THE USE OF LANGUAGE.

Southland Times, Issue 1166, 17 November 1869, Page 3

THE USE OF LANGUAGE.

(From the Melbourne Telegraph.) Tf a profund and accurate thinker, either in theology or in political philo. Sophy, or in natural science, were to be asked to what cause he would mainly attribute the errors of mankind, he would say — to the vague use of language. And by errors he would not understand speculative errors only, but those errors of practical life which often bring misery upon a whole people. When Louis XIV. uttered the famous dictum, " Uetat Jest moi," the selfish error of his thought was revealed and echoed in his words ; and the practical flattery of his courtiera, his generals, and his ministers, in taking that dictum for their law, may be said to have completed the dazzling fabric of misgovernment which fell to pieces at the Revolution. The diverse and conflicting senses which the theology of an 7 given ! age gives to such terms as church, grace, I justification, sacrament, etc., not only | tend to irremediable confusion of thought, but perpetuate sectarian jealousies and religious hatreds. When a sciolist amuses his friends and the public in general by talking glibly of Attraction as the cause, for instance, of the tides, and forgets, or does not know, that the moon's influence extends to the atmosphere and to the solid constituents of the globe, as well as to the ocean, he uses the term attraction vaguely, betrays confusion and imperfection of thought, and probably involves himself in the mists of " compound ignorance." When a political speaker mounts the stump on " Democracy," and has not thoroughly grasped in his mind the extent of the term " People," about which he believes himself to be haranguing, he vitiates the whole context of his speech, and talks, in effect, nonsense. Further instances might be adduced, for they are literally numberless, but the above are sufficient ; and it is needless to add that fchis mischief, this vague use of language, is found as universally prevalent now as it was in the days of Socrates. Parliament, Pulpit, Press, Courts of Law — all these institutions furnish daily and abundantly serious and ludicrous instances of it. All, or nearly all, the best modern writers are keenly alive to the evil, and either practically or theoretically address themselves to its destruction. Why ? Because they know that false or imperfect language indicates errors of thought, and that errors of thought indicate, in a certain way, a false or imperfect man. This horror of iuaccurary is the real foundaI tion of much of Carlyle's philosophy. Mr John Stuart Mill may be said to have devoted the greater part of his life to its | destruction. Dr Newman, the celebrated convert to Komam Catholicism, and an almost absolute master of the English language, speaks, in his most interesting book, the ' Apologia,' of one of his earlier and elder Oxford friends as being the first who taught him to weigh his thought* well, and use his words closely In fact, no one can be a scholar, or a critic, or a philosopher, unless at some time or other of his life he has gone through this most difficult, but also most valuable, part of education. No doubt many of those who have so learned to think and write, and who are the most sensible of the duty, and the wisdom, and the benefit thereof, do occasionally offend themselves by the vague or careless use of language ; but it may safely be said of them that they not only offend less, bufc almost infinitely less than do those who are the most delightful when they can detect their errors. If our young writers, and not a few of our older, ones, would lay to heart these casual considerations, they would not so often present us with drivel for criticism, and flippancy for philosophy.