Chapter 2.—What a Thing Is, and What A Sign.

2.  All instruction is either about things or about signs; but things are learnt by means of signs.  I now use the word “thing” in a strict sense, to signify that which is never employed as a sign of anything else:  for example, wood, stone, cattle, and other things of that kind.  Not, however, the wood which we read Moses cast into the bitter waters to make them sweet,12    Ex. xv. 25. nor the stone which Jacob used as a pillow,13    Gen. xxviii. 11. nor the ram which Abraham offered up instead of his son;14    Gen. xxii. 13. for these, though they are things, are also signs of other things.  There are signs of another kind, those which are never employed except as signs:  for example, words.  No one uses words except as signs of something else; and hence may be understood what I call signs:  those things, to wit, which are used to indicate something else.  Accordingly, every sign is also a thing; for what is not a thing is nothing at all.  Every thing, however, is not also a sign.  And so, in regard to this distinction between things and signs, I shall, when I speak of things, speak in such a way that even if some of them may be used as signs also, that will not interfere with the division of the subject according to which I am to discuss things first and signs afterwards.  But we must carefully remember that what we have now to consider about things is what they are in themselves, not what other things they are signs of.

CAPUT II. Quid res, quid signa.

2. Omnis doctrina vel rerum est vel signorum, sed res per signa discuntur. Proprie autem nunc res appellavi, quae non ad significandum aliquid adhibentur, sicuti est lignum, lapis, pecus, atque hujusmodi caetera. Sed non illud lignum quod in aquas amaras Moysen misisse legimus, ut amaritudine carerent (Exod. XV, 25); neque ille lapis quem Jacob sibi ad 0020 caput posuerat (Genes. XXVIII, 11); neque illud pecus quod pro filio immolavit Abraham (Id. XXII, 13). Hae namque ita res sunt, ut aliarum etiam signa sint rerum. Sunt autem alia signa quorum omnis usus in significando est, sicuti sunt verba. Nemo enim utitur verbis, nisi aliquid significandi gratia. Ex quo intelligitur quid appellem signa; res eas videlicet quae ad significandum aliquid adhibentur. Quamobrem omne signum etiam res aliqua est; quod enim nulla res est, omnino nihil est: non autem omnis res etiam signum est. Et ideo in hac divisione rerum atque signorum, cum de rebus loquemur, ita loquemur ut etiamsi earum aliquae adhiberi ad significandum possint, non impediant partitionem, qua prius de rebus, postea de signis disseremus; memoriterque teneamus id nunc in rebus considerandum esse quod sunt, non quod aliud etiam praeter scipsas significant.