An Essay Concerning Humane Understanding, Volume II. - John Locke
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AN ESSAY CONCERNING HUMAN UNDERSTANDING
BY
JOHN LOCKE
[Based on the 2d Edition] CONTENTS OF THE SECOND VOLUME
BOOK III. OF WORDS.
CHAP.
I. OF WORDS OR LANGUAGE IN GENERAL
II. OF THE SIGNIFICATION OF WORDS
III. OF GENERAL TERMS
IV. OF THE NAMES OF SIMPLE IDEAS
V. OF THE NAMES OF MIXED MODES AND RELATIONS
VI. OF THE NAMES OF SUBSTANCES
VII. OF PARTICLES
VIII. OF ABSTRACT AND CONCRETE TERMS
IX. OF THE IMPERFECTION OF WORDS
X. OF THE ABUSE OF WORDS
XI. OF THE REMEDIES OF THE FOREGOING IMPERFECTION AND ABUSES
BOOK IV. OF KNOWLEDGE AND PROBABILITY.
CHAP.
I. OF KNOWLEDGE IN GENERAL
II. OF THE DEGREES OF OUR KNOWLEDGE
III. OF THE EXTENT OF HUMAN KNOWLEDGE
IV. OF THE REALITY OF OUR KNOWLEDGE
V. OF TRUTH IN GENERAL
VI. OF UNIVERSAL PROPOSITIONS: THEIR TRUTH AND CERTAINTY
VII. OF MAXIMS
VIII. OF TRIFLING PROPOSITIONS
IX. OF OUR THREEFOLD KNOWLEDGE OF EXISTENCE
X. OF OUR KNOWLEDGE OF THE EXISTENCE OF A GOD
XI. OF OUR KNOWLEDGE OF THE EXISTENCE OF OTHER THINGS
XII. OF THE IMPROVEMENT OF OUR KNOWLEDGE
XIII. SOME OTHER CONSIDERATIONS CONCERNING OUR KNOWLEDGE
XIV. OF JUDGMENT
XV. OF PROBABILITY
XVI. OF THE DEGREES OF ASSENT
XVII. OF REASON [AND SYLLOGISM]
XVIII. OF FAITH AND REASON, AND THEIR DISTINCT PROVINCES
XIX. [OF ENTHUSIASM]
XX. OF WRONG ASSENT, OR ERROR
XXI. OF THE DIVISION OF THE SCIENCES
BOOK III
OF WORDS
CHAPTER I.
OF WORDS OR LANGUAGE IN GENERAL.
1. Man fitted to form articulated Sounds.
God, having designed man for a sociable creature, made him not only with
an inclination, and under a necessity to have fellowship with those of
his own kind, but furnished him also with language, which was to be
the great instrument and common tie of society. Man, therefore, had by
nature his organs so fashioned, as to be fit to frame articulate sounds,
which we call words. But this was not enough to produce language; for
parrots, and several other birds, will be taught to make articulate
sounds distinct enough, which yet by no means are capable of language.
2. To use these sounds as Signs of Ideas.
Besides articulate sounds, therefore, it was further necessary that he
should be able to use these sounds as signs of internal conceptions; and
to make them stand as marks for the ideas within his own mind, whereby
they might be made known to others, and the thoughts of men's minds be
conveyed from one to another.
3. To make them general Signs.
But neither was this sufficient to make words so useful as they ought to
be. It is not enough for the perfection of language, that sounds can
be made signs of ideas, unless those signs can be so made use of as to
comprehend several particular things: for the multiplication of words
would have perplexed their use, had every particular thing need of
a distinct name to be signified by. [To remedy this inconvenience,
language had yet a further improvement in the use of GENERAL TERMS,
whereby one word was made to mark a multitude of particular existences:
which advantageous use of sounds was obtained only by the difference of
the ideas they were made signs of: those names becoming general, which
are made to stand for GENERAL IDEAS, and those remaining particular,
where the IDEAS they are used for are PARTICULAR.]
