443 ] [BookX, 



CHAP. VIII. 







OF WORDS. 



Atyrafi And general Terms. Ufes and Abufes of Words, Thinking 

 in Language, 



WORDS were adopted as the figns of ideas, 

 which are images of things ; they are a fort 

 ef coin current among men to transfer their thoughts 

 to one another *. Words ferve likewife to reprefent 

 collections of ideas, as is the cafe in general terms. 



On examining the principles of language, it ap- 

 pears, that the firft words of every language relate 

 immediately to things, their properties or actions. 

 Men in a very rude ftate of fociety, have little ufe for 

 abftract or general reafoning. All our adverbs, con- 

 junctions, and prepofitions, were originally verbs or f 

 fubftantives. 



To number would be extremely difficult without 

 words : they ferve to diftinguifh numbers, of which 

 we could have no diftinct vifible or tangible ideas. 

 The niceft obferver cannot have a diftinct idea of 



' Words, in all men's mouths (that fpeak with any meaning) 

 Hand for the ideas which thofe that ufe them have, and which 

 they would exprefs by them. Thus a child that takes notice of 

 nothing more in the metal he hears called gold, than the yellow 

 colour, calls the fame colour in a peacock's tail gold ; another, 

 that has better obferved, adds to mining yellow, great weight ; 

 and then the found gold ftands, when he ufes it, fpr a complex 

 idea of a fnining yellow, and very weighty fubftance.' Locke, 

 b. iii. c. 2. 



f See Mr. Home Tooke's Epea Pteroenta; unqueflionably the 

 firft vork on this fubjeft in our own or any other language. 



ninety* 



