This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1884 edition. Excerpt: ...Psychology, vol. i. p. 97. " The best words are those from which long use has worn away all, or nearly all, traces of their origin." It is easy, however, in this manner to enumerate a few of the leading ways in which assertions may be misunderstood, and even to write a loose and general homily upon human liability to error in this respect. But there seems to me very little practical value in so doing. The practical question would be, --What is it incumbent on us to do, for the purpose of detecting, and so avoiding, misinterpretation? And to answer this with any real completeness would lead us further afield than we can here afford to go. But as regards the first of the two kinds of misunderstanding, it may perhaps be suggested as a broad general rule that inquiry into meaning, for the purpose of raising the objection that R is beside the point, is only advisable where the person inquiring has himself a definite view, if not of all the possible ambiguities involved, at least of the fact that some given ambiguity is probable. It is true that in this way much false argument would pass unnoticed, but the only alternative seems to be a loss of more time than the results would probably justify. If in every case where an assertion is made and grounded, it were to become at once incumbent on us simply to assume, until the contrary was shown, that some irrelevance was present between R and T, it is clear that the waste of time would be on the whole enormous. Although Ignoratio elenchi may be the commonest of all fallacies, and although, perhaps, some slight shade of uncertainty as to our meaning is present in nearly all assertions actually made, nothing would, I think, be practically gained by treating intelligent assertion as the exception, verbal...