for the learned, of whom the greater part will doubtless condemn my work. I appeal to any man of ordinary candour and understanding who will be at the pains of considering these matters with me. As I cannot, therefore, assume a knowledge of preceding systems or writings, I shall often enter into explanations and digressions which may seem to those who have drunk deeply of philosophy, or even, as is the more frequent case, skimmed lightly over its surface, both tedious and impertinent. Of this my intention I have already given them a foretaste in what I have written above. If they mislike it let them shut the book, for I shall persevere in it to the end. I would rather waken up to sincere and unprejudiced considerations of these questions one plain man of unbiassed understanding than secure the tepid approval of all the judges of philosophic style in the universe. The real lover of Truth, be he learned or unlearned, will have patience with me to the end, if only he shall judge that I too am an earnest worshipper of his goddess. The approval of one who is both learned and earnest I prize above all things; that of him who is earnest without being learned, I highly esteem; but for him who has been corrupted by a various diet of philosophies not having a digestion strong enough to assimilate any, I care not for his strictures, neither value his praise.

I fear me greatly that, notwithstanding this my pro

fession, I shall not be able in all cases to avoid the use of technical phrases or elaborate arguments. The nature of the subject must needs lead me at times into intricacies which will tax the attention; and to attempt to explain every term whose use was necessitated by a controversy or quotation, would be as futile as it would be tiresome. I will promise, however, to restrict as much as possible the number of such technical terms, and, if it may be, to keep my main argument entirely free from them.

CHAPTER II.

ON DEFINITION.

THE object of all speech being the raising in the mind of another like ideas to those which are present at the moment in the soul of the speaker, it is above all things necessary that the speaker himself should have assurance that each one of his individual words will convey to the listener the same impression that it produces on him. The only way by which he can make certain that this is the case, is by defining carefully each word about which he thinks there can possibly be any doubt. That is, by stating as fully as possible what ideas the utterance of the word wakes in his mind. If his hearer had before no notion at all of the meaning of the word, he will now be able intelligently to follow a discourse which otherwise would be meaningless to him; if, on the other hand, the word does raise ideas in his mind, and those ideas differ in any way from those which the speaker attaches to the word, the definition will disclose the discrepancy and prevent numberless errors and misunderstandings. To use a familiar illus

tration: if I wish to explain to a countryman the merits of the Franco-German war, I shall labour in vain until I discover that he considers Frenchman as the equivalent of foreigner, but when having made that discovery I get him to understand and accept my more limited use of the word, the chief difficulty of my task will be removed. Clear definition then is a necessary first step in the communication of Truth. We must now ask what is the best form into which such definition should be thrown.

We saw in the last chapter that there were two grand classes of words-those whose meaning must necessarily be explained by words, and those which might be explained by some more direct process. It might seem then, that in treating of definition we were only concerned with the former class, and might consider all verbal explanation of the latter superfluous. It may appear strange, then, if in my discussion of definition I limit myself almost entirely to one subdivision of this second class of words, yet the reason for my so doing is not far to seek. In truth we have already said almost all there is to say as to the definition of those words which are names of things, whose notion is not capable of being directly conveyed to any other person. They can only be properly defined by combinations of words as to whose meaning we can come to some direct agreement either by pointing or by some other of the processes of

Words which require Definition.

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which we have before spoken. Even by this method of combination we can, in many cases, get only a vague and doubtful idea, nor can we ever be quite certain that the terms we use are understood in exactly the same sense by our companion. The reason of this is, that in such cases, as, for instance, when talking of a complex emotion, such as that produced by music, at least a great proportion of the terms we use must be borrowed from the external world, and such terms can never be strictly applicable to our internal consciousness.

Since then, in ultimate resort, all our correctness of language depends upon our proper use of the second class of terms, and since it is with regard to these only that we can arrive at a perfectly definite agreement, it is all important that we should not fail in a matter which Nature has placed so entirely in our own hands. Yet success is neither so easy nor so obvious as it at first appears. With regard to two out of our three subclasses of original terms, we have indeed the means always ready to hand of conveying a just idea. We can always counterfeit the outward signs of an emotion, or perform before our companion any simple activity; but the third class presents greater difficulties. If I had always around me at the moment of discussion the whole visible and tangible universe, I apprehend that no definition of external things would ever be given or required; the simple method of referring our companion