoing chapters, it is easy 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
significations. To examine the perfection or imperfection of words, it is necessary first to consider
their use and end: for as they are more or less fitted to attain that, so they are more or less perfect.
We have, in the former part of this discourse often, upon occasion, mentioned a double use of
words.
First, One for the recording of our own thoughts.
Secondly, The other for the communicating of our thoughts to others.
2. Any words will serve for recording. As to the first of these, for the recording our own thoughts for
the help of our own memories, whereby, as it were, we talk to ourselves, any words will serve the
turn. For since sounds are voluntary and indifferent signs of any ideas, a man may use what words
he pleases to signify his own ideas to himself: and there will be no imperfection in them, if he
constantly use the same sign for the same idea: for then he cannot fail of having his meaning
understood, wherein consists the right use and perfection of language.
3. Communication by words either for civil or philosophical purposes. Secondly, As to
communication by words, that too has a double use.
I. Civil.
II. Philosophical.
First, by their civil use, I mean such a communication of thoughts and ideas by words, as may serve
for the upholding common conversation and commerce, about the ordinary affairs and
conveniences of civil life, in the societies of men, one amongst another.
Secondly, By the philosophical use of words, I mean such a use of them as may serve to convey the
precise notions of things, and to express in general propositions certain and undoubted truths,
which the mind may rest upon and be satisfied with in its search after true knowledge. These two
uses are very distinct; and a great deal less exactness will serve in the one than in the other, as we
shall see in what follows.
4. The imperfection of words is the doubtfulness or ambiguity of their signification, which is caused
by the sort of ideas they stand for. The chief end of language in communication being to be
understood, words serve not well for that end, neither in civil nor philosophical discourse, when any
word does not excite in the hearer the same idea which it stands for in the mind of the speaker.
Now, since sounds have no natural connexion with our ideas, but have all their signification from the
arbitrary imposition of men, the doubtfulness and uncertainty of their signification, which is the
imperfection we here are speaking of, has its cause more in the ideas they stand for than in any
incapacity there is in one sound more than in another to signify any idea: for in that regard they are
all equally perfect.
That then which makes doubtfulness and uncertainty in the signification of some more than other
words, is the difference of ideas they stand for.
5. Natural causes of their imperfection, especially in those that stand for mixed modes, and for our
ideas of substances. Words having naturally no signification, the idea which each stands for must
be learned and retained, by those who would exchange thoughts, and hold intelligible discourse with
others, in any language. But this is the hardest to be done where,
First, The ideas they stand for are very complex, and made up of a great number of ideas put
together.
Secondly, Where the ideas they stand for have no certain connexion in nature; and so no settled
standard anywhere in nature existing, to rectify and adjust them by.
Thirdly, When the signification of the word is referred to a standard, which standard is not easy to be
known.
Fourthly, Where the signification of the word and the real essence of the thing are not exactly the
same.
These are difficulties that attend the signification of several words that are intelligible. Those which
are not intelligible at all, such as names standing for any simple ideas which another has not organs
or faculties to attain; as the names of colours to a blind man, or sounds to a deaf man, need not
here be mentioned.
In all these cases we shall find an imperfection in words; which I shall more at large explain, in their
particular application to our several sorts of ideas: for if we examine them, we shall find that the
names of Mixed Modes are most liable to doubtfulness and imperfection, for the two first of these
reasons; and the names of Substances chiefly for the two latter.
6. The names of mixed modes doubtful. First, because the ideas they stand for are so complex.
First, The names of mixed modes are, many of them, liable to great uncertainty and obscurity in
their signification
I. Because of that great composition these complex ideas are often made up of. To make words
serviceable to the end of communication, it is necessary, as has been said, that they excite in the
hearer exactly the same idea they stand for in the mind of the speaker. Without this, men fill one
another's heads with noise and sounds; 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 so exactly, as to make the name in common use stand for the same precise idea, without
any the least variation. Hence it comes to pass that men's names of very compound ideas, such as
for the most part are moral words, have seldom in two different men the same precise signification;
since one man's complex idea seldom 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 in nature. Because the names of mixed modes for the
most part want standards in nature, whereby men may rectify and adjust their significations,
therefore they are very various and doubtful. They are assemblages of ideas put together at the
pleasure of the mind, pursuing its own ends of discourse, and suited to its own notions, whereby it
designs not to copy anything really existing, but to denominate and rank things as they come to
agree with those archetypes or forms it has made. He that first brought the word sham, or wheedle,
or banter, in use, put together as he thought fit those ideas he made it stand for; and as it is with any
new names of modes that are now brought into any language, so it was with the old ones when they
were first made use of. Names, therefore, that stand for collections of ideas which the mind makes
at pleasure must needs be of doubtful signification, when such collections are nowhere to be found
constantly united in nature, nor any patterns to be shown whereby men may adjust them. What the
word murder, or sacrilege, etc., signifies can never be known from things themselves: there be
many of the parts of those complex ideas which are not visible in the action itself; the intention of the
mind, or the relation of holy things, which make a part of murder or sacrilege, have no necessary
connexion with the outward and visible action of him that commits either: and the pulling the trigger
of the gun with which the murder is committed, and is all the action that perhaps is visible, has no
natural connexion with those 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 signification of the name that
stands for such voluntary collections should be often various in the minds of different men, who
have scarce any standing rule to regulate themselves and their notions by, in such arbitrary ideas.
