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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of On the Study of Words, by Richard C Trench
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+Title: On the Study of Words
+
+Author: Richard C Trench
+
+Release Date: September, 2004 [EBook #6480]
+[Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule]
+[This file was first posted on December 20, 2002]
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+Edition: 10
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+Language: English
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+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
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+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ON THE STUDY OF WORDS ***
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+Produced by Karl Hagen, Juliet Sutherland, Charles Franks,
+and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team.
+
+
+
+
+THE STUDY OF WORDS
+
+ON THE STUDY OF WORDS
+BY
+RICHARD CHENEVIX TRENCH, D.D.
+ARCHBISHOP
+
+'Language is the armoury of the human mind, and at once contains the
+trophies of its past, and the weapons of its future, conquests'
+--COLERIDGE
+
+'Out, idle words, servants to shallow fools!'--SHAKESPEARE
+
+TWENTIETH EDITION revised by
+
+THE REV. A. L. MAYHEW
+
+Joint Author of 'The Concise Middle English Dictionary'
+
+PREFACE TO THE TWENTIETH EDITION.
+
+In all essential points this edition of The Study of Words is the same
+book as the last edition. The aim of the editor has been to alter as
+little of Archbishop Trench's work as possible. In the arrangement of
+the book, in the order of the chapters and paragraphs, in the style, in
+the general presentation of the matter, no change has been made. On the
+other hand, the work has been thoroughly revised and corrected. A great
+deal of thought and labour has of late been bestowed on English
+philology, and there has been a great advance in the knowledge of the
+laws regulating the development of the sounds of English words, and the
+result has been that many a derivation once generally accepted has had
+to be given up as phonetically impossible. An attempt has been made to
+purge the book of all erroneous etymologies, and to correct in the text
+small matters of detail. There have also been added some footnotes, in
+which difficult points are discussed and where reference is given to
+recent authorities. All editorial additions, whether in the text or in
+the notes, are enclosed in square brackets. It is hoped that the book
+as it now stands does not contain in its etymological details anything
+inconsistent with the latest discoveries of English scholars.
+
+A. L. MAYHEW.
+
+WADHAM COLLEGE, OXFORD: _August_, 1888.
+
+PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION.
+
+These lectures will not, I trust, be found anywhere to have left out of
+sight seriously, or for long, the peculiar needs of those for whom they
+were originally intended, and to whom they were primarily addressed. I
+am conscious, indeed, here and there, of a certain departure from my
+first intention, having been in part seduced to this by a circumstance
+which I had not in the least contemplated when I obtained permission to
+deliver them, by finding, namely, that I should have other hearers
+besides the pupils of the Training-School. Some matter adapted for
+those rather than for these I was thus led to introduce--which
+afterwards I was unwilling, in preparing for the press, to remove; on
+the contrary adding to it rather, in the hope of obtaining thus a
+somewhat wider circle of readers than I could have hoped, had I more
+rigidly restricted myself in the choice of my materials. Yet I should
+greatly regret to have admitted so much of this as should deprive these
+lectures of their fitness for those whose profit in writing and in
+publishing I had mainly in view, namely schoolmasters, and those
+preparing to be such.
+
+Had I known any book entering with any fulness, and in a popular manner,
+into the subject-matter of these pages, and making it its exclusive
+theme, I might still have delivered these lectures, but should scarcely
+have sought for them a wider audience than their first, gladly leaving
+the matter in their hands, whose studies in language had been fuller
+and riper than my own. But abundant and ready to hand as are the
+materials for such a book, I did not; while yet it seems to me that the
+subject is one to which it is beyond measure desirable that their
+attention, who are teaching, or shall have hereafter to teach, others
+should be directed; so that they shall learn to regard language as one
+of the chiefest organs of their own education and that of others. For I
+am persuaded that I have used no exaggeration in saying, that for many
+a young man 'his first discovery that words are living powers, has been
+like the dropping of scales from his eyes, like the acquiring of
+another sense, or the introduction into a new world,'--while yet all
+this may be indefinitely deferred, may, indeed, never find place at all,
+unless there is some one at hand to help for him, and to hasten the
+process; and he who so does, will ever after be esteemed by him as one
+of his very foremost benefactors. Whatever may be Horne Tooke's
+shortcomings (and they are great), whether in details of etymology, or
+in the philosophy of grammar, or in matters more serious still, yet,
+with all this, what an epoch in many a student's intellectual life has
+been his first acquaintance with _The Diversions of Purley_. And they
+were not among the least of the obligations which the young men of our
+time owed to Coleridge, that he so often himself weighed words in the
+balances, and so earnestly pressed upon all with whom his voice went
+for anything, the profit which they would find in so doing. Nor, with
+the certainty that I am anticipating much in my little volume, can I
+refrain from quoting some words which were not present with me during
+its composition, although I must have been familiar with them long ago;
+words which express excellently well why it is that these studies
+profit so much, and which will also explain the motives which induced
+me to add my little contribution to their furtherance:
+
+'A language will often be wiser, not merely than the vulgar, but even
+than the wisest of those who speak it. Being like amber in its efficacy
+to circulate the electric spirit of truth, it is also like amber in
+embalming and preserving the relics of ancient wisdom, although one is
+not seldom puzzled to decipher its contents. Sometimes it locks up
+truths, which were once well known, but which, in the course of ages,
+have passed out of sight and been forgotten. In other cases it holds
+the germs of truths, of which, though they were never plainly discerned,
+the genius of its framers caught a glimpse in a happy moment of
+divination. A meditative man cannot refrain from wonder, when he digs
+down to the deep thought lying at the root of many a metaphorical term,
+employed for the designation of spiritual things, even of those with
+regard to which professing philosophers have blundered grossly; and
+often it would seem as though rays of truth, which were still below the
+intellectual horizon, had dawned upon the imagination as it was looking
+up to heaven. Hence they who feel an inward call to teach and enlighten
+their countrymen, should deem it an important part of their duty to
+draw out the stores of thought which are already latent in their native
+language, to purify it from the corruptions which Time brings upon all
+things, and from which language has no exemption, and to endeavour to
+give distinctness and precision to whatever in it is confused, or
+obscure, or dimly seen'--_Guesses at Truth, First Series_, p. 295.
+
+ITCHENSTOKE: Oct. 9, 1851.
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS.
+
+LECTURE I. INTRODUCTORY LECTURE
+
+LECTURE II. ON THE POETRY IN WORDS
+
+LECTURE III. ON THE MORALITY IN WORDS
+
+LECTURE IV. ON THE HISTORY IN WORDS
+
+LECTURE V. ON THE RISE OF NEW WORDS
+
+LECTURE VI. ON THE DISTINCTION OF WORDS
+
+LECTURE VII. THE SCHOOLMASTER'S USE OF WORDS
+
+INDEX OF WORDS
+
+
+
+
+ON THE STUDY OF WORDS
+
+INTRODUCTORY LECTURE.
+
+
+There are few who would not readily acknowledge that mainly in worthy
+books are preserved and hoarded the treasures of wisdom and knowledge
+which the world has accumulated; and that chiefly by aid of books they
+are handed down from one generation to another. I shall urge on you in
+these lectures something different from this; namely, that not in books
+only, which all acknowledge, nor yet in connected oral discourse, but
+often also in words contemplated singly, there are boundless stores of
+moral and historic truth, and no less of passion and imagination, laid
+up--that from these, lessons of infinite worth may be derived, if only
+our attention is roused to their existence. I shall urge on you how
+well it will repay you to study the words which you are in the habit of
+using or of meeting, be they such as relate to highest spiritual things,
+or our common words of the shop and the market, and of all the familiar
+intercourse of daily life. It will indeed repay you far better than you
+can easily believe. I am sure, at least, that for many a young man his
+first discovery of the fact that words are living powers, are the
+vesture, yea, even the body, which thoughts weave for themselves, has
+been like the dropping of scales from his eyes, like the acquiring of
+another sense, or the introduction into a new world; he is never able
+to cease wondering at the moral marvels that surround him on every side,
+and ever reveal themselves more and more to his gaze.
+
+We indeed hear it not seldom said that ignorance is the mother of
+admiration. No falser word was ever spoken, and hardly a more
+mischievous one; implying, as it does, that this healthiest exercise of
+the mind rests, for the most part, on a deceit and a delusion, and that
+with larger knowledge it would cease; while, in truth, for once that
+ignorance leads us to admire that which with fuller insight we should
+perceive to be a common thing, one demanding no such tribute from us, a
+hundred, nay, a thousand times, it prevents us from admiring that which
+is admirable indeed. And this is so, whether we are moving in the
+region of nature, which is the region of God's wonders, or in the
+region of art, which is the region of man's wonders; and nowhere truer
+than in this sphere and region of language, which is about to claim us
+now. Oftentimes here we walk up and down in the midst of intellectual
+and moral marvels with a vacant eye and a careless mind; even as some
+traveller passes unmoved over fields of fame, or through cities of
+ancient renown--unmoved, because utterly unconscious of the lofty deeds
+which there have been wrought, of the great hearts which spent
+themselves there. We, like him, wanting the knowledge and insight which
+would have served to kindle admiration in us, are oftentimes deprived
+of this pure and elevating excitement of the mind, and miss no less
+that manifold instruction which ever lies about our path, and nowhere
+more largely than in our daily words, if only we knew how to put forth
+our hands and make it our own. 'What riches,' one exclaims, 'lie hidden
+in the vulgar tongue of our poorest and most ignorant. What flowers of
+paradise lie under our feet, with their beauties and their parts
+undistinguished and undiscerned, from having been daily trodden on.'
+
+And this subject upon which we are thus entering ought not to be a dull
+or uninteresting one in the handling, or one to which only by an effort
+you will yield the attention which I shall claim. If it shall prove so,
+this I fear must be through the fault of my manner of treating it; for
+certainly in itself there is no study which _may_ be made at once more
+instructive and entertaining than the study of the use and abuse, the
+origin and distinction of words, with an investigation, slight though
+it may be, of the treasures contained in them; which is exactly that
+which I now propose to myself and to you. I remember a very learned
+scholar, to whom we owe one of our best Greek lexicons, a book which
+must have cost him years, speaking in the preface of his completed work
+with a just disdain of some, who complained of the irksome drudgery of
+such toils as those which had engaged him so long,--toils irksome,
+forsooth, because they only had to do with words. He disclaims any part
+with those who asked pity for themselves, as so many galley-slaves
+chained to the oar, or martyrs who had offered themselves for the good
+of the literary world. He declares that the task of classing, sorting,
+grouping, comparing, tracing the derivation and usage of words, had
+been to him no drudgery, but a delight and labour of love. [Footnote:
+It is well worth the while to read on this same subject the pleasant
+_causerie_ of Littr� 'Comment j'ai fait mon Dictionnaire.' It is to be
+found pp. 390-442 of his _Glanures_.]
+
+And if this may be true in regard of a foreign tongue, how much truer
+ought it to be in regard of our own, of our 'mother tongue,' as we
+affectionately call it. A great writer not very long departed from us
+has borne witness at once to the pleasantness and profit of this study.
+'In a language,' he says, 'like ours, where so many words are derived
+from other languages, there are few modes of instruction more useful or
+more amusing than that of accustoming young people to seek for the
+etymology or primary meaning of the words they use. There are cases in
+which more knowledge of more value may be conveyed by the history of a
+word than by the history of a campaign.' So writes Coleridge; and
+impressing the same truth, Emerson has somewhere characterized language
+as 'fossil poetry.' He evidently means that just as in some fossil,
+curious and beautiful shapes of vegetable or animal life, the graceful
+fern or the finely vertebrated lizard, such as now, it may be, have
+been extinct for thousands of years, are permanently bound up with the
+stone, and rescued from that perishing which would else have been their
+portion,--so in words are beautiful thoughts and images, the
+imagination and the feeling of past ages, of men long since in their
+graves, of men whose very names have perished, there are these, which
+might so easily have perished too, preserved and made safe for ever.
+The phrase is a striking one; the only fault one can find with it is
+that it is too narrow. Language may be, and indeed is, this 'fossil
+poetry'; but it may be affirmed of it with exactly the same truth that
+it is fossil ethics, or fossil history. Words quite as often and as
+effectually embody facts of history, or convictions of the moral sense,
+as of the imagination or passion of men; even as, so far as that moral
+sense may be perverted, they will bear witness and keep a record of
+that perversion. On all these points I shall enter at full in after
+lectures; but I may give by anticipation a specimen or two of what I
+mean, to make from the first my purpose and plan more fully
+intelligible to all.
+
+Language then is 'fossil poetry'; in other words, we are not to look
+for the poetry which a people may possess only in its poems, or its
+poetical customs, traditions, and beliefs. Many a single word also is
+itself a concentrated poem, having stores of poetical thought and
+imagery laid up in it. Examine it, and it will be found to rest on some
+deep analogy of things natural and things spiritual; bringing those to
+illustrate and to give an abiding form and body to these. The image may
+have grown trite and ordinary now: perhaps through the help of this
+very word may have become so entirely the heritage of all, as to seem
+little better than a commonplace; yet not the less he who first
+discerned the relation, and devised the new word which should express
+it, or gave to an old, never before but literally used, this new and
+figurative sense, this man was in his degree a poet--a maker, that is,
+of things which were not before, which would not have existed but for
+him, or for some other gifted with equal powers. He who spake first of
+a 'dilapidated' fortune, what an image must have risen up before his
+mind's eye of some falling house or palace, stone detaching itself from
+stone, till all had gradually sunk into desolation and ruin. Or he who
+to that Greek word which signifies 'that which will endure to be held
+up to and judged by the sunlight,' gave first its ethical signification
+of 'sincere,' 'truthful,' or as we sometimes say, 'transparent,' can we
+deny to him the poet's feeling and eye? Many a man had gazed, we are
+sure, at the jagged and indented mountain ridges of Spain, before one
+called them 'sierras' or 'saws,' the name by which now they are known,
+as _Sierra_ Morena, _Sierra_ Nevada; but that man coined his
+imagination into a word which will endure as long as the everlasting
+hills which he named.
+
+But it was said just now that words often contain a witness for great
+moral truths--God having pressed such a seal of truth upon language,
+that men are continually uttering deeper things than they know,
+asserting mighty principles, it may be asserting them against
+themselves, in words that to them may seem nothing more than the
+current coin of society. Thus to what grand moral purposes Bishop
+Butler turns the word 'pastime'; how solemn the testimony which he
+compels the world, out of its own use of this word, to render against
+itself--obliging it to own that its amusements and pleasures do not
+really satisfy the mind and fill it with the sense of an abiding and
+satisfying joy: [Footnote: _Sermon_ xiv. _Upon the Love of God_.
+Curiously enough, Montaigne has, in his Essays, drawn the same
+testimony out of the word: 'This ordinary phrase of Pass-time, and
+passing away the time, represents the custom of those wise sort of
+people, who think they cannot have a better account of their lives,
+than to let them run out and slide away, to pass them over and to baulk
+them, and as much as they can, to take no notice of them and to shun
+them, as a thing of troublesome and contemptible quality. But I know it
+to be another kind of thing, and find it both valuable and commodious
+even in its latest decay, wherein I now enjoy it, and nature has
+delivered it into our hands in such and so favourable circumstances
+that we commonly complain of ourselves, if it be troublesome to us or
+slide unprofitably away.'] they are only 'pastime'; they serve only, as
+this word confesses, to _pass_ away the _time_, to prevent it from
+hanging, an intolerable burden, on men's hands: all which they can do
+at the best is to prevent men from discovering and attending to their
+own internal poverty and dissatisfaction and want. He might have added
+that there is the same acknowledgment in the word 'diversion' which
+means no more than that which _diverts_ or turns us aside from
+ourselves, and in this way helps us to forget ourselves for a little.
+And thus it would appear that, even according to the world's own
+confession, all which it proposes is--not to make us happy, but a
+little to prevent us from remembering that we are unhappy, to _pass_
+away our time, to _divert_ us from ourselves. While on the other hand
+we declare that the good which will really fill our souls and satisfy
+them to the uttermost, is not in us, but without us and above us, in
+the words which we use to set forth any transcending delight. Take
+three or four of these words--'transport,' 'rapture,' 'ravishment,'
+'ecstasy,'--'transport,' that which _carries_ us, as 'rapture,' or
+'ravishment,' that which _snatches_ us out of and above ourselves; and
+'ecstasy' is very nearly the same, only drawn from the Greek. And not
+less, where a perversion of the moral sense has found place, words
+preserve oftentimes a record of this perversion. We have a signal
+example of this in the use, or rather misuse, of the words 'religion'
+and 'religious' during the Middle Ages, and indeed in many parts of
+Christendom still. A 'religious' person did not then mean any one who
+felt and owned the bonds that bound him to God and to his fellow-men,
+but one who had taken peculiar vows upon him, the member of a monastic
+Order, of a 'religion' as it was called. As little did a 'religious'
+house then mean, nor does it now mean in the Church of Rome, a
+Christian household, ordered in the fear of God, but a house in which
+these persons were gathered together according to the rule of some man.
+What a light does this one word so used throw on the entire state of
+mind and habits of thought in those ages! That then was 'religion,' and
+alone deserved the name! And 'religious' was a title which might not be
+given to parents and children, husbands and wives, men and women
+fulfilling faithfully and holily in the world the duties of their
+several stations, but only to those who had devised a self-chosen
+service for themselves. [Footnote: A reviewer in Fraser's Magazine, Dec.
+1851, doubts whether I have not here pushed my assertion too far. So
+far from this, it was not merely the 'popular language' which this
+corruption had invaded, but a decree of the great Fourth Lateran
+Council (A.D. 1215), forbidding the further multiplication of monastic
+Orders, runs thus: Ne nimia _religionum_ diversitas gravem in Ecclesia
+Dei confusionem inducat, firmiter prohibemus, ne quis de cetero novam
+_religionem_ inveniat, sed quicunque voluerit ad _religionem_ converti,
+unam de approbatis assumat.]
+
+But language is fossil history as well. What a record of great social
+revolutions, revolutions in nations and in the feelings of nations, the
+one word 'frank' contains, which is used, as we all know, to express
+aught that is generous, straightforward, and free. The Franks, I need
+not remind you, were a powerful German tribe, or association of tribes,
+who gave themselves [Footnote: This explanation of the name _Franks_ is
+now generally given up. The name is probably a derivative from a lost
+O.H.G. _francho_, a spear or javelin: compare A.S. _franca_, Icel.
+_frakka_; similarly the Saxons are supposed to have derived their name
+from a weapon--_seax_, a knife; see Kluge's _Dict_. (s.v. _frank_).]
+this proud name of the 'franks' or the free; and who, at the breaking
+up of the Roman Empire, possessed themselves of Gaul, to which they
+gave their own name. They were the ruling conquering people, honourably
+distinguished from the Gauls and degenerate Romans among whom they
+established themselves by their independence, their love of freedom,
+their scorn of a lie; they had, in short, the virtues which belong to a
+conquering and dominant race in the midst of an inferior and conquered
+one. And thus it came to pass that by degrees the name 'frank'
+indicated not merely a national, but involved a moral, distinction as
+well; and a 'frank' man was synonymous not merely with a man of the
+conquering German race, but was an epithet applied to any man possessed
+of certain high moral qualities, which for the most part appertained to,
+and were found only in, men of that stock; and thus in men's daily
+discourse, when they speak of a person as being 'frank,' or when they
+use the words 'franchise,' 'enfranchisement,' to express civil
+liberties and immunities, their language here is the outgrowth, the
+record, and the result of great historic changes, bears testimony to
+facts of history, whereof it may well happen that the speakers have
+never heard. [Footnote: 'Frank,' though thus originally a German word,
+only came back to Germany from France in the seventeenth century. With
+us it is found in the sixteenth; but scarcely earlier.] The word
+'slave' has undergone a process entirely analogous, although in an
+opposite direction. 'The martial superiority of the Teutonic races
+enabled them to keep their slave markets supplied with captives taken
+from the Sclavonic tribes. Hence, in all the languages of Western
+Europe, the once glorious name of Slave has come to express the most
+degraded condition of men. What centuries of violence and warfare does
+the history of this word disclose.' [Footnote: Gibbon, _Decline and
+Fall_, c. 55. [It is very doubtful whether the idea of 'glory' was
+implied originally in the national name of _Slav_. It is generally held
+now that the Slavs gave themselves the name as being 'the
+intelligible,' or 'the intelligibly speaking' people; as in the case of
+many other races, they regarded their strange-speaking neighbours as
+'barbarian,' that is 'stammering,' or even as 'dumb.' So the Russians
+call their neighbours the Germans _njemets_, connected with _njemo_,
+indistinct. The old name _Slovene_, Slavonians, is probably a
+derivative from the substantive which appears in Church Slavonic in the
+form _slovo_, a word; see Thomsen's _Russia and Scandinavia_, p. 8.
+_Slovo_ is closely connected with the old Slavonic word for 'fame'--
+_slava_, hence, no doubt, the explanation of _Slave_ favoured by
+Gibbon.]]
+
+Having given by anticipation this handful of examples in illustration
+of what in these lectures I propose, I will, before proceeding further,
+make a few observations on a subject, which, if we would go at all to
+the root of the matter, we can scarcely leave altogether untouched,--I
+mean the origin of language, in which however we will not entangle
+ourselves deeper than we need. There are, or rather there have been,
+two theories about this. One, and that which rather has been than now
+is, for few maintain it still, would put language on the same level
+with the various arts and inventions with which man has gradually
+adorned and enriched his life. It would make him by degrees to have
+invented it, just as he might have invented any of these, for himself;
+and from rude imperfect beginnings, the inarticulate cries by which he
+expressed his natural wants, the sounds by which he sought to imitate
+the impression of natural objects upon him, little by little to have
+arrived at that wondrous organ of thought and feeling, which his
+language is often to him now.
+
+It might, I think, be sufficient to object to this explanation, that
+language would then be an _accident_ of human nature; and, this being
+the case, that we certainly should somewhere encounter tribes sunken so
+low as not to possess it; even as there is almost no human art or
+invention so obvious, and as it seems to us so indispensable, but there
+are those who have fallen below its knowledge and its exercise. But
+with language it is not so. There have never yet been found human
+beings, not the most degraded horde of South African bushmen, or Papuan
+cannibals, who did not employ this means of intercourse with one
+another. But the more decisive objection to this view of the matter is,
+that it hangs together with, and is indeed an essential part of, that
+theory of society, which is contradicted alike by every page of Genesis,
+and every notice of our actual experience--the 'urang-utang theory,' as
+it has been so happily termed--that, I mean, according to which the
+primitive condition of man was the savage one, and the savage himself
+the seed out of which in due time the civilized man was unfolded;
+whereas, in fact, so far from being this living seed, he might more
+justly be considered as a dead withered leaf, torn violently away from
+the great trunk of humanity, and with no more power to produce anything
+nobler than himself out of himself, than that dead withered leaf to
+unfold itself into the oak of the forest. So far from being the child
+with the latent capabilities of manhood, he is himself rather the man
+prematurely aged, and decrepit, and outworn.
