Sometimes it is suddenly revealed to a man that he has been accepting two orders of truth. I once walked and talked with a good scholar who discoursed of high themes and defended warmly certain theses. I said to him: If you could go into the house opposite, and discover unmistakably whether you are in the right or in the wrong,--discover it as unmistakably as you can discover whether there is or is not furniture in the drawing-room,--would you go? He thought over the matter for a while, and then answered frankly; No! I should not go; I should stay out here and argue it out. 92. AIM AT CLEARNESS AND SIMPLICITY.--There is no department of investigation in which it is not desirable to cultivate clearness and simplicity in thinking, speaking, and writing. But there are certain reasons why we should be especially on our guard in philosophy against the danger of employing a tongue "not understanded of the people." There are dangerous pitfalls concealed under the use of technical words and phrases. The value of technical expressions in the special sciences must be conceded. They are supposed to be more exact and less ambiguous than terms in ordinary use, and they mark an advance in our knowledge of the subject. The distinctions which they indicate have been carefully drawn, and appear to be of such authority that they should be generally accepted. Sometimes, as, for example, in mathematics, a conventional set of symbols may quite usurp the function of ordinary language, and may enormously curtail the labor of setting forth the processes and results of investigation. But we must never forget that we have not in philosophy an authoritative body of truth which we have the right to impose upon all who enter that field. A multitude of distinctions have been made and are made; but the representatives of different schools of thought are not at one touching the value and significance of these distinctions. If we coin a word or a phrase to mark such, there is some danger that we fall into the habit of using such words or phrases, as we use the coins in our purse, without closely examining them, and with the ready assumption that they must pass current everywhere. Thus, there is always a possibility that our technical expressions may be nothing less than crystallized error. Against this we should surely be on our guard.