258 OPERATIONS SUBSIDIARY TO INDUCTION. 



tion of outward facts and inward feelings, to different 

 portions of which the general mind is more parti- 

 cularly alive in different 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 experi- 

 ence. But the words and propositions 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. 



There is scarcely anything which can materially 

 retard the arrival of this salutary reaction, except the 

 shallow conceptions and incautious proceedings of 

 mere logicians. It sometimes happens that towards 

 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 

 favourite 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 signification, they naturally enough dismiss the 

 formula, and define the name without any 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 intro- 

 duce 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 extended to many 

 things to which it was previously, in appearance 



