o show it. But he nevertheless
goes on for many pages together in arguing against what he knows, and,
in fact, acknowledges, I did not mean; and then turns round and argues
again, though much more feebly, indeed, against what he says I did mean!
Now, even had I been in error as to the use of a word, I appeal to the
reader whether such an unworthy and disingenuous course would not, if
generally pursued, make controversy on all subjects, however important,
that into which, in such hands, it always degenerates--a dispute about
words."

The best way to avoid controversies about words is to use words in their
proper senses. Mr Sadler may think our objection captious; but how
he can think it disingenuous we do not well understand. If we had
represented him as meaning what we knew that he did not mean, we should
have acted in a disgraceful manner. But we did not represent him, and he
allows that we did not represent him, as meaning what he did not mean.
We blamed him, and with perfect justice and propriety, for saying what
he did not mean. Every man has in one sense a right to define his own
terms; that is to say, if he chooses to call one two, and two seven,
it would be absurd to charge him with false arithmetic for saying that
seven is the double of one. But it would be perfectly fair to blame
him for changing the established sense of words. The words, "inverse
variation," in matters not purely scientific, have often been used
in the loose way in which Mr Sadler has used them. But we shall be
surprised if he can find a single instance of their having been so used
in a matter of pure arithmetic.

We will illustrate our meaning thus. Lord Thurlow, in one of his
speeches about Indian affairs, said that one Hastings was worth twenty
Macartneys. He might, with equal propriety, have said ten Macartneys, or
a hundred Macartneys. Nor would there have been the least inconsistency
in his using all the three expressions in one speech. But would this be
an excuse for a financier who, in a matter of account, should reason as
if ten, twenty, and a hundred were the same number?

Mr Sadler tells us that he purposely avoided the use of the word
proportion in stating his principle. He seems, therefore, to allow that
the word proportion would have been improper. Yet he did in fact employ
it in explaining his principle, accompanied with an awkward explanation
intended to signify that, though he said proportion, he meant something
quite diffe