agree in fentiment: if by the word virtue, the affirmer intends our whole duty to God and man; and the denier by the word virtue means only courage, or at most our duty towards our neighbour, without including in the idea of it the duty which we owe to God.

Many fuch fort of contentions as these are, traced to their original, will be found to be mere logomachines, or ftrifes and quarrels about names and words, and vain janglings, as the apoftle calls them in his first letter of advice to Timothy.

In order therefore to attain clear and diftinct ideas of what we read or hear, we muft fearch the fense of words; we must confider what is their original and derivation in our own or foreign languages; what is their common fense amongst mankind, or in other authors, especially fuch as wrote in the fame century, in the fame age, about the fame time, and upon the fame fubjects: we must confiderin what sense the fame author ufes any particular word or phrase, and that when he is difcourfing on the fame matter, and efpecially about the fame parts or paragraphs of his writing we must confider whether the word be used in a ftrict and limited, or in a large and general fense; whether in a literal, in a figurative, or in a prophetic fenfe; whether it has any fecondary idea annexed to it befides the primary or chief sense. We must enquire farther what is the scope and defign of the writer; and what is the connection of that fentence with those that go before it, and those which follow it. By these and other methods we are to fearch out the definition of names, that is, the true fenfe and meaning in which any author or speaker ufes any word, which may be the chief fubject of difcourfe, or may carry any confiderable importance in it.

Direct. V. When we communicate our notions to others, merely with a defign to inform and improve their knowledge, let us, in the beginning of our difcourfe, take care to adjust the definitions of names wherefoever there is need of it, that is, to determine plainly what we mean by the chief words which are the fubject of our difcourfe; and be Jure always to keep the fame ideas, whenfoever we use the fame words, unless we give due notice of the change. This

will have a very large and happy influence, in fecuring not only others but ourselves too from confufion and mistake; for even writers and speakers themselves, for want of due watchfulness, are ready to affix different ideas to their own words, in different parts of their difcourfes, and hereby bring perplexity into their own reafonings, and confound their hearers

It is by an obfervation of this rule that mathemati cians have fo happily fecured themselves and the fciences which they have profeffed, from wrangling and controversy; because whenfoever in the progress of their treatises they have occafion to use a new and unknown word; they always define it, and tell in what fense they shall take it; and in many of their writings you will find a heap of definitions at the very beginning. Now if the writers of natural philofophy and morality had ufed the fame accuracy and care, they had effectually fecluded a multitude of noisy and fruitlefs debates out of their feveral provinces: nor had that facred theme of divinity been perplexed with fo many intricate difputes, nor the church of Christ been torn to pieces, by fo many fects and factions, if the words grace, faith, righteousness, repentance, juftification, vorfbip, church, bishop, prefbyter, &c. had been well defined, and their fignifications adjusted, as near as poffible, by the use of those words in the New Teftament; or at least, if every writer had told us at firft in what fense he would use those words.

Direct. VI. In your own ftudies, as well as in the communication of your thoughts to others, merely for their information, avoid ambiguous and equivocal terms as much as poffible. Do not ufe fuch words as have two or three definitions of the name belonging to them, that is, fuch words as have two or three fenfes, where there is any danger of mistake. Where your chief business is to inform the judgment, and to explain a matter, rather than to perfuade or affect, be not fond of exprefsing yourfelves in figurative language, when there are any proper words that fignify the fame idea in their literal fenfe. It is the ambiguity of names, as we have often faid, that brings almoft infinite confufion into our conceptions of things.

But where there is a neceffity of using an ambigueus word, there let double care be used in defining that word, and declaring in what sense you take it. And be sure to fuffer no ambiguous word ever to come into your definitions.

Direct. VII. In communicating your notions, ufe every word as near as paffible in the fame fenfe in which mankind commonly ufes it; or which writers that have gone before you have ufually affixed to it, upon condition that it is free from ambiguity. Though names are in their original merely arbitrary, yet we fhould always keep to the established meaning of them, unless great neceffity require the alteration; for when any word has been used to fignify an idea, that old idea will recur in the mind, when the word is heard or read, rather than any new idea which we may faften to it. And this is one reafon why the received definition of names should be changed as little as poffible.

