Wisdom, glory, grace, &c., are words frequent enough
in every man's mouth; but if a great many of those who use them should
be asked what they mean by them, they would be at a stand, and not
know what to answer: a plain proof, that, though they have learned
those sounds, and have them ready at their tongues ends, yet there are
no determined ideas laid up in their minds, which are to be
expressed to others by them.
4. This occasioned by men learning names before they have the
ideas the names belong to. Men having been accustomed from their
cradles to learn words which are easily got and retained, before
they knew or had framed the complex ideas to which they were
annexed, or which were to be found in the things they were thought
to stand for, they usually continue to do so all their lives; and
without taking the pains necessary to settle in their minds determined
ideas, they use their words for such unsteady and confused notions
as they have, contenting themselves with the same words other people
use; as if their very sound necessarily carried with it constantly the
same meaning. This, though men make a shift with in the ordinary
occurrences of life, where they find it necessary to be understood,
and therefore they make signs till they are so; yet this
insignificancy in their words, when they come to reason concerning
either their tenets or interest, manifestly fills their discourse with
abundance of empty unintelligible noise and jargon, especially in
moral matters, where the words for the most part standing for
arbitrary and numerous collections of ideas, not regularly and
permanently united in nature, their bare sounds are often only thought
on, or at least very obscure and uncertain notions annexed to them.
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