ves, and not in our imaginations; and it matters not much for the
improvement of our knowledge how they are called.

25. Not easy to be made so.

It were therefore to be wished, That men versed in physical inquiries,
and acquainted with the several sorts of natural bodies, would set down
those simple ideas wherein they observe the individuals of each sort
constantly to agree. This would remedy a great deal of that confusion
which comes from several persons applying the same name to a collection
of a smaller or greater number of sensible qualities, proportionably as
they have been more or less acquainted with, or accurate in examining,
the qualities of any sort of things which come under one denomination.
But a dictionary of this sort, containing, as it were, a natural
history, requires too many hands as well as too much time, cost, pains,
and sagacity ever to be hoped for; and till that be done, we must
content ourselves with such definitions of the names of substances as
explain the sense men use them in. And it would be well, where there is
occasion, if they would afford us so much. This yet is not usually done;
but men talk to one another, and dispute in words, whose meaning is not
agreed between them, out of a mistake that the significations of common
words are certainly established, and the precise ideas they stand for
perfectly known; and that it is a shame to be ignorant of them. Both
which suppositions are false, no names of complex ideas having so
settled determined significations, that they are constantly used for
the same precise ideas. Nor is it a shame for a man to have a certain
knowledge of anything, but by the necessary ways of attaining it; and so
it is no discredit not to know what precise idea any sound stands for in
another man's mind, without he declare it to me by some other way than
barely using that sound, there being no other way, without such a
declaration, certainly to know it. Indeed the necessity of communication
by language brings men to an agreement in the signification of common
words, within some tolerable latitude, that may serve for ordinary
conversation: and so a man cannot be supposed wholly ignorant of the
ideas which are annexed to words by common use, in a language familiar
to him. But common use being but a very uncertain rule, which reduces
itself at last to the ideas of particular men, proves often but a
very variable standard. But though such a Dictionary as I have above
me