48 NAMES AND PROPOSITIONS. 



are called upon to class proprio motu. They, accord- 

 ingly, do this on no other principle than that of 

 superficial similarity, giving to each new object the 

 name of that familiar object, the idea of which it most 

 readily recalls ; or which, on a cursory inspection, it 

 seems to them most to resemble : as an unknown 

 substance found in the ground will be called, accord- 

 ing to its texture, earth, sand, or a stone. In this 

 manner, names creep on from subject to subject, until 

 all traces of a common meaning sometimes disappear, 

 and the word comes to denote a number of things not 

 only independently of any common attribute, but 

 which have actually no attribute in common ; or none 

 but what is shared by other things to which the name 

 is capriciously refused*. Even philosophers have 

 aided in this perversion of general language from its 

 purpose ; sometimes because, like the vulgar, they 

 knew no better; and sometimes in deference to that 

 aversion to admit new words, which induces mankind, 

 on all subjects not considered technical, to attempt to 

 make the original small stock of names serve with 



* It would be well if this natural degeneracy of language took 

 place only in the hands of the ignorant vulgar ; but some of the 

 most remarkable instances are to be found in terms of art, and 

 among technically educated persons, such as English lawyers. 

 Felony, for example, is a law term, with the sound of which all 

 ears are familiar ; but there is no lawyer who would undertake to 

 tell what a felony is, otherwise than by enumerating the various 

 kinds of offences which are so called. Originally the word felony 

 had a meaning; it denoted all offences, the penalty of which 

 included forfeiture of goods; but subsequent acts of parliament 

 have declared various offences to be felonies without enjoining that 

 penalty, and have taken away the penalty from others which 

 continue nevertheless to be called felonies, insomuch that the acts 

 so called have now no property whatever in common, save that of 

 being unlawful and punishable. 



