First remedy: To use no word without an idea annexed to it. First, A
man shall take care to use no word without a signification, no name
without an idea for which he makes it stand. This rule will not seem
altogether needless to any one who shall take the pains to recollect
how often he has met with such words as instinct, sympathy, and
antipathy, &c., in the discourse of others, so made use of as he might
easily conclude that those that used them had no ideas in their
minds to which they applied them, but spoke them only as sounds, which
usually served instead of reasons on the like occasions. Not but
that these words, and the like, have very proper significations in
which they may be used; but there being no natural connexion between
any words and any ideas, these, and any other, may be learned by rote,
and pronounced or writ by men who have no ideas in their minds to
which they have annexed them, and for which they make them stand;
which is necessary they should, if men would speak intelligibly even
to themselves alone.
9. Second remedy: To have distinct, determinate ideas annexed to
words, especially in mixed modes. Secondly, It is not enough a man
uses his words as signs of some ideas: those he annexes them to, if
they be simple, must be clear and distinct; if complex, must be
determinate, i.
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