$9. This Learning very little benefits Society. FOR notwithstanding these learned difputants, thefe allknowing doctors, it was to the unfcholaftick statesman, that the governments of the world owed their peace, defence, and liberties; and from the illiterate and contemned mechanick (a name of difgrace) that they received the improvements of ufeful arts. Nevertheless, this ar tificial ignorance, and learned gibberish, prevailed mightily in these last ages, by the intereft and artifice of thofe who found no eafier way to that pitch of authority and dominion they have attained, than by amusing the men, of business and ignorant with hard words, or employing the ingenious and idle in intricate difputes about unintel ligible terms, and holding them perpetually intangled in that endless labyrinth : befides, there is no fuch way to gain admittance, or give defence to strange and abfurd doctrines, as to guard them round about with legions of obscure, doubtful and undefined words: which yet make these retreats more like the dens of robbers, or holes of foxes, than the fortreffes of fair warriours; which if it be hard to get them out of, it is not for the ftrength that is in them, but the briars and thorns, and the obfcurity of the thickets they are befet with. For untruth being unacceptable to the mind of man, there is no other defence left for abfurdity, but obscurity.

10. But deftroys the Inftruments of Knowledge and

Communication.

-THUS learned ignorance, and this art of keeping, even inquifitive men, from true knowledge, hath been propagated in the world, and hath much perplexed, whilst it pretended to inform the understanding. For we fee that other well-meaning and wife-men, whofe education and parts had not acquired that acuteness, could intelligibly exprefs themselves to one another; and in its plain ufe make a benefit of language. But though unlearned men well enough understood the words white and black, &c. and had constant notions of the ideas fignified by those words; yet there were philofophers found, who had learning and fubtilty enough to prove, that fnow was black; i. e. to prove, that white was black

Whereby they had the advantage to deftroy the inftruments and means of difcourfe, converfation, inftruction and fociety; whilft with great art and fubtilty they did no more but perplex and confound the fignification of words, and thereby render language lefs ufeful, than the real defects of it had made it ; a gift, which the illiter

ate had not attained to.

§ 11. As useful as to confound the Sound of the Letters. THESE learned men did equally inftruct men's underftandings, and profit their lives, as he who fhould alter the fignification of known characters, and, by a fubtile device of learning, far furpaffing the capacity of illiterate, dull and vulgar, should, in his writing, fhow that he could put 4 for B, and D for E, &c. to the no small admiration and benefit of his reader. It being as fenselefs to put black, which is a word agreed on to ftand for one fenfible idea, to put it, I fay, for another, or the contrary idea, i. e. to call fnow black, as to put this mark A, which is a character agreed on to stand for one modification of found, made by a certain motion of the organ of fpeech, for B; which is agreed on to stand for another modification of found, made by another certain mɔtion of the organs of speech.

§ 12. This Art has perplexed Religion and Justice. NOR has this mifchief stopped in logical niceties, or curious empty fpeculations, it hath invaded the great concernments of human life and fociety, obfcured and perplexed the material truths of law and divinity, brought confufion, diforder and uncertainty into the affairs of mankind; and if not destroyed, yet in a great measure rendered ufelefs, thefe two great rules, religion and juftice. What have the greatest part of the comments and disputes upon the laws of GOD and man ferved for, but to make the meaning more doubtful, and perplex the fenfe? What have been the effects of thofe multiplied curious diftinctions and acute niceties, but obfcurity and uncertainty, leaving the words more unintelligible, and the reader more at a lofs? How elfe comes it to pass that princes speaking, or writing to their fervants, in their ordinary commands, are easily understood; speaking to

their people, in their laws, are not so? And as I remarked before, doth it not often happen, that a man of an ordinary capacity very well understands a text or a law that he reads, till he confults an expofitor, or goes. to council; who by that time he hath done explaining them, makes the words fignify either nothing at all.. or what he pleases.

§ 13. And ought not to pafs for Learning. WHETHER any by interefts of thefe profeffions have occafioned this, I will not here examine; but I leave it to be confidered, whether it would not be well for mankind whofe concernment it is to know things as they are, and to do what they ought, and not to spend their lives in talking about them, or tofling words to and fro; wheth er it would not be well, I fay, that the ufe of words. were made plain and direct, and that language, which was given us first for theimprovement of knowledge and bond of fociety, should not be employed to darken truth and unfettle people's rights; to raife mifts, and render unintelligible both morality and religion? Or that at least, if this will happen, it should not be thought: learning or knowledge to do fo?

