In light and colours, and all other simple
ideas, it is the same thing: for the signification of sounds is not
natural, but only imposed and arbitrary. And no definition of light or
redness is more fitted or able to produce either of those ideas in us,
than the sound light or red, by itself. For, to hope to produce an
idea of light or colour by a sound, however formed, is to expect
that sounds should be visible, or colours audible; and to make the
ears do the office of all the other senses. Which is all one as to
say, that we might taste, smell, and see by the ears: a sort of
philosophy worthy only of Sancho Panza, who had the faculty to see
Dulcinea by hearsay. And therefore he that has not before received
into his mind, by the proper inlet, the simple idea which any word
stands for, can never come to know the signification of that word by
any other words or sounds whatsoever, put together according to any
rules of definition. The only way is, by applying to his senses the
proper object; and so producing that idea in him, for which he has
learned the name already. A studious blind man, who had mightily
beat his head about visible objects, and made use of the explication
of his books and friends, to understand those names of light and
colours which often came in his way, bragged one day, That he now
understood what scarlet signified.
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