"Treatise" - читать интересную книгу автора (Berkeley George)

abstract ideas, who acknowledge that they are made in order to naming;
from which it is a clear consequence that if there had been no such
things as speech or universal signs there never had been any thought
of abstraction. See III. vi. 39, and elsewhere of the Essay on Human
Understanding. Let us examine the manner wherein words have
contributed to the origin of that mistake.- First then, it is
thought that every name has, or ought to have, one only precise and
settled signification, which inclines men to think there are certain
abstract, determinate ideas that constitute the true and only
immediate signification of each general name; and that it is by the
mediation of these abstract ideas that a general name comes to signify
any particular thing. Whereas, in truth, there is no such thing as one
precise and definite signification annexed to any general name, they
all signifying indifferently a great number of particular ideas. All
which doth evidently follow from what has been already said, and
will clearly appear to anyone by a little reflexion. To this it will
be objected that every name that has a definition is thereby
restrained to one certain signification. For example, a triangle is
defined to be "a plain surface comprehended by three right lines,"
by which that name is limited to denote one certain idea and no other.
To which I answer, that in the definition it is not said whether the
surface be great or small, black or white, nor whether the sides are
long or short, equal or unequal, nor with what angles they are
inclined to each other; in all which there may be great variety, and
consequently there is no one settled idea which limits the
signification of the word triangle. It is one thing for to keep a name
constantly to the same definition, and another to make it stand
everywhere for the same idea; the one is necessary, the other
useless and impracticable.

19. But, to give a farther account how words came to produce the
doctrine of abstract ideas, it must be observed that it is a
received opinion that language has no other end but the
communicating our ideas, and that every significant name stands for an
idea. This being so, and it being withal certain that names which
yet are not thought altogether insignificant do not always mark out
particular conceivable ideas, it is straightway concluded that they
stand for abstract notions. That there are many names in use amongst
speculative men which do not always suggest to others determinate,
particular ideas, or in truth anything at all, is what nobody will
deny. And a little attention will discover that it is not necessary
(even in the strictest reasonings) significant names which stand for
ideas should, every time they are used, excite in the understanding
the ideas they are made to stand for- in reading and discoursing,
names being for the most part used as letters are in Algebra, in
which, though a particular quantity be marked by each letter, yet to
proceed right it is not requisite that in every step each letter
suggest to your thoughts that particular quantity it was appointed
to stand for.