$14 4. Taking them for Things. FOURTHLY, Another great abufe of words is, the taking them for things.. This though it in fome degree concerns all names in general, yet more particularly affects those of fubftances. To this abufe thofe men are moft fubject,. who confine their thoughts to any one fyftem, and give themfelves up into a firm belief of the perfection of any received hypothefis; whereby they come to be perfuaded that the terms of that feet are so fuited to the nature of things, that they perfectly correfpond with their real exiftence. Who is there, that has been bred up in the pe ripatetick philofophy, who does not think the ten names,. under which are ranked the ten predicaments, to be ex actly conformable to the nature of things? Who is there of that fchool, that is not perfuaded, that fubftantial forms, vegetative fouls, abhorrence of a vacuum, intentional Species, &c. are fomething real? Thefe words men have learned from their very entrance upon knowledge, and

have found their mafters and fyftems lay great ftrefs upon them; and therefore they cannot quit the opinion, that they are conformable to nature, and are the reprefentations of fomething that really exifts. The Platonifts have their foul of the world, and the Epicureans their endeavour towards motion in their atoms, when at rest. There is fearce any fect in philosophy has not a diftin&t fet of terms, that others understand not; but yet this gibberish, which, in the weakness of human underftanding, ferves fo well to palliate men's ignorance, and cover their errours, comes by familiar ufe among those of the fame tribe, to seem the most important part of language and of all other the terms the moft fignificant. And fhould aerial and etherial vehicles come once, by the prevalency of that doctrine, to be generally received any where, no doubt thofe terms would make impreffions on men's minds, fo as to establish them in the perfuafion of the reality of fuch things, as much as peripatetick forms and intentional fpecies have heretofore done.

$15. Inftance in Matter.

How muchnames taken for things are apt to mislead the understanding, the attentive reading of philofophical writers would abundantly difcover; and that, perhaps, in words little fufpected of any fuch mifufe. I fhall inftance in one only, and that a very familiar one: how many intricate difputes have there been about matter, as if there were fome fuch thing really in nature, distinct from body ; as it is evident the word matter ftands for an idea distinct from the idea of body? For if the ideas thefe two terms ftood for, were precifely the fame, they might indifferently in all places be put one for another. But we fee, that though it be proper to fay, there is one matter of all bodies, one cannot fay, there is one body of all matters; we familiarly fay, one body is bigger than another, but it founds harsh (and I think is never ufed) to fay, one matter is bigger than another. Whence comes this then? viz.from hence, that though matter and body be not really distinct, but wherever there is the one, there is the other: yet matter and body ftand for two different conceptions, whereof the one is incomplete, and but a part

of the other. For bady stands for a folid extended figured fubftance, whereof matter is but a partial and more confused conception, it seeming to me to be used for the fubAtance and folidity of body, without taking in its exten fion and figure; and therefore it is that fpeaking of matter, we fpeak of it always as one, because in truth it expressly contains nothing but the idea of a folid subfrance, which is every where the fame, every where uni.form. This being our idea of matter, we no more con<ceive or speak of different matters in the world, than we do of different folidities; though we both conceive and peak of different bodies, because extenfion and figure Jare capable of variation. But fince folidity cannot exift without extension and figure, the taking matter to be the name of something really existing under that precifion, has no doubt produced thefe obfcure and unintelligible difcourfes and difputes, which have filled the heads and books of philofophers concerning materia prima ; which imperfection or abufe, how far it may concern a great many other general terms, I leave to be confidered. This I think, I may at least say, that we should have a great many fewer difputes in the world, if words were taken for what they are, the figns of our ideas only, and not for things themfelves. For when we argue about matter, or any the like term, we truly argue only about the idea we exprefs by that found, whether that precife idea agree to any thing really existing in nature or no. And if men would tell what ideas they make their words tand for, there could not be half that obfcurity or wrangling, inthe fearch and fupport oftruth, that thereiss § 16. This makes Errours lafting.

BUT whatever inconvenience follows from this mistake' af words, this I am fure, that by conftant and familiar afe, they charm men into notions far remote from the truth of things. It would be a hard matter to perfuade any one, that the words which his father or fehoolmafter the parfon of the parish, or fuch a reverend doctor used, fignified nothing that really exifted in nature: which,. perhaps, is none of the left caufes, that men are fo hardly Arawn to quit their miflakes, even in opinions purely phi