54 A GREAT CONFESSION CHAP. 



of ambiguous language which confounds 

 the deepest distinctions in nature. It 

 cannot be admitted. All reasonings on 

 nature would be hopeless unless we 

 could separate in thought many things 

 which are always conjoined in action ; 

 and this excuse is all the more to be 

 rejected when the alleged impossibility 

 of separation is used to cover an almost 

 exclusive stress upon that one of the two 

 kinds of action which is confessedly by 

 far the feeblest, and of least account in 

 the resulting work. 



It seems to me, further, that there is 

 another fatal fault in this attempt of Mr. 

 Spencer to reform the language, and 

 clear up the ideas of biological science. 

 Besides the method of habitually using 

 words so abstract as to be of necessity 

 ambiguous besides the further method 

 of habitually expelling from definite 

 words the only senses which give them 



