Necessity of Marks for the signification of the conceptions of the Mind.
2. Again, though some one man, of how excellent a wit soever, should spend all his time partly in reasoning, and partly in inventing marks for the help of his memory, and advancing himself in learning; who sees not that the benefit he reaps to himself will not be much, and to others none at all? For unless he communicate his notes with others, his science will perish with him. But if the same notes be made common to many, and so one man's inventions be taught to others, sciences will thereby be increased to the general good of mankind. It is therefore necessary, for the acquiring of philosophy, that there be certain signs, by which what one man finds out may be manifested and made known to others. Now, those things we call SIGNS are the antecedents of their consequents, and the consequents of their antecedents, as often as we observe them to go before or follow after in the same manner. For example, a thick cloud is a sign of rain to follow, and rain a sign that a cloud has gone before, for this reason only, that we seldom see clouds without the consequence of rain, nor rain at any time but when a cloud has gone before. And of signs, some are natural, whereof I have already given an example, others are arbitrary, namely, those we make choice of at our own pleasure, as a bush hung up, signifies that wine is to be sold there; a stone set in the ground signifies the bound of a field; and words so and so connected, signify the cogitations and motions of our mind. The difference, therefore, betwixt marks and signs is this, that we make those for our own use, but these for the use of others.
Names supply both those necessities.
3. Words so connected as that they become signs of our thoughts, are called SPEECH, of which every part is a name. But seeing (as is said) both marks and signs are necessary for the acquiring of philosophy, (marks by which we may remember our own thoughts, and signs by which we may make our thoughts known to others), names do both these offices; but they serve for marks before they be used as signs. For though a man were alone in the world, they would be useful to him in helping him to remember; but to teach others, (unless there were some others to be taught) of no use at all. Again, names, though standing singly by themselves, are marks, because they serve to recal our own thoughts to mind; but they cannot be signs, otherwise than by being disposed and ordered in speech as parts of the same. For example, a man may begin with a word, whereby the hearer may frame an idea of something in his mind, which, nevertheless, he cannot conceive to be the idea which was in the mind of him that spake, but that he would say something which began with that word, though perhaps not as by itself, but as part of another word. So that the nature of a name consists principally in this, that it is a mark taken for memory's sake; but it serves also by accident to signify and make known to others what we remember ourselves, and, therefore, I will define it thus:
Definition of a Name.
4. A NAME is a word taken at pleasure to serve for a mark, which may raise in our mind a thought like to some thought we had before, and which being pronounced to others, may be to them a sign of what thought the speaker had, or had not before in his mind. And it is for brevity's sake that I suppose the original of names to be arbitrary, judging it a thing that may be assumed as unquestionable. For considering that new names are daily made, and old ones laid aside; that diverse nations use different names, and how impossible it is either to observe similitude, or make any comparison betwixt a name and a thing, how can any man imagine that the names of things were imposed from their natures? For though some names of living creatures and other things, which our first parents used, were taught by God himself; yet they were by him arbitrarily imposed, and afterwards, both at the Tower of Babel, and since, in process of time, growing everywhere out of use, are quite forgotten, and in their room have succeeded others, invented and received by men at pleasure. Moreover, whatsoever the common use of words be, yet philosophers, who were to teach their knowledge to others, had always the liberty, and sometimes they both had and will have a necessity, of taking to themselves such names as they please for the signifying of their meaning, if they would have it understood. Nor had mathematicians need to ask leave of any but themselves to name the figures they invented, parabolas, hyperboles, cissoeides, quadratices, &c. or to call one magnitude A, another B.
Names are signs not of things, but of our cogitations.
5. But seeing names ordered in speech (as is defined) are signs of our conceptions, it is manifest they are not signs of the things themselves; for that the sound of this word stone should be the sign of a stone, cannot be understood in any sense but this, that he that hears it collects that he that pronounces it thinks of a stone. And, therefore, that disputation, whether names signify the matter or form, or something compounded of both, and other like subtleties of the metaphysics, is kept up by erring men, and such as understand not the words they dispute about.
What it is we give names to.
6. Nor, indeed, is it at all necessary that every name should be the name of something. For as these, a man, a tree, a stone, are the names of the things themselves, so the images of a man, of a tree, and of a stone, which are represented to men sleeping, have their names also, though they be not things, but only fictions and phantasms of things. For we can remember these; and, therefore, it is no less necessary that they have names to mark and signify them, than the things themselves. Also this word future is a name, but no future thing has yet any being, nor do we know whether that which we call future, shall ever have a being or no. Nevertheless, seeing we use in our mind to knit together things past with those that are present, the name future serves to signify such knitting together. Moreover, that which neither is, nor has been, nor ever shall, or ever can be, has a name, namely, that which neither is nor has been, &c.; or more briefly this, impossible. To conclude; this word nothing is a name, which yet cannot be the name of any thing: for when, for example, we substract 2 and 3 from 5, and so nothing remaining, we would call that substraction to mind, this speech nothing remains, and in it the word nothing is not unuseful. And for the same reason we say truly, less than nothing remains, when we substract more from less; for the mind feigns such remains as these for doctrine's sake, and desires, as often as is necessary, to call the same to memory. But seeing every name has some relation to that which is named, though that which we name be not always a thing that has a being in nature, yet it is lawful for doctrine's sake to apply the word thing to whatsoever we name; as if it were all one whether that thing be truly existent, or be only feigned.