[Sidenote: Names are signs not of things, but of our cogitations.] 5. But seeing names ordered in speech (as is defined) are signs of our conceptions, it is manifest they are not signs of the things themselves; for that the sound of this word _stone_ should be the sign of a stone, cannot be understood in any sense but this, that he that hears it collects that he that pronounces it thinks of a stone. And, therefore, that disputation, whether names signify the matter or form, or something compounded of both, and other like subtleties of the _metaphysics_, is kept up by erring men, and such as understand not the words they dispute about. [Sidenote: What it is we give names to.] 6. Nor, indeed, is it at all necessary that every name should be the name of something. For as these, a _man_, a _tree_, a _stone_, are the names of the things themselves, so the images of a man, of a tree, and of a stone, which are represented to men sleeping, have their names also, though they be not things, but only fictions and phantasms of things. For we can remember these; and, therefore, it is no less necessary that they have names to mark and signify them, than the things themselves. Also this word _future_ is a name, but no future thing has yet any being, nor do we know whether that which we call future, shall ever have a being or no. Nevertheless, seeing we use in our mind to knit together things past with those that are present, the name _future_ serves to signify such knitting together. Moreover, that which neither is, nor has been, nor ever shall, or ever can be, has a name, namely, _that which neither is nor has been_, &c.; or more briefly this, _impossible_. To conclude; this word _nothing_ is a name, which yet cannot be the name of any thing: for when, for example, we substract 2 and 3 from 5, and so nothing remaining, we would call that substraction to mind, this speech _nothing remains_, and in it the word _nothing_ is not unuseful. And for the same reason we say truly, _less than nothing_ remains, when we substract more from less; for the mind feigns such remains as these for doctrine's sake, and desires, as often as is necessary, to call the same to memory. But seeing every name has some relation to that which is named, though that which we name be not always a thing that has a being in nature, yet it is lawful for doctrine's sake to apply the word _thing_ to whatsoever we name; as if it were all one whether that thing be truly existent, or be only feigned. [Sidenote: Names Positive and Negative.]