This, by the way, may give us some light into the different state
and growth of languages; which being suited only to the convenience of
communication, are proportioned to the notions men have, and the
commerce of thoughts familiar amongst them; and not to the reality
or extent of things, nor to the various respects might be found
among them; nor the different abstract considerations might be
framed about them. Where they had no philosophical notions, there they
had no terms to express them: and it is no wonder men should have
framed no names for those things they found no occasion to discourse
of. From whence it is easy to imagine why, as in some countries,
they may have not so much as the name for a horse; and in others,
where they are more careful of the pedigrees of their horses, than
of their own, that there they may have not only names for particular
horses, but also of their several relations of kindred one to another.
3. Ideas of instituted or voluntary relations. Thirdly, Sometimes
the foundation of considering things, with reference to one another,
is some act whereby any one comes by a moral right, power, or
obligation to do something. Thus, a general is one that hath power
to command an army; and an army under a general is a collection of
armed men, obliged to obey one man. A citizen, or a burgher, is one
who has a right to certain privileges in this or that place.
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