Quote#Nature
I request the reader to seek some more creditable interpretation. The…
Quote byAlexander Bryan Johnson · 1786–1867
Commonly attributed — not confirmed in an authoritative edition. Cited on Wikiquote to: A Treatise on Language: Or, The Relation which Words Bear to Things, in Four Parts (1836), Preface..
English (original)
I request the reader to seek some more creditable interpretation. The best which he can conceive should be assumed to be my intention: as on an escutcheon, when a figure resembles both an eagle and a buzzard, heraldry decides that the bird which is most creditable to the bearer, shall be deemed to be the one intended by the blazon.
— Alexander Bryan Johnson
More from Alexander Bryan Johnson
Man exists in a world of his own creation.
To fix the fluctuating mass of theories, no man has suggested any other expedient than the construction of some new theory, to whose authority... all persons shall submit. The remedy is constantly augmenting the disease.
All that the book contains is the elucidation of but one precept: namely, to interpret language by nature. We [generally and incorrectly] reverse the rule and interpret nature by language.
when my language or positions shall, in a casual perusal, seem absurd
Success but sharpens his avidity, and facility but augments his impatience.
As theories are the means by which we attempt to discourse of external existences that our senses cannot discover; and as the desire for such discourse originates a large portion of our theories; I will teach you the capacity of language …