lations of them for which these words are substituted; neither has he
any general idea compounded of them; for if he had, then some of those
particular ones, though indistinct perhaps, and confused, might come
soon to be perceived. But this, I take it, is hardly ever the case. For,
put yourself upon analyzing one of these words, and you must reduce it
from one set of general words to another, and then into the simple
abstracts and aggregates, in a much longer series than may be at first
imagined, before any real idea emerges to light, before you come to
discover anything like the first principles of such compositions; and
when you have made such a discovery of the original ideas, the effect of
the composition is utterly lost. A train of thinking of this sort is
much too long to be pursued in the ordinary ways of conversation; nor is
it at all necessary that it should. Such words are in reality but mere
sounds; but they are sounds which being used on particular occasions,
wherein we receive some good, or suffer some evil; or see others
affected with good or evil; or which we hear applied to other
interesting things or events; and being applied in such a variety of
cases, that we know readily by habit to what things they belong, they
produce in the mind, whenever they are afterwards mentioned, effects
similar to those of their occasions. The sounds being often used without
reference to any particular occasion, and carrying still their first
impressions, they at last utterly lose their connection with the
particular occasions that gave rise to them; yet the sound, without any
annexed notion, continues to operate as before.

SECTION III.

GENERAL WORDS BEFORE IDEAS.

Mr. Locke has somewhere observed, with his usual sagacity, that most
general words, those belonging to virtue and vice, good and evil
especially, are taught before the particular modes of action to which
they belong are presented to the mind; and with them, the love of the
one, and the abhorrence of the other; for the minds of children are so
ductile, that a nurse, or any person about a child, by seeming pleased
or displeased with anything, or even any word, may give the disposition
of the child a similar turn. When, afterwards, the several occurrences
in life come to be applied to these words, and that which is pleasant
often appears under the name of evil; and what is disagreeable to nature
is called good and virtuous; a strange confusion of ideas and aff