contradictory and inconsistent; as this name, an incorporeal body, or,
which is all one, an incorporeal substance, and a great number more.
For whensoever any affirmation is false, the two names of which it
is composed, put together and made one, signify nothing at all. For
example, if it be a false affirmation to say a quadrangle is round,
the word round quadrangle signifies nothing, but is a mere sound. So
likewise if it be false to say that virtue can be poured, or blown
up and down, the words inpoured virtue, inblown virtue, are as
absurd and insignificant as a round quadrangle. And therefore you
shall hardly meet with a senseless and insignificant word that is
not made up of some Latin or Greek names. Frenchman seldom hears our
Saviour called by the name of Parole, but by the name of Verbe
often; yet Verbe and Parole differ no more but that one is Latin,
the other French.

  When a man, upon the hearing of any speech, hath those thoughts
which the words of that speech, and their connexion, were ordained and
constituted to signify, then he is said to understand it:
understanding being nothing else but conception caused by speech.
And therefore if speech be peculiar to man, as for ought I know it is,
then is understanding peculiar to him also. And therefore of absurd
and false affirmations, in case they be universal, there can be no
understanding; though many think they understand then, when they do
but repeat the words softly, or con them in their mind.

  What kinds of speeches signify the appetites, aversions, and
passions of man's mind, and of their use and abuse, I shall speak when
I have spoken of the passions.

  The names of such things as affect us, that is, which please and
displease us, because all men be not alike affected with the same
thing, nor the same man at all times, are in the common discourses
of men of inconstant signification. For seeing all names are imposed
to signify our conceptions, and all our affections are but
conceptions; when we conceive the same things differently, we can
hardly avoid different naming of them. For though the nature of that
we conceive be the same; yet the diversity of our reception of it,
in respect of different constitutions of body and prejudices of
opinion, gives everything a tincture of our different passions. And
therefore in reasoning, a man must take heed of words; which,
besides the signification of what we imagine of their nature, have a
signification also of the nature, disposition, and interest of the
speaker; such as are the names of virtues and vices: for one man
calleth wisdom what another calleth fear; and one cruelty what another
justice; one prodigality what another magnanimity; and one gravity
what another stupidity, etc. And therefore such names can never be
true grounds of any ratiocination. No more can metaphors and tropes of
speech: but these are less dangerous because they profess their
inconstancy, which the other do not.

                              CHAPTER V

                        OF REASON AND SCIENCE

  WHEN man reasoneth, he does nothing else but conceive a sum total,
from addition of parcels; or conceive a remainder, from subtraction of
one sum from another: which, if it be done by words, is conceiving
of the consequence of the names of all the parts, to the name of the
whole; or from the names of the whole and one part, to the name of the
other part. And though in some things, as in numbers, besides adding
and subtracting, men name other operations, as multiplying and
dividing; yet they are the same: for multiplication is but adding
together of things equal; and division, but subtracting of one
thing, as often as we can. These operations are not incident to
numbers only, but to all manner of things that can be added
together, and taken one out of another. For as arithmeticians teach to
add and subtract in numbers, so the geometricians teach the same in
lines, figures (solid and superficial), angles, proportions, times,
degrees of swiftness, force, power, and the like; the logicians
teach the same in consequences of words, adding together two names
to make an affirmation, and two affirmations to make a syllogism,
and many syllogisms to make a demonstration; and from the sum, or
conclusion of a syllogism, they subtract one proposition to find the
other. Writers of politics add together pactions to find men's duties;
and lawyers, laws and facts to find what is right and wrong in the
actions of private men. In sum, in what matter soever there is place
for addition and subtraction, there also is place for reason; and
where these have no place, there reason has nothing at all to do.

  Out of all which we may define (that is to say determine) what
that is which is meant by this word reason when we reckon it amongst
the faculties of the mind. For reason, in this sense, is nothing but
reckoning (that is, adding and subtracting) of the consequences of
general names agreed upon for the marking and signifying of our
thoughts; I say marking them, when we reckon by ourselves; and
signifying, when we demonstrate or approve our reckonings to other
men.

  And as in arithmetic unpractised men must, and professors themselves
may often, err, and cast up false; so also in any other subject of
reasoning, the ablest, most attentive, and most practised men may
deceive themselves, and infer false conclusions; not but that reason
itself is always right reason, as well as arithmetic is a certain
and infallible art: but no one man's reason, nor the reason of any one
number of men, makes the certainty; no more than an account is
therefore well cast up because a great many men have unanimously
approved it. And therefore, as when there is a controversy in an
account, the parties must by their own accord set up for right
reason the reason of some arbitrator, or judge, to whose sentence they
will both stand, or their controversy must either come to blows, or be