1. Treating of words necessary to knowledge.
Though the examining and judging of ideas by themselves, their
names being quite laid aside, be the best and surest way to clear and distinct knowledge: yet, through the
prevailing custom of using sounds for ideas, I think it is very seldom practised. Every one may observe how
common it is for names to be made use of, instead of the ideas themselves, even when men think and reason
within their own breasts; especially if the ideas be very complex, and made up of a great collection of simple
ones. This makes the consideration of words and propositions so necessary a part of the Treatise of Knowledge,
that it is very hard to speak intelligibly of the one, without explaining the other.
