First, Predication in abstract.
First, All propositions wherein two abstract terms are affirmed one of another, are barely
about the signification of sounds. For since no abstract idea can be the same with any other but itself, when its
abstract name is affirmed of any other term, it can signify no more but this, that it may, or ought to be called by
that name; or that these two names signify the same idea. Thus, should any one say that parsimony is frugality,
that gratitude is justice, that this or that action is or is not temperate: however specious these and the like
propositions may at first sight seem, yet when we come to press them, and examine nicely what they contain, we
shall find that it all amounts to nothing but the signification of those terms.
