in determining the ideas
which the words are intended to express; but this does not in any
manner invalidate the conditions which we impose. Whatever theory we
may adopt of the relative part played by the knowing subject, and the
external object in the acquirement of knowledge, it remains none the
less true that no knowledge of the meaning of a word can be acquired
except through the senses, and that the meaning is, therefore, limited
by the senses. If we transgress the rule of founding each meaning upon
meanings below it, and having the whole ultimately resting upon a
sensuous foundation, we at once branch off into sound without sense. We
may teach him the use of an extended vocabulary, to the terms of which
he may apply ideas of his own, more or less vague, but there will be no
way of deciding that he attaches the same meaning to these terms that
we do.

What we have shown true of an intelligent foreigner is necessarily true
of the growing child. We come into the world without a knowledge of the
meaning of words, and can acquire such knowledge only by a process
which we have found applicable to the intelligent foreigner. But to
confine ourselves within these limits in the use of language requires a
course of severe mental discipline. The transgression of the rule will
naturally seem to the undisciplined mind a mark of intellectual vigor
rather than the reverse. In our system of education every temptation is
held out to the learner to transgress the rule by the fluent use of
language to which it is doubtful if he himself attaches clear notions,
and which he can never be certain suggests to his hearer the ideas
which he desires to convey. Indeed, we not infrequently see, even among
practical educators, expressions of positive antipathy to scientific
precision of language so obviously opposed to good sense that they can
be attributed only to a failure to comprehend the meaning of the
language which they criticise.

Perhaps the most injurious effect in this direction arises from the
natural tendency of the mind, when not subject to a scientific
discipline, to think of words expressing sensible objects and their
relations as connoting certain supersensuous attributes. This is
frequently seen in the repugnance of the metaphysical mind to receive a
scientific statement about a matter of fact simply as a matter of fact.
This repugnance does not generally arise in respect to the every-day
matters of life. When we say that th