In what degree each party is right, may be judged from this consideration --that no word can ever deviate from its first meaning _per saltum_: each successive stage of meaning must always have been determined by that which preceded. And on this one law depends the whole philosophy of the case: for it thus appears that the original and primitive sense of the word will contain virtually all which can ever afterwards arise: as in the _evolution_-theory of generation, the whole series of births is represented as involved in the first parent. Now, if the evolution of successive meanings has gone on rightly, _i.e._ by simply lapsing through a series of close affinities, there can be no reason for recurring to the primitive meaning of the word: but, if it can be shown that the evolution has been faulty, _i.e._ that the chain of true affinities has ever been broken through ignorance, then we have a right to reform the word, and to appeal from the usage ill-instructed to a usage better- instructed. Whether we ought to exercise this right, will depend on a consideration which I will afterwards notice. Meantime I will first give a few instances of faulty evolution. 1. _Implicit_. This word is now used in a most ignorant way; and from its misuse it has come to be a word wholly useless: for it is now never coupled, I think, with any other substantive than these two--faith and confidence: a poor domain indeed to have sunk to from its original wide range of territory. Moreover, when we say, _implicit faith_, or _implicit confidence_, we do not thereby indicate any specific _kind_ of faith and confidence differing from other faith or other confidence: but it is a vague rhetorical word which expresses a great _degree_ of faith and confidence; a faith that is unquestioning, a confidence that is unlimited; _i.e._ in fact, a faith that _is_ a faith, a confidence that _is_ a confidence. Such a use of the word ought to be abandoned to women: doubtless, when sitting in a bower in the month of May, it is pleasant to hear from a lovely mouth--'I put implicit confidence in your honor:' but, though pretty and becoming to such a mouth, it is very unfitting to the mouth of a scholar: and I will be bold to affirm that no man, who had ever acquired a scholar's knowledge of the English language, has used the word in that lax and unmeaning way. The history of the word is this.-- _Implicit_ (from the Latin _implicitus_, involved in, folded up) was always used originally, and still is so by scholars, as the direct antithete of explicit (from the Latin _explicitus_, evolved, unfolded): and the use of both may be thus illustrated. _Q._ 'Did Mr. A. ever say that he would marry Miss B.?'--_A._ 'No; not explicitly (_i.e._ in so many words); but he did implicitly--by showing great displeasure if she received attentions from any other man; by asking her repeatedly to select furniture for his house; by consulting her on his own plans of life.'