8. Common use, or propriety not a sufficient remedy. It is true, common use, that is, the rule of
propriety may be supposed here to afford some aid, to settle the signification of language; and it
cannot be denied but that in some measure it does. Common use regulates the meaning of words
pretty well for common conversation; but nobody having an authority to establish the precise
signification of words, nor determine to what ideas any one shall annex them, common use is not
sufficient to adjust them to Philosophical Discourses; there being scarce any name of any very
complex idea (to say nothing of others) which, in common use, has not a great latitude, and which,
keeping within the bounds of propriety, may not be made the sign of far different ideas. Besides, the
rule and measure of propriety itself being nowhere established, it is often matter of dispute, whether
this or that way of using a word be propriety of speech or no. From all which it is evident, that the
names of such kind of very complex ideas are naturally liable to this imperfection, to be of doubtful
and uncertain signification; and even in men that have a mind to understand one another, do not
always stand for the same idea in speaker and hearer. Though the names glory and gratitude be the
same in every man's mouth through a whole country, yet the complex collective idea which every
one thinks on or intends by that name, is apparently very different in men using the same language.
9. The way of learning these names contributes also to their doubtfulness. The way also wherein the
names of mixed modes are ordinarily learned, does not a little contribute to the doubtfulness of their
signification. For if we will observe how children learn languages, we shall find that, to make them
understand what the names of simple ideas or substances stand for, people ordinarily show them
the thing whereof they would have them have the idea; and then repeat to them the name that
stands for it; as white, sweet, milk, sugar, cat, dog. But as for mixed modes, especially the most
material of them, moral words, the sounds are usually learned first; and then, to know what complex
ideas they stand for, they are either beholden to the explication of others, or (which happens for the
most part) are left to their own observation and industry; which being little laid out in the search of
the true and precise meaning of names, these moral words are in most men's mouths little more
than bare sounds; or when they have any, it is for the most part but a very loose and undetermined,
and, consequently, obscure and confused signification. And even those themselves who have with
more attention settled their notions, do yet hardly avoid the inconvenience to have them stand for
complex ideas different from those which other, even intelligent and studious men, make them the
signs of. Where shall one find any, either controversial debate, or familiar discourse, concerning
honour, faith, grace, religion, church, etc., wherein it is not easy to observe the different notions men
have of them? Which is nothing but this, that they are not agreed in the signification of those words,
nor have in their minds the same complex ideas which they make them stand for, and so all the
contests that follow thereupon are only about the meaning of a sound. And hence we see that, in the
interpretation of laws, whether divine or human, there is no end; comments beget comments, and
explications make new matter for explications; and of limiting, distinguishing, varying the
signification of these moral words there is no end. These ideas of men's making are, by men still
having the same power, multiplied in infinitum. Many a man who was pretty well satisfied of the
meaning of a text of Scripture, or clause in the code, at first reading, has, by consulting
commentators, quite lost the sense of it, and by these elucidations given rise or increase to his
doubts, and drawn obscurity upon the place. I say not this that I think commentaries needless; but to
show how uncertain the names of mixed modes naturally are, even in the mouths of those who had
both the intention and the faculty of speaking as clearly as language was capable to express their
thoughts.
10. Hence unavoidable obscurity in ancient authors. What obscurity this has unavoidably brought
upon the writings of men who have lived in remote ages, and different countries, it will be needless
to take notice. Since the numerous volumes of learned men, employing their thoughts that way, are
proofs more than enough, to show what attention, study, sagacity, and reasoning are required to
find out the true meaning of ancient authors. But, there being no writings we have any great
concernment to be very solicitous about the meaning of, but those that contain either truths we are
required to believe, or laws we are to obey, and draw inconveniences on us when we mistake or
transgress, we may be less anxious about the sense of other authors; who, writing but their own
opinions, we are under no greater necessity to know them, than they to know ours. Our good or evil
depending not on their decrees, we may safely be ignorant of their notions: and therefore in the
reading of them, if they do not use their words with a due clearness and perspicuity, we may lay
them aside, and without any injury done them, resolve thus with ourselves,
Si non vis intelligi, debes negligi.
