o his own idea; nor
can he make it stand as a sign of such a complex idea as he has not.

4. Words are often secretly referred, First to the Ideas supposed to be
in other men's minds.

But though words, as they are used by men, can properly and immediately
signify nothing but the ideas that are in the mind of the speaker; yet
they in their thoughts give them a secret reference to two other things.

First, THEY SUPPOSE THEIR WORDS TO BE MARKS OF THE IDEAS IN THE MINDS
ALSO OF OTHER MEN, WITH WHOM THEY COMMUNICATE; for else they should talk
in vain, and could not be understood, if the sounds they applied to one
idea were such as by the hearer were applied to another, which is to
speak two languages. But in this men stand not usually to examine,
whether the idea they, and those they discourse with have in their
minds be the same: but think it enough that they use the word, as they
imagine, in the common acceptation of that language; in which they
suppose that the idea they make it a sign of is precisely the same to
which the understanding men of that country apply that name.

5. Secondly, to the Reality of Things.

Secondly, Because men would not be thought to talk barely of their own
imagination, but of things as really they are; therefore they often
suppose the WORDS TO STAND ALSO FOR THE REALITY OF THINGS. But this
relating more particularly to substances and their names, as perhaps
the former does to simple ideas and modes, we shall speak of these two
different ways of applying words more at large, when we come to treat of
the names of mixed modes and substances in particular: though give me
leave here to say, that it is a perverting the use of words, and brings
unavoidable obscurity and confusion into their signification, whenever
we make them stand for anything but those ideas we have in our own
minds.

6. Words by Use readily excite Ideas of their objects.

Concerning words, also, it is further to be considered:

First, that they being immediately the signs of men's ideas, and by that
means the instruments whereby men communicate their conceptions, and
express to one another those thoughts and imaginations they have within
their own breasts; there comes, by constant use, to be such a connexion
between certain sounds and the ideas they stand for, that the names
heard, almost as readily excite certain ideas as if the objects
themselves, which are apt to produce them, did actually affect the
senses. Whic