Ideas in our minds, when they are there, will operate according to their natures and circumstances; and here we see the cause why time cures certain affections, which reason, though in the right, and allowed to be so, has not power over, nor is able against them to prevail with those who are apt to hearken to it in other cases. The death of a child, that was the daily delight of his mother's eyes, and joy of her soul, rends from her heart the whole comfort of her life, and gives her all the torment imaginable: use the consolations of reason in this case, and you were as good preach ease to one on the rack, and hope to allay, by rational discourses, the pain of his joints tearing asunder: till time has by disuse separated the sense of that enjoyment, and its loss from the idea of the child returning to her memory, all representations, though ever so reasonable, are in vain; and therefore some, in whom the union between these ideas is never dissolved, spend their lives in mourning, and carry an incurable sorrow to their graves.

§14. Farther instances of the effect of the association of ideas.-A friend of mine knew one perfectly cured of madness by a very harsh and offensive operation. The gentleman, who was thus recovered, with great sense of gratitude and acknowledgment, owned the cure all his life after, as the greatest obligation he could have received; but whatever gratitude and reason suggested to him, he could never bear the sight of the operator: that image brought back with it the idea of that agony which he suffered from his hands, which was too mighty and intolerable for him to endure.

§ 15. Many children imputing the pain they endured at school to books they were corrected for, so join those ideas together, that a book becomes their aversion, and they are never reconciled to the study and use of them all their lives after; and thus reading becomes a torment to them, which otherwise possibly they might have made the great pleasure of their lives. There are rooms convenient enough, that some men cannot study in; and fashions of vessels, which though ever so clean and commodious, they cannot drink out of, and that by reason of some accidental ideas which are annexed to them, and make them offensive; and who is there that hath not observed some man to flag at the appearance, or in the company, of some certain person not otherwise superior to him, but because having once on some occasion got the ascendant, the idea of authority and distance goes along with that of the person, and he that has been thus subjected, is not able to separate them.

§ 16. Instances of this kind are so plentiful every where, that if I add one more, it is only for the pleasant oddness of it. It is of a young gentleman, who having learned to dance, and that to great perfection, there happened to stand an old trunk in the room where he learned. The idea of this remarkable piece of household stuff, had so mixed itself with the turns and steps of all his dances, that though in that chamber he could dance excellently well, yet it was only whilst that trunk was there, nor could he perform well in any other place, unless that, or some such other, trunk, had its due position in the room. If this story shall be suspected to be dressed up with some comical circumstances, a little beyond precise nature; I answer for myself, that I

had it some years since from a very sober and worthy man, upon his own knowledge, as I report it; and I dare say, there are very few inquisitive persons, who read this, who have not met with accounts, if not examples, of this nature, that may parallel, or at least justify, this.

§ 17. Its influence on intellectual habits.-Intellectual habits and defects this way contracted, are not less frequent and powerful, though less observed. Let the ideas of being and matter, be strongly joined either by education or much thought, whilst these are still combined in the mind, what notions, what reasonings, will there be about separate spirits? let custom, from the very childhood, have joined figure and shape to the idea of God, and what absurdities will that mind be liable to, about the Deity?

Let the idea of infallibility be inseparably joined to any person, and these two constantly together possess the mind, and then one body, in two places at once, shall unexamined be swallowed for a certain truth, by an implicit faith, whenever that imagined infallible person dictates and demands assent without inquiry.

§ 18. Observable in different sects.-Some such wrong and unnatural combinations of ideas, will be found to establish the irreconcileable opposition between different sects of philosophy and religion; for we cannot imagine every one of their followers to impose wilfully on himself and knowingly refuse truth offered by plain reason. Interest, though it does a great deal in the case, yet cannot be thought to work whole societies of men to so universal a perverseness, as that every one of them, to a man, should knowingly maintain falsehood: some at least must be allowed to do what all pretend to, i. e. to pursue truth sincerely; and therefore there must be something that blinds their understandings, and makes them not see the falsehood of what they embrace for real truth. That which thus captivates their reason, and leads men of sincerity blindfold from common sense, will, when examined, be found to be what we are speaking of: some independent ideas, of no alliance to one another, are, by education, custom, and the constant din of their party, so coupled in their minds, that they always appear there together, and they can no more separate them in their thoughts, than if they were but one idea, and they operate as if they were so. This gives sense to jargon, demonstration to absurdities, and consistency to nonsense, and is the foundation of the greatest, I had almost said, of all the errors in the world; or if it does not reach so far, it is at least the most dangerous one, since so far as it obtains, it hinders men from seeing and examining. When two things in themselves disjoined, appear to the sight constantly united; if the eye sees these things riveted, which are loose, where will you begin to rectify the mistakes that follow in two ideas, that they have been accustomed so to join in their minds, as to substitute one for the other, and, as I am apt to think, often without perceiving it themselves? This, whilst they are under the deceit of it, makes them incapable of conviction, and they applaud themselves as zealous champions for truth, when indeed they are contending for error; and the confusion of two different ideas, which a customary connexion of them in their minds hath to them made in effect but one, fills their heads with false views, and their reasonings with false consequences.

§ 19. Conclusion.-Having thus given an account of the original, sorts, and extent of our ideas, with several other considerations, about these (I know not whether I may say) instruments, or materials, of our knowledge; the method I at first proposed to myself, would now require, that I should immediately proceed to shew, what use the understanding makes of them, and what knowledge we have by them. This was that, which, in the first general view I had of this subject, was all that I thought I should have to do: but upon a nearer approach, I find, that there is so close a connexion between ideas and words; and our abstract ideas, and general words, have so constant a relation one to another, that it is impossible to speak clearly and distinctly of our knowledge, which all consists in propositions, without considering, first, the nature, use, and signification of language; which therefore must be the business of the next book.

