274 OPERATIONS SUBSIDIARY TO INDUCTION. 



others by which the contrary sentiments were ex- 

 pressed, would produce the effect of a paradox, or 

 even a contradiction in terms. The baneful influence 

 of the connotation thus acquired, on our reasonings 

 and habits of thought, has been well pointed out 

 on many occasions by Bentham. It gives rise to 

 the fallacy of " question-begging names." The very 

 property which we are inquiring whether a thing pos- 

 sesses or not, has become so associated with the name 

 of the thing as to be part of its meaning, insomuch 

 that by merely uttering the name we assume the 

 point which was to be made out: one of the most 

 frequent sources of apparently self-evident propo- 

 sitions. 



There is still another mode in which the meaning 

 of a name is apt to be specialized, sufficiently frequent 

 to be worthy of being pointed out. We have often 

 the choice between a more and a less general name 

 for designating an object, either of them sufficiently 

 answering the purpose of distinction. Thus we may 

 say either that dog, or that animal; in many cases,, 

 that creature, or that object, would be sufficient. Now 

 there is, in many cases of frequent occurrence, a ten- 

 dency, which grows as civilization advances, to adopt 

 the practice of designating things by the most general 

 words which with all the aids of context and gesture 

 will suffice to point them out. Natural good taste, 

 and still more the conventional quality which usurps 

 its name, consist to a great degree in keeping some 

 aspects of things as much as possible out of sight; 

 speaking of disagreeable things with the least pos- 

 sible suggestion of their disagreeable details, and of 

 agreeable things with as little obtrusion as possible 

 of the mere mechanism of their production, which, 

 except in our scientific observations, is not what 



