date

1819 July 3 Defence II Indirect
1819 July 3

Defence

II Indirect attacks

2

4

Unhappily throughout the whole field of moral including political science an antipathy of the strongest kind has place by which with whatsoever benefit to practical and useful knowledge the use of them may be attended men are rendered averse to the use of new expressions. Where the subject is completely frivolous or belongs to the field of taste so far from being offended they are rather pleased with it. When it belongs to the field of physical science so it do but afford a promise of adding to the stock of clear conception or useful knowledge they are in like manner pleased with it. But in so far as it presents itself as belonging to the field of moral including political science, the distaste and aversion […?], it is little less than universal.

Even in the field of morals taken in its utmost extent, of a new word in so far as its tendency is to inculcate any correspondently new opinion the effect is to produce a sensation which can not generally speaking be otherwise than of the most unpleasant kind. It calls upon them to make /institute/ inquiry into the whole stock of those opinions which they have been imbibing from earliest infancy, amongst them opinions of the utmost impertinence, and in the adherence to which they have been in the constant habit of regarding themselves as most secure from error and practical inconvenience: opinions in a word in their adherence to which they have been confirmed whether perhaps by adoptive prejudice perhaps by inborn weakness, perhaps by sinister interest, perhaps without any perception of the origin of it, by interest-begotten prejudice.

But in the case of that part of the field of morals which is within the department of politics, interest operating /acting/ in full force will, in the case of all men to whom political power has been an object of ambition, be adding its seductive force to all those which have place and operate in the field of morals at large.

An expression which has for its object the helping to shew that this or that good thing to the attainment of which all his exertions have been directed ought not to have existence – where is the man to whom it can be a source of any more agreable emotions[?] than those of terror /horror/ and disgust?
Similar Items
  • Title: [1819 July 3 Defence of | | Universal]
    Description: 1819 July 3

    Defence of | | Universal against Ed. Review

    II Indirect attacks

    1

    Thus much for the direct arguments: for the arguments addressed to the self-formed judgments of readers.

    Now as to the indirect arguments: the arguments addressed to their derivative judgments: arguments which have for their object, the substracting /takes[?] off/ as much as may be from what is called the weight of any authority which I may be supposed capable of possessing: from the influence with which, in that way, my understanding may be supposed to act /exercise/ on the understandings of my readers.

    As to any authority /weight/ with which it may happen in any instance my opinion as such may operate, if there be any such persons, I have declared it in print more than once, I am not of the number. Ipsedixitism, the foundation of most mens opinions and arguments in the field of morals including that of morals, is the instrument against which ever since I began to form an opinion I have had to fight and which {by} pride and shame {I} have ever been prevented from attempting to take /sufficed to prevent me from ever taking/ in hand. I should be covered with shame if any passage could be /were ever/ shewn to me in which I had given any opinion of my own as a reason for itself. But some it appears there are by whom it is regarded in that light: some who from my self-formed judgment are supposed to have a tendency to deduce a derivative judgment for their own use. By the Receiver in question such must have been the opinion /notice/ formed the suspicion at least entertained: for the considera[?] and gentleness so conspicuous on every page excludes all suspicion of every design of which personal ill-will is the source – of any endeavour or wish to wound /gall/ in any degree the feelings of the individual spoken of.

    The charges /insinuations/ /imputations/ spoken employed for this purpose seem reducible to these two heads

    1. That my habits of life I am rendered comparatively incompetent for /to/ an inquiry such as that in question

    2. That the style in which on this occasion I have written has something uncouth in it and repulsive

    3. That in the hope of the praise of originality, I have employed new words of my own coining for giving expression to old ideas which might more advantageously be expressed by words already in common use.
  • Title: [1819 July 4 Defence of | | ag st Edinb]
    Description: 1819 July 4

    Defence of | | ag st Edinb gh Review

    II Indirect attacks

    5. Neology in general

    All the above transgressions such as they are may be summed up in the generic offence which of late years though not by me has been characterize /designed/ by the name of neology, by those whose right to utter /employ/ to give birth and utterance to new words has not found any such body of hostile interest against it as mine has

    For a general defence or at least apology against this general charge the following observations may perhaps be found not altogether inapposite

    1. In the first place the liberty has never been exercised wantonly

    2. In the next place where at the same time the subject is comparatively or absolutely of no importance, the new names are absolutely of no use nothing being expressed /designed/ by them that was not already designated as clearly and correctly by the existing stock the additions thus made to the stock of the language have been regarded either with approbation or at the worst with indifference.

    3. In the third place in the whole of the physical department /department/ of the field of science,

    4. In the fourth and last place in this very department, where no such adverse /sinister/ interests stand in the way of useful truth an /a most/ unbounded exercise of this privilege is regarded by men of all parties and all descriptions with unqualified satisfaction, and the usefulness of it is altogether out of dispute. What I allude /This refers/ to those names which with such unbroken constancy are given in the offices[?] belonging Honourable House itself and if not there in the Newspapers to Parliamentary Bills. +

    + ☞ Proceed to shew the use and necessity of such nomenclature
  • Title: [[clxiv. 158] 1820 June 18 Emancipation]
    Description: [clxiv. 158]

    1820 June 18

    Emancipation Spanish

    ? Corruptive influence

    Till the deceptions practiced by this power over mental[?] associations is thoroughly seen through, no reform in politics or morals or in religion can have place

    Of the power of denomination and thereby of classification - of the influence of this indirect but not less efficacious mode /form/ of legislation on the effect of that direct mode which alone has hitherto borne the name notice and explanation has /was/ /may be seen/ for the first time been given in Bentham by Dumont. Not only when clothed in power but when bare of all power the effect of it is prodigious. upon all points it exerts /exercises/ on the power of the popular or moral sanction which when applied to words employed by law it exercises on the power of the political sanction on the power of those laws in and by which the forms of direct imperation are assumed and acted on.

    In this case what is the intermediate force /mental instrument/ by which it acts? It is the power of producing associations in the mind. Words by being the signs become the causes of ideas: by being the causes of ideas they become the causes of opinions: by being the causes of opinions they become the causes of acts.