2. Words are often employed without any, or without clear ideas.
First, In this kind the first and most palpable
abuse is, the using of words without clear and distinct ideas; or, which is worse, signs without anything signified.
Of these there are two sorts:--
I. Some words introduced without clear ideas annexed to them, even in their first original. One may observe, in all
languages, certain words that, if they be examined, will be found in their first original, and their appropriated use,
not to stand for any clear and distinct ideas. These, for the most part, the several sects of philosophy and religion
have introduced. For their authors or promoters, either affecting something singular, and out of the way of
common apprehensions, or to support some strange opinions, or cover some weakness of their hypothesis, seldom
fail to coin new words, and such as, when they come to be examined, may justly be called insignificant terms.
For, having either had no determinate collection of ideas annexed to them when they were first invented; or at
least such as, if well examined, will be found inconsistent, it is no wonder, if, afterwards, in the vulgar use of the
same party, they remain empty sounds, with little or no signification, amongst those who think it enough to have
them often in their mouths, as the distinguishing characters of their Church or School, without much troubling
their heads to examine what are the precise ideas they stand for. I shall not need here to heap up instances; every
man's reading and conversation will sufficiently furnish him. Or if he wants to be better stored, the great
mintmasters of this kind of terms, I mean the Schoolmen and Metaphysicians (under which I think the disputing
natural and moral philosophers of these latter ages may be comprehended) have wherewithal abundantly to
content him.
