beheaded_. Block is _a sea-term for
pulley_. Block is _an obstruction, a stop_; and, finally, Block means
_a blockhead_.

There are in our language, ten meanings for _sweet_, ten for _open_,
twenty-two for _upon_, and sixty-three for _to fall_. Such are the
defects of language! But, whatever they may be, we cannot hope
immediately to see them reformed, because common consent, and
universal custom, must combine to establish a new vocabulary. None but
philosophers could invent, and none but philosophers would adopt, a
philosophical language. The new philosophical language of chemistry
was received at first with some reluctance, even by chemists,
notwithstanding its obvious utility and elegance. Butter of antimony,
and liver of sulphur, flowers of zinc, oil of vitriol, and spirit of
sulphur by the bell, powder of algaroth, and salt of alembroth, may
yet long retain their ancient titles amongst apothecaries. There does
not exist in the mineral kingdom either butter or oil, or yet flowers;
these treacherous names[13] are given to the most violent poisons, so
that there is no analogy to guide the understanding or the memory: but
Custom has a prescriptive right to talk nonsense. The barbarous
enigmatical jargon of the ancient adepts continued for above a century
to be the only chemical language of men of science, notwithstanding
the prodigious labour to the memory, and confusion to the
understanding, which it occasioned: they have but just now left off
calling one of their vessels for distilling, a death's head, and
another a helmet. Capricious analogy with difficulty yields to
rational arrangement. If such has been the slow progress of a
philosophical language amongst the learned, how can we expect to make
a general, or even a partial reformation amongst the ignorant? And it
may be asked, how can we in education attempt to teach in any but
customary terms? There is no occasion to make any sudden or violent
alteration in language; but a man who attempts to teach, will find it
necessary to select his terms with care, to define them with accuracy,
and to abide by them with steadiness; thus he will make a
philosophical vocabulary for himself. Persons who want to puzzle and
to deceive, always pursue a contrary practice; they use as great a
variety of unmeaning, or of ambiguous words, as they possibly can.[14]
That state juggler, Oliver Cromwell, excelled in this species of
eloquence; his speeches are models in their kind. Count