420 OPERATIONS SUBSIDIARY TO INDUCTION. 



sistibly a connotation of those strong affections, or, at the least, of 

 approbation or censure ; insomuch that to employ those names in 

 conjunction with others by which the contrary sentiments were ex- 

 pressed, would produce the effect of a paradox, or even a contradic- 

 tion 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 byBentham. It give^ rise to the fallacy of "question- 

 begging names." The very property which we are inquiring whether 

 a tiling possesses 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 propositions. 



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 pur- 

 pose of distinction. Thus we may say either that dog, or that animal ; 

 m many cases, that creature, or that object, would be sufficient. Now 

 there is, in many cases of frequent occurrence, a tendency, 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 degi'ee in keeping some aspects of things as much as possible out 

 of sight ; speaking of disagreeable things with the least possible sug- 

 gestion of their disagi'eeablc 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 interests us in 

 them, and the close contemplation of wliich generally diminishes their 

 charm to the imagination. The practice thus grows up among culti- 

 vated people, of speaking of common things in a way much less literal 

 and definite than is the custom of the vulgar.; in'a way which indicates 

 the thing meant, with the faintest possible suggestion of its character- 

 istic qualities ; and the mere words used would Often not suffice to 

 convey the meaning, unless there were something in the accompanying 

 circumstances to assist in exciting the idea. The vulgar, meanwhile, 

 continue to use the appropriate, peculiar, and, if scientific fitness were 

 the only thing to be considered, the best phraseology, because unam- 

 biguous; while, for purposes of refinement, ambiguity is often the 

 very quality desired. 



Now this practice of using more general terms where specific ones 

 might have been employed, is constantly spoiling the general terms by 

 rendering them specific. They become the terms particularly associ- 

 ated with the very specialities of meaning which it was desired not to 

 suggest. A ridiculous instance is the anecdote of a lady of the court 

 of Louis XIV., who having stated to her confessor that she felt esteem 

 for a certain cavalier, (this being, it seems, the phrase of the day to 

 express a meaning which persons usually prefer to convey by a circum- 

 locution,) was asked by the priest, " Combien de fois vous a-t-il 

 estimee 1" which story, whether true or invented, got into circulation, 

 and led to the abandonment of the phrase in that peculiar sense. If 

 it had not been abandoned in that sense, it would soon have been 

 discai'ded in any other sense; and finally, perhaps, lost altogether, 



