PROPOSITIONS. 105 



from many errors into which they, perhaps inevitably, 

 fell. The fire-teazer of a modern steam-engine pro- 

 duces by his exertions far greater effects than Milo of 

 Crotona could, but he is not therefore a stronger 

 man. The Greeks seldom knew any language but 

 their own. This rendered it far more difficult for 

 them than it is for us, to acquire a readiness in 

 detecting ambiguities. One of the advantages of 

 having systematically studied a plurality of languages, 

 especially of those languages which philosophers have 

 used as the vehicle of their thoughts, is the practical 

 lesson we learn respecting the ambiguities of words, by 

 finding that the same word in one language corre- 

 sponds, on different occasions, to different words in 

 another. When not thus exercised, even the strongest 

 understandings find it difficult to believe that things 

 which have a common name, have not in some respect 

 or other a common nature ; and often expend much 

 labour not only unprofitably but mischievously (as 

 was frequently done by the two philosophers just 

 mentioned) , on vain attempts to discover in what this 

 common nature consists. But, the habit once formed, 

 intellects much inferior are capable of detecting even 

 ambiguities which are common to many languages : 

 and it is surprising that the one now under considera- 

 tion, though it exists in the modern languages as well 

 as in the ancient,, should have been overlooked by 

 almost all authors. The quantity of futile speculation 

 which had been caused by a misapprehension of the 

 nature of the copula, was hinted at by Hobbes ; but 

 Mr. Mill* was, I believe, the first who distinctly 

 characterized the ambiguity, and pointed out how 

 many errors in the received systems of philosophy it 



Analysis of the Phenomena of the Human Mind, i. 126 et seqq. 



