nowhere established, it is often matter of dispute, whether this or that
way of using a word be propriety of speech or no. From all which it is
evident, that the names of such kind of very complex ideas are
naturally liable to this imperfection, to be of doubtful and uncertain
signification; and even in men that have a mind to understand one
another, do not always stand for the same idea in speaker and hearer.
Though the names GLORY and GRATITUDE be the same in every man's mouth
through a whole country, yet the complex collective idea which every one
thinks on or intends by that name, is apparently very different in men
using the same language.


9. The way of learning these Names contributes also to their
Doubtfulness.

The way also wherein the names of mixed modes are ordinarily learned,
does not a little contribute to the doubtfulness of their signification.
For if we will observe how children learn languages, we shall find that,
to make them understand what the names of simple ideas or substances
stand for, people ordinarily show them the thing whereof they would have
them have the idea; and then repeat to them the name that stands for
it; as WHITE, SWEET, MILK, SUGAR, CAT, DOG. But as for mixed modes,
especially the most material of them, MORAL WORDS, the sounds are
usually learned first; and then, to know what complex ideas they stand
for, they are either beholden to the explication of others, or (which
happens for the most part) are left to their own observation and
industry; which being little laid out in the search of the true and
precise meaning of names, these moral words are in most men's mouths
little more than bare sounds; or when they have any, it is for the most
part but a very loose and undetermined, and, consequently, obscure and