Clearly, the requisite of a scientific language, ’that every word shall have one meaning well defined,’ is too exacting for popular language; because the other chief requisite of scientific language cannot be complied with, ‘that there be no important meaning without a name.’  ‘Important meanings,’ or what seem such, are too numerous to be thus provided for; and new ones are constantly arising, as each of us pursues his business or his pleasure, his meditations or the excursions of his fancy.  It is impossible to have a separate term for each meaning; and, therefore, the terms we have must admit of variable application.

An attempt to introduce new words is generally disgusting.  Few men have mastered the uses of half the words already to be found in our classics.  Much more would be lost than gained by doubling the dictionary.  It is true that, at certain stages in the growth of a people, a need may be widely felt for the adoption of new words:  such, in our own case, was the period of the Tudors and early Stuarts.  Many fresh words, chiefly from the Latin, then appeared in books, were often received with reprobation and derision, sometimes disappeared again, sometimes established their footing in the language:  see The Art of English Poetry (ascribed to Puttenham), Book III. chap. 4, and Ben Jonson’s Poetaster, Act.  V. sc.  I. Good judges did not know whether a word was really called for:  even Shakespeare thought ‘remuneration’ and ‘accommodate’ ridiculous.  But such national exigencies rarely arise; and in our own time great authors distinguish themselves by the plastic power with which they make common words convey uncommon meanings.

Fluid, however, as popular language is and ought to be, it may be necessary for the sake of clear exposition, or to steady the course of an argument, to avoid either sophistry or unintentional confusion, that words should be defined and discriminated; and we must discuss the means of doing so.

Sec. 2.  Scientific method is applicable, with some qualifications, to the definition of ordinary words.  Classification is involved in any problem of definition:  at least, if our object is to find a meaning that shall be generally acceptable and intelligible.  No doubt two disputants may, for their own satisfaction, adopt any arbitrary definition of a word important in their controversy; or, any one may define a word as he pleases, at the risk of being misunderstood, provided he has no fraudulent intention.  But in exposition or argument addressed to the public, where words are used in some of their ordinary senses, it should be recognised that the meaning of each one involves that of many others.  For language has grown with the human mind, as representing its knowledge of the world:  this knowledge consists of the resemblances and differences of things and of the activities of things, that is, of classes and causes; and as there is such order in the world, so there must be in language: