478 OPERATIONS SUBSIDIARY TO INDUCTION. 



different periods a greater or a less quantity, and even a different kind of 

 meaning. The words in their original acceptation connoted, and the prop- 

 ositions expressed, a complication of outward facts and inward feelings, to 

 different portions of which the general mind is more particularly alive in dif- 

 ferent generations of mankind. To common minds, only that portion of the 

 meaning is in each generation suggested, of which that generation possesses 

 the counterpart in its own habitual experience. But the words and prop- 

 ositions lie ready to suggest to any mind duly prepared the remainder of 

 the meaning. Such individual minds are almost always to be found ; and 

 the lost meaning, revived by them, again by degrees works its way into the 

 general mind. 



The arrival of this salutary reaction may, however, be materially retarded 

 by the shallow conceptions and incautious proceedings of mere logicians. 

 It sometimes happens that toward the close of the downward period, when 

 the words have lost part of their significance, and have not yet begun to 

 recover it, persons arise whose leading and favorite idea is the importance 

 of clear conceptions and precise thought, and the necessity, therefore, of 

 definite language. These persons, in examining the old formulas, easily 

 perceive that words are used in' them without a meaning; and if they are 

 not the sort of persons who are capable of rediscovering the lost significa- 

 tion, they naturally enough dismiss the formula, and define the name with- 

 out reference to it. In so doing they fasten down the name to what it 

 connotes in common use at the time when it conveys the smallest quantity 

 of meaning; and introduce the practice of employing it, consistently and 

 uniformly, according to that connotation. The word in this way acquires 

 an extent of denotation far beyond what it had before ; it becomes extend- 

 ed to many things to which it was previously, in appearance capriciously, 

 refused. Of the propositions in which it was formerly used, those which 

 were true in virtue of the forgotten part of its meaning are now, by the 

 clearer light which the definition diffuses, seen not to be true according to 

 the definition ; which, however, is the recognized and suflBciently correct 

 expression of all that is perceived to be in the mind of any one by whom 

 the term is used at the present day. The ancient formulas are consequent- 

 ly treated as prejudices ; and people are no longer taught as before, though 

 not to understand them, yet to believe that there is truth in them. They 

 no longer remain in the general mind surrounded by respect, and ready at 

 any time to suggest their original meaning. Whatever truths they contain 

 are not only, in these circumstances, rediscovered far more slowly, but, 

 when rediscovered, the prejudice with which novelties are regarded is now, 

 in some degree at least, against them, instead of being on their side. 



An example may make these remarks more intelligible. In all ages, ex- 

 cept where moral speculation has been silenced by outward compulsion, or 

 where the feelings which prompt to it still continue to be satisfied by the 

 traditional doctrines of an established faith, one of the subjects which have 

 most occupied the minds of thinking persons is the inquiry. What is vir- 

 tue ? or. What is a virtuous character ? Among the different theories on 

 the subject which have, at different times, grown up and obtained partial 

 currency, every one of which reflected as in the clearest mirror the express 

 image of the age which gave it birth ; there was one, according to which 

 virtue consists in a correct calculation of our own personal interests, either 

 in this world only, or also in another. To make this theory plausible, it 

 was of course necessary that the only beneficial actions which people in 

 general were accustomed to see, or were therefore accustomed to praise, 