+
+But the truer answer to the inquiry how language arose, is this: God
+gave man language, just as He gave him reason, and just because He gave
+him reason; for what is man's _word_ but his reason, coming forth that
+it may behold itself? They are indeed so essentially one and the same
+that the Greek language has one word for them both. He gave it to him,
+because he could not be man, that is, a social being, without it. Yet
+this must not be taken to affirm that man started at the first
+furnished with a full-formed vocabulary of words, and as it were with
+his first dictionary and first grammar ready-made to his hands. He did
+not thus begin the world _with names_, but _with the power of naming_:
+for man is not a mere speaking machine; God did not teach him words, as
+one of us teaches a parrot, from without; but gave him a capacity, and
+then evoked the capacity which He gave. Here, as in everything else
+that concerns the primitive constitution, the great original institutes,
+of humanity, our best and truest lights are to be gotten from the study
+of the first three chapters of Genesis; and you will observe that there
+it is not God who imposed the first names on the creatures, but Adam--
+Adam, however, at the direct suggestion of his Creator. _He_ brought
+them all, we are told, to Adam, 'to see what he would call them; and
+whatsoever Adam called every living creature, that was the name
+thereof' (Gen. ii. 19). Here we have the clearest intimation of the
+origin, at once divine and human, of speech; while yet neither is so
+brought forward as to exclude or obscure the other.
+
+And so far we may concede a limited amount of right to those who have
+held a progressive acquisition, on man's part, of the power of
+embodying thought in words. I believe that we should conceive the
+actual case most truly, if we conceived this power of naming things and
+expressing their relations, as one laid up in the depths of man's being,
+one of the divine capabilities with which he was created: but one (and
+in this differing from those which have produced in various people
+various arts of life) which could not remain dormant in him, for man
+could be only man through its exercise; which therefore did rapidly bud
+and blossom out from within him at every solicitation from the world
+without and from his fellow-man; as each object to be named appeared
+before his eyes, each relation of things to one another arose before
+his mind. It was not merely the possible, but the necessary, emanation
+of the spirit with which he had been endowed. Man makes his own
+language, but he makes it as the bee makes its cells, as the bird its
+nest; he cannot do otherwise. [Footnote: Renan has much of interest on
+this matter, both in his work _De l'Origine du Langage_, and in his
+_Hist. des Langues Semitiques_. I quote from the latter, p. 445: Sans
+doute les langues, comme tout ce qui est organis�, sont sujettes � la
+loi du d�veloppement graduel. En soutenant que le langage primitif
+poss�dait les �l�ments n�cessaires � son int�grit�, nous sommes loin de
+dire que les m�canismes d'un �ge plus avanc� y fussent arriv�s a leur
+pleine existence. Tout y �tait, mais confus�ment et sans distinction.
+Le temps seul et les progr�s de l'esprit humain pouvaient op�rer un
+discernement dans cette obscure synth�se, et assigner � chaque �l�ment
+son r�le sp�cial. La vie, en un mot, n'�tait ici, comme partout, qu'�
+la condition de l'�volution du germe primitif, de la distribution des
+r�les et de la s�paration des organes. Mais ces organes eux-m�mes
+furent d�termines d�s le premier jour, et depuis l'acte g�n�rateur qui
+le fit �tre, le langage ne s'est enrichi d'aucune fonction vraiment
+nouvelle. Un germe est pos�, renfermant en puissance tout ce que l'�tre
+sera un jour; le germe se d�veloppe, les formes se constituent dans
+leurs proportions r�guli�res, ce qui �tait en puissance devient en
+acte; mais rien ne se cr�e, rien ne s'ajoute: telle est la loi commune
+des �tres soumis aux conditions de la vie. Telle fut aussi la loi du
+langage.]
+
+_How_ this latent power evolved itself first, how this spontaneous
+generation of language came to pass, is a mystery; even as every act of
+creation is of necessity such; and as a mystery all the deepest
+inquirers into the subject are content to leave it. Yet we may perhaps
+a little help ourselves to the realizing of what the process was, and
+what it was not, if we liken it to the growth of a tree springing out
+of, and unfolding itself from, a root, and according to a necessary
+law--that root being the divine capacity of language with which man was
+created, that law being the law of highest reason with which he was
+endowed: if we liken it to this rather than to the rearing of a house,
+which a man should slowly and painfully fashion for himself with dead
+timbers combined after his own fancy and caprice; and which little by
+little improved in shape, material, and size, being first but a log
+house, answering his barest needs, and only after centuries of toil and
+pain growing for his sons' sons into a stately palace for pleasure and
+delight.
+
+Were it otherwise, were the savage the primitive man, we should then
+find savage tribes, furnished scantily enough, it might be, with the
+elements of speech, yet at the same time with its fruitful beginnings,
+its vigorous and healthful germs. But what does their language on close
+inspection prove? In every case what they are themselves, the remnant
+and ruin of a better and a nobler past. Fearful indeed is the impress
+of degradation which is stamped on the language of the savage, more
+fearful perhaps even than that which is stamped upon his form. When
+wholly letting go the truth, when long and greatly sinning against
+light and conscience, a people has thus gone the downward way, has been
+scattered off by some violent catastrophe from those regions of the
+world which are the seats of advance and progress, and driven to its
+remote isles and further corners, then as one nobler thought, one
+spiritual idea after another has perished from it, the words also that
+expressed these have perished too. As one habit of civilization has
+been let go after another, the words which those habits demanded have
+dropped as well, first out of use, and then out of memory and thus
+after a while have been wholly lost.
+
+Moffat, in his _Missionary Labours and Scenes in South Africa_, gives
+us a very remarkable example of the disappearing of one of the most
+significant words from the language of a tribe sinking ever deeper in
+savagery; and with the disappearing of the word, of course, the
+disappearing as well of the great spiritual fact and truth whereof that
+word was at once the vehicle and the guardian. The Bechuanas, a Caffre
+tribe, employed formerly the word 'Morimo,' to designate 'Him that is
+above' or 'Him that is in heaven' and attached to the word the notion
+of a supreme Divine Being. This word, with the spiritual idea
+corresponding to it, Moffat found to have vanished from the language of
+the present generation, although here and there he could meet with an
+old man, scarcely one or two in a thousand, who remembered in his youth
+to have heard speak of 'Morimo'; and this word, once so deeply
+significant, only survived now in the spells and charms of the so-
+called rainmakers and sorcerers, who misused it to designate a fabulous
+ghost, of whom they told the absurdest and most contradictory things.
+
+And as there is no such witness to the degradation of the savage as the
+brutal poverty of his language, so is there nothing that so effectually
+tends to keep him in the depths to which he has fallen. You cannot
+impart to any man more than the words which he understands either now
+contain, or can be made, intelligibly to him, to contain. Language is
+as truly on one side the limit and restraint of thought, as on the
+other side that which feeds and unfolds thought. Thus it is the ever-
+repeated complaint of the missionary that the very terms are well-nigh
+or wholly wanting in the dialect of the savage whereby to impart to him
+heavenly truths; and not these only; but that there are equally wanting
+those which should express the nobler emotions of the human heart.
+Dobrizhoffer, the Jesuit missionary, in his curious _History of the
+Abipones,_ tells us that neither these nor the Guarinies, two of the
+principal native tribes of Brazil, possessed any word in the least
+corresponding to our 'thanks.' But what wonder, if the feeling of
+gratitude was entirely absent from their hearts, that they should not
+have possessed the corresponding word in their vocabularies? Nay, how
+should they have had it there? And that in this absence lies the true
+explanation is plain from a fact which the same writer records, that,
+although inveterate askers, they never showed the slightest sense of
+obligation or of gratitude when they obtained what they sought; never
+saying more than, 'This will be useful to me,' or, 'This is what I
+wanted.' Dr. Krapf, after laborious researches in some widely extended
+dialects of East Africa, has remarked in them the same absence of any
+words expressing the idea of gratitude.
+
+Nor is it only in what they have forfeited and lost, but also in what
+they have retained or invented, that these languages proclaim their
+degradation and debasement, and how deeply they and those that speak
+them have fallen. For indeed the strange wealth and the strange poverty,
+I know not which the strangest and the saddest, of the languages of
+savage tribes, rich in words which proclaim their shame, poor in those
+which should attest the workings of any nobler life among them, not
+seldom absolutely destitute of these last, are a mournful and ever-
+recurring surprise, even to those who were more or less prepared to
+expect nothing else. Thus I have read of a tribe in New Holland, which
+has no word to signify God, but has one to designate a process by which
+an unborn child may be destroyed in the bosom of its mother. [Footnote:
+A Wesleyan missionary, communicating with me from Fiji, assures me I
+have here understated the case. He says: 'I could write down several
+words, which express as many different ways of killing an unborn
+child.' He has at the same time done me the favour to send me dreadful
+confirmation of all which I have here asserted. It is a list of some
+Fiji words, with the hideous meanings which they bear, or facts which
+they imply. He has naturally confined himself to those in one domain of
+human wickedness--that, namely, of cruelty; leaving another domain,
+which borders close on this, and which, he assures me, would yield
+proofs quite as terrible, altogether untouched. It is impossible to
+imagine a record more hideous of what the works of the arch-murderer
+are, or one more fitted to stir up missionary zeal in behalf of those
+dark places of the earth which are full of the habitations of cruelty.
+A very few specimens must suffice. The language of Fiji has a word for
+a club which has killed a man; for a dead body which is to be eaten;
+for the first of such bodies brought in at the beginning of a war; for
+the flesh on each side of the backbone. It has a name of honour given
+to those who have taken life; it need not have been the life of an
+enemy; if only they have shed blood--it may have been the life of a
+woman or a child--the title has been earned. It has a hideous word to
+express the torturing and insulting of an enemy, as by cutting off any
+part of his body--his nose or tongue, for instance--cooking and eating
+it before his face, and taunting him the while; the [Greek:
+hakrotaeriazein] of the Greeks, with the cannibalism added. But of this
+enough.] And I have been informed, on the authority of one excellently
+capable of knowing, an English scholar long resident in Van Diemen's
+Land, that in the native language of that island there are [Footnote:
+This was written in 1851. Now, in 1888, Van Diemen's Land is called
+Tasmania, and the native language of that island is a thing of the
+past.] four words to express the taking of human life--one to express a
+father's killing of a son, another a son's killing of a father, with
+other varieties of murder; and that in no one of these lies the
+slightest moral reprobation, or sense of the deep-lying distinction
+between to 'kill' and to 'murder'; while at the same time, of that
+language so richly and so fearfully provided with expressions for this
+extreme utterance of hate, he also reports that a word for 'love' is
+wanting in it altogether. Yet with all this, ever and anon in the midst
+of this wreck and ruin, there is that in the language of the savage,
+some subtle distinction, some curious allusion to a perished
+civilization, now utterly unintelligible to the speaker; or some other
+note, which proclaims his language to be the remains of a dissipated
+inheritance, the rags and remnants of a robe which was a royal one once.
+The fragments of a broken sceptre are in his hand, a sceptre wherewith
+once he held dominion (he, that is, in his progenitors) over large
+kingdoms of thought, which now have escaped wholly from his sway.
+[Footnote: See on this matter Tylor, _Early History of Mankind_, pp.
+150-190; and, still better, the Duke of Argyll, _On Primeval Man_; and
+on this same survival of the fragments of an elder civilization, Ebrard,
+_Apologetik_, vol. ii. p. 382. Among some of the Papuans the faintest
+rudiments of the family survive; of the tribe no trace whatever; while
+yet of these one has lately written:--'Sie haben religi�se Gebr�uche
+und Uebungen, welche, mit einigen anderen Erscheinungen in ihrem Leben,
+mit ihrem jetzigen Culturzustande ganz unvereinbar erscheinen, wenn man
+darin nicht die Spuren einer fr�her h�hern Bildung erkennen will.'
+Sayce agrees with this.]
+
+But while it is thus with him, while this is the downward course of all
+those that have chosen the downward path, while with every
+impoverishing and debasing of personal and national life there goes
+hand in hand a corresponding impoverishment and debasement of language;
+so on the contrary, where there is advance and progress, where a divine
+idea is in any measure realizing itself in a people, where they are
+learning more accurately to define and distinguish, more truly to know,
+where they are ruling, as men ought to rule, over nature, and
+compelling her to give up her secrets to them, where new thoughts are
+rising up over the horizon of a nation's mind, new feelings are
+stirring at a nation's heart, new facts coming within the sphere of its
+knowledge, there will language be growing and advancing too. It cannot
+lag behind; for man feels that nothing is properly his own, that he has
+not secured any new thought, or entered upon any new spiritual
+inheritance, till he has fixed it in language, till he can contemplate
+it, not as himself, but as his word; he is conscious that he must
+express truth, if he is to preserve it, and still more if he would
+propagate it among others. 'Names,' as it has been excellently said,
+'are impressions of sense, and as such take the strongest hold upon the
+mind, and of all other impressions can be most easily recalled and
+retained in view. They therefore serve to give a point of attachment to
+all the more volatile objects of thought and feeling. Impressions that
+when past might be dissipated for ever, are by their connexion with
+language always within reach. Thoughts, of themselves are perpetually
+slipping out of the field of immediate mental vision; but the name
+abides with us, and the utterance of it restores them in a moment.'
+
+Men sometimes complain of the number of new theological terms which the
+great controversies in which the Church from time to time has been
+engaged, have left behind them. But this could not have been otherwise,
+unless the gains through those controversies made, were presently to be
+lost again; for as has lately been well said: 'The success and enduring
+influence of any systematic construction of truth, be it secular or
+sacred, depends as much upon an exact terminology, as upon close and
+deep thinking itself. Indeed, unless the results to which the human
+mind arrives are plainly stated, and firmly fixed in an exact
+phraseology, its thinking is to very little purpose in the end.
+"Terms," says Whewell, "record discoveries." That which was seen, it
+may be with crystal clearness, and in bold outline, in the
+consciousness of an individual thinker, may fail to become the property
+and possession of mankind at large, because it is not transferred from
+the individual to the general mind, by means of a precise phraseology
+and a rigorous terminology. Nothing is in its own nature more fugacious
+and shifting than thought; and particularly thoughts upon the mysteries
+of Christianity. A conception that is plain and accurate in the
+understanding of the first man becomes obscure and false in that of the
+second, because it was not grasped and firmly held in the form and
+proportions with which it first came up, and then handed over to other
+minds, a fixed and scientific quantity.' [Footnote: Shedd, _History of
+Christian Doctrine_, vol. i. p. 362; compare _Guesses at Truth_, 1866,
+p. 217; and Gerber, _Sprache als Kunst_, vol. i. p. 145.] And on the
+necessity of names at once for the preservation and the propagation of
+truth it has been justly observed: 'Hardly any original thoughts on
+mental or social subjects ever make their way among mankind, or assume
+their proper importance in the minds even of their inventors, until
+aptly selected words or phrases have as it were nailed them down and
+held them fast.' [Footnote: Mill, _System of Logic_, vol. ii. p. 291.]
+And this holds good alike of the false and of the true. I think we may
+observe very often the way in which controversies, after long eddying
+backward and forward, hither and thither, concentrate themselves at
+last in some single word which is felt to contain all that the one
+party would affirm and the other would deny. After a desultory swaying
+of the battle hither and thither 'the high places of the field' the
+critical position, on the winning of which everything turns, is
+discovered at last. Thus the whole controversy of the Catholic Church
+with the Arians finally gathers itself up in a single word,
+'homoousion;' that with the Nestorians in another, 'theotokos.' One
+might be bold to affirm that the entire secret of Buddhism is found in
+'Nirvana'; for take away the word, and it is not too much to say that
+the keystone to the whole arch is gone. So too when the medieval Church
+allowed and then adopted the word 'transubstantiation' (and we know the
+exact date of this), it committed itself to a doctrine from which
+henceforward it was impossible to recede. The floating error had become
+a fixed one, and exercised a far mightier influence on the minds of all
+who received it, than except for this it would have ever done. It is
+sometimes not a word, but a phrase, which proves thus mighty in
+operation. 'Reformation in the head and in the members 'was the
+watchword, for more than a century before an actual Reformation came,
+of all who were conscious of the deeper needs of the Church. What
+intelligent acquaintance with Darwin's speculations would the world in
+general have made, except for two or three happy and comprehensive
+terms, as 'the survival of the fittest,' 'the struggle for existence,'
+'the process of natural selection'? Multitudes who else would have
+known nothing about Comte's system, know something about it when they
+know that he called it 'the positive philosophy.'
+
+We have been tempted to depart a little, though a very little, from the
+subject immediately before us. What was just now said of the manner in
+which language enriches itself does not contradict a prior assertion,
+that man starts with language as God's perfect gift, which he only
+impairs and forfeits by sloth and sin, according to the same law which
+holds good in respect of each other of the gifts of heaven. For it was
+not meant, as indeed was then observed, that men would possess words to
+set forth feelings which were not yet stirring in them, combinations
+which they had not yet made, objects which they had not yet seen,
+relations of which they were not yet conscious; but that up to man's
+needs, (those needs including not merely his animal wants, but all his
+higher spiritual cravings,) he would find utterance freely. The great
+logical, or grammatical, framework of language, (for grammar is the
+logic of speech, even as logic is the grammar of reason,) he would
+possess, he knew not how; and certainly not as the final result of
+gradual acquisitions, and of reflexion setting these in order, and
+drawing general rules from them; but as that rather which alone had
+made those acquisitions possible; as that according to which he
+unconsciously worked, filled in this framework by degrees with these
+later acquisitions of thought, feeling, and experience, as one by one
+they arrayed themselves in the garment and vesture of words.
+
+Here then is the explanation of the fact that language should be thus
+instructive for us, that it should yield us so much, when we come to
+analyse and probe it; and yield us the more, the more deeply and
+accurately we do so. It is full of instruction, because it is the
+embodiment, the incarnation, if I may so speak, of the feelings and
+thoughts and experiences of a nation, yea, often of many nations, and
+of all which through long centuries they have attained to and won. It
+stands like the Pillars of Hercules, to mark how far the moral and
+intellectual conquests of mankind have advanced, only not like those
+pillars, fixed and immovable, but ever itself advancing with the
+progress of these. The mighty moral instincts which have been working
+in the popular mind have found therein their unconscious voice; and the
+single kinglier spirits that have looked deeper into the heart of
+things have oftentimes gathered up all they have seen into some one
+word, which they have launched upon the world, and with which they have
+enriched it for ever--making in that new word a new region of thought to
+be henceforward in some sort the common heritage of all. Language is
+the amber in which a thousand precious and subtle thoughts have been
+safely embedded and preserved. It has arrested ten thousand lightning
+flashes of genius, which, unless thus fixed and arrested, might have
+been as bright, but would have also been as quickly passing and
+perishing, as the lightning. 'Words convey the mental treasures of one
+period to the generations that follow; and laden with this, their
+precious freight, they sail safely across gulfs of time in which
+empires have suffered shipwreck, and the languages of common life have
+sunk into oblivion.' And for all these reasons far more and mightier in
+every way is a language than any one of the works which may have been
+composed in it. For that work, great as it may be, at best embodies
+what was in the heart and mind of a single man, but this of a nation.
+The _Iliad_ is great, yet not so great in strength or power or beauty
+as the Greek language. [Footnote: On the Greek language and its merits,
+as compared with the other Indo-European languages, see Curtius,
+_History of Greece,_ English translation, vol. i. pp. 18-28.] _Paradise
+Lost_ is a noble possession for a people to have inherited, but the
+English tongue is a nobler heritage yet. [Footnote: Gerber (_Sprache
+als Kunst,_ vol. i. p. 274): Es ist ein bedeutender Fortschritt in der
+Erkenntniss des Menschen dass man jetzt Sprachen lernt nicht bloss, um
+sich den Gedankeninhalt, den sie offenbaren, anzueignen, sondern
+zugleich um sie selbst als herrliche, architektonische Geisteswerke
+kennen zu lernen, und sich an ihrer Kunstsch�nheit zu erfreuen.]
+
+And imperfectly as we may apprehend all this, there is an obscure sense,
+or instinct I might call it, in every one of us, of this truth. We all,
+whether we have given a distinct account of the matter to ourselves or
+not, believe that words which we use are not arbitrary and capricious
+signs, affixed at random to the things which they designate, for which
+any other might have been substituted as well, but that they stand in a
+real relation to these. And this sense of the significance of names,
+that they are, or ought to be,--that in a world of absolute truth they
+ever would be,--the expression of the innermost character and qualities
+of the things or persons that bear them, speaks out in various ways, It
+is reported of Boiardo, author of a poem without which we should
+probably have never seen the _Orlando Furioso_ of Ariosto, that he was
+out hunting, when the name Rodomonte presented itself to him as exactly
+fitting a foremost person of the epic he was composing; and that
+instantly returning home, he caused all the joy-bells of the village to
+be rung, to celebrate the happy invention. This story may remind us of
+another which is told of the greatest French novelist of modern times.
+A friend of Balzac's, who has written some _Recollections_ of him,
+tells us that he would sometimes wander for days through the streets of
+Paris, studying the names over the shops, as being sure that there was
+a name more appropriate than any other to some character which he had
+conceived, and hoping to light on it there.
+
+You must all have remarked the amusement and interest which children
+find in any notable agreement between a name and the person who owns
+that name, as, for instance, if Mr. Long is tall--or, which naturally
+takes a still stronger hold upon them, in any manifest contradiction
+between the name and the name-bearer; if Mr. Strongitharm is a weakling,
+or Mr. Black an albino: the former striking from a sense of fitness,
+the latter from one of incongruity. Nor is this a mere childish
+entertainment. It continues with us through life; and that its roots
+lie deep is attested by the earnest use which is often made, and that
+at the most earnest moments of men's lives, of such agreements or
+disagreements as these. Such use is not un-frequent in Scripture,
+though it is seldom possible to reproduce it in English, as for
+instance in the comment of Abigail on her husband Nabal's name: 'As his
+name is, so is he; Nabal is his name, and folly is with him' (i Sam.
+xxv. 25). And again, 'Call me not Naomi,' exclaims the desolate widow--
+'call me not Naomi [or _pleasantness_]; call me Marah [or _bitterness_],
+for the Almighty hath dealt very bitterly with me.' She cannot endure
+that the name she bears should so strangely contradict the thing she is.
+Shakespeare, in like manner, reveals his own profound knowledge of the
+human heart, when he makes old John of Gaunt, worn with long sickness,
+and now ready to depart, play with his name, and dwell upon the consent
+between it and his condition; so that when his royal nephew asks him,
+'How is it with aged Gaunt?' he answers,
+
+     'Oh, how that name befits my composition,
+     Old _Gaunt_ indeed, and _gaunt_ in being old--
+     _Gaunt_ am I for the grave, _gaunt_ as the grave--' [Footnote:
+Ajax, or [Greek: Aias], in the play of Sophocles, which bears his name,
+does the same with the [Greek: aiai] which lies in that name (422,
+423); just as in the _Bacchae_ of Euripides, not Pentheus himself, but
+others for him, indicate the prophecy of a mighty [Greek: penthos] or
+grief, which is shut up in his name (367). A tragic writer, less known
+than Euripides, does the same: [Greek: Pentheus, esomenes sumphoras
+eponymos]. Eteocles in the _Phoenissae_ of Euripides makes a play of
+the same kind on the name of Polynices.] with much more in the same
+fashion; while it is into the mouth of the slight and frivolous king
+that Shakespeare puts the exclamation of wonder,
+
+'Can sick men play so nicely with their names?' [Footnote: 'Hus' is
+Bohemian for 'goose' [the two words being in fact cognate forms]; and
+here we have the explanation of the prophetic utterance of Hus, namely,
+that in place of one goose, tame and weak of wing, God would send
+falcons and eagles before long.]
+
+Mark too how, if one is engaged in a controversy or quarrel, and his
+name imports something good, his adversary will lay hold of the name,
+will seek to bring out a real contradiction between the name and the
+bearer of the name, so that he shall appear as one presenting himself
+under false colours, affecting a merit which he does not really possess.
