Names univocal and equivocal.
12. Fifthly, names are usually distinguished into univocal and equivocal. Univocal are those which in the same train of discourse signify always the same thing; but equivocal those which mean sometimes one thing and sometimes another. Thus, the name triangle is said to be univocal, because it is always taken in the same sense; and parabola to be equivocal, for the signification it has sometimes of allegory or similitude, and sometimes of a certain geometrical figure. Also every metaphor is by profession equivocal. But this distinction belongs not so much to names, as to those that use names, for some use them properly and accurately for the finding out of truth; others draw them from their proper sense, for ornament or deceit.
Absolute and relative names.
13. Sixthly, of names, some are absolute, others relative. Relative are such as are imposed for some comparison, as father, son, cause, effect, like, unlike, equal, unequal, master, servant, &c. And those that signify no comparison at all are absolute names. But, as it was noted above, that universality is to be attributed to words and names only, and not to things, so the same is to be said of other distinctions of names; for no things are either univocal or equivocal, or relative or absolute. There is also another distinction of names into concrete and abstract; but because abstract names proceed from proposition, and can have no place where there is no affirmation, I shall speak of them hereafter.
Simple and compounded names.
14. Lastly, there are simple and compounded names. But here it is to be noted, that a name is not taken in philosophy, as in grammar, for one single word, but for any number of words put together to signify one thing; for among philosophers sentient animated body passes but for one name, being the name of every living creature, which yet, among grammarians, is accounted three names. Also a simple name is not here distinguished from a compounded name by a preposition, as in grammar. But I call a simple name, that which in every kind is the most common or most universal; and that a compounded name, which by the joining of another name to it, is made less universal, and signifies that more conceptions than one were in the mind, for which that latter name was added. For example, in the conception of man (as is shown in the former chapter.) First, he is conceived to be something that has extension, which is marked by the word body. Body, therefore, is a simple name, being put for that first single conception; afterwards, upon the sight of such and such motion, another conception arises, for which he is called an animated body; and this I here call a compounded name, as I do also the name animal, which is equivalent to an animated body. And, in the same manner, an animated rational body, as also a man, which is equivalent to it, is a more compounded name. And by this we see how the composition of conceptions in the mind is answerable to the composition of names; for, as in the mind one idea or phantasm succeeds to another, and to this a third; so to one name is added another and another successively, and of them all is made one compounded name. Nevertheless we must not think bodies which are without the mind, are compounded in the same manner, namely, that there is in nature a body, or any other imaginable thing existent, which at the first has no magnitude, and then, by the addition of magnitude, comes to have quantity, and by more or less quantity to have density or rarity; and again, by the addition of figure, to be figurate, and after this, by the injection of light or colour, to become lucid or coloured; though such has been the philosophy of many.
A predicament described.
15. The writers of logic have endeavoured to digest the names of all the kinds of things into certain scales or degrees, by the continual subordination of names less common, to names more common. In the scale of bodies they put in the first and highest place body simply, and in the next place under it less common names, by which it may be more limited and determined, namely animated and inanimated, and so on till they come to individuals. In like manner, in the scale of quantities, they assign the first place to quantity, and the next to line, superficies, and solid, which are names of less latitude; and these orders or scales of names they usually call predicaments and categories. And of this ordination not only positive, but negative names also are capable; which may be exemplified by such forms of the predicaments as follow:
The Form of the Predicament of Body.
| Not-Body, or | ||||||||
| Accident. | ||||||||
 | Not animated. | |||||||
| Body |  | Not living Creature. | ||||||
| Animated | ||||||||
| Living | | Not Man. | ||||||
| Creature |  | Not Peter. | ||||||
| Man | ||||||||
| Peter. | ||||||||