And the same
necessity of conforming his ideas of substances to things without him,
as to archetypes made by nature, that Adam was under, if he would
not wilfully impose upon himself, the same are all men ever since
under too. The same liberty also that Adam had of affixing any new
name to any idea, the same has any one still, (especially the
beginners of languages, if we can imagine any such); but only with
this difference, that, in places where men in society have already
established a language amongst them, the significations of words are
very warily and sparingly to be altered. Because men being furnished
already with names for their ideas, and common use having appropriated
known names to certain ideas, an affected misapplication of them
cannot but be very ridiculous. He that hath new notions will perhaps
venture sometimes on the coining of new terms to express them: but men
think it a boldness, and it is uncertain whether common use will
ever make them pass for current. But in communication with others,
it is necessary that we conform the ideas we make the vulgar words
of any language stand for to their known proper significations, (which
I have explained at large already), or else to make known that new
signification we apply them to.
Chapter VII
Of Particles
1.
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