+Examples of this abound. There was one Vigilantius in the early
+Church;--his name might be interpreted 'The Watchful.' He was at issue
+with St. Jerome about certain vigils; these he thought perilous to
+Christian morality, while Jerome was a very eager promoter of them; who
+instantly gave a turn to his name, and proclaimed that he, the enemy of
+these watches, the partisan of slumber and sloth, should have been not
+Vigilantius or The Watcher, but 'Dormitantius' or The Sleeper rather.
+Felix, Bishop of Urgel, a chief champion in the eighth century of the
+Adoptianist heresy, is constantly 'Infelix' in the writings of his
+adversary Alcuin. The Spanish peasantry during the Peninsular War would
+not hear of Bonaparte, but changed the name to 'Malaparte,' as
+designating far better the perfidious kidnapper of their king and enemy
+of their independence. It will be seen then that Aeschylus is most true
+to nature, when in his _Prometheus Bound_ he makes Strength tauntingly
+to remind Prometheus, or The Prudent, how ill his name and the lot
+which he has made for himself agreed, bound as he is with adamantine
+chains to his rock, and bound, as it might seem, for ever. When
+Napoleon said of Count Lobau, whose proper name was Mouton, 'Mon mouton
+c'est un lion,' it was the same instinct at work, though working from
+an opposite point. It made itself felt no less in the bitter irony
+which gave to the second of the Ptolemies, the brother-murdering king,
+the title of Philadelphus.
+
+But more frequent still is this hostile use of names, this attempt to
+place them and their owners in the most intimate connexion, to make, so
+to speak, the man answerable for his name, where the name does not thus
+need to be reversed; but may be made as it now is, or with very
+slightest change, to contain a confession of the ignorance,
+worthlessness, or futility of the bearer. If it implies, or can be made
+to imply, anything bad, it is instantly laid hold of as expressing the
+very truth about him. You know the story of Helen of Greece, whom in
+two of his 'mighty lines' Marlowe's Faust so magnificently
+apostrophizes:
+
+     'Is this the face that launched a thousand ships,
+      And burned the topless towers of Ilium?'
+
+It is no frigid conceit of the Greek poet, when one passionately
+denouncing the ruin which she wrought, finds that ruin couched and
+fore-announced in her name; [Footnote: [Greek: Helenas [=helenaos],
+helandros, heleptolis], Aeschylus, _Agamemnon_, 636.] as in English it
+might be, and has been, reproduced--
+
+     '_Hell_ in her name, and heaven in her looks.'
+
+Or take other illustrations. Pope Hildebrand in one of our _Homilies_
+is styled 'Brand of Hell,' as setting the world in a blaze; as
+'H�llenbrand' he appears constantly in German. Tott and Teuffel were
+two officers of high rank in the army which Gustavus Adolphus brought
+with him into Germany. You may imagine how soon those of the other side
+declared that he had brought 'death' and 'hell' in his train. There
+were two not inconsiderable persons in the time of our Civil Wars, Vane
+(not the 'young Vane' of Milton's and Wordsworth's sonnets), and
+Sterry; and one of these, Sterry, was chaplain to the other. Baxter,
+having occasion to mention them in his profoundly instructive
+_Narrative of his Life and Times_, and liking neither, cannot forbear
+to observe, that '_vanity_ and _sterility_ were never more fitly joined
+together;' and speaks elsewhere of 'the vanity of Vane, and the
+sterility of Sterry.' This last, let me observe, is an eminently unjust
+charge, as Baxter himself in a later volume [Footnote: Catholic
+Theology, pt, 3, p. 107.] has very handsomely acknowledged. [Footnote:
+A few more examples, in a note, of this contumely of names. Antiochus
+Epiphanes, or 'the Illustrious,' is for the Jews, whom he so madly
+attempted to hellenize, Antiochus Epimanes, or 'the Insane.' Cicero,
+denouncing Verres, the infamous praetor of Sicily, is too skilful a
+master of the passions to allow the name of the arch-criminal to escape
+unused. He was indeed Verres, for he _swept_ the province; he was a
+_sweep-net_ for it (everriculum in provincia); and then presently,
+giving altogether another turn to his name, Others, he says, might be
+partial to 'jus verrinum' (which might mean either Verrine law or boar-
+sauce), but not he. Tiberius Claudius Nero, charged with being a
+drunkard, becomes in the popular language 'Biberius Caldius Mero.' The
+controversies of the Church with heretics yield only too abundant a
+supply, and that upon both sides, of examples of this kind. The 'royal-
+hearted' Athanasius is 'Satanasius' for the Arians; and some of St.
+Cyprian's adversaries did not shrink from so foul a perversion of his
+name as to call him Koprianos, or 'the Dungy.' But then how often is
+Pelagius declared by the Church Fathers to be a pelagus, a very _ocean_
+of wickedness. It was in vain that the Manichaeans changed their
+master's name from Manes to Manichaeus, that so it might not so nearly
+resemble the word signifying madness in the Greek (devitantes nomen
+insaniae, Augustine, _De Haer_. 46); it did not thereby escape. The
+Waldenses, or Wallenses, were declared by Roman controversialists to be
+justly so called, as dwelling 'in valle densa,' in the thick valley of
+darkness and ignorance. Cardinal Clesel was active in setting forward
+the Roman Catholic reaction in Bohemia with which the dismal tragedy of
+the Thirty Years' War began. It was a far-fetched and not very happy
+piece of revenge, when they of the other side took pleasure in spelling
+his name 'CLesel,' as much as to say, He of the 150 ass-power. Berengar
+of Tours calls a Pope who had taken sides against him not pontifex, but
+'pompifex.' Metrophanes, Patriarch of Constantinople, being counted to
+have betrayed the interests of the Greek Church, his spiritual mother,
+at the Council of Florence, saw his name changed by popular hate into
+'Metrophonos,' or the 'Matricide.' In the same way of more than one
+Pope Urbanus it was declared that he would have been better named
+'Turbanus' (quasi _turbans_ Ecclesiam). Mahomet appears as 'Bafomet,'
+influenced perhaps by 'bafa,' a lie, in Proven�al. Shechem, a chief
+city of the heretical Samaritans, becomes 'Sychar,' or city of lies
+(see John iv. 5), so at least some will have it, on the lips of the
+hostile Jews; while Toulouse, a very seedplot of heresies, Albigensian
+and other, in the Middle Ages, is declared by writers of those times to
+have prophesied no less by its name (Tolosa = tota dolosa). In the same
+way adversaries of Wiclif traced in his name an abridgement of 'wicked-
+belief.' Metternich was 'Mitternacht,' or Midnight, for the political
+reformers of Germany in the last generation. It would be curious to
+know how often the Sorbonne has been likened to a 'Serbonian' bog; some
+'privilegium' declared to be not such indeed, but a 'pravilegium'
+rather. Baxter complains that the Independents called presbyters
+'priestbiters,' Presbyterian ministers not 'divines' but 'dry vines,'
+and their Assembly men 'Dissembly men.']
+
+Where, on the other hand, it is desired to do a man honour, how gladly,
+in like manner, is his name seized on, if it in any way bears an
+honourable significance, or is capable of an honourable interpretation
+--men finding in that name a presage and prophecy of that which was
+actually in its bearer. A multitude of examples, many of them very
+beautiful, might be brought together in this kind. How often, for
+instance, and with what effect, the name of Stephen, the proto-martyr,
+that name signifying in Greek 'the Crown,' was taken as a prophetic
+intimation of the martyr-crown, which it should be given to him, the
+first in that noble army, to wear. [Footnote: Thus in a sublime Latin
+hymn by Adam of St. Victor:
+
+     Nomen habes _Coronati_;
+     Te tormenta decet pati
+     Pro _corona_ gloriae.
+
+Elsewhere the same illustrious hymnologist plays in like manner on the
+name of St. Vincentius:
+
+     Qui _vincentis_ habet nomen
+     Ex re probat dignum omen
+     Sui fore nominis;
+     _Vincens_ terra, _vincens_ mari
+     Quidquid potest irrogari
+     Poenae vel formidinis.
+
+In the Bull for the canonization of Sta. Clara, the canonizing Pope
+does not disdain a similar play upon her name: Clara Claris praeclara
+meritis, magnae in caelo claritate gloriae, ac in terr� miraculorum
+sublimium, clare claret. On these 'prophetic' names in the heathen
+world see Pott, _Wurzel-W�rterbuch_, vol. ii. part 2, p. 522.]
+
+Irenaeus means in Greek 'the Peaceable'; and early Church writers love
+to remark how fitly the illustrious Bishop of Lyons bore this name,
+setting forward as he so earnestly did the peace of the Church,
+resolved as he was, so far as in him lay, to preserve the unity of the
+Spirit in the bond of peace. [Footnote: We cannot adduce St. Columba as
+another example in the same kind, seeing that this name was not his
+birthright, but one given to him by his scholars for the dove-like
+gentleness of his character. So indeed we are told; though it must be
+owned that some of the traits recorded of him in _The Monks of the
+West_ are not _columbine_ at all.] The Dominicans were well pleased
+when their name was resolved into 'Domini canes'--the Lord's watchdogs;
+who, as such, allowed no heresy to appear without at once giving the
+alarm, and seeking to chase it away. When Ben Jonson praises
+Shakespeare's 'well-filed lines'--
+
+     'In each of which he seems to _shake a lance_
+      As brandished in the eyes of ignorance'
+
+--he is manifestly playing with his name. Fuller, too, our own Church
+historian, who played so often upon the names of others, has a play
+made upon his own in some commendatory verses prefixed to one of his
+books:
+
+     'Thy style is clear and white; thy very name
+      Speaks pureness, and adds lustre to the frame.'
+
+He plays himself upon it in an epigram which takes the form of a
+prayer:
+
+     'My soul is stain�d with a dusky colour:
+      Let thy Son be the soap; I'll be the fuller.'
+
+John Careless, whose letters are among the most beautiful in Foxe's
+_Book of Martyrs_, writing to Philpot, exclaims, 'Oh good master
+Philpot, which art a principal pot indeed, filled with much precious
+liquor,--oh pot most happy! of the High Potter ordained to honour.'
+
+Herein, in this faith that men's names were true and would come true,
+in this, and not in any altogether unreasoning superstition, lay the
+root of the carefulness of the Romans that in the enlisting of soldiers
+names of good omen, such as Valerius, Salvius, Secundus, should be the
+first called. Scipio Africanus, reproaching his soldiers after a mutiny,
+finds an aggravation of their crime in the fact that one with so ill-
+omened a name as Atrius Umber should have seduced them, and persuaded
+them to take him for their leader. So strong is the conviction of men
+that names are powers. Nay, it must have been sometimes thought that
+the good name might so react on the evil nature that it should not
+remain evil altogether, but might be induced, in part at least, to
+conform itself to the designation which it bore. Here we have an
+explanation of the title Eumenides, or the Well-minded, given to the
+Furies; of Euxine, or the kind to strangers, to the inhospitable Black
+Sea, 'stepmother of ships,' as the Greek poet called it; the
+explanation too of other similar transformations, of the Greek Egesta
+transformed by the Romans into 'Segesta,' that it might not suggest
+'egestas' or penury; [Footnote: [But the form _Segesta_ is probably
+older than _Egesta_, the Romans here, as in other cases, retaining the
+original initial _s_, which in Greek is represented generally by the
+rough, sometimes by the smooth breathing.]] of Epidamnus, which, in
+like manner seeming too suggestive of 'damnum,' or loss, was changed
+into 'Dyrrachium'; of Maleventum, which became 'Beneventum'; of Cape
+Tormentoso, or Stormy Cape, changed into 'Cape of Good Hope'; of the
+fairies being always respectfully spoken of as 'the good people' in
+Ireland, even while they are accredited with any amount of mischief; of
+the dead spoken of alike in Greek and in Latin simply as 'the
+majority'; of the dying, in Greek liturgies remembered as 'those about
+to set forward upon a journey'[Footnote: [Greek: oi exodeuontes]]; of
+the slain in battle designated in German as 'those who remain,' that is,
+on the field of battle; of [Greek: eulogia], or 'the blessing,' as a
+name given in modern Greek to the smallpox! We may compare as an
+example of this same euphemism the famous 'Vixerunt' with which Cicero
+announced that the conspirators against the Roman State had paid the
+full penalty of their treason.
+
+Let me observe, before leaving this subject, that not in one passage
+only, but in passages innumerable, Scripture sets its seal to this
+significance of names, to the fact that the seeking and the finding of
+this significance is not a mere play upon the surface of things: it
+everywhere recognizes the inner band, which ought to connect, and in a
+world of truth would connect, together the name and the person or thing
+bearing the name. Scripture sets its seal to this by the weight and
+solemnity which it everywhere attaches to the imposing of names; this
+in many instances not being left to hazard, but assumed by God as his
+own peculiar care. 'Thou shalt call his name Jesus' (Matt. i. 21; Luke
+i. 31) is of course the most illustrious instance of all; but there is
+a multitude of other cases in point; names given by God, as that of
+John to the Baptist; or changed by Him, as Abram's to Abraham (Gen.
+xvii. 3), Sarai's to Sarah, Hoshea's to Joshua; or new names added by
+Him to the old, when by some mighty act of faith the man had been
+lifted out of his old life into a new; as Israel added to Jacob, and
+Peter to Simon, and Boanerges or Sons of thunder to the two sons of
+Zebedee (Mark iii. 17). The same feeling is at work elsewhere. A Pope
+on his election always takes a new name. Or when it is intended to make,
+for good or for ill, an entire breach with the past, this is one of the
+means by which it is sought to effect as much (2 Chr. xxxvi. 4; Dan. i.
+7). How far this custom reaches, how deep the roots which it casts, is
+exemplified well in the fact that the West Indian buccaneer makes a
+like change of name on entering that society of blood. It is in both
+cases a sort of token that old things have passed away, that all have
+become new to him.
+
+But we must draw to a close. Enough has been said to attest and to
+justify the wide-spread faith of men that names are significant, and
+that things and persons correspond, or ought to correspond, to them.
+You will not, then, find it a laborious task to persuade your pupils to
+admit as much. They are prepared to accept, they will be prompt to
+believe it. And great indeed will be our gains, their gains and ours,--
+for teacher and taught will for the most part enrich themselves
+together,--if, having these treasures of wisdom and knowledge lying
+round about us, so far more precious than mines of Californian gold, we
+determine that we will make what portion of them we can our own, that
+we will ask the words which we use to give an account of themselves, to
+say whence they are, and whither they tend. Then shall we often rub off
+the dust and rust from what seemed to us but a common token, which as
+such we had taken and given a thousand times; but which now we shall
+perceive to be a precious coin, bearing the 'image and superscription'
+of the great King: then shall we often stand in surprise and in
+something of shame, while we behold the great spiritual realities which
+underlie our common speech, the marvellous truths which we have been
+witnessing _for_ in our words, but, it may be, witnessing _against_ in
+our lives. And as you will not find, for so I venture to promise, that
+this study of words will be a dull one when you undertake it yourselves,
+as little need you fear that it will prove dull and unattractive, when
+you seek to make your own gains herein the gains also of those who may
+be hereafter committed to your charge. Only try your pupils, and mark
+the kindling of the eye, the lighting up of the countenance, the revival
+of the flagging attention, with which the humblest lecture upon words,
+and on the words especially which they are daily using, which are
+familiar to them in their play or at their church, will be welcomed by
+them. There is a sense of reality about children which makes them rejoice
+to discover that there is also a reality about words, that they are not
+merely arbitrary signs, but living powers; that, to reverse the saying
+of one of England's 'false prophets,' they may be the fool's counters,
+but are the wise man's money; not, like the sands of the sea,
+innumerable disconnected atoms, but growing out of roots, clustering in
+families, connecting and intertwining themselves with all that men have
+been doing and thinking and feeling from the beginning of the world
+till now.
+
+And it is of course our English tongue, out of which mainly we should
+seek to draw some of the hid treasures which it contains, from which we
+should endeavour to remove the veil which custom and familiarity have
+thrown over it. We cannot employ ourselves better. There is nothing
+that will more help than will this to form an English heart in
+ourselves and in others. We could scarcely have a single lesson on the
+growth of our English tongue, we could scarcely follow up one of its
+significant words, without having unawares a lesson in English history
+as well, without not merely falling on some curious fact illustrative
+of our national life, but learning also how the great heart which is
+beating at the centre of that life was gradually shaped and moulded. We
+should thus grow too in our sense of connexion with the past, of
+gratitude and reverence to it; we should rate more highly and thus more
+truly all which it has bequeathed to us, all that it has made ready to
+our hands. It was not a small matter for the children of Israel, when
+they came into Canaan, to enter upon wells which they digged not, and
+vineyards which they had not planted, and houses which they had not
+built; but how much vaster a boon, how much more glorious a prerogative,
+for any one generation to enter upon the inheritance of a language
+which other generations by their truth and toil have made already a
+receptacle of choicest treasures, a storehouse of so much unconscious
+wisdom, a fit organ for expressing the subtlest distinctions, the
+tenderest sentiments, the largest thoughts, and the loftiest
+imaginations, which the heart of man has at any time conceived. And
+that those who have preceded us have gone far to accomplish this for us,
+I shall rejoice if I am able in any degree to make you feel in the
+lectures which will follow the present.
+
+
+
+
+LECTURE II.
+
+ON THE POETRY IN WORDS.
+
+
+I said in my last lecture, or rather I quoted another who had said,
+that language is fossil poetry. It is true that for us very often this
+poetry which is bound up in words has in great part or altogether
+disappeared. We fail to recognize it, partly from long familiarity with
+it, partly from insufficient knowledge, partly, it may be, from never
+having had our attention called to it. None have pointed it out to us;
+we may not ourselves have possessed the means of detecting it; and thus
+it has come to pass that we have been in close vicinity to this wealth,
+which yet has not been ours. Margaret has not been for us 'the Pearl,'
+nor Esther 'the Star,' nor Susanna 'the Lily,' [Footnote: See Jacob
+Grimm, _Ueber Frauennamen aus Blumen_, in his _Kleinere Schriften_, vol.
+ii. pp. 366-401; and on the subject of this paragraph more generally,
+Schleicher, _Die Deutsche Sprache_, p. 115 sqq.] nor Stephen 'the
+Crown,' nor Albert 'the illustrious in birth.' 'In our ordinary
+language,' as Montaigne has said, 'there are several excellent phrases
+and metaphors to be met with, of which the beauty is withered by age,
+and the colour is sullied by too common handling; but that takes
+nothing from the relish to an understanding man, neither does it
+derogate from the glory of those ancient authors, who, 'tis likely,
+first brought those words into that lustre.' We read in one of
+Moli�re's most famous comedies of one who was surprised to discover
+that he had been talking prose all his life without being aware of it.
+If we knew all, we might be much more surprised to find that we had
+been talking poetry, without ever having so much as suspected this. For
+indeed poetry and passion seek to insinuate, and do insinuate
+themselves everywhere in language; they preside continually at the
+giving of names; they enshrine and incarnate themselves in these: for
+'poetry is the mother tongue of the human race,' as a great German
+writer has said. My present lecture shall contain a few examples and
+illustrations, by which I would make the truth of this appear.
+
+'Iliads without a Homer,' some one has called, with a little
+exaggeration, the beautiful but anonymous ballad poetry of Spain. One
+may be permitted, perhaps, to push the exaggeration a little further in
+the same direction, and to apply the same language not merely to a
+ballad but to a word. For poetry, which is passion and imagination
+embodying themselves in words, does not necessarily demand a
+_combination_ of words for this. Of this passion and imagination a
+single word may be the vehicle. As the sun can image itself alike in a
+tiny dew-drop or in the mighty ocean, and can do it, though on a
+different scale, as perfectly in the one as in the other, so the spirit
+of poetry can dwell in and glorify alike a word and an Iliad. Nothing
+in language is too small, as nothing is too great, for it to fill with
+its presence. Everywhere it can find, or, not finding, can make, a
+shrine for itself, which afterwards it can render translucent and
+transparent with its own indwelling glory. On every side we are beset
+with poetry. Popular language is full of it, of words used in an
+imaginative sense, of things called--and not merely in transient
+moments of high passion, and in the transfer which at such moments
+finds place of the image to the thing imaged, but permanently,--by
+names having immediate reference not to what they are, but to what they
+are like. All language is in some sort, as one has said, a collection
+of faded metaphors. [Footnote: Jean Paul: Ist jede Sprache in R�cksicht
+geistiger Beziehungen ein W�rterbuch erblasster Metaphern. We regret
+this, while yet it is not wholly matter of regret. Gerber (_Sprache als
+Kunst_, vol. i. p. 387) urges that language would be quite unmanageable,
+that the words which we use would be continually clashing with and
+contradicting one another, if every one of them retained a lively
+impress of the image on which it originally rested, and recalled this
+to our mind. His words, somewhat too strongly put, are these: F�r den
+Usus der Sprache, f�r ihren Verstand und ihre Verst�ndlichkeit ist
+allerdings das Erblassen ihrer Lautbilder, so dass sie allm�hlig als
+blosse Zeichen f�r Begriffe fungiren, nothwendig. Die Ueberzahl der
+Bilder w�rde, wenn sie alle als solche wirkten, nur verwirren und jede
+klarere Auffassung, wie sie die praktischen Zwecke der Gegenwart
+fordern, unm�glich machen. Die Bilder w�rden ausserdem einander zum
+Theil zerst�ren, indem sie die Farben verschiedener Sph�ren
+zusammenfliessenlassen, und damit f�r den Verstand nur Unsinn
+bedeuten.]
+
+Sometimes, indeed, they have not faded at all. Thus at Naples it is the
+ordinary language to call the lesser storm-waves 'pecore,' or sheep;
+the larger 'cavalloni,' or big horses. Who that has watched the foaming
+crests, the white manes, as it were, of the larger billows as they
+advance in measured order, and rank on rank, into the bay, but will own
+not merely the fitness, but the grandeur, of this last image? Let me
+illustrate my meaning more at length by the word 'tribulation.' We all
+know in a general way that this word, which occurs not seldom in
+Scripture and in the Liturgy, means affliction, sorrow, anguish; but it
+is quite worth our while to know _how_ it means this, and to question
+'tribulation' a little closer. It is derived from the Latin 'tribulum,'
+which was the threshing instrument or harrow, whereby the Roman
+husbandman separated the corn from the husks; and 'tribulatio' in its
+primary signification was the act of this separation. But some Latin
+writer of the Christian Church appropriated the word and image for the
+setting forth of a higher truth; and sorrow, distress, and adversity
+being the appointed means for the separating in men of whatever in them
+was light, trivial, and poor from the solid and the true, their chaff
+from their wheat, [Footnote: Triticum itself may be connected with tero,
+tritus; [so Curtius, _Greek Etym._ No. 239].] he therefore called these
+sorrows and trials 'tribulations,' threshings, that is, of the inner
+spiritual man, without which there could be no fitting him for the
+heavenly garner. Now in proof of my assertion that a single word is
+often a concentrated poem, a little grain of pure gold capable of being
+beaten out into a broad extent of gold-leaf, I will quote, in reference
+to this very word 'tribulation,' a graceful composition by George
+Wither, a prolific versifier, and occasionally a poet, of the
+seventeenth century. You will at once perceive that it is all wrapped
+up in this word, being from first to last only the explicit unfolding
+of the image and thought which this word has implicitly given; it is as
+follows:--
+
+     'Till from the straw the flail the corn doth beat,
+      Until the chaff be purg�d from the wheat,
+      Yea, till the mill the grains in pieces tear,
+      The richness of the flour will scarce appear.
