REaUISITES OF LANGUAGE. 413 



than was set down in the definition : to which consequently no objec- 

 tion lay on the score of deviation from usage, if the usage of that ago 

 alone was to be considered. 



Su]ipose, now, that the partisans of this theory had contrived to 

 introduce (as, to do them justice, tlicy sliowed themselves sufiicioptly 

 incliued) a consistent and undeviating use of the term according to 

 this definition. Suppose that they had succeeded in banishing the 

 word disinterestedness from the language, in obtaining the disuse of 

 all expressions attaching odium to selfishness or commendation to self- 

 sacrifice, or which implied generosity or kindness to be anything but 

 doing a benefit in order to receive a gi'eater advantage in return. 

 Need we say, that this abrogation of the old formulas for the sake of 

 preserving clear ideas and consistency of thought, would have been an 

 incalculable evil ? while the very inconsistency incurred by the coexist- 

 ence of the formulas with philosophical opinions which virtually con- 

 demned them as absurdities, operated as a stimulus to the reexamina- 

 tion of the subject ; and thus the very doctrines originating in the oblivion 

 into which great moral truths had fallen, were rendered indirectly, but 

 powerfully, instrumental to the revival of those truths. 



The doctrine, therefore, of the Coleridge school, that the language of 

 any people among whom culture is of old date, is a sacred deposit, the 

 property of all ages, and which no one age should consider itself empow- 

 ered to alter — is far from being so devoid of im])ortant truth as it 

 ajipears to that class of logicians who think more of having a clear than 

 of having a complete meaning; and who perceive that every age is- 

 adding to the truths which it has received from its predecessors, but 

 fail to see that a counter-process of losing truths already possessed, is 

 also constantly going on, and requiring the most sedulous attention to 

 counteract it. Language is the depositary of the accumulated body of 

 experience to which all former ages have contributed their part, and 

 which is the inheritance of all yet to come. We have no right to pre- 

 vent oui'selves from transmitting to posterity a larger portion of this in- 

 heritance than we may ourselves have profited by. We continually havo 

 cause to give up the opinions of our forefathers ; but to tamper v/ith; 

 their language, even to the extent of a word, is an operation of much 

 greater responsibility, and implies as an indispensable requisito,- an 

 accurate acquaintance with the history of the particular word, and of tho 

 opinions which in different stages of its progress it served to express. To 

 be qualified to define the name, we must know all that has ever been 

 known of the projierties of the cla.ss of objects which are, or originally 

 were, denoted by it. For if we give it a meaning according to which 

 any propositi(3n will be false which ^philosophers or mankind have ever 

 held to be true, it is at lea^^t incumbent upon us to be sure that we 

 know all which those who believed the proposition understood by it. 



