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according to the law of nature 119 Concernment any such impossible Conditions should be annex’d the Agreement may remain good, rejecting these Conditions as if they had never been made; that so Men may not have busied themselves about that which otherwise can signifie nothing. Lastly, we promise and contract, not only in our own Persons, but oftentimes by the Mediation of other Men, whom we constitute the Bearers and Interpreters of our Intentions; by whose Negociations, if they deal faithfully by us in following the Instructions we gave, we are firmly obliged to those Persons who transacted with them as our Deputies. And thus we have done with the Absolute Duties of Man, by which, as it were, we naturally pass to the Conditional Duties of Men. And these do all presuppose some Human Institution, founded upon an Universal Agreement, and so introduced into the World, or else some peculiar State or Condition. And of this Sort of Institutions, there are three chiefly to be insisted on, to wit, Speech or Discourse, Property and the Value of Things, and the Government of Mankind. Of each of these, and of the Duties arising therefrom we shall next discourse. u c h a p t e r x u The Duty of Men in Discourse How useful and altogether necessary an Instrument of Human Society Discourse40 is, there is no Man can be ignorant; since many have made that only an Argument to prove Man to be by Nature design’d for a Social Life. Now that a lawful and beneficial Use may be made hereof for the Good of the same Human Society, the Law of Nature has given 40. In Pufendorf’s Latin the word is sermo, meaning “conversation” or “discourse ,” which Barbeyrac translates as parole and Silverthorne as “language.” XXI. Mediatory Contracts. L. N. N. l. 3. c. 9 §1. XXII. Conclusion . I. General Rule. To deceive no one by any means established to express our Thoughts. 120 the whole duty of man Men this for a Duty, That no Man deceive another either by Discourse, or any other Signs which customarily are accepted to express our inward Meaning. But that the Nature of Discourse may be more throughly understood, it must first be known, that there is a two-fold Obligation respecting Discourse , whether exprest with the Voice, or written in Characters. The first is, that those who make use of the same Language, are obliged to apply such certain Words to such certain Things, according as Custom has made them to signify in each Language. For since neither any Words nor any particular Strokes form’d into Letters can naturally denote any certain Thing (otherwise all Languages and Characters for writing would be the same; and hence the Use of the Tongue would be to no purpose if every Man might call every Thing by what Name he pleas’d;) it is absolutely necessary among those who speak the same Language, that there be a tacit Agreement among them, that this certain Thing shall be so, or so call’d, and not otherwise. So that unless an uniform Application of Words be agreed upon, ’twill be impossible for one Man to gather the Meaning of another from his Talk. By virtue then of this tacit Compact, every Man is bound in his common Discourse to apply his Words to that Sense, which agrees with the receiv’d Signification thereof in that Language: From whence also it follows, that albeit a Man’s Sentiments may differ from what he expresses in Words, yet in the Affairs of Human Life he must be look’d upon as intending what he says, tho’, as was said, perhaps his inward Meaning be the clear contrary. For since we cannot be inform’d of another’s Mind otherwise than by outward Signs, all Use of Discourse would be to no purpose, if by mental Reservations, which any Man may form as he lists, it might be in his power to elude what he had declar’d by Signs usually accepted to that end. The other Obligation which concerns Discourse, consists in this, that every Man ought by his Words so to express to another his Meaning, that he may be plainly understood. Not but that it is in a Man’s power to be silent, as well as to speak; and whereas no Man is bound to tell every one all that he bears in his...

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