+      So, till men's persons great afflictions touch,
+      If worth be found, their worth is not so much,
+      Because, like wheat in straw, they have not yet
+      That value which in threshing they may get.
+      For till the bruising flails of God's corrections
+      Have thresh�d out of us our vain affections;
+      Till those corruptions which do misbecome us
+      Are by Thy sacred Spirit winnowed from us;
+      Until from us the straw of worldly treasures,
+      Till all the dusty chaff of empty pleasures,
+      Yea, till His flail upon us He doth lay,
+      To thresh the husk of this our flesh away;
+      And leave the soul uncovered; nay, yet more,
+      Till God shall make our very spirit poor,
+      We shall not up to highest wealth aspire;
+      But then we shall; and that is my desire.'
+
+This deeper religious use of the word 'tribulation' was unknown to
+classical antiquity, belonging exclusively to the Christian writers;
+and the fact that the same deepening and elevating of the use of words
+recurs in a multitude of other, and many of them far more signal,
+instances, is one well deserving to be followed up. Nothing, I am
+persuaded, would more mightily convince us of the new power which
+Christianity proved in the world than to compare the meaning which so
+many words possessed before its rise, and the deeper meaning which they
+obtained, so soon as they were assumed as the vehicles of its life, the
+new thought and feeling enlarging, purifying, and ennobling the very
+words which they employed. This is a subject which I shall have
+occasion to touch on more than once in these lectures, but is itself
+well worthy of, as it would afford ample material for, a volume.
+
+On the suggestion of this word 'tribulation', I will quote two or three
+words from Coleridge, bearing on the matter in hand. He has said, 'In
+order to get the full sense of a word, we should first present to our
+minds the visual image that forms its primary meaning.' What admirable
+counsel is here! If we would but accustom ourselves to the doing of
+this, what a vast increase of precision and force would all the
+language which we speak, and which others speak to us, obtain; how
+often would that which is now obscure at once become clear; how
+distinct the limits and boundaries of that which is often now confused
+and confounded! It is difficult to measure the amount of food for the
+imagination, as well as gains for the intellect, which the observing of
+this single rule would afford us. Let me illustrate this by one or two
+examples. We say of such a man that he is 'desultory.' Do we attach any
+very distinct meaning to the word? Perhaps not. But get at the image on
+which 'desultory' rests; take the word to pieces; learn that it is from
+'desultor,' [Footnote: Lat. _desultor_ is from _desult_-, the stem of
+_desultus_, past part, of _desilire_, to leap down.] one who rides two
+or three horses at once, leaps from one to the other, being never on
+the back of any one of them long; take, I say, the word thus to pieces,
+and put it together again, and what a firm and vigorous grasp will you
+have now of its meaning! A 'desultory' man is one who jumps from one
+study to another, and never continues for any length of time in one.
+Again, you speak of a person as 'capricious,' or as full of 'caprices.'
+But what exactly are caprices? 'Caprice' is from _capra_, a goat.
+[Footnote: The etymology of _caprice_ has not been discovered yet; the
+derivation from _capra_ is unsatisfactory, as it does not account for
+the latter part of the word.] If ever you have watched a goat, you will
+have observed how sudden, how unexpected, how unaccountable, are the
+leaps and springs, now forward, now sideward, now upward, in which it
+indulges. A 'caprice' then is a movement of the mind as unaccountable,
+as little to be calculated on beforehand, as the springs and bounds of
+a goat. Is not the word so understood a far more picturesque one than
+it was before? and is there not some real gain in the vigour and
+vividness of impression which is in this way obtained? 'Pavaner' is the
+French equivalent for our verb 'to strut,' 'fourmiller' for our verb
+'to swarm.' But is it not a real gain to know further that the one is
+to strut _as the peacock does_, the other to swarm _as do ants_? There
+are at the same time, as must be freely owned, investigations, moral no
+less than material, in which the nearer the words employed approach to
+an algebraic notation, and the less disturbed or coloured they are by
+any reminiscences of the ultimate grounds on which they rest, the
+better they are likely to fulfil the duties assigned to them; but these
+are exceptions. [Footnote: A French writer, Adanson, in his _Natural
+History of Senegal_ complains of the misleading character which names
+so often have, and urges that the only safety is to give to things
+names which have and can have no meaning at all. His words are worth
+quoting as a curiosity, if nothing else: L'exp�rience nous apprend, que
+la plupart des noms significatifs qu'on a voulu donner � diff�rens
+objets d'histoire naturelle, sont devenus faux � mesure qu'on a
+d�couvert des qualit�s, des propri�t�s nouvelles ou contraires � celles
+qui avaient fait donner ces noms: il faut donc, pour se mettre � l'abri
+des contradictions, �viter les termes figur�s, et m�me faire en sorte
+qu'on ne puisse les rapporter � quelque �tymologie, a fin que ceux, qui
+ont la fureur des �tymologies, ne soient pas tenus de leur attribuer
+une id�e fausse. II en doit �tre des noms, comme des coups des jeux de
+hazard, qui n'ont pour l'ordinaire aucune liaison entre eux: ils
+seraient d'autant meilleurs qu'ils seraient moins significatifs, moins
+relatifs � d'autres noms, ou � des choses connues, par ce que l'id�e ne
+se fixant qu'� un seul objet, le saisit beaucoup plus nettement, que
+lorsqu'elle se lie avec d'autres objets qui y ont du rapport. There is
+truth in what he says, but the remedy he proposes is worse than the
+disease.]
+
+The poetry which has been embodied in the names of places, in those
+names which designate the leading features of outward nature,
+promontories, mountains, capes, and the like, is very worthy of being
+elicited and evoked anew, latent as it now has oftentimes become.
+Nowhere do we so easily forget that names had once a peculiar fitness,
+which was the occasion of their giving. Colour has often suggested the
+name, as in the well-known instance of our own 'Albion,'--'the silver-
+coasted isle,' as Tennyson so beautifully has called it,--which had
+this name from the white line of cliffs presented by it to those
+approaching it by the narrow seas. [Footnote: The derivation of the
+name _Albion_ has not been discovered yet; it is even uncertain whether
+the word is Indo-European; see Rhys, _Celtic Britain_, p. 200.]
+'Himalaya' is 'the abode of snow.' Often, too, shape and configuiation
+are incorporated in the name, as in 'Trinacria' or 'the three-
+promontoried land,' which was the Greek name of Sicily; in 'Drepanum'
+or 'the sickle,' the name which a town on the north-west promontory of
+the island bore, from the sickle-shaped tongue of land on which it was
+built. But more striking, as the embodiment of a poetical feeling, is
+the modern name of the great southern peninsula of Greece. We are all
+aware that it is called the 'Morea'; but we may not be so well aware
+from whence that name is derived. It had long been the fashion among
+ancient geographers to compare the shape of this region to a platane
+leaf; [Footnote: Strabo, viii. 2; Pliny, H.N. iv. 5; Agathemerus, I.i.
+p. 15; echein de omoion schaema phullps platanan] and a glance at the
+map will show that the general outline of that leaf, with its sharply-
+incised edges, justified the comparison. This, however, had remained
+merely as a comparison; but at the shifting and changing of names, that
+went with the breaking up of the old Greek and Roman civilization, the
+resemblance of this region to a leaf, not now any longer a platane, but
+a mulberry leaf, appeared so strong, that it exchanged its classic name
+of Peloponnesus for 'Morea' which embodied men's sense of this
+resemblance, _morus_ being a mulberry tree in Latin, and _morea_ in
+Greek. This etymology of 'Morea' has been called in question;
+[Footnote: By Fallmerayer, _Gesck. der Halbinsel Morea,_ p. 240, sqq.
+The island of Ceylon, known to the Greeks as Taprobane, and to Milton
+as well (_P. L._ iv. 75), owed this name to a resemblance which in
+outline it bore to the leaf of the betel tree. [This is very
+doubtful.]] but, as it seems to me, on no sufficient grounds. Deducing,
+as one objector does, 'Morea' from a Slavonic word 'more,' the sea, he
+finds in this derivation a support for his favourite notion that the
+modern population of Greece is not descended from the ancient, but
+consists in far the larger proportion of intrusive Slavonic races. Two
+mountains near Dublin, which we, keeping in the grocery line, have
+called the Great and the Little Sugarloaf, are named in Irish 'the
+Golden Spears.'
+
+In other ways also the names of places will oftentimes embody some
+poetical aspect under which now or at some former period men learned to
+regard them. Oftentimes when discoverers come upon a new land they will
+seize with a firm grasp of the imagination the most striking feature
+which it presents to their eyes, and permanently embody this in a word.
+Thus the island of Madeira is now, I believe, nearly bare of wood; but
+its sides were covered with forests at the time when it was first
+discovered, and hence the name, 'madeira' in Portuguese having this
+meaning of wood. [Footnote: [Port. _madeira,_ 'wood,' is the same word
+as the Lat. _materia_.]] Some have said that the first Spanish
+discoverers of Florida gave it this name from the rich carpeting of
+flowers which, at the time when first their eyes beheld it, everywhere
+covered the soil. [Footnote: The Spanish historian Herrera says that
+Juan Ponce de Leon, the discoverer of Florida, gave that name to the
+country for two reasons: first, because it was a land of flowers,
+secondly, because it was discovered by him on March 27, 1513, Easter
+Day, which festival was called by the Spaniards, 'Pascua Florida,' or
+'Pascua de Flores,' see Herrera's _History_, tr. by Stevens, ii. p. 33,
+and the _Discovery of Florida_ by R. Hakluyt, ed. by W. B. Rye for the
+Hakluyt Soc., 1851, introd. p. x.; cp. Larousse (s.v.), and Pierer's
+_Conversations Lexicon_. It is stated by some authorities that Florida
+was so called because it was discovered on Palm Sunday; this is due to
+a mistaken inference from the names for that Sunday--Pascha Florum,
+Pascha Floridum (Ducange), Pasque Fleurie (Cotgrave); see _Dict. G�og.
+Univ_., 1884, and Brockhaus.] Surely Florida, as the name passes under
+our eye, or from our lips, is something more than it was before, when
+we may thus think of it as the land of flowers. [Footnote: An Italian
+poet, Fazio degli Uberti, tells us that Florence has its appellation
+from the same cause:
+
+      Poich� era posta in un prato di fiori,
+      Le denno il nome bello, oude s' ingloria.
+
+It would be instructive to draw together a collection of etymologies
+which have been woven into verse. These are so little felt to be alien
+to the spirit of poetry, that they exist in large numbers, and often
+lend to the poem in which they find a place a charm and interest of
+their own. In five lines of _Paradise Lost_ Milton introduces four such
+etymologies, namely, those of the four fabled rivers of hell, though
+this will sometimes escape the notice of the English reader:
+
+     'Abhorred Styx, the flood of deadly _hate_,
+      Sad Acheron of _sorrow_, black and deep,
+      Cocytus, named of _lamentation_ loud
+      Heard on the rueful stream; fierce Phlegethon,
+      Whose waves of torrent _fire_ inflame with rage.'
+
+'Virgil, that great master of the proprieties,' as Bishop Pearson has
+so happily called him, does not shun, but rather loves to introduce
+them, as witness his etymology of 'Byrsa,' _Aen_. i. 367, 368; v. 59,
+63 [but the etymology here is imaginative, the name _Byrsa_ being of
+Punic, that is of Semitic, origin, and meaning 'a fortress'; compare
+Heb. _Bozrah_]; of 'Silvius,' _Aen_. vi. 763, 765; of 'Argiletum,'
+where he is certainly wrong (_Aen_. viii. 345); of 'Latium,' with
+reference to Saturn having remained _latent_ there (_Aen_. viii. 322;
+of. Ovid, _Fasti_, i. 238); of 'Laurens' (_Aen_. vii. 63):
+
+                   Latiumque vocari
+     Maluit, his quoniam _latuisset_ tutus in oris:
+
+and again of 'Avernus' (=[Greek: aornos], _Aen_. vi. 243); being indeed
+in this anticipated by Lucretius (vi. 741):
+
+     quia sunt avibus contraria cunctis.
+
+Ovid's taste is far from faultless, and his example cannot go for much;
+but he is always a graceful versifier, and his _Fasti_ swarms with
+etymologies, correct and incorrect; as of 'Agonalis' (i. 322), of
+'Aprilis' (iv. 89), of 'Augustus' (i. 609-614), of 'Februarius' (ii.
+19-22), of 'hostia' (i. 336), of 'Janus' (i. 120-127), of 'Junius' (vi.
+26), of 'Lemures' (v. 479-484), of 'Lucina' (ii. 449), of 'majestas' (v.
+26), of 'Orion' (v. 535), of 'pecunia' (v. 280, 281), of 'senatus' (v.
+64), of 'Sulmo'(iv. 79; cf. Silius Italicus, ix. 70); of 'Vesta' (vi.
+299), of 'victima' (i. 335); of 'Trinacris' (iv. 420). He has them also
+elsewhere, as of 'Tomi' (_Trist._ iii. 9, 33). Lucilius, in like manner,
+gives us the etymology of 'iners':
+     Ut perhibetur iners, _ars_ in quo non erit ulla; Propertius (iv. 2,
+3) of 'Vertumnus'; and Lucretius of 'Magnes' (vi. 909).]
+
+The name of Port Natal also embodies a fact which must be of interest
+to its inhabitants, namely, that this port was discovered on Christmas
+Day, the _dies natalis_ of our Lord.
+
+Then again what poetry is there, as indeed there ought to be, in the
+names of flowers! I do not speak of those, the exquisite grace and
+beauty of whose names is so forced on us that we cannot miss it, such
+as 'Aaron's rod,' 'angel's eyes,' 'bloody warrior,' 'blue-bell, 'crown
+imperial,' 'cuckoo-flower,' blossoming as this orchis does when the
+cuckoo is first heard, [Footnote: In a catalogue of _English Plant
+Names_ I count thirty in which 'cuckoo' formed a component part.] 'eye-
+bright,' 'forget-me-not,' 'gilt-cup' (a local name for the butter-cup,
+drawn from the golden gloss of its petals), 'hearts-ease,' 'herb-of-
+grace,' 'Jacob's ladder,' 'king-cup,' 'lady's fingers,' 'Lady's smock,'
+'Lady's tresses,' 'larkspur,' 'Lent lily,' 'loose-strife,' 'love-in-
+idleness,' 'Love lies bleeding,' 'maiden-blush,' 'maiden-hair,'
+'meadow-sweet,' 'Our Lady's mantle,' 'Our Lady's slipper,' 'queen-of-
+the-meadows,' 'reine-marguerite,' 'rosemary,' 'snow-flake,' 'Solomon's
+seal,' 'star of Bethlehem,' 'sun-dew,' 'sweet Alison,' 'sweet Cicely,'
+'sweet William,' 'Traveller's joy,' 'Venus' looking-glass,' 'Virgin's
+bower,' and the like; but take 'daisy'; surely this charming little
+English flower, which has stirred the peculiar affection of English
+poets from Chaucer to Wordsworth, and received the tribute of their
+song, [Footnote:
+     'Fair fall that gentle flower,
+      A golden tuft set in a silver crown,' as Brown exclaims, whose
+singularly graceful _Pastorals_ should not be suffered to fall
+altogether to oblivion. In Ward's recent _English Poets_, vol. ii. p.
+65, justice has been done to them, and to their rare beauty.] becomes
+more charming yet, when we know, as Chaucer long ago has told us, that
+'daisy' is day's eye, or in its early spelling 'daieseighe,' the eye of
+day; these are his words:
+
+     'That men by reson well it calle may
+      The _daisie_, or elles the ye of day.'
+            _Chaucer_, ed. Morris, vol. v. p. 281.
+
+For only consider how much is implied here. To the sun in the heavens
+this name, eye of day, was naturally first given, and those who
+transferred the title to our little field flower meant no doubt to
+liken its inner yellow disk, or shield, to the great golden orb of the
+sun, and the white florets which encircle this disk to the rays which
+the sun spreads on all sides around him. What imagination was here, to
+suggest a comparison such as this, binding together as this does the
+smallest and the greatest! what a travelling of the poet's eye, with
+the power which is the privilege of that eye, from earth to heaven, and
+from heaven to earth, and of linking both together. So too, call up
+before your mind's eye the 'lavish gold' of the drooping laburnum when
+in flower, and you will recognize the poetry of the title, 'the golden
+rain,' which in German it bears. 'Celandine' does not so clearly tell
+its own tale; and it is only when you have followed up the [Greek:
+chelidonion], (swallow-wort), of which 'celandin' is the English
+representative, that the word will yield up the poetry which is
+concealed in it.
+
+And then again, what poetry is there often in the names of birds and
+beasts and fishes, and indeed of all the animated world around us; how
+marvellously are these names adapted often to bring out the most
+striking and characteristic features of the objects to which they are
+given. Thus when the Romans became acquainted with the stately giraffe,
+long concealed from them in the interior deserts of Africa, (which we
+learn from Pliny they first did in the shows exhibited by Julius
+Caesar,) it was happily imagined to designate a creature combining,
+though with infinitely more grace, something of the height and even the
+proportions of the _camel_ with the spotted skin of the _pard_, by a
+name which should incorporate both these its most prominent
+features, [Footnote: Varro: Quod erat figura ut camelus, maculis ut
+panthera; and Horace (Ep. ii. I, 196): Diversum confusa genus panthera
+camelo.] calling it the 'camelopard.' Nor can we, I think, hesitate to
+accept that account as the true one, which describes the word as no
+artificial creation of scientific naturalists, but as bursting
+extempore from the lips of the common people, who after all are the
+truest namers, at the first moment when the novel creature was
+presented to their gaze. 'Cerf-volant,' a name which the French have so
+happily given to the horned scarabeus, the same which we somewhat less
+poetically call the 'stag-beetle,' is another example of what may be
+effected with the old materials, by merely bringing them into new and
+happy combinations.
+
+You know the appearance of the lizard, and the _star_-like shape of the
+spots which are sown over its back. Well, in Latin it is called
+'stellio,' from _stella_, a star; just as the basilisk had in Greek
+this name of 'little king' because of the shape as of a _kingly_ crown
+which the spots on its head might be made by the fancy to assume.
+Follow up the etymology of 'squirrel,' and you will find that the
+graceful creature which bears this name has obtained it as being wont
+to sit under the shadow of its own tail. [Footnote: [The word
+_squirrel_ is a diminutive of the Greek word for squirrel, [Greek:
+skiouros], literally 'shadow-tail.']] Need I remind you of our
+'goldfinch,' evidently so called from that bright patch of yellow on
+its wing; our 'kingfisher,' having its name from the royal beauty, the
+kingly splendour of the plumage with which it is adorned? Some might
+ask why the stormy petrel, a bird which just skims and floats on the
+topmost wave, should bear this name? No doubt we have here the French
+'p�trel,' or little Peter, and the bird has in its name an allusion to
+the Apostle Peter, who at his Master's bidding walked for a while on
+the unquiet surface of an agitated sea. The 'lady-bird' or 'lady-cow'
+is prettily named, as indeed the whole legend about it is full of grace
+and fancy [Footnote: [For other names for the 'lady-bird,' and the
+reference in many of them to God and the Virgin Mary, see Grimm,
+_Teutonic Mythology_, p. 694.]]; but a common name which in many of our
+country parts this creature bears, the 'golden knob,' is prettier still.
+And indeed in our country dialects there is a wide poetical
+nomenclature which is well worthy of recognition; thus the shooting
+lights of the Aurora Borealis are in Lancashire 'the Merry Dancers';
+clouds piled up in a particular fashion are in many parts of England
+styled 'Noah's Ark'; the puff-ball is 'the Devil's snuff-box'; the
+dragon-fly 'the Devil's darning-needle'; a large black beetle 'the
+Devil's coach-horse.' Any one who has watched the kestrel hanging
+poised in the air, before it swoops upon its prey, will acknowledge the
+felicity of the name 'windhover,' or sometimes 'windfanner,' which it
+popularly bears. [Footnote: In Wallace's _Tropical Nature_ there is a
+beautiful chapter on humming birds, and the names which in various
+languages these exquisite little creatures bear.] The amount is very
+large of curious legendary lore which is everywhere bound up in words,
+and which they, if duly solicited, will give back to us again. For
+example, the Greek 'halcyon,' which we have adopted without change, has
+reference, and wraps up in itself an allusion, to one of the most
+beautiful and significant legends of heathen antiquity; according to
+which the sea preserved a perfect calmness for all the period, the
+fourteen 'halcyon days,' during which this bird was brooding over her
+nest. The poetry of the name survives, whether the name suggested the
+legend, or the legend the name. Take again the names of some of our
+precious stones, as of the topaz, so called, as some said, because men
+were only able to _conjecture_ ([Greek: topazein]) the position of the
+cloud-concealed island from which it was brought. [Footnote: Pliny, _H.
+N._ xxxvii. 32. [But this is only popular etymology: the word can
+hardly be of Greek origin; see A. S. Palmer, _Folk-Etymology_, p.
+589.]]
+
+Very curious is the determination which some words, indeed many, seem
+to manifest, that their poetry shall not die; or, if it dies in one
+form, that it shall revive in another. Thus if there is danger that,
+transferred from one language to another, they shall no longer speak to
+the imagination of men as they did of old, they will make to themselves
+a new life, they will acquire a new soul in the room of that which has
+ceased to quicken and inform them any more. Let me make clear what I
+mean by two or three examples. The Germans, knowing nothing of
+carbuncles, had naturally no word of their own for them; and when they
+first found it necessary to name them, as naturally borrowed the Latin
+'carbunculus,' which originally had meant 'a little live coal,' to
+designate these precious stones of a fiery red. But 'carbunculus,' word
+full of poetry and life for Latin-speaking men, would have been only an
+arbitrary sign for as many as were ignorant of that language. What then
+did these, or what, rather, did the working genius of the language, do?
+It adopted, but, in adopting, modified slightly yet effectually the
+word, changing it into 'Karfunkel,' thus retaining the framework of the
+original, yet at the same time, inasmuch as 'funkeln' signifies 'to
+sparkle,' reproducing now in an entirely novel manner the image of the
+bright sparkling of the stone, for every knower of the German tongue.
+'Margarita,' or pearl, belongs to the earliest group of Latin words
+adopted into English. The word, however, told nothing about itself to
+those who adopted it. But the pearl might be poetically contemplated as
+the sea-stone; and so our fathers presently transformed 'margarita'
+into 'mere-grot,' which means nothing less. [Footnote: Such is the A.S.
+form of _margarita_ in three versions of the parable of the Pearl of
+Great Price, St. Matt. xiii. 45; _see Anglo-Saxon Gospels_, ed. Skeat,
+1887.] Take another illustration of this from another quarter. The
+French 'rossignol,' a nightingale, is undoubtedly the Latin
+'lusciniola,' the diminutive of 'luscinia,' with the alteration, so
+frequent in the Romance languages, of the commencing 'l' into 'r.'
+Whatever may be the etymology of 'luscinia,' it is plain that for
+Frenchmen in general the word would no longer suggest any meaning at
+all, hardly even for French scholars, after the serious transformations
+which it had undergone; while yet, at the same time, in the exquisitely
+musical 'rossignol,' and still more perhaps in the Italian 'usignuolo,'
+there is an evident intention and endeavour to express something of the
+music of the bird's song in the liquid melody of the imitative name
+which it bears; and thus to put a new soul into the word, in lieu of
+that other which had escaped. Or again--whatever may be the meaning of
+Senlac, the name of that field where the ever-memorable battle, now
+better known as the Battle of Hastings, was fought, it certainly was
+not 'Sanglac,' or Lake of Blood; the word only shaping itself into this
+significant form subsequently to the battle, and in consequence of it.
