THINGS DENOTED BY NAMES. 53 



free from the suspicion. Every word which was originally in- 

 tended to connote mere existence, seems, after a long time, to 

 enlarge its connotation to separate existence, or existence freed 

 from the condition of belonging to a substance ; which con- 

 dition being precisely what constitutes an attribute, attributes 

 are gradually shut out ; and along with them feelings, which 

 in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred have no other name than 

 that of the attribute which is grounded on them. Strange 

 that when the greatest embarrassment felt by all who have 

 any considerable number of thoughts to express, is to find a 

 sufficient variety of precise words fitted to express them, there 

 should be no practice to which even scientific thinkers are 

 more addicted than that of taking valuable words to express 

 ideas which are sufficiently expressed by other words already 

 appropriated to them. 



When it is impossible to obtain good tools, the next best 

 thing is to understand thoroughly the defects of those we have. 

 I have therefore warned the reader of the ambiguity of the 

 names which, for want of better, I am necessitated to employ. 

 It must now be the writer's endeavour so to employ them 

 as in no case to leave the meaning doubtful or obscure. No 

 one of the above terms being altogether unambiguous, I 

 shall not confine myself to any one, but shall employ on each 

 occasion the word which seems least likely in the particular 

 case to lead to misunderstanding ; nor do I pretend to use 

 either these or any other words with a rigorous adherence to 

 one single sense. To do so would often leave us without a 

 word to express what is signified by a known word in some 

 one or other of its senses : unless authors had an unlimited 

 licence to coin new words, together with (what it would 

 be more difficult to assume) unlimited power of making 

 readers understand them. Nor would it be wise in a writer, 

 on a subject involving so much of abstraction, to deny himself 

 the advantage derived from even an improper use of a term, 

 when, by means of it, some familiar association is called up 

 which brings the meaning home to the mind, as it were by a 

 flash. 



The difficulty both to the writer and reader, of the attempt 



