REQUISITES OF LANGUAGE. 235 



stimulus to the re-examination of the subject; and thus the 

 very doctrines originating in the oblivion into which a part of 

 the truth had fallen, were rendered indirectly, but powerfully, 

 instrumental to its revival. 



The doctrine of the Coleridge school, that the language of 

 any people among whom culture is of old date, is a sacred 

 deposit, the property of all ages, and which no one age should 

 consider itself empowered to alter borders indeed, as thus 

 expressed, on an extravagance ; but it is grounded on a truth, 

 frequently overlooked by that class of logicians who think 

 more of having a clear than of having a comprehensive mean- 

 ing; and who perceive that every age is adding to the truths 

 which it has received from its predecessors, but fail to see that 

 a counter process of losing truths already possessed, is also 

 constantly going on, and requiring the most sedulous attention 

 to counteract it. Language is the depository of the accumu- 

 lated body of experience to which all former ages have contri- 

 buted their part, and which is the inheritance of all yet to come. 

 We have no right to prevent ourselves from transmitting to 

 posterity a larger portion of this inheritance than we may our- 

 selves have profited by. However much we may be able to 

 improve on the conclusions of our forefathers, we ought to be 

 careful not inadvertently to let any of their premises slip 

 through our fingers. It may be good to alter the meaning of a 

 word, but it is bad to let any part of the meaning drop. Who- 

 ever seeks to introduce a more correct use of a term with which 

 important associations are connected, should be required to 

 possess an accurate acquaintance with the history of the par- 

 ticular word, and of the opinions which in different stages of 

 its progress it served to express. To be qualified to define the 

 name, we must know all that has ever been known of the pro- 

 perties of the class of objects which are, or originally were, 

 denoted by it. For if we give it a meaning according to which 

 any proposition will be false which has ever been generally 

 held to be true, it is incumbent on us to be sure that we know 

 and have considered all which those, who believed the propo- 

 sition, understood by it. 