4. To make them signify the absence of positive Ideas.
Besides these names which stand for ideas, there be other words which
men make use of, not to signify any idea, but the want or absence of
some ideas, simple or complex, or all ideas together; such as are NIHIL
in Latin, and in English, IGNORANCE and BARRENNESS. All which negative
or privative words cannot be said properly to belong to, or signify no
ideas: for then they would be perfectly insignificant sounds; but they
relate to positive ideas, and signify their absence.
5. Words ultimately derived from such as signify sensible Ideas.
It may also lead us a little towards the original of all our notions and
knowledge, if we remark how great a dependence our words have on common
sensible ideas; and how those which are made use of to stand for actions
and notions quite removed from sense, have their rise from thence, and
from obvious sensible ideas are transferred to more abstruse
significations, and made to stand for ideas that come not under the
cognizance of our senses; v.g. to IMAGINE, APPREHEND, COMPREHEND,
ADHERE, CONCEIVE, INSTIL, DISGUST, DISTURBANCE, TRANQUILLITY, &c., are
all words taken from the operations of sensible things, and applied to
certain modes of thinking. SPIRIT, in its primary signification, is
breath; ANGEL, a messenger: and I doubt not but, if we could trace them
to their sources, we should find, in all languages, the names which
stand for things that fall not under our senses to have had their first
rise from sensible ideas. By which we may give some kind of guess what
kind of notions they were, and whence derived, which filled their minds
who were the first beginners of languages, and how nature, even in the
naming of things, unawares suggested to men the originals and principles
of all their knowledge: whilst, to give names that might make known to
others any operations they felt in themselves, or any other ideas that
came not under their senses, they were fain to borrow words from
ordinary known ideas of sensation, by that means to make others the more
easily to conceive those operations they experimented in themselves,
which made no outward sensible appearances; and then, when they had got
known and agreed names to signify those internal operations of their own
minds, they were sufficiently furnished to make known by words all their
other ideas; since they could consist of nothing but either of outward
sensible perceptions, or of the inward operations of their minds about
them; we having, as has been proved, no ideas at all, but what
originally come either from sensible objects without, or what we feel
within ourselves, from the inward workings of our own spirits, of which
we are conscious to ourselves within.
6. Distribution of subjects to be treated of.
But to understand better the use and force of Language, as subservient
to instruction and knowledge, it will be convenient to consider:
First, TO WHAT IT IS THAT NAMES, IN THE USE OF LANGUAGE, ARE IMMEDIATELY
APPLIED.
Secondly, Since all (except proper) names are general, and so stand not
particularly for this or that single thing, but for sorts and ranks of
things, it will be necessary to consider, in the next place, what the
sorts and kinds, or, if you rather like the Latin names, WHAT THE
SPECIES AND GENERA OF THINGS ARE, WHEREIN THEY CONSIST, AND HOW THEY
COME TO BE MADE. These being (as they ought) well looked into, we shall
the better come to find the right use of words; the natural advantages
and defects of language; and the remedies that ought to be used,
to avoid the inconveniences of obscurity or uncertainty in the
signification of words: without which it is impossible to discourse with
any clearness or order concerning knowledge: which, being conversant
about propositions, and those most commonly universal ones, has greater
connexion with words than perhaps is suspected. These considerations,
therefore, shall be the matter of the following chapters.
CHAPTER II.
OF THE SIGNIFICATION OF WORDS.
1. Words are sensible Signs, necessary for Communication of Ideas.
Man, though he have great variety of thoughts, and such from which
others as well as himself might receive profit and delight; yet they are
all within his own breast, invisible and hidden from others, nor can of
themselves be made to appear. The comfort and advantage of society not
being to be had without communication of thoughts, it was necessary
that man should find out some external sensible signs, whereof those
invisible ideas, which his thoughts are made up of, might be made known
to others. For this purpose nothing was so fit, either for plenty or
quickness, as those articulate sounds, which with so much ease and
variety he found himself able to make. Thus we may conceive how WORDS,
which were by nature so well adapted to that purpose, came to be made
use of by men as the signs of their ideas; not by any natural connexion
that there is between particular articulate sounds and certain ideas,
for then there would be but one language amongst all men; but by a
voluntary imposition, whereby such a word is made arbitrarily the mark
of such an idea. The use, then, of words, is to be sensible marks of
ideas; and the ideas they stand for are their proper and immediate
signification.
