25. Not easy to be made so.
It were therefore to be wished, That men versed in physical inquiries, and acquainted
with the several sorts of natural bodies, would set down those simple ideas wherein they observe the individuals
of each sort constantly to agree. This would remedy a great deal of that confusion which comes from several
persons applying the same name to a collection of a smaller or greater number of sensible qualities,
proportionably as they have been more or less acquainted with, or accurate in examining, the qualities of any sort
of things which come under one denomination. But a dictionary of this sort, containing, as it were, a natural
history, requires too many hands as well as too much time, cost, pains, and sagacity ever to be hoped for; and till
that be done, we must content ourselves with such definitions of the names of substances as explain the sense men
use them in. And it would be well, where there is occasion, if they would afford us so much. This yet is not
usually done; but men talk to one another, and dispute in words, whose meaning is not agreed between them, out
of a mistake that the significations of common words are certainly established, and the precise ideas they stand for
perfectly known; and that it is a shame to be ignorant of them. Both which suppositions are false; no names of
complex ideas having so settled determined significations, that they are constantly used for the same precise ideas.
Nor is it a shame for a man not to have a certain knowledge of anything, but by the necessary ways of attaining it;
and so it is no discredit not to know what precise idea any sound stands for in another man's mind, without he
declare it to me by some other way than barely using that sound, there being no other way, without such a
declaration, certainly to know it. Indeed the necessity of communication by language brings men to an agreement
in the signification of common words, within some tolerable latitude, that may serve for ordinary conversation:
and so a man cannot be supposed wholly ignorant of the ideas which are annexed to words by common use, in a
language familiar to him. But common use being but a very uncertain rule, which reduces itself at last to the ideas
of particular men, proves often but a very variable standard. But though such a Dictionary as I have above
mentioned will require too much time, cost, and pains to be hoped for in this age; yet methinks it is not
unreasonable to propose, that words standing for things which are known and distinguished by their outward
shapes should be expressed by little draughts and prints made of them. A vocabulary made after this fashion
would perhaps with more ease, and in less time, teach the true signification of many terms, especially in
languages of remote countries or ages, and settle truer ideas in men's minds of several things, whereof we read the
names in ancient authors, than all the large and laborious comments of learned critics. Naturalists, that treat of
plants and animals, have found the benefit of this way: and he that has had occasion to consult them will have
reason to confess that he has a clearer idea of apium or ibex, from a little print of that herb or beast, than he could
have from a long definition of the names of either of them. And so no doubt he would have of strigil and sistrum,
if, instead of currycomb and cymbal, (which are the English names dictionaries render them by,) he could see
stamped in the margin small pictures of these instruments, as they were in use amongst the ancients. Toga, tunica,
pallium, are words easily translated by gown, coat, and cloak; but we have thereby no more true ideas of the
fashion of those habits amongst the Romans, than we have of the faces of the tailors who made them. Such things
as these, which the eye distinguishes by their shapes, would be best let into the mind by draughts made of them,
and more determine the signification of such words, than any other words set for them, or made use of to define
them. But this is only by the bye.
