sets of the reports of the
railway companies.

The definition of terms through the history of the question has the
advantage that, besides helping your readers to see why the terms you
use have the meaning you give them for the present case, it also makes
them better judges of the question by giving them a full background.

Ambiguous definitions, which do not distinguish between two or more
meanings of a term for the case under discussion, are usually avoided by
going back to the history of the case. In Chapter III we shall consider
more fully the fallacies which spring from ambiguous use of words. Here
I shall insist briefly on the necessity of searching into the way terms
have come to be used in specific discussions.

The first of these is the danger which arises when a word in general use
takes on a special, almost technical meaning in connection with a
particular subject. Here you must take some pains to see that your
readers understand it in the special sense, and not in the popular one.
A crass instance, in which there is little real possibility of
confusion, is the use of words like "democratic" or "republican" as the
names of political parties; even with these words stump speakers
sometimes try to play on the feelings of an uneducated audience by
importing the association of the original use of the word into its later
use. There are a good many words used in the scientific study of
government which are also used loosely in general talk. "Federal" has a
precise meaning when used to distinguish the form of government of the
United States from that which usually binds together the counties in a
state; but we constantly use it in a sense hardly distinguishable from
that of "National." The following extract from an editorial on the
Philippine question is a good illustration of this precise and
semitechnical use of words, and the loose, not very accurate use of
everyday speech:

On the other hand, it is said that this policy of the United States
toward its dependencies is insincere; that it is a covert plan of
exploitation; that, as it is practiced, it is a denial in act of a mere
promise to the ear; and that if it were genuine the United States would
bestow self-government upon its dependencies by granting independence.

This criticism is obviously based on a confusion of independence with
self-government. Russia, is independent, but in only a very slight
degree are its people self-governing. Turkey has long bee