  Burke's position, therefore, was poised. But it was not merely a matter of pointing out what made for good and what for ill in civil society: it was a matter of responsibility—of choosing morally appropriate words. This was so for a philosophical reason, because of the very nature of the words involved. Burke's Philosophical Enquiry divided words into three categories. First, there were aggregate words, which signified groups of simple ideas united by nature, e.g. man, horse, or tree. Second, there were simple abstract words, each of which stood for one simple idea involved in such unities, as red, blue, round or square. Thirdly, and most importantly for our purpose, came abstract compound words. These united aggregate words and simple abstract words. As such, they did not have a referent that existed in nature. A Philosophical Enquiry argued that no compound abstract nouns suggested ideas to the mind at all readily, and that in many cases they did not correspond to any idea at all, but instead produced in the mind only images of past experience connected with these words. This category included virtue, vice, justice, honour, and liberty, besides magistrate, docility and persuasion (Wecter 1940, 167–81). The centrality of such terms to a discussion of civil society requires no emphasis. The obvious inference from Burke's philosophy of language was that to use abstract compound words was less to discuss ideas than to raise images which touched the affections of the listener or reader. To do this could scarcely to be thought part of a speculative activity: the effect would not be cognitive, but practical: not to develop ideas, but to influence conduct. The question was, with what arrangements were these words, and therefore pleasurable images, to be connected.