Page:Letters of the Late Lord Lyttleton.djvu/172



LETTER XXXIX.

MUCH of the disputes, and consequently many of the inconveniencies, of this world, arise from the strange difficulty (for a strange one it is) that men find in understanding each other’s meaning. Hence the never-ending game of cross-purposes, in which all of us, at times, are so much engaged. A leading cause of this disunion is a negligence in using terms appropriate to their object. The philosopher, it is true, must generalize his ideas to compass the views of his enquiring mind. It is by such an application of his intellectual faculties, that he surmounts such a variety of obstacles; that he passes from individual man to an whole people; from a people, to the human race; from the time in which he lives, to the ages that are to come; from what he sees to that which is invisible. But in conveying the fruits of his study and reflection to others, he must condescend to weigh words, compare terms, and preclude all possibility of errour in those he instructs,