Observe the technique involved . . . . It consists of creating an artificial,
unnecessary, and (rationally) unusable term, designed to replace and obliterate
some legitimate concepts—a term which sounds like a concept, but stands for a
“package-deal” of disparate, incongruous, contradictory elements taken out of
any logical conceptual order or context, a “package-deal” whose (approximately)
defining characteristic is always a non-essential. This last is the essence of
the trick.
Let me remind you that the purpose of a definition is to distinguish the things
subsumed under a single concept from all other things in existence; and,
therefore, their defining characteristic must always be that essential
characteristic which distinguishes them from everything else.
So long as men use language, that is the way they will use it. There is no
other way to communicate. And if a man accepts a term with a definition by
non-essentials, his mind will substitute for it the essential characteristic
of the objects he is trying to designate . . . . Thus the real meaning of the
term will automatically replace the alleged meaning.