sounds; nor excite any in us, but by that voluntary connexion which is
known to be between them and those simple ideas which common use has
made them the signs of. He that thinks otherwise, let him try if any
words can give him the taste of a pine apple, and make him have the true
idea of the relish of that celebrated delicious fruit. So far as he
is told it has a resemblance with any tastes whereof he has the ideas
already in his memory, imprinted there by sensible objects, not
strangers to his palate, so far may he approach that resemblance in his
mind. But this is not giving us that idea by a definition, but exciting
in us other simple ideas by their known names; which will be still
very different from the true taste of that fruit itself. In light and
colours, and all other simple ideas, it is the same thing: for the
signification of sounds is not natural, but only imposed and arbitrary.
And no DEFINITION of light or redness is more fitted or able to produce
either of those ideas in us, than the SOUND light or red, by itself.
For, to hope to produce an idea of light or colour by a sound, however
formed, is to expect that sounds should be visible, or colours audible;
and to make the ears do the office of all the other senses. Which is all
one as to say, that we might taste, smell, and see by the ears: a sort
of philosophy worthy only of Sancho Panza, who had the faculty to see
Dulcinea by hearsay. And therefore he that has not before received into
his mind, by the proper inlet, the simple idea which any word stands
for, can never come to know the signification of that word by any other
words or sounds whatsoever, put together according to any rules of
definition. The only way is, by applying to his senses the proper
object; and so producing that idea in him, for which he has learned the
name already. A studious blind man, who had mightily beat his head
about visible objects, and made use of the explication of his books and
friends, to understand those names of light and colours which often
came in his way, bragged one day, That he now understood what SCARLET