verted; and other revealed truths, which are con veyed to us by books and languages, are liable to the common and natural obscurities and difficulties incident to words; methinks it would become us to be more careful and diligent in observing the former, and less magisterial, positive, and imperious, in imposing our own sense and interpretations of the latter."

СНАР. Х.

OF THE ABUSE OF WORDS.

MEN are guilty of many wilful neglects in discourse, which render the signification of signs more uncer◄ tain than it need be; by using words without clear and distinct ideas, or without any ideas at all. The authors of the several sects of Philosophy and Religion have introduced many of these; either affecting something singular, or wishing to support some strange opinion, or cover some weak hypothesis: and when once they become the distinguishing characters of a church or school, few care to examine their precise signification. I shall not heap up instances, but refer an inquirer to the great mint-masters of these terms-the school-men, and metaphy

sicians, with whom I class the disputing natural and moral philosophers of these latter ages.

Men being accustomed from their cradles to learn names, without understanding the complex ideas they represent, and finding that they will serve them in the ordinary occurrences of life, seldom take the pains to learn their determinate meaning: their reasonings therefore concerning their tenets or interest, but especially in moral matters, are mostly an empty jargon. They have indeed one advantage-as they seldom are in the right, so they are seldom to be convinced that they are in the wrong :-it being all one to go about to draw these men out of their mistakes as to dispossess a vagrant of his habitation.

Another great abuse of words is Inconstancy in the use of them. This abuse is common in subjects of controversy: and it denotes either great folly or great dishonesty. A man in his accompts might as well use characters that stand sometimes for one collection of units and sometimes for another: but the former cheat is the greater, in proportion as Truth is of more concern and value than Money.

A third abuse is an affected obscurity ; when without defining them, we use old words in new and unusual senses, or introduce new and ambiguous terms. The Peripatetick philosophy has been most eminent in this way.

It is plain to any one on a little reflection, that Body and Extension in common use denote distinct

ideas otherwise we might as well say the Body of an Extension, as the Extension of a Body; and yet some find it necessary to confound their signification. Logick and the liberal Sciences, as handled in the schools, have given reputation to this abuse and the admired art of disputing has much encreased the natural imperfection of Language; being used more to perplex words, than to discover things. If reputation and rewards are to attend skill in disputing, (where the victory is adjudged not to him who asserts the Truth, but to him who talks the longest) no wonder that the wit of man should perplex the signification of sounds. This useless skill, quite opposite to the ways of knowledge, has been admired as subtlety, and acuteness. It was found a good expedient to cover ignorance and procure admiration: Terms that are unintelligible being from that very cause apter to produce wonder: and it appears from history that these profound doctors were not wiser or more useful than their neighbours.—"For notwithstanding these learned disputants, these all-knowing doctors, it was to the unscholastick statesman, that the governments of the world owed their peace, defence, and liberties; and from the illiterate and contemned mechanick, (a name of disgrace) that they received the improvements of useful Arts. Nevertheless this artificial ignorance and learned Gibberish prevailed mightily in these last ages, by the interest and artifice of

those, who found no easier way to that pitch of authority and dominion they have attained, than by amusing the men of business, and ignorant, with hard words, employing the ingenious and idle in intricate disputes about unintelligible terms, and holding them perpetually entangled in that endless labyrinth. Besides, there is no such way to gain admittance, or give defence to strange and absurd doctrines, as to guard them round about with legions of obscure, doubtful and undefined words; which yet make these retreats more like the dens of robbers, or holes of foxes, than the fortresses of fair warriors; which if it be hard to get them out of, it is not for the strength that is in them, but the briars and thorns, and the obscurity of the thickets they are beset with. For Untruth being unacceptable to the mind of man, there is no other defence left for absurdity but Obscurity.

"Thus learned ignorance, and this art of keeping even inquisitive men from true knowledge, hath been propagated in the world, and hath much perplexed, whilst it pretended to inform the Understanding. For we see that other well-meaning and wise men, whose education and parts had not acquired that acuteness, could intelligibly express themselves to one another; and in its plain use, make a benefit of language. But though unlearned men well enough understand the words white and black, &c. and had constant notions of the ideas signified by those words; yet there

were Philosophers found, who had learning and subtlety enough to prove, that Snow was black, i. e. to prove, that white was black; whereby they had the advantage to destroy the instruments and means of discourse, conversation, instruction, and society ; whilst with great art and subtlety they did no more but perplex and confound the signification of words, and thereby render language less useful than the real defects of it had made it; a gift which the illiterate had not attained to.

"These learned men did equally instruct men's understandings, and profit their lives, as he who should alter the signification of known characters, and, by a subtle device of learning, far surpassing. the capacity of the illiterate, dull, and vulgar, should in his writing shew that he could put A for B, and D for E, &c. to the no small admiration and benefit of his reader, it being as senseless to put black, which is a word agreed on to stand for one sensible idea, tó put it, I say, for another, or the contrary idea, i. e. to call Snow black, as to put this mark A, (which is a character agreed on to stand for one modification of sound, made by a certain motion of the organs of speech,) for B, which is agreed on to stand for another modification of sound by another certain motion of the organs of speech.

"Nor hath this mischief stopped in logical niceties, or curious empty speculations; it hath invaded