11. Thirdly, using words variously is trifling with them. Though yet
concerning most words used in discourses, equally argumentative and
controversial, there is this more to be complained of, which is the
worst sort of trifling, and which sets us yet further from the
certainty of knowledge we hope to attain by them, or find in them;
viz. that most writers are so far from instructing us in the nature
and knowledge of things, that they use their words loosely and
uncertainly, and do not. by using them constantly and steadily in
the same significations, make plain and clear deductions of words
one from another, and make their discourses coherent and clear, (how
little soever they were instructive); which were not difficult to
do, did they not find it convenient to shelter their ignorance or
obstinacy under the obscurity and perplexedness of their terms: to
which, perhaps, inadvertency and ill custom do in many men much
contribute.
12. Marks of verbal propositions. To conclude. Barely verbal
propositions may be known by these following marks:
Predication in abstract. First, All propositions wherein two
abstract terms are affirmed one of another, are barely about the
signification of sounds. For since no abstract idea can be the same
with any other but itself, when its abstract name is affirmed of any
other term, it can signify no more but this, that it may, or ought
to be called by that name; or that these two names signify the same
idea.
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