A System of Logic: Ratiocinative and Inductive, 7th Edition, Vol. II — John Stuart Mill — John Shaqi
A System of Logic: Ratiocinative and Inductive, 7th Edition, Vol. II
John Stuart Mill · en
The doctrine of the Coleridge school, that the language of any people
among whom culture is of old date, is a sacred deposit, the property of
all ages, and which no one age should consider itself empowered to
alter--borders indeed, as thus expressed, on an extravagance; but it is
grounded on a truth, frequently overlooked by that class of logicians
who think more of having a clear than of having a comprehensive meaning;
and who perceive that every age is adding to the truths which it has
received from its predecessors, but fail to see that a counter process
of losing truths already possessed, is also constantly going on, and
requiring the most sedulous attention to counteract it. Language is the
depository of the accumulated body of experience to which all former
ages have contributed their part, and which is the inheritance of all
yet to come. We have no right to prevent ourselves from transmitting to
posterity a larger portion of this inheritance than we may ourselves
have profited by. However much we may be able to improve on the
conclusions of our forefathers, we ought to be careful not inadvertently
to let any of their premises slip through our fingers. It may be good to
alter the meaning of a word, but it is bad to let any part of the
meaning drop. Whoever seeks to introduce a more correct use of a term
with which important associations are connected, should be required to
possess an accurate acquaintance with the history of the particular
word, and of the opinions which in different stages of its progress it
served to express. To be qualified to define the name, we must know all
that has ever been known of the properties of the class of objects which
are, or originally were, denoted by it. For if we give it a meaning
according to which any proposition will be false which has ever been
generally held to be true, it is incumbent on us to be sure that we know
and have considered all which those, who believed the proposition,
understood by it.
CHAPTER V.
ON THE NATURAL HISTORY OF THE VARIATIONS IN THE MEANING OF TERMS.