11. Names of substances of doubtful signification, because the ideas they stand for relate to the
reality of things. If the signification of the names of mixed modes be uncertain, because there be no
real standards existing in nature to which those ideas are referred, and by which they may be
adjusted, the names of substances are of a doubtful signification, for a contrary reason, viz.,
because the ideas they stand for are supposed conformable to the reality of things, and are referred
to as standards made by Nature. In our ideas of substances we have not the liberty, as in mixed
modes, to frame what combinations we think fit, to be the characteristical notes to rank and
denominate things by. In these we must follow Nature, suit our complex ideas to real existences,
and regulate the signification of their names by the things themselves, if we will have our names to
be signs of them, and stand for them. Here, it is true, we have patterns to follow; but patterns that
will make the signification of their names very uncertain: for names must be of a very unsteady and
various meaning, if the ideas they stand for be referred to standards without us, that either cannot
be known at all, or can be known but imperfectly and uncertainly.
12. Names of substances referred, to real essences that cannot be known. The names of
substances have, as has been shown, a double reference in their ordinary use.
First, Sometimes they are made to stand for, and so their signification is supposed to agree to, the
real constitution of things, from which all their properties flow, and in which they all centre. But this
real constitution, or (as it is apt to be called) essence, being utterly unknown to us, any sound that is
put to stand for it must be very uncertain in its application; and it will be impossible to know what
things are or ought to be called a horse, or antimony, when those words are put for real essences
that we have no ideas of at all. And therefore in this supposition, the names of substances being
referred to standards that cannot be known, their significations can never be adjusted and
established by those standards.
13. To co-existing qualities, which are known but imperfectly. Secondly, The simple ideas that are
found to co-exist in substances being that which their names immediately signify, these, as united in
the several sorts of things, are the proper standards to which their names are referred, and by which
their significations may be best rectified. But neither will these archetypes so well serve to this
purpose as to leave these names without very various and uncertain significations. Because these
simple ideas that co-exist, and are united in the same subject, being very numerous, and having all
an equal right to go into the complex specific idea which the specific name is to stand for, men,
though they propose to themselves the very same subject to consider, yet frame very different ideas
about it; and so the name they use for it unavoidably comes to have, in several men, very different
significations. The simple qualities which make up the complex ideas, being most of them powers,
in relation to changes which they are apt to make in, or receive from other bodies, are almost
infinite. He that shall but observe what a great variety of alterations any one of the baser metals is
apt to receive, from the different application only of fire; and how much a greater number of changes
any of them will receive in the hands of a chymist, by the application of other bodies, will not think it
strange that I count the properties of any sort of bodies not easy to be collected, and completely
known, by the ways of inquiry which our faculties are capable of. They being therefore at least so
many, that no man can know the precise and definite number, they are differently discovered by
different men, according to their various skill, attention, and ways of handling; who therefore cannot
choose but have different ideas of the same substance, and therefore make the signification of its
common name very various and uncertain. For the complex ideas of substances, being made up of
such simple ones as are supposed to co-exist in nature, every one has a right to put into his
complex idea those qualities he has found to be united together. For, though in the substance of
gold one satisfies himself with colour and weight, yet another thinks solubility in aqua regia as
necessary to be joined with that colour in his idea of gold, as any one does its fusibility; solubility in
aqua regia being a quality as constantly joined with its colour and weight as fusibility or any other;
others put into it ductility or fixedness, etc., as they have been taught by tradition or experience.
Who of all these has established the right signification of the word, gold? Or who shall be the judge
to determine? Each has his standard in nature, which he appeals to, and with reason thinks he has
the same right to put into his complex idea signified by the word gold, those qualities, which, upon
trial, he has found united; as another who has not so well examined has to leave them out; or a
third, who has made other trials, has to put in others. For the union in nature of these qualities being
the true ground of their union in one complex idea, who can say one of them has more reason to be
put in or left out than another? From hence it will unavoidably follow, that the complex ideas of
substances in men using the same names for them, will be very various, and so the significations of
those names very uncertain.
