reasonable that words, which ought to be conformed to things, should
be so too,--I mean in their signification: but yet we find quite the
contrary. The far greatest part of words that make all languages are
general terms: which has not been the effect of neglect or chance, but
of reason and necessity.


2. That every particular Thing should have a Name for itself is
impossible.

First, It is impossible that every particular thing should have a
distinct peculiar name. For, the signification and use of words
depending on that connexion which the mind makes between its ideas and
the sounds it uses as signs of them, it is necessary, in the application
of names to things, that the mind should have distinct ideas of the
things, and retain also the particular name that belongs to every one,
with its peculiar appropriation to that idea. But it is beyond the
power of human capacity to frame and retain distinct ideas of all the
particular things we meet with: every bird and beast men saw; every tree
and plant that affected the senses, could not find a place in the
most capacious understanding. If it be looked on as an instance of a
prodigious memory, that some generals have been able to call every
soldier in their army by his proper name, we may easily find a reason
why men have never attempted to give names to each sheep in their flock,
or crow that flies over their heads; much less to call every leaf of
plants, or grain of sand that came in their way, by a peculiar name.


3. And would be useless, if it were possible.