+
+One or two examples more of the perishing of the old life in a word,
+and the birth of a new in its stead, may be added. The old name of
+Athens, 'Athaevai,' was closely linked with the fact that the goddess
+Pallas Ath�ne was the guardian deity of the city. The reason of the
+name, with other facts of the old mythology, faded away from the memory
+of the peasantry of modern Greece; but Athens is a name which must
+still mean something for them. Accordingly it is not 'Athaevai now, but
+'Avthaevai, or the Blooming, on the lips of the peasantry round about;
+so Mr. Sayce assures us. The same process everywhere meets us. Thus no
+one who has visited Lucerne can fail to remember the rugged mountain
+called 'Pilatus' or 'Mont Pilate,' which stands opposite to him; while
+if he has been among the few who have cared to climb it, he will have
+been shown by his guide the lake at its summit in which Pontius Pilate
+in his despair drowned himself, with an assurance that from this
+suicide of his the mountain obtained its name. Nothing of the kind.
+'Mont Pilate' stands for 'Mons _Pileatus_,' the '_capped_ hill'; the
+clouds, as one so often sees, gathering round its summit, and forming
+the shape or appearance of a cap or hat. When this true derivation was
+forgotten or misunderstood, the other explanation was invented and
+imposed. [Footnote: [The old name of Pilatus was _Fractus Mons_,
+'broken mountain' from its rugged cliffs and precipices. _Pilatus_ did
+not become general till the close of the last century.]] An instructive
+example this, let me observe by the way, of that which has happened
+continually in the case of far older legends; I mean that the name has
+suggested the legend, and not the legend the name. We have an apt
+illustration of this in the old notion that the crocodile ([Greek:
+krokodeilos]) could not endure saffron.
+
+I have said that poetry and imagination seek to penetrate everywhere;
+and this is literally true; for even the hardest, austerest studies
+cannot escape their influence; they will put something of their own
+life into the dry bones of a nomenclature which seems the remotest from
+them, the most opposed to them. Thus in Danish the male and female
+lines of descent and inheritance are called respectively the sword-side
+and the spindle-side. [Footnote: [In the same way the Germans used to
+employ _schwert_ and _kunkel_; compare the use of the phrases _on �a
+sperehealfe_, and _on �a spinlhealfe_ in King Alfred's will; see Kemble,
+_Codex Diplomaticus_, No. 314 (ii. 116), Pauli's _Life of Alfred_, p.
+225, Lappenberg's _Anglo-Saxon Kings_, ii. 99 (1881).]] He who in
+prosody called a metrical foot consisting of one long syllable followed
+by two short (-..) a 'dactyle' or a finger, with allusion to the long
+first joint of the finger, and the two shorter which follow, whoever he
+may have been, and some one was the first to do it, must be allowed to
+have brought a certain amount of imagination into a study so alien to
+it as prosody very well might appear.
+
+He did the same in another not very poetical region who invented the
+Latin law-term, 'stellionatus.' The word includes all such legally
+punishable acts of swindling or injurious fraud committed on the
+property of another as are not specified in any more precise enactment;
+being drawn and derived from a practice attributed, I suppose without
+any foundation, to the lizard or 'stellio' we spoke of just now. Having
+cast its winter skin, it is reported to swallow it at once, and this
+out of a malignant grudge lest any should profit by that which, if not
+now, was of old accounted a specific in certain diseases. The term was
+then transferred to any malicious wrong whatever done by one person to
+another.
+
+In other regions it was only to be expected that we should find poetry.
+Thus it is nothing strange that architecture, which has been called
+frozen music, and which is poetry embodied in material forms, should
+have a language of its own, not dry nor hard, not of the mere intellect
+alone, but one in the forming of which it is evident that the
+imaginative faculties were at work. To take only one example--this,
+however, from Gothic art, which naturally yields the most remarkable--
+what exquisite poetry in the name of 'the rose window' or better still,
+'the rose,' given to the rich circular aperture of stained glass, with
+its leaf-like compartments, in the transepts of a Gothic cathedral!
+Here indeed we may note an exception from that which usually finds
+place; for usually art borrows beauty from nature, and very faintly, if
+at all, reflects back beauty upon her. In this present instance,
+however, art is so beautiful, has reached so glorious and perfect a
+development, that if the associations which the rose supplies lend to
+that window some hues of beauty and a glory which otherwise it would
+not have, the latter abundantly repays the obligation; and even the
+rose itself may become lovelier still, associated with those shapes of
+grace, those rich gorgeous tints, and all the religious symbolism of
+that in art which has borrowed and bears its name. After this it were
+little to note the imagination, although that was most real, which
+dictated the term 'flamboyant' to express the wavy flame-like outline,
+which, at a particular period of art, the tracery in the Gothic window
+assumed.
+
+'Godsacre' or 'Godsfield,' is the German name for a burial-ground, and
+once was our own, though we unfortunately have nearly, if not quite,
+let it go. What a hope full of immortality does this little word
+proclaim! how rich is it in all the highest elements of poetry, and of
+poetry in its noblest alliance, that is, in its alliance with faith--
+able as it is to cause all loathsome images of death and decay to
+disappear, not denying them, but suspending, losing, absorbing them in
+the sublimer thought of the victory over death, of that harvest of life
+which God shall one day so gloriously reap even there where now seems
+the very triumphing place of death. Many will not need to be reminded
+how fine a poem in Longfellow's hands unfolds itself out of this word.
+
+Lastly let me note the pathos of poetry which lies often in the mere
+tracing of the succession of changes in meaning which certain words
+have undergone. Thus 'elend' in German, a beautiful word, now signifies
+wretchedness, but at first it signified exile or banishment. [Footnote:
+On this word there is an interesting discussion in Weigand's _Etym.
+Dict._, and compare Pott, _Etym. Forsch._ i. 302. _Ellinge_, an English
+provincial word of infinite pathos, still common in the south of
+England, and signifying at once lonely and sad, is not connected, as
+has been sometimes supposed, with the German _elend_, but represents
+Anglo-Saxon _ae-lenge_, protracted, tedious; see the _New English
+Dictionary_ (s.v. _alange_)] The sense of this separation from the
+native land and from all home delights, as being the woe of all woes,
+the crown of all sorrows, little by little so penetrated the word, that
+what at first expressed only one form of misery, has ended by
+signifying all. It is not a little notable, as showing the same feeling
+elsewhere at work, that 'essil' (= exilium) in old French signified,
+not only banishment, but ruin, destruction, misery. In the same manner
+[Greek: nostimos] meaning at first no more than having to do with a
+return, comes in the end to signify almost anything which is favourable
+and auspicious.
+
+Let us then acknowledge man a born poet; if not every man himself a
+'maker' yet every one able to rejoice in what others have made,
+adopting it freely, moving gladly in it as his own most congenial
+element and sphere. For indeed, as man does not live by bread alone, as
+little is he content to find in language merely the instrument which
+shall enable him to buy and sell and get gain, or otherwise make
+provision for the lower necessities of his animal life. He demands to
+find in it as well what shall stand in a real relation and
+correspondence to the higher faculties of his being, shall feed,
+nourish, and sustain these, shall stir him with images of beauty and
+suggestions of greatness. Neither here nor anywhere else could he
+become the mere utilitarian, even if he would. Despite his utmost
+efforts, were he so far at enmity with his own good as to put them
+forth, he could not succeed in exhausting his language of the poetical
+element with which it is penetrated through and through; he could not
+succeed in stripping it of blossom, flower, and fruit, and leaving it
+nothing but a bare and naked stem. He may fancy for a moment that he
+has succeeded in doing this; but it will only need for him to become a
+little better philologer, to go a little deeper into the story of the
+words which he is using, and he will discover that he is as remote as
+ever from such an unhappy consummation, from so disastrous a success.
+
+For ourselves, let us desire and attempt nothing of the kind. Our life
+is not in other ways so full of imagination and poetry that we need
+give any diligence to empty it of that which it may possess of these.
+It will always have for us all enough of dull and prosaic and
+commonplace. What profit can there be in seeking to extend the region
+of these? Profit there will be none, but on the contrary infinite loss.
+It is _stagnant_ waters which corrupt themselves; not those in
+agitation and on which the winds are freely blowing. Words of passion
+and imagination are, as one so grandly called them of old, 'winds of
+the soul' ([Greek: psyches anemoi]), to keep it in healthful motion and
+agitation, to lift it upward and to drive it onward, to preserve it
+from that unwholesome stagnation which constitutes the fatal
+preparedness for so many other and worse evils.
+
+
+
+
+LECTURE III.
+
+ON THE MORALITY IN WORDS.
+
+
+Is man of a divine birth and of the stock of heaven? coming from God,
+and, when he fulfils the law of his being, and the intention of his
+creation, returning to Him again? We need no more than the words he
+speaks to prove it; so much is there in them which could never have
+existed on any other supposition. How else could all those words which
+testify of his relation to God, and of his consciousness of this
+relation, and which ground themselves thereon, have found their way
+into his language, being as that is the veritable transcript of his
+innermost life, the genuine utterance of the faith and hope which is in
+him? In what other way can we explain that vast and preponderating
+weight thrown into the scale of goodness and truth, which, despite of
+all in the other scale, we must thankfully acknowledge that his
+language never is without? How else shall we account for that sympathy
+with the right, that testimony against the wrong, which, despite of all
+aberrations and perversions, is yet the prevailing ground-tone of all?
+
+But has man fallen, and deeply fallen, from the heights of his original
+creation? We need no more than his language to prove it. Like
+everything else about him, it bears at once the stamp of his greatness
+and of his degradation, of his glory and of his shame. What dark and
+sombre threads he must have woven into the tissue of his life, before
+we could trace those threads of darkness which run through the tissue
+of his language! What facts of wickedness and woe must have existed in
+the one, ere such words could exist to designate these as are found in
+the other! There have never wanted those who would make light of the
+moral hurts which man has inflicted on himself, of the sickness with
+which he is sick; who would persuade themselves and others that
+moralists and divines, if they have not quite invented, have yet
+enormously exaggerated, these. But are statements of the depth of his
+fall, the malignity of the disease with which he is sick, found only in
+Scripture and in sermons? Are those who bring forward these statements
+libellers of human nature? Or are not mournful corroborations of the
+truth of these assertions imprinted deeply upon every province of man's
+natural and spiritual life, and on none more deeply than on his
+language? It needs but to open a dictionary, and to cast our eye
+thoughtfully down a few columns, and we shall find abundant
+confirmation of this sadder and sterner estimate of man's moral and
+spiritual condition. How else shall we explain this long catalogue of
+words, having all to do with sin or with sorrow, or with both? How came
+they there? We may be quite sure that they were not invented without
+being needed, and they have each a correlative in the world of
+realities. I open the first letter of the alphabet; what means this
+'Ah,' this 'Alas,' these deep and long-drawn sighs of humanity, which
+at once encounter me there? And then presently there meet me such words
+as these, 'Affliction,' 'Agony,' 'Anguish,' 'Assassin,' 'Atheist,'
+'Avarice,' and a hundred more--words, you will observe, not laid up in
+the recesses of the language, to be drawn forth on rare occasions, but
+many of them such as must be continually on the lips of men. And indeed,
+in the matter of abundance, it is sad to note how much richer our
+vocabularies are in words that set forth sins, than in those that set
+forth graces. When St. Paul (Gal. v. 19-23) would range these over
+against those, 'the works of the flesh' against 'the fruit of the
+Spirit,' those are seventeen, these only nine; and where do we find in
+Scripture such lists of graces, as we do at 2 Tim. iii. 2, Rom. i. 29-
+31, of their contraries? [Footnote: Of these last the most exhaustive
+collection which I know is in Philo, _De Merced. Meret._ Section 4.
+There are here one hundred and forty-six epithets brought together,
+each of them indicating a sinful moral habit of mind. It was not
+without reason that Aristotle wrote: 'It is possible to err in many
+ways, for evil belongs to the infinite; but to do right is possible
+only in one way' (_Ethic. Nic._ ii. 6. 14).] Nor can I help noting, in
+the oversight and muster from this point of view of the words which
+constitute a language, the manner in which its utmost resources have
+been taxed to express the infinite varieties, now of human suffering,
+now of human sin. Thus, what a fearful thing is it that any language
+should possess a word to express the pleasure which men feel at the
+calamities of others; for the existence of the word bears testimony to
+the existence of the thing. And yet such in more languages than one may
+be found. [Footnote: In the Greek, [Greek: epichairekakia], in the
+German, 'schadenfreude.' Cicero so strongly feels the want of such a
+word, that he _gives_ to 'malevolentia' the significance, 'voluptas ex
+malo alterius,' which lies not of necessity in it.] Nor are there
+wanting, I suppose, in any language, words which are the mournful
+record of the strange wickednesses which the genius of man, so fertile
+in evil, has invented. What whole processes of cruelty are sometimes
+wrapped up in a single word! Thus I have not travelled down the first
+column of an Italian dictionary before I light upon the verb
+'abbacinare' meaning to deprive of sight by holding a red-hot metal
+basin close to the eyeballs. Travelling a little further in a Greek
+lexicon, I should reach [Greek: akroteriazein] mutilate by cutting off
+all the extremities, as hands, feet, nose, ears; or take our English
+'to ganch.' And our dictionaries, while they tell us much, cannot tell
+us all. How shamefully rich is everywhere the language of the vulgar in
+words and phrases which, seldom allowed to find their way into books,
+yet live as a sinful oral tradition on the lips of men, for the setting
+forth of things unholy and impure. And of these words, as no less of
+those dealing with the kindred sins of revelling and excess, how many
+set the evil forth with an evident sympathy and approbation of it, and
+as themselves taking part with the sin against Him who has forbidden it
+under pain of his highest displeasure. How much ability, how much wit,
+yes, and how much imagination must have stood in the service of sin,
+before it could possess a nomenclature so rich, so varied, and often so
+heaven-defying, as that which it actually owns.
+
+Then further I would bid you to note the many words which men have
+dragged downward with themselves, and made more or less partakers of
+their own fall. Having once an honourable meaning, they have yet with
+the deterioration and degeneration of those that used them, or of those
+about whom they were used, deteriorated and degenerated too. How many,
+harmless once, have assumed a harmful as their secondary meaning; how
+many worthy have acquired an unworthy. Thus 'knave' meant once no more
+than lad (nor does 'knabe' now in German mean more); 'villain' than
+peasant; a 'boor' was a farmer, a 'varlet' a serving-man, which meaning
+still survives in 'valet,' the other form of this word; [Footnote: Yet
+this itself was an immense fall for the word (see _Amp�re, La Langue
+Fran�aise_, p. 219, and Littr�, _Dict. de la Langue Fran�aise_, preface,
+p. xxv.).] a 'menial' was one of the household; a 'paramour' was a
+lover, an honourable one it might be; a 'leman' in like manner might be
+a lover, and be used of either sex in a good sense; a 'beldam' was a
+fair lady, and is used in this sense by Spenser; [Footnote: _F. Q._ iii.
+2. 43.] a 'minion' was a favourite (man in Sylvester is 'God's dearest
+_minion_'); a 'pedant' in the Italian from which we borrowed the word,
+and for a while too with ourselves, was simply a tutor; a 'proser' was
+one who wrote in prose; an 'adventurer' one who set before himself
+perilous, but very often noble ventures, what the Germans call a
+gl�cksritter; a 'swindler,' in the German from which we got it, one who
+entered into dangerous mercantile speculations, without implying that
+this was done with any intention to defraud others. Christ, according
+to Bishop Hall, was the 'ringleader' of our salvation. 'Time-server'
+two hundred years ago quite as often designated one in an honourable as
+in a dishonourable sense 'serving the time.' [Footnote: See in proof
+Fuller, _Holy State_, b. iii. c. 19.] 'Conceits' had once nothing
+conceited in them. An 'officious' man was one prompt in offices of
+kindness, and not, as now, an uninvited meddler in things that concern
+him not; something indeed of the older meaning still survives in the
+diplomatic use of the word.
+
+'Demure' conveyed no hint, as it does now, of an overdoing of the
+outward demonstrations of modesty; a 'leer' was once a look with
+nothing amiss in it (_Piers Plowman_). 'Daft' was modest or retiring;
+'orgies' were religious ceremonies; the Blessed Virgin speaks of
+herself in an early poem as 'God's wench.' In 'crafty' and 'cunning' no
+_crooked wisdom_ was implied, but only knowledge and skill; 'craft,'
+indeed, still retains very often its more honourable use, a man's
+'craft' being his skill, and then the trade in which he is skilled.
+'Artful' was skilful, and not tricky as now. [Footnote: Not otherwise
+'leichtsinnig' in German meant cheerful once; it is frivolous now;
+while in French a 'rapporteur' is now a bringer back of _malicious_
+reports, the malicious having little by little found its way into the
+word.] Could the Magdalen have ever bequeathed us 'maudlin' in its
+present contemptuous application, if the tears of penitential sorrow
+had been held in due honour by the world? 'Tinsel,' the French
+'etincelle,' meant once anything that sparkled or glistened; thus,
+'cloth of _tinsel_' would be cloth inwrought with silver and gold; but
+the sad experience that 'all is not gold that glitters, that much
+showing fair to the eye is worthless in reality, has caused that by
+'tinsel,' literal or figurative, we ever mean now that which has no
+realities of sterling worth underlying the specious shows which it
+makes. 'Specious' itself, let me note, meant beautiful at one time, and
+not, as now, presenting a deceitful appearance of beauty. 'Tawdry,' an
+epithet applied once to lace or other finery bought at the fair of St.
+Awdrey or St. Etheldreda, has run through the same course: it at one
+time conveyed no suggestion of _mean_ finery or _shabby_ splendour, as
+now it does. 'Voluble' was an epithet which had nothing of slight in it,
+but meant what 'fluent' means now; 'dapper' _was_ what in German
+'tapfer' _is_; not so much neat and spruce as brave and bold;
+'plausible' was worthy of applause; 'pert' is now brisk and lively, but
+with a very distinct subaudition, which once it had not, of sauciness
+as well; 'lewd' meant no more than unlearned, as the lay or common
+people might be supposed to be. [Footnote: Having in mind what 'dirne,'
+connected with 'dienen,' 'dienst,' commonly means now in German, one
+almost shrinks from mentioning that it was once a name of honour which
+could be and was used of the Blessed Virgin Mary (see Grimm,
+_W�rterbuch_, s. v.). 'Schalk' in like manner had no evil subaudition
+in it at the first; nor did it ever obtain such during the time that it
+survived in English; thus in _Sir Gawayne and the Green Knight_, the
+peerless Gawayne is himself on more than one a 'schalk' (424, 1776).
+The word survives in the last syllable of 'seneschal,' and indeed of
+'marshal' as well.] 'To carp' is in Chaucer's language no more than to
+converse; 'to mouth' in _Piers Plowman_ is simply to speak; 'to garble'
+was once to sift and pick out the best; it is now to select and put
+forward as a fair specimen the worst.
+
+This same deterioration through use may be traced in the verb 'to
+resent.' Barrow could speak of the good man as a faithful 'resenter'
+and requiter of benefits, of the duty of testifying an affectionate
+'resentment' of our obligations to God. But the memory of benefits
+fades from us so much more quickly than that of injuries; we remember
+and revolve in our minds so much more predominantly the wrongs, real or
+imaginary, men have done us, than the favours we owe them, that
+'resentment' has come in our modern English to be confined exclusively
+to that deep reflective displeasure which men entertain against those
+that have done, or whom they fancy to have done, them a wrong. And this
+explains how it comes to pass that we do not speak of the 'retaliation'
+of benefits at all so often as the 'retaliation' of injuries. 'To
+retaliate' signifies no more than to render again as much as we have
+received; but this is so much seldomer practised in the matter of
+benefits than of wrongs, that 'retaliation' though not wholly strange
+in this worthier sense, has yet, when so employed, an unusual sound in
+our ears. 'To retaliate' kindnesses is a language which would not now
+be intelligible to all. 'Animosity' as originally employed in that
+later Latin which gave it birth, was spiritedness; men would speak of
+the 'animosity' or fiery courage of a horse. In our early English it
+meant nothing more; a divine of the seventeenth century speaks of 'due
+Christian animosity.' Activity and vigour are still implied in the
+word; but now only as displayed in enmity and hate. There is a Spanish
+proverb which says, 'One foe is too many; a hundred friends are too
+few.' The proverb and the course which this word 'animosity' has
+travelled may be made mutually to illustrate one another. [Footnote: For
+quotations from our earlier authors in proof of many of the assertions
+made in the few last pages, see my _Select Glossary of English Words
+used formerly in senses different from their present_, 5th edit. 1879.]
+
+How mournful a witness for the hard and unrighteous judgments we
+habitually form of one another lies in the word 'prejudice.' It is
+itself absolutely neutral, meaning no more than a judgment formed
+beforehand; which judgment may be favourable, or may be otherwise. Yet
+so predominantly do we form harsh unfavourable judgments of others
+before knowledge and experience, that a 'prejudice' or judgment before
+knowledge and not grounded on evidence, is almost always taken in an
+ill sense; 'prejudicial' having actually acquired mischievous or
+injurious for its secondary meaning.
+
+As these words bear testimony to the _sin_ of man, so others to his
+_infirmity_, to the limitation of human faculties and human knowledge,
+to the truth of the proverb, that 'to err is human.' Thus 'to retract'
+means properly no more than to handle again, to reconsider. And yet, so
+certain are we to find in a subject which we reconsider, or handle a
+second time, that which was at first rashly, imperfectly, inaccurately,
+stated, which needs therefore to be amended, modified, or withdrawn,
+that 'to retract' could not tarry long in its primary meaning of
+reconsidering; but has come to signify to withdraw. Thus the greatest
+Father of the Latin Church, wishing toward the close of his life to
+amend whatever he might then perceive in his various published works
+incautiously or incorrectly stated, gave to the book in which he
+carried out this intention (for authors had then no such opportunities
+as later editions afford us now), this very name of '_Retractations_',
+being literally 'rehandlings,' but in fact, as will be plain to any one
+turning to the work, withdrawings of various statements by which he was
+no longer prepared to abide.
+
+But urging, as I just now did, the degeneration of words, I should
+seriously err, if I failed to remind you that a parallel process of
+purifying and ennobling has also been going forward, most of all
+through the influences of a Divine faith working in the world. This, as
+it has turned _men_ from evil to good, or has lifted them from a lower
+earthly goodness to a higher heavenly, so has it in like manner
+elevated, purified, and ennobled a multitude of the words which they
+employ, until these, which once expressed only an earthly good, express
+now a heavenly. The Gospel of Christ, as it is the redemption of man,
+so is it in a multitude of instances the redemption of his word,
+freeing it from the bondage of corruption, that it should no longer be
+subject to vanity, nor stand any more in the service of sin or of the
+world, but in the service of God and of his truth. Thus the Greek had a
+word for 'humility'; but for him this humility meant--that is, with
+rare exceptions--meanness of spirit. He who brought in the Christian
+grace of humility, did in so doing rescue the term which expressed it
+for nobler uses and a far higher dignity than hitherto it had attained.