But I add farther, that though a word entirely new, introduced into a language, may be affixed to what idea you pleafe, yet an old word ought never to be fixed to an unaccustomed idea, without juft and evident neceffity, or without present or previous notice, leaft we introduce thereby a licence for all manner of pernicious equivocations and falfehoods; as for inItance, when an idle boy, who has not feen his book all the morning, shall tell his mafter that he has learned his leffon, he can never excufe himself by saying; that by the word learning he meant his breakfast, and by the word leffon he meant eating; furely this would be conftrued a downright lie, and his fancied wit would hardly procure his pardon.

In ufing any ambiguous word, which has been used in different fenfes, we may choose what we think the moft proper fenfe, as I have done, p. 75. in naming the poles of the loaditone, north or fouth.

And when a word has been used in two or three fenfes, and has made a great inroad for error upon that account, it is of good fervice to drop one or two of thofe fenfes, and leave it only one remaining, and affix the other fenfes or ideas to other words. So the modern philosophers, when they they treat of the human

foul, they call it the mind or mens humana, and leave the word anima or foul to fignify the principle of life and motion in mere animal beings.

The poet Juvenal has long ago given us a hint to this accuracy and diftinction, when he fays of brutes

and men,

Indulfit mundi communis conditor illis

Tantum animas; nobis animum quoque.
Sat. xvi. v. 134.

Exception. There is one cafe, wherein fome of these laft rules concerning the definition of words, may be in fome measure difpenfed with; and that is, when ftrong and rooted prejudice hath established fome favourite word or phrase, and long used it to exprefs fome mistaken notion, or to unite fome inconfiftent ideas; for then it is fometimes much easier to lead the world into truth by indulging their fondness for a phrafe, and by aligning and applying new ideas and notions to their favourite word; and this is much fafer alfo than to awaken all their paffions by rejecting both their old words, and phrafes and notions, and introducing all new at once: therefore we continue to fay, there is heat in the fire, there is coldness in ice, rather than invent new words to exprefs the powers which are in fire or ice, to excite the fenfations of heat or cold in us. For the fame reafon fome words and phrafes which are lefs proper, may be continued in theology, while people are led into clearer ideas with much more eafe and fuccefs, than if an attempt were made to change all their beloved forms of fpeech.

In other cafes these logical directions fhould generally be obferved, and different names affixed to different ideas.

Here I cannot but take occafion to remark, that it is a confiderable advantage to any language to have a variety of new words introduced into it, that when in courfe of time new objects and new ideas arife, there may be new words and names affigned to them and alfo where one fingle name has fuftained two or three ideas in time palt, thefe new words may remove the

ambiguity by being affixed to fome of those ideas. This practice would by degrees take away part of the uncertainty of language. And for this reafon I cannot but congratulate our English tongue, that it has been abundantly enriched with the tranflation of words from all our neighbour nations, as well as from ancient languages, and thefe words have been as it were enfranchifed amongst us; for French, Latin, Greek, and German names will fignify English ideas, as well as words that are anciently and entirely English.

It may not be amifs to mention in this place, that as the determination of the particular fenfe in which any word is used, is called the definition of the name, fo the enumeration of the various fenfes of an equivocal word, is sometimes called the divifion or distinction of the name; and for this purpose good dictionaries are of excellent use.

This distinction of the name or word is greatly neceflary in argumentation or difpute; when a fallacious argument is ufed, he that answers it diftinguishes the feveral fenfes of fome word or phrafe in it, and fhews in what fense it is true, and in what fense it is as evidently falfe.

A

SECT. IV.

Of the Definition of Things.

S there is much confufion introduced into our ideas, by the means of those words to which they are affixed, fo the mingling our ideas with each other without caution is a farther occafion whereby they become confused. A court lady, born and bred up amongst pomp and equipage, and the vain notions of birth and quality, conftantly joins and mixes all thefe with the idea of herfelf, and the imagines thefe to be effential to her nature, and as it were neceffary to her being; thence fhe is tempted to look upon menial fervants, and the lowest rank of mankind, as ano