Since, then, general names come in this manner to be used (and even to do a portion of their work well) without suggesting to the mind the whole of their meaning, and often with the suggestion of a very small, or no part at all of that meaning; we cannot wonder that words so used come in time to be no longer capable of suggesting any other of the ideas appropriated to them, than those with which the association is most immediate and strongest, or most kept up by the incidents of life: the remainder being lost altogether; unless the mind, by often consciously dwelling on them, keeps up the association. Words naturally retain much more of their meaning to persons of active imagination, who habitually represent to themselves things in the concrete, with the detail which belongs to them in the actual world. To minds of a different description, the only antidote to this corruption of language is predication. The habit of predicating of the name, all the various properties which it originally connoted, keeps up the association between the name and those properties.
But in order that it may do so, it is necessary that the predicates should themselves retain their association with the properties which they severally connote. For the propositions cannot keep the meaning of the words alive, if the meaning of the propositions themselves should die. And nothing is more common than for propositions to be mechanically repeated, mechanically retained in the memory, and their truth undoubtingly assented to and relied on, while yet they carry no meaning distinctly home to the mind; and while the matter of fact or law of nature which they originally expressed is as much lost sight of, and practically disregarded, as if it never had been heard of at all. In those subjects which are at the same time familiar and complicated, and especially in those which are so in as great a degree as moral and social subjects are, it is a matter of common remark how many important propositions are believed and repeated from habit, while no account could be given, and no sense is practically manifested, of the truths which they convey. Hence it is, that the traditional maxims of old experience, though seldom questioned, have often so little effect on the conduct of life; because their meaning is never, by most persons, really felt, until personal experience has brought it home. And thus also it is that so many doctrines of religion, ethics, and even politics, so full of meaning and reality to first converts, have manifested (after the association of that meaning with the verbal formulas has ceased to be kept up by the controversies which accompanied their first introduction) a tendency to degenerate rapidly into lifeless dogmas; which tendency, all the efforts of an education expressly and skilfully directed to keeping the meaning alive, are barely sufficient to counteract.
Considering, then, that the human mind, in different generations, occupies itself with different things, and in one age is led by the circumstances which surround it to fix more of its attention upon one of the properties of a thing, in another age upon another; it is natural and inevitable that in every age a certain portion of our recorded and traditional knowledge, not being continually suggested by the pursuits and inquiries with which mankind are at that time engrossed, should fall asleep, as it were, and fade from the memory. It would be in danger of being totally lost, if the propositions or formulas, the results of the previous experience, did not remain, as forms of words it may be, but of words that once really conveyed, and are still supposed to convey, a meaning: which meaning, though suspended, may be historically traced, and when suggested, may be recognised by minds of the necessary endowments as being still matter of fact, or truth. While the formulas remain, the meaning may at any time revive; and as on the one hand the formulas progressively lose the meaning they were intended to convey, so, on the other, when this forgetfulness has reached its height and begun to produce obvious consequences, minds arise which from the contemplation of the formulas rediscover the truth, when truth it was, which was contained in them, and announce it again to mankind, not as a discovery, but as the meaning of that which they have been taught, and still profess to believe.
Thus there is a perpetual oscillation in spiritual truths, and in spiritual doctrines of any significance, even when not truths. Their meaning is almost always in a process either of being lost or of being recovered. Whoever has attended to the history of the more serious convictions of mankind—of the opinions by which the general conduct of their lives is, or as they conceive ought to be, more especially regulated—is aware that even when recognising verbally the same doctrines, they attach to them at different periods a greater or a less quantity, and even a different kind, of meaning. The words in their original acceptation connoted, and the propositions expressed, a complication of outward facts and inward feelings, to different portions of which the general mind is more particularly alive in different generations of mankind. To common minds, only that portion of the meaning is in each generation suggested, of which that generation possesses the counterpart in its own habitual experience. But the words and propositions lie ready to suggest to any mind duly prepared the remainder of the meaning. Such individual minds are almost always to be found: and the lost meaning, revived by them, again by degrees works its way into the general mind.
The arrival of this salutary reaction may however be materially retarded, by the shallow conceptions and incautious proceedings of mere logicians. It sometimes happens that towards the close of the downward period, when the words have lost part of their significance, and have not yet begun to recover it, persons arise whose leading and favourite idea is the importance of clear conceptions and precise thought, and the necessity, therefore, of definite language. These persons, in examining the old formulas, easily perceive that words are used in them without a meaning; and if they are not the sort of persons who are capable of rediscovering the lost signification, they naturally enough dismiss the formula, and define the name without reference to it. In so doing they fasten down the name to what it connotes in common use at the time when it conveys the smallest quantity of meaning; and introduce the practice of employing it, consistently and uniformly, according to that connotation. The word in this way acquires an extent of denotation far beyond what it had before; it becomes extended to many things to which it was previously, in appearance capriciously, refused. Of the propositions in which it was formerly used, those which were true in virtue of the forgotten part of its meaning are now, by the clearer light which the definition diffuses, seen not to be true according to the definition; which, however, is the recognised and sufficiently correct expression of all that is perceived to be in the mind of any one by whom the term is used at the present day. The ancient formulas are consequently treated as prejudices; and people are no longer taught as before, though not to understand them, yet to believe that there is truth in them. They no longer remain in the general mind surrounded by respect, and ready at any time to suggest their original meaning. Whatever truths they contain are not only, in these circumstances, rediscovered far more slowly, but, when rediscovered, the prejudice with which novelties are regarded is now, in some degree at least, against them, instead of being on their side.
An example may make these remarks more intelligible. In all ages, except where moral speculation has been silenced by outward compulsion, or where the feelings which prompt to it still continue to be satisfied by the traditional doctrines of an established faith, one of the subjects which have most occupied the minds of thinking persons is the inquiry, What is virtue? or, What is a virtuous character? Among the different theories on the subject which have, at different times, grown up and obtained partial currency, every one of which reflected as in the clearest mirror, the express image of the age which gave it birth; there was one, according to which virtue consists in a correct calculation of our own personal interests, either in this world only, or also in another. To make this theory plausible, it was of course necessary that the only beneficial actions which people in general were accustomed to see, or were therefore accustomed to praise, should be such as were, or at least might without contradicting obvious facts be supposed to be, the result of a prudential regard to self-interest; so that the words really connoted no more, in common acceptation, than was set down in the definition.
Suppose, now, that the partisans of this theory had contrived to introduce a consistent and undeviating use of the term according to this definition. Suppose that they had seriously endeavoured, and had succeeded in the endeavour, to banish the word disinterestedness from the language; had obtained the disuse of all expressions attaching odium to selfishness or commendation to self-sacrifice, or which implied generosity or kindness to be anything but doing a benefit in order to receive a greater personal advantage in return. Need we say, that this abrogation of the old formulas for the sake of preserving clear ideas and consistency of thought, would have been a great evil? while the very inconsistency incurred by the coexistence of the formulas with philosophical opinions which seemed to condemn them as absurdities, operated as a stimulus to the re-examination of the subject; and thus the very doctrines originating in the oblivion into which a part of the truth had fallen, were rendered indirectly, but powerfully, instrumental to its revival.
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.