+There were 'angels' before heaven had been opened, but these only
+earthly messengers; 'martyrs' also, or witnesses, but these not unto
+blood, nor yet for God's highest truth; 'apostles,' but sent of men;
+'evangels,' but these good tidings of this world, and not of the
+kingdom of heaven; 'advocates,' but not 'with the Father.' 'Paradise'
+was a word common in slightly different forms to almost all the nations
+of the East; but it was for them only some royal park or garden of
+delights; till for the Jew it was exalted to signify the mysterious
+abode of our first parents; while higher honours awaited it still, when
+on the lips of the Lord, it signified the blissful waiting-place of
+faithful departed souls (Luke xxiii. 43); yea, the heavenly blessedness
+itself (Rev. ii. 7). A 'regeneration' or palingenesy, was not unknown
+to the Greeks; they could speak of the earth's 'regeneration' in
+spring-time, of recollection as the 'regeneration' of knowledge; the
+Jewish historian could describe the return of his countrymen from the
+Babylonian Captivity, and their re-establishment in their own land, as
+the 'regeneration' of the Jewish State. But still the word, whether as
+employed by Jew or Greek, was a long way off from that honour reserved
+for it in the Christian dispensation--namely, that it should be the
+vehicle of one of the most blessed mysteries of the faith. [Footnote:
+See my _Synonyms of the N.T._ Section 18.] And many other words in like
+manner there are, 'fetched from the very dregs of paganism,' as
+Sanderson has it (he instances the Latin 'sacrament,' the Greek
+'mystery'), which the Holy Spirit has not refused to employ for the
+setting forth of the glorious facts of our redemption; and, reversing
+the impious deed of Belshazzar, who profaned the sacred vessels of
+God's house to sinful and idolatrous uses (Dan. v. 2), has consecrated
+the very idol-vessels of Babylon to the service of the sanctuary.
+
+Let us now proceed to contemplate some of the attestations to God's
+truth, and then some of the playings into the hands of the devil's
+falsehood, which lurk in words. And first, the attestations to God's
+truth, the fallings in of our words with his unchangeable Word; for
+these, as the true uses of the word, while the other are only its
+abuses, have a prior claim to be considered.
+
+Thus, some modern 'false prophets,' willing to explain away all such
+phenomena of the world around us as declare man to be a sinner, and
+lying under the consequences of sin, would fain have them to believe
+that pain is only a subordinate kind of pleasure, or, at worst, a sort
+of needful hedge and guardian of pleasure. But a deeper feeling in the
+universal heart of man bears witness to quite another explanation of
+the existence of pain in the present economy of the world--namely, that
+it is the correlative of sin, that it is _punishment_; and to this the
+word 'pain,' so closely connected with 'poena,' bears witness.
+[Footnote: Our word _pain_ is actually the same word as the Latin
+_poena_, coming to us through the French _peine_.] Pain _is_
+punishment; for so the word, and so the conscience of every one that is
+suffering it, declares. Some will not hear of great pestilences being
+scourges of the sins of men; and if only they can find out the
+immediate, imagine that they have found out the ultimate, causes of
+these; while yet they have only to speak of a 'plague' and they
+implicitly avouch the very truth which they have set themselves to
+deny; for a 'plague,' what is it but a stroke; so called, because that
+universal conscience of men which is never at fault, has felt and in
+this way confessed it to be such? For here, as in so many other cases,
+that proverb stands fast, 'Vox populi, vox Dei'; and may be admitted to
+the full; that is, if only we keep in mind that this 'people' is not
+the populace either in high place or in low; and this 'voice of the
+people' no momentary outcry, but the consenting testimony of the good
+and wise, of those neither brutalized by ignorance, nor corrupted by a
+false cultivation, in many places and in various times.
+
+To one who admits the truth of this proverb it will be nothing strange
+that men should have agreed to call him a 'miser' or miserable, who
+eagerly scrapes together and painfully hoards the mammon of this world.
+Here too the moral instinct lying deep in all hearts has borne
+testimony to the tormenting nature of this vice, to the gnawing pains
+with which even in this present time it punishes its votaries, to the
+enmity which there is between it and all joy; and the man who enslaves
+himself to his money is proclaimed in our very language to be a
+'miser,' or miserable man. [Footnote: 'Misery' does not any longer
+signify avarice, nor 'miserable' avaricious; but these meanings they
+once possessed (see my _Select Glossary_, s. vv.). In them men said,
+and in 'miser' we still say, in one word what Seneca when he wrote,--
+'Nulla avaritia sine poena est, _quamvis satis sit ipsa poenarum_'--
+took a sentence to say.] Other words bear testimony to great moral
+truths. St. James has, I doubt not, been often charged with
+exaggeration for saying, 'Whosoever shall keep the whole law, and yet
+offend in one point, he is guilty of all' (ii. 10). The charge is an
+unjust one. The Romans with their 'integritas' said as much; we too say
+the same who have adopted 'integrity' as a part of our ethical language.
+For what is 'integrity' but entireness; the 'integrity' of the body
+being, as Cicero explains it, the full possession and the perfect
+soundness of _all_ its members; and moral 'integrity' though it cannot
+be predicated so absolutely of any sinful child of Adam, is this same
+entireness or completeness transferred to things higher. 'Integrity'
+was exactly that which Herod had _not_ attained, when at the Baptist's
+bidding he 'did many things gladly' (Mark vi. 20), but did _not_ put
+away his brother's wife; whose partial obedience therefore profited
+nothing; he had dropped one link in the golden chain of obedience, and
+as a consequence the whole chain fell to the ground.
+
+It is very noticeable, and many have noticed, that the Greek word
+signifying wickedness (_ponaeria_) comes of another signifying labour
+(_ponos_). How well does this agree with those passages in Scripture
+which describe sinners as '_wearying themselves_ to commit iniquity,'
+as '_labouring_ in the very fire'; 'the martyrs of the devil,' as South
+calls them, being at more pains to go to hell than the martyrs of God
+to go to heaven. 'St. Chrysostom's eloquence,' as Bishop Sanderson has
+observed, 'enlarges itself and triumphs in this argument more
+frequently than in almost any other; and he clears it often and beyond
+all exception, both by Scripture and reason, that the life of a wicked
+or worldly man is a very drudgery, infinitely more toilsome, vexatious,
+and unpleasant than a godly life is.' [Footnote: _Sermons_, London,
+1671, vol. ii. p. 244.]
+
+How deep an insight into the failings of the human heart lies at the
+root of many words; and if only we would attend to them, what valuable
+warnings many contain against subtle temptations and sins! Thus, all of
+us have felt the temptation of seeking to please others by an unmanly
+_assenting_ to their opinion, even when our own independent convictions
+did not agree with theirs. The existence of such a temptation, and the
+fact that too many yield to it, are both declared in the Latin for a
+flatterer--'assentator'--that is, 'an assenter'; one who has not
+courage to say _No_, when a _Yes_ is expected from him; and quite
+independently of the Latin, the German, in its contemptuous and
+precisely equivalent use of 'Jaherr,' a 'yea-Lord,' warns us in like
+manner against all such unmanly compliances. Let me note that we also
+once possessed 'assentation' in the sense of unworthy flattering lip-
+assent; the last example of it in our dictionaries is from Bishop Hall:
+'It is a fearful presage of ruin when the prophets conspire in
+assentation;' but it lived on to a far later day, being found and
+exactly in the same sense in Lord Chesterfield's Letters to his son; he
+there speaks of 'abject flattery and indiscriminate
+assentation.' [Footnote: _August_ 10, 1749. [In the _New English
+Dictionary_ a quotation for the word is given as late as 1859. I.
+Taylor, in his _Logic in Theology_, p. 265, says: 'A safer anchorage
+may be found than the shoal of mindless assentation']] The word is well
+worthy to be revived.
+
+Again, how well it is to have that spirit of depreciation, that
+eagerness to find spots and stains in the characters of the noblest and
+the best, who would otherwise oppress and rebuke us with a goodness and
+a greatness so immensely superior to our own,--met and checked by a
+word at once so expressive, and so little pleasant to take home to
+ourselves, as the French 'd�nigreur,' a 'blackener.' This also has
+fallen out of use; which is a pity, seeing that the race which it
+designates is so far from being extinct. Full too of instruction and
+warning is our present employment of 'libertine.' A 'libertine,' in
+earlier use, was a speculative free-thinker in matters of religion and
+in the theory of morals. But as by a process which is seldom missed
+free-_thinking_ does and will end in free-_acting_, he who has cast off
+one yoke also casting off the other, so a 'libertine' came in two or
+three generations to signify a profligate, especially in relation to
+women, a licentious and debauched person. [Footnote: See the author's
+_Select Glossary_ (s.v.)]
+
+Look a little closely at the word 'passion,' We sometimes regard a
+'passionate' man as a man of strong will, and of real, though
+ungoverned, energy. But 'passion' teaches us quite another lesson; for
+it, as a very solemn use of it declares, means properly 'suffering';
+and a 'passionate' man is not one who is doing something, but one
+suffering something to be done to him. When then a man or child is 'in
+a passion,' this is no outcoming in him of a strong will, of a real
+energy, but the proof rather that, for the time at least, he is
+altogether wanting in these; he is _suffering_, not doing; suffering
+his anger, or whatever evil temper it may be, to lord over him without
+control. Let no one then think of 'passion' as a sign of strength. One
+might with as much justice conclude a man strong because he was often
+well beaten; this would prove that a strong man was putting forth his
+strength on him, but certainly not that he was himself strong. The same
+sense of 'passion' and feebleness going together, of the first as the
+outcome of the second, lies, I may remark by the way, in the twofold
+use of 'impotens' in the Latin, which meaning first weak, means then
+violent, and then weak and violent together. For a long time 'impotent'
+and 'impotence' in English embodied the same twofold meaning.
+
+Or meditate on the use of 'humanitas,' and the use (in Scotland at
+least) of the 'humanities,' to designate those studies which are
+esteemed the fittest for training the true humanity in every man.
+[Footnote: [Compare the use of the term _Litterae Humaniores_ in the
+University of Oxford to designate the oldest and most characteristic of
+her examinations or 'Schools.']] We have happily overlived in England
+the time when it was still in debate among us whether education is a
+good thing for every living soul or not; the only question which now
+seriously divides Englishmen being, in what manner that mental and
+moral training, which is society's debt to each one of its members, may
+be most effectually imparted to him. Were it not so, were there any
+still found to affirm that it was good for any man to be left with
+powers not called out and faculties untrained, we might appeal to this
+word 'humanitas,' and the use to which the Roman put it, in proof that
+he at least was not of this mind. By 'humanitas' he intended the
+fullest and most harmonious development of all the truly human
+faculties and powers. Then, and then only, man was truly man, when he
+received this; in so far as he did not receive this, his 'humanity' was
+maimed and imperfect; he fell short of his ideal, of that which he was
+created to be.
+
+In our use of 'talents,' as when we say 'a man of talents,' there is a
+clear recognition of the responsibilities which go along with the
+possession of intellectual gifts and endowments, whatever these may be.
+We owe our later use of 'talent' to the parable (Matt. xxv. 14), in
+which more or fewer of these are committed to the several servants,
+that they may trade with them in their master's absence, and give
+account of their employment at his return. Men may choose to forget the
+ends for which their 'talents' were given them; they may count them
+merely something which they have gotten; [Footnote: An [Greek: hexis],
+as the heathen did, not a [Greek: dorema], as the Christian does; see a
+remarkable passage in Bishop Andrewes' _Sermons_, vol. iii. p. 384.]
+they may turn them to selfish ends; they may glorify themselves in them,
+instead of glorifying the Giver; they may practically deny that they
+were given at all; yet in this word, till they can rid their vocabulary
+of it, abides a continual memento that they were so given, or rather
+lent, and that each man shall have to render an account of their use.
+
+Again, in 'oblige' and 'obligation,' as when we speak of 'being
+obliged,' or of having 'received an obligation,' a moral truth is
+asserted--this namely, that having received a benefit or a favour at
+the hands of another, we are thereby morally _bound_ to show ourselves
+grateful for the same. We cannot be ungrateful without denying not
+merely a moral truth, but one incorporated in the very language which
+we employ. Thus South, in a sermon, _Of the odious Sin of Ingratitude_,
+has well asked, 'If the conferring of a kindness did not _bind_ the
+person upon whom it was conferred to the returns of gratitude, why, in
+the universal dialect of the world, are kindnesses called
+_obligations_?' [Footnote: _Sermons_, London, 1737, vol. i. p. 407.]
+
+Once more--the habit of calling a woman's chastity her 'virtue' is
+significant. I will not deny that it may spring in part from a tendency
+which often meets us in language, to narrow the whole circle of virtues
+to some one upon which peculiar stress is laid; [Footnote: Thus in
+Jewish Greek [Greek: eleaemosnuae] stands often for [Greek: dikaosnuae]
+(Deut. vi. 25; Ps. cii. 6, LXX), or almsgiving for righteousness.] but
+still, in selecting this peculiar one as _the_ 'virtue' of woman, there
+speaks out a true sense that this is indeed for her the citadel of the
+whole moral being, the overthrow of which is the overthrow of all; that
+it is the keystone of the arch, which being withdrawn, the whole
+collapses and falls.
+
+Or consider all which is witnessed for us in 'kind.' We speak of a
+'kind' person, and we speak of man-'kind,' and perhaps, if we think
+about the matter at all, fancy that we are using quite different words,
+or the same words in senses quite unconnected. But they are connected,
+and by closest bonds; a 'kind' person is one who acknowledges his
+kinship with other men, and acts upon it; confesses that he owes to
+them, as of one blood with himself, the debt of love. [Footnote: Thus
+Hamlet does much more than merely play on words when he calls his
+father's brother, who had married his mother, 'A little more than _kin_,
+and less than _kind_.' [For the relation between _kind_ (the adj.) and
+_kind_ ('nature,' the sb.) see Skeat's Dict.]] Beautiful before, how
+much more beautiful do 'kind' and 'kindness' appear, when we apprehend
+the root out of which they grow, and the truth which they embody; that
+they are the acknowledgment in loving deeds of our kinship with our
+brethren; of the relationship which exists between all the members of
+the human family, and of the obligations growing out of the same.
+
+But I observed just now that there are also words bearing on them the
+slime of the serpent's trail; uses, too, of words which imply moral
+perversity--not upon their parts who employ them now in their acquired
+senses, but on theirs from whom little by little they received their
+deflection, and were warped from their original rectitude. A 'prude' is
+now a woman with an over-done affectation of a modesty which she does
+not really feel, and betraying the absence of the substance by this
+over-preciseness and niceness about the shadow. Goodness must have gone
+strangely out of fashion, the corruption of manners must have been
+profound, before matters could have come to this point. 'Prude,' a
+French word, means properly virtuous or prudent. [Footnote: [Compare
+French _prude_, on the etymology of which see Schelar's _French Dict._,
+ed. 3 (1888)].] But where morals are greatly and generally relaxed,
+virtue is treated as hypocrisy; and thus, in a dissolute age, and one
+incredulous of any inward purity, by the 'prude' or virtuous woman is
+intended a sort of female Tartuffe, affecting a virtue which it is
+taken for granted none can really possess; and the word abides, a proof
+of the world's disbelief in the realities of goodness, of its
+resolution to treat them as hypocrisies and deceits.
+
+Again, why should 'simple' be used slightingly, and 'simpleton' more
+slightingly still? The 'simple' is one properly of a single fold;
+[Footnote: [Latin _simplicem_; for Lat. _sim-_, _sin-_= Greek [Greek:
+ha] in [Greek: ha-pax], see Brugmann, _Grundriss_, Section 238, Curtius,
+_Greek Etym._ No. 599.]] a Nathanael, whom as such Christ honoured to
+the highest (John i. 47); and, indeed, what honour can be higher than
+to have nothing _double_ about us, to be without _duplicities_ or
+folds? Even the world, which despises 'simplicity,' does not profess to
+admire 'duplicity,' or double-foldedness. But inasmuch as it is felt
+that a man without these folds will in a world like ours make himself a
+prey, and as most men, if obliged to choose between deceiving and being
+deceived, would choose the former, it has come to pass that 'simple'
+which in a kingdom of righteousness would be a world of highest honour,
+carries with it in this world of ours something of contempt. [Footnote:
+'Schlecht,' which in modern German means bad, good for nothing, once
+meant good,--good, that is, in the sense of right or straight, but has
+passed through the same stages to the meaning which it now possesses,
+'albern' has done the same (Max M�ller, _Science of Language_, 2nd
+series, p. 274).] Nor can we help noting another involuntary testimony
+borne by human language to human sin. I mean this,--that an idiot, or
+one otherwise deficient in intellect, is called an 'innocent' or one
+who does no hurt; this use of 'innocent' assuming that to do hurt and
+harm is the chief employment to which men turn their intellectual
+powers, that, where they are wise, they are oftenest wise to do evil.
+
+Nor are these isolated examples of the contemptuous use which words
+expressive of goodness gradually acquire. Such meet us on every side.
+Our 'silly' is the Old-English 'saelig' or blessed. We see it in a
+transition state in our early poets, with whom 'silly' is an
+affectionate epithet which sheep obtain for their harmlessness. One
+among our earliest calls the newborn Lord of Glory Himself, 'this
+harmless _silly_ babe,' But 'silly' has travelled on the same lines as
+'simple,' 'innocent,' and so many other words. The same moral
+phenomenon repeats itself continually. Thus 'sheepish' in the _Ormulum_
+is an epithet of honour: it is used of one who has the mind of Him who
+was led as a sheep to the slaughter. At the first promulgation of the
+Christian faith, while the name of its Divine Founder was still strange
+to the ears of the heathen, they were wont, some in ignorance, but more
+of malice, slightly to mispronounce this name, turning 'Christus' into
+'Chrestus'--that is, the benevolent or benign. That these last meant no
+honour thereby to the Lord of Life, but the contrary, is certain; this
+word, like 'silly,' 'innocent,' 'simple,' having already contracted a
+slight tinge of contempt, without which there would have been no
+inducement to fasten it on the Saviour. The French have their
+'bonhomie' with the same undertone of contempt, the Greeks their
+[Greek: eyetheia]. Lady Shiel tells us of the modern Persians, 'They
+have odd names for describing the moral qualities; "Sedakat" means
+sincerity, honesty, candour; but when a man is said to be possessed of
+"sedakat," the meaning is that he is a credulous, contemptible
+simpleton.' [Footnote: _Life and Manners in Persia_, p. 247.] It is to
+the honour of the Latin tongue, and very characteristic of the best
+aspects of Roman life, that 'simplex' and 'simplicitas' never acquired
+this abusive signification.
+
+Again, how prone are we all to ascribe to chance or fortune those gifts
+and blessings which indeed come directly from God--to build altars to
+Fortune rather than to Him who is the author of every good thing which
+we have gotten. And this faith of men, that their blessings, even their
+highest, come to them by a blind chance, they have incorporated in a
+word; for 'happy' and 'happiness' are connected with 'hap,' which is
+chance;--how unworthy, then, to express any true felicity, whose very
+essence is that it excludes hap or chance, that the world neither gave
+nor can take it away. [Footnote: The heathen with their [Greek:
+eudaimonia], inadequate as this word must be allowed to be, put _us_
+here to shame.] Against a similar misuse of 'fortunate,' 'unfortunate,'
+Wordsworth very nobly protests, when, of one who, having lost
+everything else, had yet kept the truth, he exclaims:
+
+     'Call not the royal Swede _unfortunate_,
+      Who never did to _Fortune_ bend the knee.'
+
+There are words which reveal a wrong or insufficient estimate that men
+take of their duties, or that at all events others have taken before
+them; for it is possible that the mischief may have been done long ago,
+and those who now use the words may only have inherited it from others,
+not helped to bring it about themselves. An employer of labour
+advertises that he wants so many 'hands'; but this language never could
+have become current, a man could never have thus shrunk into a 'hand'
+in the eyes of his fellow-man, unless this latter had in good part
+forgotten that, annexed to those hands which he would purchase to toil
+for him, were also heads and hearts [Footnote: A similar use of [Greek:
+somata] for slaves in Greek rested originally on the same forgetfulness
+of the moral worth of every man. It has found its way into the
+Septuagint and Apocrypha (Gen. xxxvi. 6; 2 Macc. viii. 11; Tob. x. 10);
+and occurs once in the New Testament (Rev. xviii. 13). [In Gen. xxxvi.
+6 the [Greek: somata] of the Septuagint is a rendering of the Hebrew
+_nafsh�th_, souls, so Luther translates 'Seelen.']]--a fact, by the way,
+of which, if he persists in forgetting it, he may be reminded in very
+unwelcome ways at the last. In Scripture there is another not
+unfrequent putting of a part for the whole, as when it is said, 'The
+same day there were added unto them about three thousand _souls_' (Acts
+ii. 41). 'Hands' here, 'souls' there--the contrast may suggest some
+profitable reflections.
+
+There is another way in which the immorality of words mainly displays
+itself, and in which they work their worst mischief; that is, when
+honourable names are given to dishonourable things, when sin is made
+plausible; arrayed, it may be, in the very colours of goodness, or, if
+not so, yet in such as go far to conceal its own native deformity. 'The
+tongue,' as St. James has said, 'is a _world_ of iniquity' (iii. 7); or,
+as some would render his words, and they are then still more to our
+purpose, '_the ornament_ of iniquity,' that which sets it out in fair
+and attractive colours.
+
+How much wholesomer on all accounts is it that there should be an ugly
+word for an ugly thing, one involving moral condemnation and disgust,
+even at the expense of a little coarseness, rather than one which plays
+fast and loose with the eternal principles of morality, makes sin
+plausible, and shifts the divinely reared landmarks of right and wrong,
+thus bringing the user of it under the woe of them 'that call evil good,
+and good evil, that put darkness for light, and light for darkness,
+that put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter' (Isai. v. 20). On this
+text, and with reference to this scheme, South has written four of his
+grandest sermons, bearing this striking title, _Of the fatal Imposture
+and Force of Words_. [Footnote: _Sermons_, 1737, vol. ii. pp. 313-351;
+vol. vi. pp. 3-120. Thus on those who pleaded that their 'honour' was
+engaged, and that therefore they could not go back from this or that
+sinful act:--'Honour is indeed a noble thing, and therefore the word
+which signifies it must needs be very plausible. But as a rich and
+glistening garment may be cast over a rotten body, so an illustrious
+commanding word may be put upon a vile and an ugly thing--for words are
+but the garments, the loose garments of things, and so may easily be
+put off and on according to the humour of him who bestows them. But the
+body changes not, though the garments do.'] How awful, yea how fearful,
+is this 'imposture and force' of theirs, leading men captive at will.
+There is an atmosphere about them which they are evermore diffusing, a
+savour of life or of death, which we insensibly inhale at each moral
+breath we draw. [Footnote: Bacon's words have often been quoted, but
+they will bear being quoted once more: Credunt enim homines rationem
+suam verbis imperare. Sed fit etiam ut verba vim suam super intellectum
+retorqueant et reflectant.] 'Winds of the soul,' as we have already
+heard them called, they fill its sails, and are continually impelling
+it upon its course, to heaven or to hell.
