Feb. 11.1854.] 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



119 



LONDON, SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 11, 1854. 



ELIMINATE. 

 (Vol. V., p. 317.) 



" N. & Q." has from time to time done much 

 good service by holding up to reprobation modern 

 and growing corruptions of the English language. 

 I trust that its columns may be open to one more 

 attempt to rescue from abuse the word which 

 stands at the head of this article. 



Its signification, whether sought from Latin 

 usage and etymology, or from the works of English 

 mathematicians, is "to turn out of doors," "to 

 oust," or, as we say in the midland counties, " to 

 get shut of." In French it may be rendered as 

 well by se defaire as by eliminer. Within the 

 last seven or eight years, however, this valuable 

 spoil of dead Latinity has been strangely per- 

 verted, and, through the ignorance or carelessness 

 of writers, it has bidden fair to take to itself two 

 significations utterly distinct from its derivation, 

 viz. to " elicit," and to " evaluate." The former 

 signification, if less vicious, is more commonly 

 used than the latter. I append examples of both 

 from three of the most elegant writers of the day. 

 In the third extract the word under consideration 

 is used in the latter sense ; in the other extracts it 

 carries the former. 



Lectures on the Philosophical Tendencies of the 

 Age, by J. D. Morrell, London, 1848, p. 41. : 



" Had the men of ancient times, when they peopled 

 the universe with deities, a deeper perception of the 

 religious element in the mind, than had Newton, when 

 having eliminated the great law of the natural creation, 

 his enraptured soul burst forth into the infinite and 

 adored ? " 



I take one more illustration (among many 

 others) from pp. 145, 146. of this work : 



" It would not be strictly speaking correct to call 

 them philosophical methods, because a philosophical 

 method only exists when any tendency works itself 

 clear, and gives rise to a formal, connected, and logical 

 system of rules, by which we are to proceed in the 

 elimination of truth." 



The Eclipse of Faith, by Professor Kogers, 

 London, 1852, p. 392. : 



" They are now at college, and have imbibed in 

 different degrees that curious theory which professedly 

 recognises Christianity (as consigned to the New Tes- 

 tament) as a truly divine revelation, yet asserts that it 

 is intermingled with a large amount of error and ab- 

 surdity, and tells each man to eliminate the divine 

 ♦ element * for himself. According to this theory, the 

 problem of eliciting revealed truth may be said to be 

 indeterminate, the value of the unknown varies through 



all degrees of magnitude; it is equal to any thing, 

 equal to every thing, equal to nothing, equal to in- 

 finity." 



Theological Essays, by F. D. Maurice, Cam- 

 bridge, 1853, p. 89. : 



" Let us look, therefore, courageously at the popular 

 dogma, that there are certain great ideas floating in 

 the vast ocean of traditions which the old world ex- 

 hibits to us, that the gospel appropriated some of 

 these, and that we are to detect them and eliminate 

 them from its own traditions." 



But for the fact that such writers have given 

 the weight of their names to so unparalleled a 

 blunder, it would seem almost childish to occupy 

 the columns of a literary periodical with exposing 

 it. It is, however, somewhat singular that it 

 should be principally men of classical attainments 

 who perpetrate it. In my under-graduate days at 

 Cambridge, the proneness of " classical men " to 

 commit the blunder in question was proverbial. 



In conclusion, then, let it be remembered that 

 the word " eliminate " obtained general currency 

 from the circumstance of its being originally ad- 

 mitted into mathematical works. In such works 

 elimination signifies the process of causing a 

 function to disappear from an equation, the so- 

 lution of which would be embarrassed by its pre- 

 sence there. In other writings the word " elimi- 

 nation " has but one correct signification, viz. " the 

 extrusion of that which is superfluous or irrele- 

 vant." As an example of this legitimate use of the 

 word, I will quote from Sir William Hamilton's 

 accurate, witty, and learned article on " Logic," 

 published in the Edinburgh Review, April, 1833 : 



" The preparatory step of the discussion was, there- 

 fore, an elimination of these less precise and appropriate 

 significations, which, as they could at best only afford 

 a remote genus and difference, were wholly incompe- 

 tent for the purpose of a definition." 



C. MANSFIELD INGLEBY. 

 Birmingham. 



CEANMER S BIBLE. 



Queries which I have heard at various times 

 lead me to think that a Note on this interesting 

 volume may be acceptable to many readers who 

 possess or have access to it ; and especially to 

 those whose copies may be (as too many are) 

 imperfect at the beginning and end. Under this 

 impression I send you an extract from the late 

 Mr. Lea Wilson's catalogue of his unrivalled Col- 

 lection of English Bibles. As very few copies of 

 this curious and beautiful work were printed, and 

 not one, I believe, has been sold, it is probable 

 that few of your readers are aware of the criteria 

 which that gentleman's ingenuity and industry 

 have furnished for distinguishing between the 