2. Words, in their immediate Signification, are the sensible Signs of
his Ideas who uses them.
The use men have of these marks being either to record their own
thoughts, for the assistance of their own memory; or, as it were, to
bring out their ideas, and lay them before the view of others: words,
in their primary or immediate signification, stand for nothing but THE
IDEAS IN THE MIND OF HIM THAT USES THEM, how imperfectly soever or
carelessly those ideas are collected from the things which they are
supposed to represent. When a man speaks to another, it is that he may
be understood: and the end of speech is, that those sounds, as marks,
may make known his ideas to the hearer. That then which words are the
marks of are the ideas of the speaker: nor can any one apply them as
marks, immediately, to anything else but the ideas that he himself hath:
for this would be to make them signs of his own conceptions, and yet
apply them to other ideas; which would be to make them signs and not
signs of his ideas at the same time; and so in effect to have no
signification at all. Words being voluntary signs, they cannot be
voluntary signs imposed by him on things he knows not. That would be to
make them signs of nothing, sounds without signification. A man
cannot make his words the signs either of qualities in things, or of
conceptions in the mind of another, whereof he has none in his own. Till
he has some ideas of his own, he cannot suppose them to correspond with
the conceptions of another man; nor can he use any signs for them: for
thus they would be the signs of he knows not what, which is in truth to
be the signs of nothing. But when he represents to himself other men's
ideas by some of his own, if he consent to give them the same names that
other men do, it is still to his own ideas; to ideas that he has, and
not to ideas that he has not.
3. Examples of this.
This is so necessary in the use of language, that in this respect the
knowing and the ignorant, the learned and the unlearned, use the words
they speak (with any meaning) all alike. They, in every man's mouth,
stand for the ideas he has, and which he would express by them. A child
having taken notice of nothing in the metal he hears called GOLD, but
the bright shining yellow colour, he applies the word gold only to his
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.
5. Secondly, to the Reality of Things.
Secondly, Because men would not be thought to talk barely of their own
imagination, but of things as really they are; therefore they often
suppose the WORDS TO STAND ALSO FOR THE REALITY OF THINGS. But this
relating more particularly to substances and their names, as perhaps
the former does to simple ideas and modes, we shall speak of these two
different ways of applying words more at large, when we come to treat of
the names of mixed modes and substances in particular: though give me
leave here to say, that it is a perverting the use of words, and brings
unavoidable obscurity and confusion into their signification, whenever
we make them stand for anything but those ideas we have in our own
minds.
6. Words by Use readily excite Ideas of their objects.
Concerning words, also, it is further to be considered:
First, that they being immediately the signs of men's ideas, and by that
means the instruments whereby men communicate their conceptions, and
express to one another those thoughts and imaginations they have within
their own breasts; there comes, by constant use, to be such a connexion
between certain sounds and the ideas they stand for, that the names
heard, almost as readily excite certain ideas as if the objects
themselves, which are apt to produce them, did actually affect the
senses. Which is manifestly so in all obvious sensible qualities, and in
all substances that frequently and familiarly occur to us.