+
+Thus how different the light in which we shall have learned to regard a
+sin, according as we have been wont to designate it, and to hear it
+designated, by a word which brings out its loathsomeness and deformity;
+or by one which palliates this and conceals; men, as one said of old,
+being wont for the most part to be ashamed not of base deeds but of
+base names affixed to those deeds. In the murder trials at Dublin, 1883,
+those destined to the assassin's knife were spoken of by approvers as
+persons to be removed, and their death constantly described as their
+'removal.' In Sussex it is never said of a man that he is drunk. He may
+be 'tight,' or 'primed,' or 'crank,' or 'concerned in liquor,' nay, it
+may even be admitted that he had taken as much liquor as was good for
+him; but that he was drunk, oh never. [Footnote: 'Pransus' and 'potus,'
+in like manner, as every Latin scholar knows, mean much more than they
+say.] Fair words for foul things are everywhere only too frequent; thus
+in 'drug-damned Italy,' when poisoning was the rifest, nobody was said
+to be poisoned; it was only that the death of this one or of that had
+been 'assisted' (aiutata). Worse still are words which seek to turn the
+edge of the divine threatenings against some sin by a jest; as when in
+France a subtle poison, by whose aid impatient heirs delivered
+themselves from those who stood between them and the inheritance which
+they coveted, was called 'poudre de succession.' We might suppose
+beforehand that such cloaks for sin would be only found among people in
+an advanced state of artificial cultivation. But it is not so. Captain
+Erskine, who visited the Fiji Islands before England had taken them
+into her keeping, and who gives some extraordinary details of the
+extent to which cannibalism then prevailed among their inhabitants,
+pork and human flesh being their two staple articles of food, relates
+in his deeply interesting record of his voyage that natural pig they
+called '_short_ pig,' and man dressed and prepared for food, '_long_
+pig.' There was doubtless an attempt here to carry off with a jest the
+revolting character of the practice in which they indulged. For that
+they were themselves aware of this, that their consciences did bear
+witness against it, was attested by their uniform desire to conceal, if
+possible, all traces of the practice from European eyes.
+
+But worst, perhaps, of all are names which throw a flimsy veil of
+sentiment over some sin. What a source, for example, of mischief
+without end in our country parishes is the one practice of calling a
+child born out of wedlock a 'love-child,' instead of a bastard. It
+would be hard to estimate how much it has lowered the tone and standard
+of morality among us; or for how many young women it may have helped to
+make the downward way more sloping still. How vigorously ought we to
+oppose ourselves to all such immoralities of language. This opposition,
+it is true, will never be easy or pleasant; for many who will endure to
+commit a sin, will profoundly resent having that sin called by its
+right name. Pirates, as Aristotle tells us, in his time called
+themselves 'purveyors.' [Footnote: _Rhet_. iii. 2: [Greek: oi laestai
+autous poriotas kalousi nun.]] Buccaneers, men of the same bloody
+trade, were by their own account 'brethren of the coast.' Shakespeare's
+thieves are only true to human nature, when they name themselves 'St.
+Nicholas' clerks,' 'michers,' 'nuthooks,' 'minions of the moon,'
+anything in short but thieves; when they claim for their stealing that
+it shall not be so named, but only conveying ('convey the wise it
+call'); the same dislike to look an ugly fact in the face reappearing
+among the voters in some of our corrupter boroughs, who receive, not
+bribes--they are hugely indignant if this is imputed to them--but
+'head-money' for their votes. Shakespeare indeed has said that a rose
+by any other name would smell as sweet; but there are some things which
+are not roses, and which are counted to smell a great deal sweeter
+being called by any other name than their own. Thus, to deal again with
+bribes, call a bribe 'palm oil,' or a 'pot de vin,' and how much of its
+ugliness disappears. Far more moral words are the English 'sharper' and
+'blackleg' than the French 'chevalier d'industrie': [Footnote: For the
+rise of this phrase, see Lemontey, _Louis XIV_. p. 43.] and the same
+holds good of the English equivalent, coarse as it is, for the Latin
+'conciliatrix.' In this last word we have a notable example of the
+putting of sweet for bitter, of the attempt to present a disgraceful
+occupation on an amiable, almost a sentimental side, rather than in its
+own proper deformity. [Footnote: This tendency of men to throw the
+mantle of an honourable word over a dishonourable thing, or, vice versa,
+to degrade an honourable thing, when they do not love it, by a
+dishonourable appellation, has in Greek a word to describe it, [Greek:
+hypokorizesthai], itself a word with an interesting history; while the
+great ethical teachers of Greece frequently occupy themselves in
+detecting and denouncing this most mischievous among all the impostures
+of words. Thus, when Thucydides (iii. 82) would paint the fearful moral
+ruin which her great Civil War had wrought, he adduces this alteration
+of the received value of words, this fitting of false names to
+everything--names of honour to the base, and of baseness to the
+honourable--as one of the most remarkable tokens of this, even as it
+again set forward the evil, of which it had been first the result.] Use
+and custom soon dim our eyes in such matters as these; else we should
+be deeply struck by a familiar instance of this falsehood in names, one
+which perhaps has never struck us at all--I mean the profane
+appropriation of 'eau de vie' (water of life), a name borrowed from
+some of the Saviour's most precious promises (John iv. 14; Rev. xxii.
+17), to a drink which the untutored savage with a truer instinct has
+named 'fire-water'; which, sad to say, is known in Tahiti as 'British
+water'; and which has proved for thousands and tens of thousands, in
+every clime, not 'water of life,' but the fruitful source of disease,
+crime, and madness, bringing forth first these, and when these are
+finished, bringing forth death. There is a blasphemous irony in this
+appropriation of the language of heaven to that which, not indeed in
+its use, but too frequent abuse, is the instrument of hell, that is
+almost without a parallel. [Footnote: Milton in a profoundly
+instructive letter, addressed by him to one of the friends whom he made
+during his Italian tour, encourages him in those philological studies
+to which he had devoted his life by such words as these: Neque enim qui
+sermo, purusne an corruptus, quaeve loquendi proprietas quotidiana
+populo sit, parvi interesse arbitrandum est, quae res Athenis non semel
+saluti fuit; immo vero, quod Platonis sententia est, immutato vestiendi
+more habituque graves in Republica motus mutationesque portendi,
+equidem potius collabente in vitium atque errorem loquendi usu occasum
+ejus urbis remque humilem et obscuram subsequi crediderim: verba enim
+partim inscita et putida, partim mendosa et perperam prolata, quid si
+ignavos et oscitantes et ad servile quidvis jam olim paratos incolarum
+animos haud levi indicio declarant? Contra nullum unquam audivimus
+imperium, nullam civitatem non mediocriter saltern floruisse, quamdiu
+linguae sua gratia, suusque cultus constitit. Compare an interesting
+Epistle (the 114th) of Seneca.] If I wanted any further evidence of
+this, the moral atmosphere which words diffuse, I would ask you to
+observe how the first thing men do, when engaged in controversy with
+others, be it in the conflict of the tongue or the pen, or of weapons
+more wounding yet, if such there be, is ever to assume some honourable
+name to themselves, such as, if possible, shall beg the whole subject
+in dispute, and at the same time to affix on their adversaries a name
+which shall place them in a ridiculous or contemptible or odious
+light. [Footnote: See p. 33.] A deep instinct, deeper perhaps than men
+give any account of to themselves, tells them how far this will go;
+that multitudes, utterly unable to weigh the arguments on one side or
+the other, will yet be receptive of the influences which these words
+are evermore, however imperceptibly, diffusing. By argument they might
+hope to gain over the reason of a few, but by help of these nicknames
+they enlist what at first are so much more potent, the prejudices and
+passions of the many, on their side. Thus when at the breaking out of
+our Civil War the Parliamentary party styled _themselves_ 'The Godly,'
+while to the Royalists they gave the title of 'The Malignants,' it is
+certain that, wherever they could procure entrance and allowance for
+these terms, the question upon whose side the right lay was already
+decided. The Royalists, it is true, made exactly the same employment of
+what Bentham used to call question-begging words, of words steeped
+quite as deeply in the passions which animated _them_. It was much when
+at Florence the 'Bad Boys,' as they defiantly called themselves, were
+able to affix on the followers of Savonarola the title of Piagnoni or
+The Snivellers. So, too, the Franciscans, when they nicknamed the
+Dominicans 'Maculists,' as denying, or at all events refusing to affirm
+as a matter of faith, that the Blessed Virgin was conceived without
+stain (sine macula), perfectly knew that this title would do much to
+put their rivals in an odious light. The copperhead in America is a
+peculiarly venomous snake. Something effectual was done when this name
+was fastened, as it lately was, by one party in America on its
+political opponents. Not otherwise, in some of our northern towns, the
+workmen who refuse to join a trade union are styled 'knobsticks,'
+'crawlers,' 'scabs,' 'blacklegs.' Nor can there be any question of the
+potent influence which these nicknames of contempt and scorn exert.
+[Footnote: [See interesting chapter on Political Nicknames in
+D'Israeli's _Curiosities of Literature_.]]
+
+Seeing, then, that language contains so faithful a record of the good
+and of the evil which in time past have been working in the minds and
+hearts of men, we shall not err, if we regard it as a moral barometer
+indicating and permanently marking the rise or fall of a nation's life.
+To study a people's language will be to study _them_, and to study them
+at best advantage; there, where they present themselves to us under
+fewest disguises, most nearly as they are. Too many have had a hand in
+the language as it now is, and in bringing it to the shape in which we
+find it, it is too entirely the collective work of a whole people, the
+result of the united contributions of all, it obeys too immutable laws,
+to allow any successful tampering with it, any making of it to witness
+to any other than the actual facts of the case. [Footnote: Terrien
+Poncel, _Du Langage_, p. 231: Les langues sont faites � l'usage des
+peuples qui les parlent; elles sont anim�es chacune d'un esprit
+diff�rent, et suivent un mode particulier d'action, conforme � leur
+principe. 'L'esprit d'une nation et le caract�re de sa langue, a �crit
+G. de Humboldt, 'sont si intimement li�s ensemble, que si l'un �tait
+donn�, l'autre devrait pouvoir s'en d�duire exactement.' La langue
+n'est autre chose que la manifestation ext�rieure de l'esprit des
+peuples; leur langue est leur esprit, et leur esprit est leur langue,
+de telle sorte qu'en dev�loppant et perfectionnant l'un, ils
+d�veloppent et perfectionnent n�cessairement l'autre. And a recent
+German writer has well said, Die Sprache, das selbstgewebte Kleid der
+Vorstellung, in welchem jeder Faden wieder eine Vorstellung ist, kann
+uns, richtig betrachtet, offenbaren, welche Vorstellungen die
+Grundfaden bildeten (Gerber, _Die Sprache als Kunst_).] Thus the
+frivolity of an age or nation, its mockery of itself, its inability to
+comprehend the true dignity and meaning of life, the feebleness of its
+moral indignation against evil, all this will find an utterance in the
+employment of solemn and earnest words in senses comparatively trivial
+or even ridiculous. 'Gehenna,' that word of such terrible significance
+on the lips of our Lord, has in French issued in 'g�ne,' and in this
+shape expresses no more than a slight and petty annoyance. 'Ennui'
+meant once something very different from what now it means. [Footnote:
+_Ennui_ is derived from the Late Latin phrase _in odio esse_.] Littr�
+gives as its original signification, 'anguish of soul, caused by the
+death of persons beloved, by their absence, by the shipwreck of hopes,
+by any misfortunes whatever.' 'Honn�tet�,' which should mean that
+virtue of all virtues, honesty, and which did mean it once, standing as
+it does now for external civility and for nothing more, marks a
+willingness to accept the slighter observances and pleasant courtesies
+of society in the room of deeper moral qualities. 'V�rit�' is at this
+day so worn out, has been used so often where another and very
+different word would have been more appropriate, that not seldom a
+Frenchman at this present who would fain convince us of the truth of
+his communication finds it convenient to assure us that it is 'la vraie
+v�rit�.' Neither is it well that words, which ought to have been
+reserved for the highest mysteries of the spiritual life, should be
+squandered on slight and secular objects,--'spirituel' itself is an
+example in point,--or that words implying once the deepest moral guilt,
+as is the case with 'perfide,' 'malice,' 'malin,' in French, should be
+employed now almost in honour, applied in jest and in play.
+
+Often a people's use of some single word will afford us a deeper
+insight into their real condition, their habits of thought and feeling,
+than whole volumes written expressly with the intention of imparting
+this insight. Thus 'idiot,' a Greek word, is abundantly characteristic
+of Greek life. The 'idiot,' or [Greek: idiotas], was originally the
+_private_ man, as contradistinguished from one clothed with office, and
+taking his share in the management of public affairs. In this its
+primary sense it was often used in the English of the seventeenth
+century; as when Jeremy Taylor says, 'Humility is a duty in great ones,
+as well as in _idiots_.' It came then to signify a rude, ignorant,
+unskilled, intellectually unexercised person, a boor; this derived or
+secondary sense bearing witness to a conviction woven deep into the
+Greek mind that contact with public life, and more or less of
+participation in it, was indispensable even to the right development of
+the intellect, [Footnote: Hare, _Mission of the Comforter_, p. 552.] a
+conviction which would scarcely have uttered itself with greater
+clearness than it does in this secondary use of 'idiot.' Our tertiary,
+in which the 'idiot' is one deficient in intellect, not merely with
+intellectual powers unexercised, is only this secondary pushed a little
+farther. Once more, how wonderfully characteristic of the Greek mind it
+is that the language should have one and the same word ([Greek: kalos]),
+to express the beautiful and the good--goodness being thus contemplated
+as the highest beauty; while over against this stands another word
+([Greek: aischros]) used alike for the ugly to look at and for the
+morally bad. Again, the innermost differences between the Greek and the
+Hebrew reveal themselves in the several salutations of each, in the
+'Rejoice' of the first, as contrasted with the 'Peace' of the second.
+The clear, cheerful, world-enjoying temper of the Greek embodies itself
+in the first; he could desire nothing better or higher for himself, nor
+wish it for his friend, than to have _joy_ in his life. But the Hebrew
+had a deeper longing within him, and one which finds utterance in his
+'Peace.' It is not hard to perceive why this latter people should have
+been chosen as the first bearers of that truth which indeed enables
+truly to _rejoice_, but only through first bringing _peace_; nor why
+from them the word of life should first go forth. It may be urged,
+indeed, that these were only forms, and such they may have at length
+become; as in our 'good-by' or 'adieu' we can hardly be said now to
+commit our friend to the Divine protection; yet still they were not
+forms at the beginning, nor would they have held their ground, if ever
+they had become such altogether.
+
+How much, again, will be sometimes involved in the gradual disuse of
+one name, and the coming up of another in its room. Thus, little as the
+fact, and the moral significance of the fact, may have been noticed at
+the time, what an epoch was it in the history of the Papacy, and with
+what distinctness marking a more thorough secularizing of its whole
+tone and spirit, when '_Ecclesia_ Romana,' the official title by which
+it was wont at an earlier day to designate itself, gave place to the
+later title, '_Curia_ Romana,' the Roman _Church_ making room for the
+Roman _Court_. [Footnote: See on this matter _The Pope and the Council_,
+by Janus, p. 215.] The modifications of meaning which a word has
+undergone as it had been transplanted from one soil to another, so that
+one nation borrowing it from another, has brought into it some force
+foreign to it before, has deepened, or extenuated, or otherwise
+modified its meaning,--this may reveal to us, as perhaps nothing else
+would, fundamental diversities of character existing between them. The
+word in Greek exactly corresponding to our 'self-sufficient' is one of
+honour, and was applied to men in their praise. And indeed it was the
+glory of the heathen philosophy to teach man to find his resources in
+his own bosom, to be thus sufficient for himself; and seeing that a
+true centre without him and above him, a centre in God, had not been
+revealed to him, it was no shame for him to seek it there; far better
+this than to have no centre at all. But the Gospel has taught us
+another lesson, to find our sufficiency in God: and thus 'self-
+sufficient,' to the Greek suggesting no lack of modesty, of humility,
+or of any good thing, at once suggests such to us. 'Self-sufficiency'
+no man desires now to be attributed to him. The word carries for us its
+own condemnation; and its different uses, for honour once, for reproach
+now, do in fact ground themselves on the innermost differences between
+the religious condition of the world before Christ and after.
+
+It was not well with Italy, she might fill the world with exquisite
+specimens of her skill in the arts, with pictures and statues of rarest
+loveliness, but all higher national life was wanting to her during
+those centuries in which she degraded 'virtuoso,' or the virtuous man,
+to signify one skilled in the appreciation of painting, music, and
+sculpture; for these, the ornamental fringe of a people's life, can
+never, without loss of all manliness of character, be its main texture
+and woof--not to say that excellence in them has been too often
+dissociated from all true virtue and moral worth. The opposite
+exaggeration of the Romans, for whom 'virtus' meant predominantly
+warlike courage, the truest 'manliness' of men, was more tolerable than
+this; for there is a sense in which a man's 'valour' is his value, is
+the measure of his worth; seeing that no virtue can exist among men who
+have not learned, in Milton's glorious phrase,' to hate the cowardice
+of doing wrong.' [Footnote: It did not escape Plutarch, imperfect Latin
+scholar as he was, that 'virtus' far more nearly corresponded to
+[Greek: andreia] than to [Greek: arete] (_Coriol. I_)] It could not but
+be morally ill with a people among whom 'morbidezza' was used as an
+epithet of praise, expressive of a beauty which on the score of its
+sickly softness demanded to be admired. There was too sure a witness
+here for the decay of moral strength and health, when these could not
+merely be dissevered from beauty, but implicitly put in opposition to
+it. Nor less must it have fared ill with Italians, there was little joy
+and little pride which they could have felt in their country, at a time
+when 'pellegrino,' meaning properly the strange or the foreign, came to
+be of itself a word of praise, and equivalent to beautiful. [Footnote:
+Compare Florio's Ital. Diet.: 'pelegrino, excellent, noble, rare,
+pregnant, singular and choice.'] Far better the pride and assumption
+of that ancient people who called all things and persons beyond their
+own pale barbarous and barbarians; far better our own 'outlandish,'
+used with something of the same contempt. There may be a certain
+intolerance in our use of these; yet this how much healthier than so
+far to have fallen out of conceit with one's own country, so far to
+affect things foreign, that these last, merely on the strength of being
+foreign, commend themselves as beautiful in our sight. How little,
+again, the Italians, until quite later years, can have lived in the
+spirit of their ancient worthies, or reverenced the most illustrious
+among these, we may argue from the fact that they should have endured
+so far to degrade the name of one among their noblest, that every glib
+and loquacious hireling who shows strangers about their picture-
+galleries, palaces, and ruins, is called 'cicerone,' or a Cicero! It is
+unfortunate that terms like these, having once sprung up, are not again,
+or are not easily again, got rid of. They remain, testifying to an
+ignoble past, and in some sort helping to maintain it, long after the
+temper and tone of mind that produced them has passed away. [Footnote:
+See on this matter Marsh, _On the English Language_, New York, 1860, p.
+224.]
+
+Happily it is nearly impossible for us in England to understand the
+mingled scorn, hatred, fear, suspicion, contempt, which in time past
+were associated with the word 'sbirri' in Italian. [Footnote: [Compare
+V. Hugo's allusion to Louis Napoleon in the _Ch�timents_:
+
+     'Qui pour la mettre en croix livra,
+     _Sbire_ cruel!
+     Rome r�publicaine � Rome catholique!']]
+
+These 'sbirri' were the humble, but with all this the acknowledged,
+ministers of justice; while yet everything which is mean and false and
+oppressive, which can make the name of justice hateful, was implied in
+this title of theirs, was associated with their name. There is no surer
+sign of a bad oppressive rule, than when the titles of the
+administrators of law, titles which should be in themselves so
+honourable, thus acquire a hateful undermeaning. What a world of
+concussions, chicane and fraud, must have found place, before tax-
+gatherer, or exciseman, 'publican,' as in our English Bible, could
+become a word steeped in hatred and scorn, as alike for Greek and Jew
+it was; while, on the other hand, however unwelcome the visits of the
+one or the interference of the other may be to us, yet the sense of the
+entire fairness and justice with which their exactions are made,
+acquits these names for us of the slightest sense of dishonour.
+'Policeman' has no evil subaudition with us; though in the last century,
+when a Jonathan Wild was possible, 'catchpole,' a word in Wiclif's time
+of no dishonour at all, was abundantly tinged with this scorn and
+contempt. So too, if at this day any accidental profits fall or
+'escheat' to the Crown, they are levied with so much fairness and more
+than fairness to the subject, that, were not the thing already
+accomplished, 'escheat' would never yield 'cheat,' nor 'escheator'
+'cheater,' as through the extortions and injustices for which these
+dues were formerly a pretext, they actually have done.
+
+It is worse, as marking that a still holier sanctuary than that of
+civil government has become profane in men's sight, when words which
+express sacred functions and offices become redolent of scorn. How
+thankful we may be that in England we have no equivalent to the German
+'Pfaffe,' which, identical with 'papa' and 'pope,' and a name given at
+first to any priest, now carries with it the insinuation of almost
+every unworthiness in the forms of meanness, servility, and avarice
+which can render the priest's office and person base and contemptible.
+
+Much may be learned by noting the words which nations have been obliged
+to borrow from other nations, as not having the same of home-growth--
+this in most cases, if not in all, testifying that the thing itself was
+not native, but an exotic, transplanted, like the word that indicated
+it, from a foreign soil. Thus it is singularly characteristic of the
+social and political life of England, as distinguished from that of the
+other European nations, that to it alone the word 'club' belongs;
+France and Germany, having been alike unable to grow a word of their
+own, have borrowed ours. That England should have been the birthplace
+of 'club' is nothing wonderful; for these voluntary associations of men
+for the furthering of such social or political ends as are near to the
+hearts of the associates could have only had their rise under such
+favourable circumstances as ours. In no country where there was not
+extreme personal freedom could they have sprung up; and as little in
+any where men did not know how to use this freedom with moderation and
+self-restraint, could they long have been endured. It was comparatively
+easy to adopt the word; but the ill success of the 'club' itself
+everywhere save here where it is native, has shown that it was not so
+easy to transplant or, having transplanted, to acclimatize the thing.
+While we have lent this and other words, political and industrial for
+the most part, to the French and Germans, it would not be less
+instructive, if time allowed, to trace our corresponding obligations to
+them.
+
+And scarcely less significant and instructive than the presence of a
+word in a language, will be occasionally its absence. Thus Fronto, a
+Greek orator in Roman times, finds evidence of an absence of strong
+family affection on the part of the Romans in the absence of any word
+in the Latin language corresponding to the Greek [Greek: philostorgos]
+How curious, from the same point of view, are the conclusions which
+Cicero in his high Roman fashion draws from the absence of any word in
+the Greek answering to the Latin 'ineptus'; not from this concluding,
+as we might have anticipated, that the character designated by the word
+was wanting, but rather that the fault was so common, so universal with
+the Greeks, that they failed to recognize it as a fault at all.
+[Footnote: _De Orat_. ii. 4: Quem enim nos _ineptum_ vocamus, is mihi
+videtur ab hoc nomen habere ductum, quod non sit aptus. Idque in
+sermonis nostri consuetudine perlate patet. Nam qui aut tempus quid
+postulet, non videt, aut plura loquitur, aut se ostentat, aut eorum
+quibuscum est vel dignitatis vel commodi rationem non habet, aut
+denique in aliquo genere aut inconcinnus aut multus est, is ineptus
+esse dicitur. Hoc vitio cumulata est eruditissima illa Graecorum natio.
