An Essay Concerning Humane Understanding, Volume 2: Excerpt (in Short Nonfiction Collection, Vol. 058 )

MP3 Audio CD. An Essay Concerning Humane Understanding, Volume 2: Excerpt (in Short Nonfiction Collection, Vol. 058 )

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:
whic