On the ambiguity of words
“For men believe that their reason governs words, but it is also true that words react on the understanding, and this it is that has rendered philosophy and the sciences sophistical and inactive. Now words, being commonly framed and applied according to the capacity of the vulgar, follow those lines of divsion which are most obvious to the vulgar understanding. And whenever an understanding of greater acuteness of more diligent observation would alter those lines to suit the true divisions of nature, words stand in the way and resist change. Whence it comes to pass that the high and formal discussions of learned men end oftentimes in disputes about words and names….”
Frances Bacon, Novum Organum, LIX
