13. and ought not to pass for Learning.

Whether any by-interests of these professions have occasioned this, I will not here examine; but I leave it to be considered, whether it would not be well for mankind, whose concernment it is to know things as they are, and to do what they ought, and not to spend their lives in talking about them, or tossing words to and fro;—­whether it would not be well, I say, that the use of words were made plain and direct; and that language, which was given us for the improvement of knowledge and bond of society, should not be employed to darken truth and unsettle people’s rights; to raise mists, and render unintelligible both morality and religion?  Or that at least, if this will happen, it should not be thought learning or knowledge to do so?

14.  IV.  Fourthly, by taking Words for Things.

Fourthly, Another great abuse of words is, the taking them for things.  This, though it in some degree concerns all names in general, yet more particularly affects those of substances.  To this abuse those men are most subject who most confine their thoughts to any one system, and give themselves up into a firm belief of the perfection of any received hypothesis:  whereby they come to be persuaded that the terms of that sect are so suited to the nature of things, that they perfectly correspond with their real existence.  Who is there that has been bred up in the Peripatetick philosophy, who does not think the Ten Names, under which are ranked the Ten Predicaments, to be exactly conformable to the nature of things?  Who is there of that school that is not persuaded that substantial forms, vegetative souls, abhorrence of A vacuum, intentional species, &c., are something real?  These words men have learned from their very entrance upon knowledge, and have found their masters and systems lay great stress upon them:  and therefore they cannot quit the opinion, that they are conformable to nature, and are the representations of something that really exists.  The Platonists have their soul of the world, and the Epicureans their Endeavor towards motion in their atoms when at rest.  There is scarce any sect in philosophy has not a distinct set of terms that others understand not.  But yet this gibberish, which, in the weakness of human understanding, serves so well to palliate men’s ignorance, and cover their errors, comes, by familiar use amongst those of the same tribe, to seem the most important part of language, and of all other the terms the most significant:  and should Aerial and OETHERIAL vehicles come once, by the prevalency of that doctrine, to be generally received anywhere, no doubt those terms would make impressions on men’s minds, so as to establish them in the persuasion of the reality of such things, as much as Peripatetick forms and intentional species have heretofore done. 15.  Instance, in Matter.