OD having defigned man for a 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 alfo 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.

§ 2. To make them Signs of Ideas.

BESIDES articulate founds therefore, it was farther neceffary, that he should be able to use thefe 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 mens minds be conveyed from one to another.

$3. To make general Signs.

BUT neither was this fufficient to make words fo useful as they ought to be. It is not enough for the perfection of language, that founds can be made figns of ideas, unlefs thofe figns can be fo made ufe of, as to comprehend feveral particular things; for the multiplication of words would have perplexed their ufe, had every particular thing need of a distinct name to be fignified by. To remedy this inconvenience, language had yet a farther improvement in the ufe 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 those remaining particular, where the ideas they are used for are particular. § 4. To make general Signs.

BESIDES thefe names which stand for ideas, there be other words which men make use of, not to fignify any idea, but the want or absence of some ideas fimple or complex, or all ideas together; fuch as are nihil in Latin, and in English, ignorance and barrenness; 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.

§ 5. Words ultimately derived from fuch as fignify fenfible Ideas.

It may also 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 stand for actions and notions quite removed from fenfe, have their rife from thence, and from obvious fenfible ideas are tranfferred to more abftrufe fignifications, and made to ftand for ideas that come not under the cognizance of our senses; v. g. to imagine, apprehend, comprehend, adhere, conceive, inftil, 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 messenger; and I doubr not, but if we could trace them to their fources, we fhould find, in all languages, the names which ftand for things that fall not under our fenfes, to have had their firft rife from fenfible ideas, by which we may give fome kind of guefs, 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 opera.ions they felt in themfelves, 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 eafily to conceive those operations they experimented in themfelves, which made no outward fenfible appearances; and then when they had got known and agreed names, to fignify thofe internal operations of their own minds, they were fufhciently 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 ourselves, from the inward workings of our own fpirits, of which we are conscious to ourselves within.

§ 6. Diftribution.

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 fo ftand not particularly for this or that fingle thing, but for forts and ranks of things, it will be necessary 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 confist, and how they come to be made. Thefe 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 inconveniencies of obfcurity or uncertainty in the fignification of words, without which it is impoffible to difcourfe with any clearnefs or order concerning knowledge; which being converfant about propofitions, and those most commonly univerfal ones, has greater connection with words than perhaps is fufpected.

These confiderations, therefore, fhall be the matter of. the following chapters.

§1. Words are fenfible Signs neceffary for Communication.

Mand though he was great variety of thoughts,

and fuch from which others, as well as himfelf, 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 neceflary that man fhould find out fome external fenfible figns, whereby thofe invifible ideas, which his thoughts are made up of, might be made known to others; for this purpofe nothing was so fit, either for plenty or quickness, as those 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, came to be made ufe of by men, as the Jigns of their ideas, not by any natural connection that there is between particular articulate sounds, 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 sensible marks of ideas, and the ideas they stand for are their proper and immediate fignification.

§ 2. Words are the fenfible Signs of his Ideas who uses them. THE use 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 er 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 supposed to reprefent. When a man fpeaks to another, it is that he may be understood and the end of fpeech is, that thofe founds, as marks, may make known his ideas to the hearer: That then which

133 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 himfelf 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 imposed by him on things he knows not; that would be to make them signs of nothing, founds without fignification. A man cannot make his words the Gigns 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 ufe 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 mens 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. Words are the fenfible Signs of his Ideas who uses

them.

THIS is fo neceffary in the use of language, that in this refpect the knowing and the ignorant, the learned and unlearned, use the words they speak (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 metal he hears called gold, but the bright fhining 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 uses it, ftands for a complex idea of a shining yellow and very weighty fubftance. Another adds to thofe qualities fufibility; and then the word gold to him fignifies a body, bright, yellow, fufible, y and very heavy.Another adds malleability. Each of 10 10 1! I