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14 



INFLUENCE OF WORDS AND NAMES. 



MANY maxims and trite sayings are current on this 

 subject, and justly so. But such maxims, even if 

 remembered, will never annul this influence on the 

 minds of men. Words have been wittily called ' the 

 counters of wise men, and the money of fools.' Few, 

 however, are wise and strong enough to see and put 

 aside all counterfeit coin, and to resist the tyranny 

 which daily and hourly use inflicts upon them. Hobbes 

 well says, ' It is a great ability in a man, out of the 

 words and contexture of language, to deliver himself 

 from equivocation/ It is, in truth, one of the best tests 

 of a sound mind to be able to do so. 



I speak of words and names here simply as such, 

 since in numerous cases it is a single word or name 

 which governs a question to the reason of man. Ab- 

 stract philosophy, religion, literature and art, social 

 usages, and even the sterner physical sciences, teem 

 with examples. Luther says of St. Paul's style that 

 his words are 'living creatures.' So, in fact, are 

 innumerable words which enter into common speech, 

 and even into the inmost recesses of thought, impel- 

 ling, controlling, or distorting, despite all reason to 

 the contrary. 



