own idea of that colour, and nothing else; and therefore calls the same
colour in a peacock's tail gold. Another that hath better observed, adds
to shining yellow great weight: and then the sound gold, when he uses
it, stands for a complex idea of a shining yellow and a very weighty
substance. Another adds to those qualities fusibility: and then the word
gold signifies to him a body, bright, yellow, fusible, and very heavy.
Another adds malleability. Each of these uses equally the word gold,
when they have occasion to express the idea which they have applied it
to: but it is evident that each can apply it only to his own idea; nor
can he make it stand as a sign of such a complex idea as he has not.


4. Words are often secretly referred, First to the Ideas supposed to be
in other men's minds.

But though words, as they are used by men, can properly and immediately
signify nothing but the ideas that are in the mind of the speaker; yet
they in their thoughts give them a secret reference to two other things.

First, THEY SUPPOSE THEIR WORDS TO BE MARKS OF THE IDEAS IN THE MINDS
ALSO OF OTHER MEN, WITH WHOM THEY COMMUNICATE; for else they should talk
in vain, and could not be understood, if the sounds they applied to one
idea were such as by the hearer were applied to another, which is to
speak two languages. But in this men stand not usually to examine,
whether the idea they, and those they discourse with have in their
minds be the same: but think it enough that they use the word, as they
imagine, in the common acceptation of that language; in which they
suppose that the idea they make it a sign of is precisely the same to
which the understanding men of that country apply that name.