3. To make them general signs.
But neither was this sufficient to make words so useful as they ought to be. It is
not enough for the perfection of language, that sounds can be made signs of ideas, unless those signs can be so
made use of as to comprehend several particular things: for the multiplication of words would have perplexed
their use, had every particular thing need of a distinct name to be signified by. To remedy this inconvenience,
language had yet a further improvement in the use of general terms, whereby one word was made to mark a
multitude of particular existences: which advantageous use of sounds was obtained only by the difference of the
ideas they were made signs of: those names becoming general, which are made to stand for general ideas, and
those remaining particular, where the ideas they are used for are particular.
