2.  Analyze and comment on the following definitions: 

Man is a two-legged animal without feathers. 
Life is an epileptic fit between two nothings. 
Genius is an infinite capacity for taking pains. 
The picture writings of the ancient Egyptians are called hieroglyphics. 
A fly is an obnoxious insect that disturbs you in the morning when you
    want to sleep. 
Real bravery is defeated cowardice. 
A brigantine is a small, two-masted vessel, square rigged on both
    masts, but with a fore-and-aft mainsail and the mainmast considerably
    longer than the foremast. 
A mushroom is a cryptogamic plant of the class Fungi; particularly
    the agaricoid fungi and especially the edible forms. 
Language is the means of concealing thought. 
A rectangle of equal sides is a square. 
Hyperbole is a natural exaggeration for the purpose of emphasis.

Amplified Definition.  While such definitions are the first positions from which all interpretations must proceed, in actual speech-making explanations of terms are considerably longer.  Yet the form of the true logical definition is always imbedded—­in germ at least—­in the amplified statement.

Again, democracy will be, in a large sense, individualistic.  That ideal of society which seeks a disciplined, obedient people, submissive to government and unquestioning in its acceptance of orders, is not a democratic ideal.  You cannot have an atmosphere of “implicit obedience to authority” and at the same time and in the same place an atmosphere of democratic freedom.  There is only one kind of discipline that is adequate to democracy and that is self-discipline.  An observant foreigner has lately remarked, somewhat paradoxically, that the Americans seemed to him the best disciplined people in the world.  In no other country does a line form itself at a ticket office or at the entrance to a place of amusement with so little disorder, so little delay, and so little help from a policeman.  In no other country would an appeal of the government for self-control in the use of food or fuel, for a restriction of hours of business, for “gas-less Sundays,” have met with so ready, so generous and so sufficient a response.  Our American lads, alert, adaptable, swiftly-trained, self-directed, have been quite the equal of the continental soldiers, with their longer technical training and more rigorous military discipline.  In these respects the English, and especially the British colonial soldiers have been much like our own.  Democracy, whether for peace or for war, in America or in England, favors individuality.  Independence of thought and action on the part of the mass of the people are alike the result of democracy and the condition of its continuance and more complete development, and it is visibly growing in England as the trammels of old political and social class control are being thrown off.

    EDWARD P. CHEYNEY:  Historical Tests of Democracy