158 CHAP. X. ON THE USE OF DEFINITIONS, AND THE MORAL BENEFITS OF ACCURACY IN LANGUAGE. "PERSONS having been accustomed from their cradles to learn words before they knew the ideas for which they stand, usually continue to do so all their lives, never taking the pains to settle in their minds the determined ideas which belong to them. This want of a precise signification in their words, when they come to reason, especially in moral matters, is the cause of very obscure and uncertain notions. They use these undetermined words confidently without much troubling their heads about a certain fixed meaning, whereby, besides the ease of it, they obtain this advantage, that as in such discourse they are seldom in the right, so they are as seldom to be convinced that they are in the wrong, it being just the same to go about to draw those persons out of their mistakes, who have no settled notions, as to dispossess a vagrant of his habitation who has no settled abode. The chief end of language being to be understood, words serve not for that end when they do not excite in the hearer the same idea which they stand for in the mind of the speaker.' I have chosen to shelter myself under the broad sanction of the great author here quoted, with a view to apply this rule in philology to a moral * Locke. purpose; for it applies to the veracity of conversation as much as to its correctness; and as strongly recommends unequivocal and simple truth as accurate and just expression. Scarcely any one, perhaps, has an adequate conception how much clear and correct expression favours the elucidation of truth; and the side of truth is obviously the side of morals; it is, in fact, one and the same cause; and it is, of course, the same cause with that of true religion also. It is, therefore, no worthless part of education, even in a religious view, to study the precise meaning of words, and the appropriate signification of language. To this end I know no better method than to accustom young persons very early to a habit of defining common words and things; for, as definition seems to lie at the root of correctness, to be accustomed to define English words in English would improve the understanding more than barely to know what those words are called in French, Italian, or Latin. Or rather, one use of learning other languages is, because definition is often involved in etymology; that is, since many English words take their derivation from foreign or ancient languages, they cannot be so accurately understood without some knowledge of those languages: but precision of any kind, either moral or philological, too seldom finds its way into the education of women. It is, perhaps, going out of my province to observe, that it might be well if young men also, before they entered on the world, were to be fur nished with correct definitions of certain words, the use of which is become rather ambiguous; or rather, they should be instructed in the double sense of modern phraseology. For instance; they should be provided with a good definition of the word honour in the fashionable sense, showing what vices it includes, and what virtues it does not include the term good company, which even the courtly Petronius of our days has defined as sometimes including not a few immoral and disreputable characters: religion, which, in the various senses assigned it by the world, sometimes means superstition, sometimes fanaticism, and sometimes a mere disposition to attend on any kind of form of worship: the word goodness, which is made to mean every thing that is not notoriously bad; and sometimes even that too, if what is notoriously bad be accompanied by good humour, pleasing manners, and a little alms-giving. By these means, they would go forth armed against many of the false opinions which, through the abuse or ambiguous meaning of words, pass so current in the world. But to return to the youthful part of that sex which is the more immediate object of this little work. With correct definition they should also be taught to study the shades of words; and this not merely with a view to accuracy of expression, though even that involves both sense and elegance, but with a view to moral truth. It may be thought ridiculous to assert, that morals have any connection with the purity of language, or that the precision of truth may be violated through defect of critical exactness in the three degrees of comparison; yet how frequently do we hear from the dealers in superlatives, of "most admirable, super-excellent, and quite perfect" people, who, to plain persons, not bred in the school of exaggeration, would appear mere common characters, not rising above the level of mediocrity! By this negligence in the just application of words, we shall be as much misled by these trope-and-figure ladies when they degrade as when they panegyrise; for, to a plain and sober judgment, a tradesman may not be "the most good-for-nothing fellow that ever existed," merely because it was impossible for him to execute in an hour an order which required a week; a lady may not be "the most hideous fright the world ever saw," though the make of her gown may have been obsolete for a month; nor may one's young friend's father "be a monster of cruelty," though he may be a quiet gentleman who does not choose to live at watering-places, but likes to have his daughter stay at home with him in the country. ones. Of all the parts of speech the interjection is the most abundantly in use with the hyperbolical fair Would it could be added that these emphatical expletives (if I may make use of a contradictory term) were not sometimes tinctured with profaneness! Though I am persuaded that idle habit is often more at the bottom of this deep offence than intended impiety, yet there is scarcely any error of youthful talk which merits severer castigation. And a habit of exclamation should be rejected by polished people as vulgar, even if it were not abhorred as profane. The habit of exaggerating trifles, together with the grand female failing of excessive mutual flattery, and elaborate general professions of fondness and attachment, is inconceivably cherished by the voluminous private correspondences in which some girls are indulged. In vindication of this practice it is pleaded that a facility of style, and an easy turn of expression, are acquisitions to be derived from an early interchange of sentiments by letterwriting: but even if it were so, these would be dearly purchased by the sacrifice of that truth and sobriety of sentiment, that correctness of language, and that ingenuous simplicity of character and manners, so lovely in female youth. Next to pernicious reading, imprudent and violent friendships are the most dangerous snares to this simplicity; and boundless correspondences with different confidantes, whether they live in a distant province, or, as it often happens, in the same street, are the fuel which principally feeds this dangerous flame of youthful sentiment. In those correspondences the young friends often encourage each other in the falsest notions of human life, and the most erroneous views of each other's character. Family affairs are divulged, and family faults aggravated: vows of everlasting attachment and exclusive fondness are, in a pretty just proportion, bestowed on every friend alike. These epistles overflow with quotations from the most passionate of the dramatic poets; and passages, |