BOOK III. CHAP. I.

OF WORDS OR LANGUAGE IN GENERAL.

§ 1. MAN fitted to form articulate sounds.-God having designed man for a sociable creature, made him not only with an inclination, and under a necessity, to have fellowship with those of his own kind, but furnished him also with language, which was to be the great instrument, and common tie, of society. Man, therefore, had by nature his organs so fashioned, as to be fit to frame articulate sounds, which we call words. But this was not enough to produce language: for parrots, and several other birds, will be taught to make articulate sounds distinct enough, which yet, by no means, are capable of language.

§2. To make them signs of ideas.-Besides articulate sounds, therefore, it was farther necessary, that he should be able to use these sounds as signs of internal conceptions; and to make them stand 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. To make general signs.-But neither was this sufficient to make words so useful as they ought to be. It is not enough for the perfection of language, that sounds can be made signs of ideas, unless those sounds can be so made use of, as to comprehend several particular things; for the multiplication of words would have perplexed their use, had every particular thing need of a distinct name to be signified 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 existences; which advantageous use of sounds was obtained only by the difference of the ideas they were made signs of those names becoming general, which are made to stand for general ideas; and those remaining particular, where the ideas they are used for are particular.

§ 4. Besides these names which stand for ideas, there be other words

which men make use of, not to signify any idea, but the want of absence of some ideas, simple or complex, or ideas together: such as are nihil in Latin, and in English, ignorance and barrenness. All which negative or privative words, cannot be said properly to belong to, or signify, no ideas; for then they would be perfectly insignificant sounds; but they relate to positive ideas, and signify their absence.

§ 5. Words ultimately derived from such as signify sensible ideas. -It may also lead us a little toward the original of all our notions and knowledge, if we remark, how great a dependence our words have on common sensible ideas; and how those, which are made use of to stand for actions and notions quite removed from sense, have their rise from thence, and, from obvious sensible ideas, are transferred to more abstruse significations, and made to stand for ideas that come not under the cognizance of our senses: v. g. to imagine, apprehend, comprehend, adhere, conceive, instil, disgust, disturbance, tranquillity, &c. are all words taken from the operations of sensible things, and applied to certain modes of thinking. Spirit, in its primary signification, is breath; angel, a messenger: and I doubt not, but if we could trace them to their sources, we should find, in all languages, the names which stand for things that fall not under our senses, to have had their first rise from sensible ideas. By which we may give some 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 suggested to men the originals and principles of all their knowledge; whilst, to give names, that might make known to others any operations they felt in themselves, or any other ideas that come not under their senses, they were fain to borrow words from ordinary known ideas of sensation, by that means to make others the more easily to conceive those operations they experimented in themselves, which made no outward sensible appearances: and then, when they had got known and agreed names, to signify those internal operations of their own minds, they were sufficiently furnished to make known by words, all their other ideas; since they could consist of nothing, but either of outward sensible perceptions, or of the inward operations of their minds about them; we having, as has been proved, no ideas at all, but what originally came either from sensible objects without, or what we feel within ourselves, from the inward workings of our own spirits, of which we are conscious to ourselves within.

§6. Distribution.-But to understand better the use and force of language, as subservient to instruction and knowledge, it will be convenient to consider,

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 single thing, but for sorts and ranks of things, it will be necessary to consider, in the next place, what the sorts and kinds, or if you rather like the Latin names, what the species and genera, of things are; wherein they consist; and how they come to be made. These being (as they ought) well looked into, we shall the better come to find the right use of words; the natural advantages and

defects of language; and the remedies that ought to be used, to avoid the inconveniences of obscurity or uncertainty in the signification of words, without which, it is impossible to discourse with any clearness, or order, concerning knowledge; which being conversant about propositions, and those most commonly universal ones, has greater connexion with words, than, perhaps, is suspected.

These considerations, therefore, shall be the matter of the following chapters.

CHAP. II.

OF THE SIGNIFICATION OF WORDS.

§ 1. Words are sensible signs, necessary for communication.-Man, though he has great variety of thoughts, and such, from which others, as well as himself, might receive profit and delight; yet they are all within his own breast invisible, and hidden from others, nor can of themselves be made appear. The comfort and advantage of society, not being to be had without communication of thoughts, it was necessary, that man should find out some external sensible signs, whereby those invisible ideas, which his thoughts are made up of, might be made known to others. For this purpose, nothing was so fit, either for plenty, or quickness, as those articulate sounds, which, with so much ease and variety, he found himself able to make. Thus we may conceive how words, which were by nature so well adapted to that purpose, come to be made use of by men, as the signs of their ideas; not by any natural connexion 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 imposition, whereby such a word is made arbitrarily the mark of such 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 signification.

§ 2. Words are the sensible signs of his ideas who uses them.-The use men have of these marks, being either to record their own thoughts for the assistance 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 signification, stand for nothing, but the ideas in the mind of him that uses them, how imperfectly soever, or carelessly, those ideas are collected from things which they are supposed to represent. When a man speaks to another, it is that he may be understood; and the end of speech, is, that those sounds, as marks, may make known his ideas to the hearer. That then which words are the marks of, are the ideas of the speaker; 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 signs of his own conceptions, and yet apply them to other ideas; which would be to make them signs, and not signs of his ideas at the same time; and so, in effect, to have no signification at all. Words being voluntary signs, they cannot be voluntary signs imposed by him on things he knows not. That would be to make them signs of nothing, sounds without signification. A man cannot make his words