5. Negative names need not be meaningless.
But whether this be so or not I will not here determine, but appeal to
every one's own experience, whether the shadow of a man, though it consists of nothing but the absence of light
(and the more the absence of light is, the more discernible is the shadow) does not, when a man looks on it, cause
as clear and positive idea in his mind as a man himself, though covered over with clear sunshine? And the picture
of a shadow is a positive thing. Indeed, we have negative names, which stand not directly for positive ideas, but
for their absence, such as insipid, silence, nihil, etc.; which words denote positive ideas, v.g. taste, sound, being,
with a signification of their absence.