340 LOGIC: OR, TILE RIGHT USE OF REAS014. we should seldom be in danger of mistaking; when 'I express the taste of an apple, which we call the Litter - sweet, none can mistake what I mean. Yet this sort of composition would make all language a most tedious and nnweildly thing, since most of our ideas are complex, and many them eight simple that t ermedv \ould b worse than the disease ; for what is now expressed in one short word, as month, or year, would re- quire two lines to express it. It is necessary therefore, that sin- gle words be invented to express complex ideas, in order to make language short and useful. But here is our great infelicity, that when single words sig- nify complex ideas, one word can never distinctly manifest all the parts of a complex idea ; and thereby it will often happen, that one man includes more or less in his idea, than another does, while he affixes the same word to it. In this case there will be danger of mistake between them, for they do not mean the same object, though they use the same name. So, if one person or nation, by the word year mean twelve months of thirty days each, that is, three hundred and sixty days, another intend a solar year of three hundred and sixty-five days, and a third mean a lunar year, or twelve lunar months, that is, three hundred fifty -four days, there will be a great variation and error in their account of things, unless they are well apprized of each other's meaning beforehand. This is supposed to be the reason, why some ancient histories and prophecies, and accounts of chronology, are so hard to be adjusted. And this is the true reason of so furious and endless debates on many points in divinity ; the words church, worship,, idolatry, repentance, faith, election, merit, grace, and many others which signify very complex ideas, are not ap- plied to include just the same simple ideas, and the saine num- ber of them, by the various contending parties ; thence arise confusion and contest. 4. Though a single name does not certainly manifest to us all the parts of a complex idea, yet it must be acknowledged, that in many of our complex ideas, the single name may point out to us some chief property which belongs to the thing that the word signifies ; especially when the word or name is traced up to its original, through several languages from whence it is bor- rowed. So an apostle signifies one who is sent forth. But this tracing of a word to its original, (which is called etymology) is sometimes a very precarious and uncertain thing; and after all, we have made but very little progress towards the attainment of the full meaning of a complex idea, by know- ing some one chief property of it. We know but a small part of the notion of an apostle, by knowing barely that he is sent forth. 5. Many (if not most) of our words which are applied to
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