10. And why.
He that hath liberty to define, i.e., to determine the signification of his names of substances (as
certainly every one does in effect, who makes them stand for his own ideas), and makes their significations at a
venture, taking them from his own or other men's fancies, and not from an examination or inquiry into the nature
of things themselves; may with little trouble demonstrate them one of another, according to those several respects
and mutual relations he has given them one to another; wherein, however things agree or disagree in their own
nature, he needs mind nothing but his own notions, with the names he hath bestowed upon them: but thereby no
more increases in his own knowledge than he does his riches, who, taking a bag of counters, calls one in a certain
place a pound, another in another place a shilling, and a third in a third place a penny; and so proceeding, may
undoubtedly reckon right, and cast up a great sum, according to his counters so placed, and standing for more or
less as he pleases, without being one jot the richer, or without even knowing how much a pound, shilling, or
penny is, but only that one is contained in the other twenty times, and contains the other twelve: which a man may
also do in the signification of words, by making them, in respect of one another, more or less, or equally
comprehensive.
