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Obsolete or Unusual Words or Meanings - Pierre Bayle, A Philosophical Commentary on These Words of the Gospel, Luke 14.23, ‘Compel Them to Come In, That My House May Be Full’ [1686]

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A Philosophical Commentary on These Words of the Gospel, Luke 14.23, ‘Compel Them to Come In, That My House May Be Full’, edited, with an Introduction by John Kilcullen and Chandran Kukathas (Indianapolis: Liberty Fund, 2005).

About Liberty Fund:

Liberty Fund, Inc. is a private, educational foundation established to encourage the study of the ideal of a society of free and responsible individuals.


Obsolete or Unusual Words or Meanings

The translation uses many colloquialisms to express scorn. Their precise meaning is often uncertain, but unimportant; their general meaning is clear enough from the context: “no better than a Cheat or Sharper at the bottom”; “a band of Ruffians, Cut-throats, Hell-hounds”; “Who, I say, is not in a Sweat, to think what a swadder these Authors must be in”:

  • •“Acted” may mean “actuated,” “motivated.” Examples: “Persons acted by an indiscreet Zeal”; “many of those who advise Kings to confiscate the Estates of Sectarys, are acted by Avarice.”
  • •“Admire” may mean “marvel,” without any suggestion of approval. Example: “one can never enough admire, that in a Country where there are so many good Pens, so many vile Justifications shou’d be suffer’d to pass.”
  • •“Austin” is the old-fashioned English form of St. Augustine’s name.
  • •“Barratry” means stirring up or perpetuating disputes or quarrels. Example: “these tedious Controversys; in which there’s a deal of Barratry” (meaning argumentative ingenuity misapplied to keep a controversy going when it should be settled).
  • •“Catechise” means “catechism.” Example: “to make him resume the Doctrines of his Catechise.”
  • •“Challenge” may mean “claim.” Example: “a Man, who might otherwise challenge some regard, forfeits all Pretence to it when he shews himself an errand Opiniater.”
  • •“Competency” may mean “sufficiency.” Example: “it’s as absurd to say, that such an Explication is a Competency for the Conviction of such an Understanding” (i.e. that such an explanation is enough to convince such an understanding).
  • •“Complexion” may mean “temperament.” Example: “the Gnawings of Hunger which a Mother … sees her Children suffer before her eyes, are altogether as sharp as the Pains of the Rack, and sharper perhaps in some Complexions than the Rack it self.”
  • •“Conceit” may mean “concept” or “conception.” Examples: “a very odd medly of contradictory Conceits”; “it’s a most ridiculous Conceit, that only the Orthodox are allow’d to persecute.”
  • •“Demean” may mean “behave.” Examples: “if he’l demean himself wisely”; “demeaning themselves civilly otherwise.”
  • •“Doubt but” means “doubt that.” Examples: “Tho I don’t doubt but there are still brave Spirits”; “there’s no manner of doubt but they will introduce”; “I make no doubt, were there such another Process before the Magistrates of Geneva at this day, but they wou’d be very cautious.”
  • •“Elogy” means not “elegy” but “eulogy.” Example: “honor’d with Elogys, Acclamations, Benedictions, or most humble Addresses of Thanks.”
  • •“Expedient” as an adjective means “useful,” as a noun “a means,” not necessarily with any suggestion of lack of principle. Examples: “if they conceive it expedient for the Peace of the State”; “if the Expedient be a thing in its own nature indifferent, and which if the worst came to the worst cou’d have no ill consequence, he ought forthwith to try it.”
  • •“Illapses” means “gentle influences.” Example: “those Irradiations of the Law eternal, those Illapses of unalterable Order.”
  • •“Jealousy” may mean “suspicion.” Example: “and where their Numbers or Force give no Jealousy.”
  • •“Just” may mean “accurate,” “well-adjusted,” “appropriate,” or “well-founded.” Examples: “to settle its just and proper Sense”; “does not always reason justly, because his Notions in one place do not perhaps nicely fall in with his Notions in another”; “computing the just Proportion between the Crueltys of antient and modern Persecutions”; “who can’t say three words together with any Justness”; “the Consequence follow’d justly and necessarily from their false Principle”; “I here shew, by just Examples.”
  • •“Objectively” means not “in reality,” but almost the opposite, “as an object in the mind.” Examples: “it suffices, that it be objectively the same, I mean, that it appear so”; “For the Sharper has not the least Right or Authority, as existing outside the Mind of the Servant, but as he is objectively in the Servant’s Mind; that is, to express my self more intelligibly, all his Right consists in the Idea, or in the Persuasion the Servant is under, that this Sharper is a faithful Messenger from his Master”; “but objectively true, or, which is the same thing in plainer terms; which appears true to us.”
  • •“Obnoxious to” means “liable to.” Example: “if Hereticks were indeed made obnoxious to the Sword of the Magistrate.”
  • •“Physical” may mean “natural” (as opposed to voluntary), without the thing necessarily being material. Examples: “it’s at best only a physical Good or Evil, which confers no moral Worth on Actions”; “can make no difference betwixt two Acts of the human Will exactly the same as to their physical Entity”; “ ’tis a physical Perfection at least (if it be improper to call it a moral one, because antecedent to any free and reasonable Choice) to love what they take to be Truth”; “distinguishing between that which is physical in the Acts of our Soul, and that which is moral.”
  • •“Prejudice” may mean “injury,” or it may mean “initial opinion” or “presumption” without implication of unfairness. Examples: “an Usurpation in prejudice of the Members of the true Church; in prejudice of the true Children”; “a Treatise intitled, Proofs and Prejudices in favor of the Christian Religion”; “an Argument, or a very strong Prejudice at least.”
  • •“Pretend,” “Pretension” may mean “claim,” often without any suggestion of untruth; “supposing the pretensions” means “assuming the truth of the claims.” Examples: “not by a bare Pretension”; “you have not prov’d your Pretensions as yet”; “these are the Protestants, or at least pretend to be”; “to pretend this, is so far from being a Sign that one is lost to all shame, that not to pretend it, one must have lost all his Senses”; “But by supposing the Pretensions of the Protestants, their most extreme Rigors are in the order of human things.”
  • •“Resume” may mean “recapitulate.” Examples: “St. Austin here resumes the formerly-confuted Examples”; “to make him resume the Doctrines of his Catechise.”
  • •“Topick” means “a source or underlying principle of arguments.” Examples: “as long as a Heretick owns the Scripture as his Topick, and Magazin of all his Proofs”; “the true Topick of this Question was not Known in those days; I mean, the Principles and Source of the Arguments.”