People say _to condition something_ instead of _to cause it_, because
being abstract and indefinite it says less; it affirms that _A_ cannot
happen without _B_, instead of that _A_ is caused by _B_. A back door
is always left open; and this suits people whose secret knowledge of
their own incapacity inspires them with a perpetual terror of all
positive assertion; while with other people it is merely the effect of
that tendency by which everything that is stupid in literature or bad
in life is immediately imitated--a fact proved in either case by the
rapid way in which it spreads. The Englishman uses his own judgment in
what he writes as well as in what he does; but there is no nation of
which this eulogy is less true than of the Germans. The consequence
of this state of things is that the word _cause_ has of late almost
disappeared from the language of literature, and people talk only
of _condition_. The fact is worth mentioning because it is so
characteristically ridiculous.
The very fact that these commonplace authors are never more than
half-conscious when they write, would be enough to account for their
dullness of mind and the tedious things they produce. I say they are
only half-conscious, because they really do not themselves understand
the meaning of the words they use: they take words ready-made and
commit them to memory.
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