14. Thirdly, to co-existing qualities which are known but imperfectly. Besides, there is scarce any
particular thing existing, which, in some of its simple ideas, does not communicate with a greater,
and in others a less number of particular beings: who shall determine in this case which are those
that are to make up the precise collection that is to be signified by the specific name? or can with
any just authority prescribe, which obvious or common qualities are to be left out; or which more
secret, or more particular, are to be put into the signification of the name of any substance? All
which together, seldom or never fall to produce that various and doubtful signification in the names
of substances, which causes such uncertainty, disputes, or mistakes, when we come to a
philosophical use of them.
15. With this imperfection, they may serve for civil, but not well for philosophical use. It is true, as to
civil and common conversation, the general names of substances, regulated in their ordinary
signification by some obvious qualities, (as by the shape and figure in things of known seminal
propagation, and in other substances, for the most part by colour, joined with some other sensible
qualities), do well enough to design the things men would be understood to speak of: and so they
usually conceive well enough the substances meant by the word gold or apple, to distinguish the
one from the other. But in philosophical inquiries and debates, where general truths are to be
established, and consequences drawn from positions laid down, there the precise signification of the
names of substances will be found not only not to be well established, but also very hard to be so.
For example: he that shall make malleability, or a certain degree of fixedness, a part of his complex
idea of gold, may make propositions concerning gold, and draw consequences from them, that will
truly and clearly follow from gold, taken in such a signification: but yet such as another man can
never be forced to admit, nor be convinced of their truth, who makes not malleableness, or the same
degree of fixedness, part of that complex idea that the name gold, in his use of it, stands for.
16. Instance, liquor. This is a natural and almost unavoidable imperfection in almost all the names of
substances, in all languages whatsoever, which men will easily find when, once passing from
confused or loose notions, they come to more strict and close inquiries. For then they will be
convinced how doubtful and obscure those words are in their signification, which in ordinary use
appeared very clear and determined. I was once in a meeting of very learned and ingenious
physicians, where by chance there arose a question, whether any liquor passed through the
filaments of the nerves. The debate having been managed a good while, by variety of arguments on
both sides, I (who had been used to suspect, that the greatest part of disputes were more about the
signification of words than a real difference in the conception of things) desired, that, before they
went any further on in this dispute, they would first examine and establish amongst them, what the
word liquor signified. They at first were a little surprised at the proposal; and had they been persons
less ingenious, they might perhaps have taken it for a very frivolous or extravagant one: since there
was no one there that thought not himself to understand very perfectly what the word liquor stood
for; which I think, too, none of the most perplexed names of substances. However, they were
pleased to comply with my motion; and upon examination found that the signification of that word
was not so settled or certain as they had all imagined; but that each of them made it a sign of a
different complex idea. This made them perceive that the main of their dispute was about the
signification of that term; and that they differed very little in their opinions concerning some fluid and
subtle matter, passing through the conduits of the nerves; though it was not so easy to agree
whether it was to be called liquor or no, a thing, which, when considered, they thought it not worth
the contending about.
17. Instance, gold. How much this is the case in the greatest part of disputes that men are engaged
so hotly in, I shall perhaps have an occasion in another place to take notice. Let us only here
consider a little more exactly the forementioned instance of the word gold, and we shall see how
hard it is precisely to determine its signification. I think all agree to make it stand for a body of a
certain yellow shining colour; which being the idea to which children have annexed that name, the
shining yellow part of a peacock's tail is properly to them gold. Others finding fusibility joined with
that yellow colour in certain parcels of matter, make of that combination a complex idea to which
they give the name gold, to denote a sort of substances; and so exclude from being gold all such
yellow shining bodies as by fire will be reduced to ashes; and admit to be of that species, or to be
comprehended under that name gold, only such substances as, having that shining yellow colour,
will by fire be reduced to fusion, and not to ashes. Another, by the same reason, adds the weight,
which, being a quality as straightly joined with that colour as its fusibility, he thinks has the same
reason to be joined in its idea, and to be signified by its name: and therefore the other made up of
body, of such a colour and fusibility, to be imperfect; and so on of all the rest: wherein no one can
show a reason why some of the inseparable qualities, that are always united in nature, should be
put into the nominal essence, and others left out: or why the word gold, signifying that sort of body
the ring on his finger is made of, should determine that sort rather by its colour, weight, and fusibility,
than by its colour, weight, and solubility in aqua regia: since the dissolving it by that liquor is as
inseparable from it as the fusion by fire; and they are both of them nothing but the relation which that
substance has to two other bodies, which have a power to operate differently upon it. For by what
right is it that fusibility comes to be a part of the essence signified by the word gold, and solubility
but a property of it? Or why is its colour part of the essence, and its malleableness but a property?
That which I mean is this,