7. Words are often used without signification, and why.
Secondly, That though the proper and immediate
signification of words are ideas in the mind of the speaker, yet, because by familiar use from our cradles, we come
to learn certain articulate sounds very perfectly, and have them readily on our tongues, and always at hand in our
memories, but yet are not always careful to examine or settle their significations perfectly; it often happens that
men, even when they would apply themselves to an attentive consideration, do set their thoughts more on words
than things. Nay, because words are many of them learned before the ideas are known for which they stand:
therefore some, not only children but men, speak several words no otherwise than parrots do, only because they
have learned them, and have been accustomed to those sounds. But so far as words are of use and signification, so
far is there a constant connexion between the sound and the idea, and a designation that the one stands for the
other; without which application of them, they are nothing but so much insignificant noise.