11 June 1810

Influence

Ch.

'. Influence convenient

6

Rule for the use of deceivers. When under its proper and specific name a thing which you mean /have occasion/ /propose to yourself/ to defend is too odious to be defensible, look up carry your eye over /take in hand/ that chain of generic and specific terms to which the word belongs, and carry your eye upwards till you find some word which together with the thing that is thus odious, /is understood to/ comprehends in its signification some other that is not odious. If not only not odious, but by reason of the /its/ innocuousness not capable of being rendered so, so much the better: so much the better still, if by reason of its beneficialness or from any other cause, it is positively popular - an object of general approbation.

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