7. Words are often used without Signification, and Why.
Secondly, That though the proper and immediate signification of words
are ideas in the mind of the speaker, yet, because by familiar use from
our cradles, we come to learn certain articulate sounds very perfectly,
and have them readily on our tongues, and always at hand in our
memories, but yet are not always careful to examine or settle their
significations perfectly; it often happens that men, even when they
would apply themselves to an attentive consideration, do set their
thoughts more on words than things. Nay, because words are many of them
learned before the ideas are known for which they stand: therefore some,
not only children but men, speak several words no otherwise than parrots
do, only because they have learned them, and have been accustomed to
those sounds. But so far as words are of use and signification, so far
is there a constant connexion between the sound and the idea, and a
designation that the one stands for the other; without which application
of them, they are nothing but so much insignificant noise.
8. Their Signification perfectly arbitrary, not the consequence of a
natural connexion.
Words, by long and familiar use, as has been said, come to excite in men
certain ideas so constantly and readily, that they are apt to suppose
a natural connexion between them. But that they signify only men's
peculiar ideas, and that BY A PERFECT ARBITRARY IMPOSITION, is evident,
in that they often fail to excite in others (even that use the same
language) the same ideas we take them to be signs of: and every man has
so inviolable a liberty to make words stand for what ideas he pleases,
that no one hath the power to make others have the same ideas in their
minds that he has, when they use the same words that he does. And
therefore the great Augustus himself, in the possession of that power
which ruled the world, acknowledged he could not make a new Latin word:
which was as much as to say, that he could not arbitrarily appoint what
idea any sound should be a sign of, in the mouths and common language of
his subjects. It is true, common use, by a tacit consent, appropriates
certain sounds to certain ideas in all languages, which so far limits
the signification of that sound, that unless a man applies it to the
same idea, he does not speak properly: and let me add, that unless a
man's words excite the same ideas in the hearer which he makes them
stand for in speaking, he does not speak intelligibly. But whatever be
the consequence of any man's using of words differently, either from
their general meaning, or the particular sense of the person to whom
he addresses them; this is certain, their signification, in his use of
them, is limited to his ideas, and they can be signs of nothing else.
CHAPTER III.
OF GENERAL TERMS.
1. The greatest Part of Words are general terms.
All things that exist being particulars, it may perhaps be thought
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.
Secondly, If it were possible, it would yet be useless; because it would
not serve to the chief end of language. Men would in vain heap up names
of particular things, that would not serve them to communicate their
thoughts. Men learn names, and use them in talk with others, only that
they may be understood: which is then only done when, by use or consent,
the sound I make by the organs of speech, excites in another man's mind
who hears it, the idea I apply it to in mine, when I speak it. This
cannot be done by names applied to particular things; whereof I alone
having the ideas in my mind, the names of them could not be significant
or intelligible to another, who was not acquainted with all those very
particular things which had fallen under my notice.
4. A distinct name for every particular thing not fitted for enlargement
of knowledge.
Thirdly, But yet, granting this also feasible, (which I think is not,)
yet a distinct name for every particular thing would not be of any
great use for the improvement of knowledge: which, though founded in
particular things, enlarges itself by general views; to which things
reduced into sorts, under general names, are properly subservient.
These, with the names belonging to them, come within some compass, and
do not multiply every moment, beyond what either the mind can contain,
or use requires. And therefore, in these, men have for the most part
stopped: but yet not so as to hinder themselves from distinguishing
particular things by appropriated names, where convenience demands it.
And therefore in their own species, which they have most to do with, and
wherein they have often occasion to mention particular persons, they
make use of proper names; and there distinct individuals have distinct
denominations.
5. What things have proper Names, and why.
Besides persons, countries also, cities, rivers, mountains, and other
the like distinctions of lace have usually found peculiar names, and
that for the same reason; they being such as men have often as occasion
to mark particularly, and, as it were, set before others in their
discourses with them. And I doubt not but, if we had reason to mention
particular horses as often as as have reason to mention particular men,
we should have proper names for the one, as familiar as for the other,
and Bucephalus would be a word as much in use as Alexander. And
therefore we see that, amongst jockeys, horses have their proper names
to be known and distinguished by, as commonly as their servants:
because, amongst them, there is often occasion to mention this or that
particular horse when he is out of sight.
