20. Their use dangerous, where our ideas are not determined.
And as these maxims are of little use where we have
determined ideas, so they are, as I have shown, of dangerous use where our ideas are not determined; and where
we use words that are not annexed to determined ideas, but such as are of a loose and wandering signification,
sometimes standing for one, and sometimes for another idea: from which follow mistake and error, which these
maxims (brought as proofs to establish propositions, wherein the terms stand for undetermined ideas) do by their
authority confirm and rivet.