TERMINOLOGY AND NOMENCLATURE 



45S 



pus, Overseer ; Priest, Presbyter, 

 Elder ; Deacon, Diaconus, Adminis- 

 trator ; Sacrament, a vow of allegi- 

 ance ; Evangelium, good tidings ; and 

 some words, as Minister, are still used 

 both in the general and in the limited 

 sense. It would be interesting to 

 trace the progress by which Author 

 came, in its most familiar sense, to 

 signify a writer, and iroiTjrrjs, or 

 maker, a poet. 



Of the incorporation into the mean- 

 ing of a term of circumstances acciden- 

 tally connected with it at some parti- 

 cular period, as in the case of Pagan, 

 instances might easily be multiplied. 

 Physician ((pvalKOi, or naturalist) be- 

 came, in England, synonymous with 

 a healer of diseases, because until a 

 comparatively late period medical 

 practitioners were the onlj- naturalists. 

 Clerc, or clericus, a scholar, came to 

 signify an ecclesiastic, because the 

 clergy were for many centuries the 

 only scholars. 



Of all ideas, however, the most 

 liable to cling by association to any- 

 thing with which they have ever been 

 connected by proximity are those of 

 our pleasures and pains, or of the 

 things which we habitually contem- 

 plate as sources of our pleasures or 

 pains. The additional connotation, 

 therefore, which a word soonest and 

 most readily takes on is that of agree - 

 ableness or painfulness, in their vari- 

 ous kinds and degrees : of being a 

 good or bad thing ; desirable or to 

 be avoided ; an object of hatred, of 

 dread, contempt, admiration, hope, or 

 love. Accordingly there is hardly a 

 single name, expressive of any moral 

 or social fact calculated to call forth 

 strong affections either of a favourable 

 or of a hostile nature, which does not 

 "carry with it decidedly and irresistibly 

 a connotation of those strong affec- 

 tions, or, at the least, of approbation 

 or censure ; insomuch that to employ 

 those names in conjunction with others 

 by which the contrary sentiments 

 were expressed, would produce the 

 effect of a paradox, or even a contra- 

 diction in terms. The baneful in- 



fluence of a connotation thus acquired 

 on the prevailing habits of thought, 

 especially in morals and politics, has 

 been well pointed out on many oc- 

 casions by Bentham. It gives rise 

 to the fallacy of "question-begging 

 names." The very property which 

 we are inquiring whether a thing 

 possesses or not, has become so as- 

 sociated 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 pro- 

 positions. 



Without any further multiplication 

 of examples to illustrate the changes 

 which usage is continually making in 

 the signification of terms, I shall add, 

 as a practical rule, that the logician, 

 not being able to prevent such trans- 

 formations, should submit to them 

 with a good grace when they are irre- 

 vocably effected, and if a definition is 

 necessary, define the word according 

 to its new meaning, retaining the 

 former as a second signification, if it 

 is needed, and if there is any chance 

 of being able to preserve it either 

 in the language of philosophy or in 

 common use. Logicians cannot make 

 the meaning of any but scientific 

 terms : that of all other words is 

 made by the collective human race. 

 But logicians can ascertain clearly 

 what it is which, working obscurely, 

 has guided the general mind to a 

 particular employment of a name ; 

 and when they have found this, they 

 can clothe it in such distinct and per- 

 manent terms, that mankind shall 

 see the meaning which before they 

 only felt, and shall not suffer it to 

 be afterwards forgotten or misappre- 

 hended. 



CHAPTER VI. 



THE PRINCIPLES OP A PHILOSOPHICAL 

 LANGUAGE FURTHER CONSIDERED. 



§ I. We have thus far considered 

 only one of the requisites of a Ian- 



