Note 11 — ANNO DOMINI 2071. (continued 2)
Alexander V. W. Bikkers translation
It is embarrassing to render the original German coinage humanität, which, we believe, is due to the grand idea of Lessing, but it is a decided fallacy, current even among literati, that the absence of a certain word in a certain language indicates the absence of the idea embodied in the word among the nations by whom that language is spoken. This vulgar error, the prolific source of so many idle boasts, and unjust charges, and national vanities, we have endeavoured to refute in a paper on “The Philosophy of Verbal Monopoly,” printed in the “Transactions of the Devonshire Association for the Advancement of Art, Science, and Literature,” 1868.
T. ↑