For, having either had no determinate
collection of ideas annexed to them when they were first invented;
or at least such as, if well examined, will be found inconsistent,
it is no wonder, if, afterwards, in the vulgar use of the same
party, they remain empty sounds, with little or no signification,
amongst those who think it enough to have them often in their
mouths, as the distinguishing characters of their Church or School,
without much troubling their heads to examine what are the precise
ideas they stand for. I shall not need here to heap up instances;
every man's reading and conversation will sufficiently furnish him. Or
if he wants to be better stored, the great mintmasters of this kind of
terms, I mean the Schoolmen and Metaphysicians (under which I think
the disputing natural and moral philosophers of these latter ages
may be comprehended) have wherewithal abundantly to content him.
3. II. Other words, to which ideas were annexed at first, used
afterwards without distinct meanings. Others there be who extend
this abuse yet further, who take so little care to lay by words,
which, in their primary notation have scarce any clear and distinct
ideas which they are annexed to, that, by an unpardonable
negligence, they familiarly use words which the propriety of
language has affixed to very important ideas, without any distinct
meaning at all.
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