And it would be well, where there is
occasion, if they would afford us so much. This yet is not usually
done; but men talk to one another, and dispute in words, whose meaning
is not agreed between them, out of a mistake that the significations
of common words are certainly established, and the precise ideas
they stand for perfectly known; and that it is a shame to be
ignorant of them. Both which suppositions are false; no names of
complex ideas having so settled determined significations, that they
are constantly used for the same precise ideas. Nor is it a shame
for a man not to have a certain knowledge of anything, but by the
necessary ways of attaining it; and so it is no discredit not to
know what precise idea any sound stands for in another man's mind,
without he declare it to me by some other way than barely using that
sound, there being no other way, without such a declaration, certainly
to know it. Indeed the necessity of communication by language brings
men to an agreement in the signification of common words, within
some tolerable latitude, that may serve for ordinary conversation: and
so a man cannot be supposed wholly ignorant of the ideas which are
annexed to words by common use, in a language familiar to him. But
common use being but a very uncertain rule, which reduces itself at
last to the ideas of particular men, proves often but a very
variable standard.
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