6. How general Words are made.
The next thing to be considered is,--How general words come to be made.
For, since all things that exist are only particulars, how come we by
general terms; or where find we those general natures they are supposed
to stand for? Words become general by being made the signs of
general ideas: and ideas become general, by separating from them the
circumstances of time and place, and any other ideas that may determine
them to this or that particular existence. By this way of abstraction
they are made capable of representing more individuals than one; each of
which having in it a conformity to that abstract idea, is (as we call
it) of that sort.
7. Shown by the way we enlarge our complex ideas from infancy.
But, to deduce this a little more distinctly, it will not perhaps be
amiss to trace our notions and names from their beginning, and observe
by what degrees we proceed, and by what steps we enlarge our ideas from
our first infancy. There is nothing more evident, than that the ideas of
the persons children converse with (to instance in them alone) are, like
the persons themselves, only particular. The ideas of the nurse and the
mother are well framed in their minds; and, like pictures of them there,
represent only those individuals. The names they first gave to them are
confined to these individuals; and the names of NURSE and MAMMA, the
child uses, determine themselves to those persons. Afterwards, when time
and a larger acquaintance have made them observe that there are a great
many other things in the world, that in some common agreements of shape,
and several other qualities, resemble their father and mother, and those
persons they have been used to, they frame an idea, which they find
those many particulars do partake in; and to that they give, with
others, the name MAN, for example. And thus they come to have a general
name, and a general idea. Wherein they make nothing new; but only leave
out of the complex idea they had of Peter and James, Mary and Jane, that
which is peculiar to each, and retain only what is common to them all.
8. And further enlarge our complex ideas, by still leaving out
properties contained in them.
By the same way that they come by the general name and idea of MAN, they
easily advance to more general names and notions. For, observing that
several things that differ from their idea of man, and cannot therefore
be comprehended out under that name, have yet certain qualities wherein
they agree with man, by retaining only those qualities, and uniting them
into one idea, they have again another and more general idea; to which
having given a name they make a term of a more comprehensive extension:
which new idea is made, not by any new addition, but only as before, by
leaving out the shape, and some other properties signified by the name
man, and retaining only a body, with life, sense, and spontaneous
motion, comprehended under the name animal.
9. General natures are nothing but abstract and partial ideas of more
complex ones.
That this is the way whereby men first formed general ideas, and general
names to them, I think is so evident, that there needs no other proof
of it but the considering of a man's self, or others, and the ordinary
proceedings of their minds in knowledge. And he that thinks GENERAL
NATURES or NOTIONS are anything else but such abstract and partial ideas
of more complex ones, taken at first from particular existences, will, I
fear, be at a loss where to find them. For let any one effect, and then
tell me, wherein does his idea of MAN differ from that of PETER and
PAUL, or his idea of HORSE from that of BUCEPHALUS, but in the leaving
out something that is peculiar to each individual, and retaining so much
of those particular complex ideas of several particular existences as
they are found to agree in? Of the complex ideas signified by the names
MAN and HORSE, leaving out but those particulars wherein they differ,
and retaining only those wherein they agree, and of those making a new
distinct complex idea, and giving the name ANIMAL to it, one has a more
general term, that comprehends with man several other creatures. Leave
out of the idea of ANIMAL, sense and spontaneous motion, and the
remaining complex idea, made up of the remaining simple ones of body,
life, and nourishment, becomes a more general one, under the more
comprehensive term, VIVENS. And, not to dwell longer upon this
particular, so evident in itself; by the same way the mind proceeds to
BODY, SUBSTANCE, and at last to BEING, THING, and such universal terms,
which stand for any of our ideas whatsoever. To conclude: this whole
mystery of genera and species, which make such a noise in the schools,
and are with justice so little regarded out of them, is nothing else but
ABSTRACT IDEAS, more or less comprehensive, with names annexed to them.
In all which this is constant and unvariable, That every more general
term stands for such an idea, and is but a part of any of those
contained under it.