+Itaque quod vim hujus mali Graeci non vident, ne nomen quidem ei vitio
+imposuerunt. Ut enim quasras omnia, quomodo Graeci ineptum appellent,
+non invenies.] Very instructive you may find it to note these words,
+which one people possess, but to which others have nothing to
+correspond, so that they have no choice but to borrow these, or else to
+go without altogether. Here are some French words for which it would
+not be easy, nay, in most cases it would be impossible, to find exact
+equivalents in English or in German, or probably in any language:
+'aplomb,' 'badinage,' 'born�,' 'chic,' 'chicane,' 'cossu,' 'coterie,'
+'�garement,' '�lan,' 'espi�glerie,' 'etourderie,' 'friponnerie,'
+'gentil,' 'ing�nue,' 'liaison,' 'malice,' 'parvenu,' 'persiflage,'
+'pr�venant,' 'ruse,' 'tournure,' 'tracasserie,' 'verve.' It is evident
+that the words just named have to do with shades of thought which are
+to a great extent unfamiliar to us; for which, at any rate, we have not
+found a name, have hardly felt that they needed one. But fine and
+subtle as in many instances are the thoughts which these words embody,
+there are deeper thoughts struggling in the bosom of a people, who have
+devised for themselves such words as the following: 'gem�th,'
+'heimweh,' 'innigkeit,' 'sehnsucht,' 'tiefsinn,' 'sittsamkeit,'
+'verh�ngniss,' 'weltschmerz,' 'zucht'; all these being German words
+which, in a similar manner, partially or wholly fail to find their
+equivalents in French.
+
+The petty spite which unhappily so often reigns between nations
+dwelling side by side with one another, as it embodies itself in many
+shapes, so it finds vent in the words which they borrow from one
+another, and the use to which they put them. Thus the French, borrowing
+'habl�r' from the Spaniards, with whom it means simply to speak, give
+it in 'h�bler' the sense of to brag; the Spaniards paying them off in
+exactly their own coin, for of 'parler' which in like manner is but to
+speak in French, they make 'parl�r,' which means to prate, to chat.
+[Footnote: See Darmesteter, _The Life of Words_, Eng. ed. p. 100.]
+
+But it is time to bring this lecture to an end. These illustrations, to
+which it would be easy to add more, justify all that has been asserted
+of a moral element existing in words; so that they do not hold
+themselves neutral in that great conflict between good and evil, light
+and darkness, which is dividing the world; that they are not satisfied
+to be passionless vehicles, now of the truth, and now of lies. We see,
+on the contrary, that they continually take their side, are some of
+them children of light, others children of this world, or even of
+darkness; they beat with the pulses of our life; they stir with our
+passions; we clothe them with light; we steep them in scorn; they
+receive from us the impressions of our good and of our evil, which
+again they are most active still further to propagate and diffuse.
+[Footnote: Two or three examples of what we have been affirming, drawn
+from the Latin, may fitly here find place. Thus Cicero (_Tusc_. iii. 7)
+laments of 'confidens' that it should have acquired an evil
+signification, and come to mean bold, over-confident in oneself, unduly
+pushing (compare Virgil,_Georg_. iv. 444), a meaning which little by
+little had been superinduced on the word, but etymologically was not
+inherent in it at all. In the same way 'latro,' having left two earlier
+meanings behind, one of these current so late as in Virgil (_Aen_. xii.
+7), settles down at last in the meaning of robber. Not otherwise
+'facinus' begins with being simply a fact or act, something done; but
+ends with being some act of outrageous wickedness. 'Pronuba' starts
+with meaning a bridesmaid it ignobly ends with suggesting a procuress.]
+Must we not own then that there is a wondrous and mysterious world, of
+which we may hitherto have taken too little account, around us and
+about us? Is there not something very solemn and very awful in wielding
+such an instrument as this of language is, with such power to wound or
+to heal, to kill or to make alive? and may not a deeper meaning than
+hitherto we have attached to it, lie in that saying, 'By thy words thou
+shalt be justified, and by thy words thou shalt be condemned'?
+
+
+
+
+LECTURE IV.
+
+ON THE HISTORY IN WORDS.
+
+
+Language, being ever in flux and flow, and, for nations to which
+letters are still strange, existing only for the ear and as a sound, we
+might beforehand expect would prove the least trustworthy of all
+vehicles whereby the knowledge of the past has reached our present;
+that one which would most certainly betray its charge. In actual fact
+it has not proved so at all. It is the main, oftentimes the only,
+connecting link between the two, an ark riding above the water-floods
+that have swept away or submerged every other landmark and memorial of
+bygone ages and vanished generations of men. Far beyond all written
+records in a language, the language itself stretches back, and offers
+itself for our investigation--'the pedigree of nations,' as Johnson
+calls it [Footnote: This statement of his must be taken with a certain
+amount of qualification. It is not always that races are true to the
+end to their language; external forces are sometimes too strong. Thus
+Celtic disappeared before Latin in Gaul and Spain. Slavonic became
+extinct in Prussia two centuries ago, German taking its room; the
+negroes of Hayti speak French, and various American tribes have
+exchanged their own idioms for Spanish and Portuguese. See upon this
+matter Sayce's _Principles of Comparative Philology_, pp. 175-181.]--
+itself in its own independent existence a far older and at the same
+time a far more instructive document than any book, inscription, or
+other writing which employs it. The written records may have been
+falsified by carelessness, by vanity, by fraud, by a multitude of
+causes; but language never deceives, if only we know how to question it
+aright.
+
+Such investigations as these, it is true, lie plainly out of your
+sphere. Not so, however, those humbler yet not less interesting
+inquiries, which by the aid of any tolerable dictionary you may carry
+on into the past history of your own land, as attested by the present
+language of its people. You know how the geologist is able from the
+different strata and deposits, primary, secondary, or tertiary,
+succeeding one another, which he meets, to arrive at a knowledge of the
+successive physical changes through which a region has passed; is, so
+to say, in a condition to preside at those past changes, to measure the
+forces that were at work to produce them, and almost to indicate their
+date. Now with such a language as the English before us, bearing as it
+does the marks and footprints of great revolutions profoundly impressed
+upon it, we may carry on moral and historical researches precisely
+analogous to his. Here too are strata and deposits, not of gravel and
+chalk, sandstone and limestone, but of Celtic, Latin, Low German,
+Danish, Norman words, and then once more Latin and French, with
+slighter intrusions from many other quarters: and any one with skill to
+analyse the language might, up to a certain point, re-create for
+himself the history of the people speaking that language, might with
+tolerable accuracy appreciate the diverse elements out of which that
+people was made up, in what proportion these were mingled, and in what
+succession they followed, one upon the other.
+
+Would he trace, for example, the relation in which the English and
+Norman occupants of this land stood to one another? An account of this,
+in the main as accurate as it would be certainly instructive, might be
+drawn from an intelligent study of the contributions which they have
+severally made to the English language, as bequeathed to us jointly by
+them both. Supposing all other records to have perished, we might still
+work out and almost reconstruct the history by these aids; even as now,
+when so many documents, so many institutions survive, this must still
+be accounted the most important, and that of which the study will
+introduce us, as no other can, into the innermost heart and life of
+large periods of our history.
+
+Nor, indeed, is it hard to see why the language must contain such
+instruction as this, when we a little realize to ourselves the stages
+by which it has reached us in its present shape. There was a time when
+the languages which the English and the Norman severally spoke, existed
+each by the side of, but un-mingled with, the other; one, that of the
+small dominant class, the other that of the great body of the people.
+By degrees, however, with the reconciliation and partial fusion of the
+two races, the two languages effected a transaction; one indeed
+prevailed over the other, but at the same time received a multitude of
+the words of that other into its own bosom. At once there would exist
+duplicates for many things. But as in popular speech two words will not
+long exist side by side to designate the same thing, it became a
+question how the relative claims of the English and Norman word should
+adjust themselves, which should remain, which should be dropped; or, if
+not dropped, should be transferred to some other object, or express
+some other relation. It is not of course meant that this was ever
+formally proposed, or as something to be settled by agreement; but
+practically one was to be taken and one left. Which was it that should
+maintain its ground? Evidently, where a word was often on the lips of
+one race, its equivalent seldom on those of the other, where it
+intimately cohered with the whole manner of life of one, was only
+remotely in contact with that of the other, where it laid strong hold
+on one, and only slight on the other, the issue could not be doubtful.
+In several cases the matter was simpler still: it was not that one word
+expelled the other, or that rival claims had to be adjusted; but that
+there never had existed more than one word, the thing which that word
+noted having been quite strange to the other section of the nation.
+
+Here is the explanation of the assertion made just now--namely, that we
+might almost reconstruct our history, so far as it turns upon the
+Norman Conquest, by an analysis of our present language, a mustering of
+its words in groups, and a close observation of the nature and
+character of those which the two races have severally contributed to it.
+Thus we should confidently conclude that the Norman was the ruling race,
+from the noticeable fact that all the words of dignity, state, honour,
+and pre-eminence, with one remarkable exception (to be adduced
+presently), descend to us from them--'sovereign,' 'sceptre,' 'throne,'
+'realm,' 'royalty,' 'homage,' 'prince,' 'duke,' 'count,' ('earl' indeed
+is Scandinavian, though he must borrow his 'countess' from the Norman),
+'chancellor,' 'treasurer,' 'palace,' 'castle,' 'dome,' and a multitude
+more. At the same time the one remarkable exception of 'king' would
+make us, even did we know nothing of the actual facts, suspect that the
+chieftain of this ruling race came in not upon a new title, not as
+overthrowing a former dynasty, but claiming to be in the rightful line
+of its succession; that the true continuity of the nation had not, in
+fact any more than in word, been entirely broken, but survived, in due
+time to assert itself anew.
+
+And yet, while the statelier superstructure of the language, almost all
+articles of luxury, all having to do with the chase, with chivalry,
+with personal adornment, are Norman throughout; with the broad basis of
+the language, and therefore of the life, it is otherwise. The great
+features of nature, sun, moon, and stars, earth, water, and fire; the
+divisions of time; three out of the four seasons, spring, summer, and
+winter; the features of natural scenery, the words used in earliest
+childhood, the simpler emotions of the mind; all the prime social
+relations, father, mother, husband, wife, son, daughter, brother,
+sister,--these are of native growth and un-borrowed. 'Palace' and
+'castle' may have reached us from the Norman, but to the Saxon we owe
+far dearer names, the 'house,' the 'roof,' the 'home,' the 'hearth.'
+His 'board' too, and often probably it was no more, has a more
+hospitable sound than the 'table' of his lord. His sturdy arms turn the
+soil; he is the 'boor,' the 'hind,' the 'churl'; or if his Norman
+master has a name for him, it is one which on his lips becomes more and
+more a title of opprobrium and contempt, the 'villain.' The instruments
+used in cultivating the earth, the 'plough,' the 'share,' the 'rake,'
+the 'scythe,' the 'harrow,' the 'wain,' the 'sickle,' the 'spade,' the
+'sheaf,' the 'barn,' are expressed in his language; so too the main
+products of the earth, as wheat, rye, oats, bere, grass, flax, hay,
+straw, weeds; and no less the names of domestic animals. You will
+remember, no doubt, how in the matter of these Wamba, the Saxon jester
+in _Ivanhoe_, plays the philologer, [Footnote: Wallis, in his _Grammar_,
+p. 20, had done so before.] having noted that the names of almost all
+animals, so long as they are alive, are Saxon, but when dressed and
+prepared for food become Norman--a fact, he would intimate, not very
+wonderful; for the Saxon hind had the charge and labour of tending and
+feeding them, but only that they might appear on the table of his
+Norman lord. Thus 'ox,' 'steer,' 'cow,' are Saxon, but 'beef' Norman;
+'calf' is Saxon, but 'veal' Norman; 'sheep' is Saxon, but 'mutton'
+Norman: so it is severally with 'swine' and 'pork,' 'deer' and
+'venison,' 'fowl' and 'pullet.' 'Bacon,' the only flesh which perhaps
+ever came within the hind's reach, is the single exception. Putting all
+this together, with much more of the same kind, which has only been
+indicated here, we should certainly gather, that while there are
+manifest tokens preserved in our language of the Saxon having been for
+a season an inferior and even an oppressed race, the stable elements of
+English life, however overlaid for a while, had still made good their
+claim to be the solid groundwork of the after nation as of the after
+language; and to the justice of this conclusion all other historic
+records, and the present social condition of England, consent in
+bearing witness.
+
+Then again, who could doubt, even if the fact were not historically
+attested, that the Arabs were the arithmeticians, the astronomers, the
+chemists, the merchants of the Middle Ages, when he had once noted that
+from them we have gotten these words and so many others like them-
+'alchemy,' 'alcohol,' 'alembic,' 'algebra,' 'alkali,' 'almanack,'
+'azimuth,' 'cypher,' 'elixir,' 'magazine,' 'nadir,' 'tariff,' 'zenith,'
+'zero '?--for if one or two of these were originally Greek, they
+reached us through the Arabic, and with tokens of their transit
+cleaving to them. In like manner, even though history were silent on
+the matter, we might conclude, and we know that we should rightly
+conclude, that the origins of the monastic system are to be sought in
+the Greek and not in the Latin branch of the Church, seeing that with
+hardly an exception the words expressing the constituent elements of
+the system, as 'anchorite,' 'archimandrite,' 'ascetic,' 'cenobite,'
+'hermit,' 'monastery,' 'monk,' are Greek and not Latin.
+
+But the study of words will throw rays of light upon a past infinitely
+more remote than any which I have suggested here, will reveal to us
+secrets of the past, which else must have been lost to us for ever.
+Thus it must be a question of profound interest for as many as count
+the study of man to be far above every other study, to ascertain what
+point of culture that Indo-European race of which we come, the _stirps
+generosa et historica_ of the world, as Coleridge has called it, had
+attained, while it was dwelling still as one family in its common home.
+No voices of history, the very faintest voices of tradition, reach us
+from ages so far removed from our own. But in the silence of all other
+voices there is one voice which makes itself heard, and which can tell
+us much. Where Indian, and Greek, and Latin, and Teutonic designate
+some object by the same word, and where it can be clearly shown that
+they did not, at a later day, borrow that word one from the other, the
+object, we may confidently conclude, must have been familiar to the
+Indo-European race, while yet these several groups of it dwelt as one
+undivided family together. Now they have such common words for the
+chief domestic animals--for ox, for sheep, for horse, for dog, for
+goose, and for many more. From this we have a right to gather that
+before the migrations began, they had overlived and outgrown the
+fishing and hunting stages of existence, and entered on the pastoral.
+They have _not_ all the same words for the main products of the earth,
+as for corn, wheat, barley, wine; it is tolerably evident therefore
+that they had not entered on the agricultural stage. So too from the
+absence of names in common for the principal metals, we have a right to
+argue that they had not arrived at a knowledge of the working of these.
+
+On the other hand, identical names for dress, for house, for door, for
+garden, for numbers as far as a hundred, for the primary relations of
+the family, as father, mother, brother, sister, son, daughter, for the
+Godhead, testify that the common stock, intellectual and moral, was not
+small which they severally took with them when they went their way,
+each to set up for itself and work out its own destinies in its own
+appointed region of the earth. [Footnote: See Brugmann, _Grundriss der
+vergleichenden Grammatik der indogermanischen Sprachen_ (1886), Section
+2.] This common stock may, indeed, have been much larger than these
+investigations declare; for a word, once common to all these languages,
+may have survived only in one; or possibly may have perished in all.
+Larger it may very well, but poorer it cannot, have been. [Footnote:
+Ozanam (_Les Germains avant le Christianisme_, p. 155): Dans le
+vocabulaire d'une langue on a tout le spectacle d'une civilisation. On
+y voit ce qu'un peuple sait des choses invisibles, si les notions de
+Dieu, de l'�me, du devoir, sont assez pures chez lui pour ne souffrir
+que des termes exacts. On mesure la puissance de ses institutions par
+le nombre et la propri�t� des termes qu'elles veulent pour leur
+service; la liturgie a ses paroles sacramentelles, la proc�dure a ses
+formules. Enfin, si ce peuple a �tudi� la nature, il faut voir � quel
+point il en a p�n�tr� les secrets, par quelle vari�t� d'expressions,
+par quels sons flatteurs ou �nergiques, il a cherch� � d�crire les
+divers aspects du ciel et de la terre, � faire, pour ainsi dire,
+l'inventaire des richesses temporelles dont il dispose.]
+
+This is one way in which words, by their presence or their absence, may
+teach us history which else we now can never know. I pass to other ways.
+
+There are vast harvests of historic lore garnered often in single
+words; important facts which they at once proclaim and preserve; these
+too such as sometimes have survived nowhere else but in them. How much
+history lies in the word 'church.' I see no sufficient reason to
+dissent from those who derive it from the Greek [Greek: kyriakae],
+'that which pertains to the Lord,' or 'the house which is the Lord's.'
+It is true that a difficulty meets us at the threshold here. How
+explain the presence of a Greek word in the vocabulary of our Teutonic
+forefathers? for that _we_ do not derive it immediately from the Greek,
+is certain. What contact, direct or indirect, between the languages
+will account for this? The explanation is curious. While Angles, Saxons,
+and other tribes of the Teutonic stock were almost universally
+converted through contact with the Latin Church in the western
+provinces of the Roman Empire, or by its missionaries, some Goths on
+the Lower Danube had been brought at an earlier date to the knowledge
+of Christ by Greek missionaries from Constantinople; and this [Greek:
+kyriakae] or 'church,' did, with certain other words, pass over from
+the Greek to the Gothic tongue; these Goths, the first converted and
+the first therefore with a Christian vocabulary, lending the word in
+their turn to the other German tribes, to our Anglo-Saxon forefathers
+among the rest; and by this circuit it has come round from
+Constantinople to us. [Footnote: The passage most illustrative of the
+parentage of the word is from Walafrid Strabo (about A.D. 840): Ab
+ipsis autem Graecis Kyrch � Kyrios, et alia multa accepimus. Sicut
+domus Dei Basilica, i.e. Regia � Rege, sic etiam Kyrica, i.e. Dominica
+� Domino, nuncupatur. Si autem quaeritur, qu� occasione ad nos vestigia
+haec graecitatis advenerint, dicendum praecipu� � Gothis, qui et Getae,
+c�m eo tempore, quo ad fidem Christi perducti sunt, in Graecorum
+provinciis commorantes, nostrum, i.e. theotiscum sermonem habuerint. Cf.
+Rudolf von Raumer, _Einwirkung des Christenthums auf die
+Althochdeutsche Sprache_, p. 288; Niedner, _Kirch. Geschichte_, p. 2.
+[It may, however, be as well to remark that no trace of the Greek
+[Greek: kyriakae] occurs in the literary remains of the Gothic language
+which have come down to us; the Gothic Christians borrowed [Greek:
+ekklaesia], as the Latin and Celtic Christians did.]]
+
+Or again, interrogate 'pagan' and 'paganism,' and you will find
+important history in them. You are aware that 'pagani,' derived from
+'pagus,' a village, had at first no religious significance, but
+designated the dwellers in hamlets and villages as distinguished from
+the inhabitants of towns and cities. It was, indeed, often applied to
+_all_ civilians as contradistinguished from the military caste; and
+this fact may have had a certain influence, when the idea of the
+faithful as soldiers of Christ was strongly realized in the minds of
+men. But it was mainly in the following way that it grew to be a name
+for those alien from the faith of Christ. The Church fixed itself first
+in the seats and centres of intelligence, in the towns and cities of
+the Roman Empire; in them its earliest triumphs were won; while, long
+after these had accepted the truth, heathen superstitions and
+idolatries lingered on in the obscure hamlets and villages; so that
+'pagans' or villagers, came to be applied to _all_ the remaining
+votaries of the old and decayed superstitions, although not all, but
+only most of them, were such. In an edict of the Emperor Valentinian,
+of date A.D. 368, 'pagan' first assumes this secondary meaning.
+'Heathen' has run a course curiously similar. When the Christian faith
+first found its way into Germany, it was the wild dwellers on the
+_heaths_ who were the slowest to accept it, the last probably whom it
+reached. One hardly expects an etymology in _Piers Plowman_; but this
+is there:
+
+     '_Hethene_ is to mene after _heth_,
+      And untiled erthe.'
+          B. 15, 451, Skeat's ed. (Clarendon Press).
+
+Here, then, are two instructive notices--one, the historic fact that
+the Church of Christ planted itself first in the haunts of learning and
+intelligence; another, morally more significant, that it did not shun
+discussion, feared not to encounter the wit and wisdom of this world,
+or to expose its claims to the searching examination of educated men;
+but, on the contrary, had its claims first recognized by them, and in
+the great cities of the world won first a complete triumph over all
+opposing powers. [Footnote: There is a good note on 'pagan' in Gibbon's
+_Decline and Fall_, c. 21, at the end; and in Grimm's _Deutsche Mythol_.
+p. 1198; and the history of the changes in the word's use is well
+traced in another interest by Mill, _Logic_, vol. ii. p. 271.]
+
+I quoted in my first lecture the saying of one who, magnifying the
+advantage to be derived from such studies as ours, did not fear to
+affirm that oftentimes more might be learned from the history of a word
+than from the history of a campaign. Thus follow some Latin word,.
+'imperator' for example; as Dean Merivale has followed it in his
+_History of the Romans_, [Footnote: Vol. iii. pp. 441-452.] and you will
+own as much. But there is no need to look abroad. Words of our own out
+of number, such as 'barbarous,' 'benefice,' 'clerk,' 'common-sense,'
+'romance,' 'sacrament,' 'sophist,' [Footnote: For a history of
+'sophist' see Sir Alexander Grant's _Ethics of Aristotle_, 2nd ed. vol.
+i. p. 106, sqq.] would prove the truth of the assertion. Let us take
+'sacrament'; its history, while it carries us far, will yet carry us by
+ways full of instruction; and these not the less instructive, while we
+restrict our inquiries to the external history of the word. We find
+ourselves first among the forms of Roman law. The 'sacramentum' appears
+there as the deposit or pledge, which in certain suits plaintiff and
+defendant were alike bound to make, and whereby they engaged themselves
+to one another; the loser of the suit forfeiting his pledge to sacred
+temple uses, from which fact the name 'sacramentum,' or thing
+consecrated, was first derived. The word, as next employed, plants us
+amidst the military affairs of Rome, designating the military oath by
+which the Roman soldiers mutually engaged themselves at the first
+enlisting never to desert their standards, or turn their backs upon the
+enemy, or abandon their general,--this employment teaching us the
+sacredness which the Romans attached to their military engagements, and
+going far to account for their victories. The word was then transferred
+from this military oath to any solemn oath whatsoever. These three
+stages 'sacramentum' had already passed through, before the Church
+claimed it for her own, or indeed herself existed at all. Her early
+writers, out of a sense of the sacredness and solemnity of the oath,
+transferred this name to almost any act of special solemnity or
+sanctity, above all to such mysteries as intended more than met eye or
+ear. For them the Incarnation was a 'sacrament,' the lifting up of the
+brazen serpent was a 'sacrament,' the giving of the manna, and many
+things more. It is well to be acquainted with this phase of the word's
+history, depriving as it does of all convincing power those passages
+quoted by Roman Catholic controversialists from early church-writers in
+proof of their seven sacraments. It is quite true that these may have
+called marriage a 'sacrament' and confirmation a 'sacrament,' and we
+may reach the Roman seven without difficulty; but then they called many
+things more, which even the theologians of Rome do not include in the
+'sacraments' properly so called, by the same name; and this evidence,
+proving too much, in fact proves nothing at all. One other stage in the
+word's history remains; its limitation, namely, to the two
+'sacraments,' properly so called, of the Christian Church. A
+reminiscence of the employment of 'sacrament,' an employment which
+still survived, to signify the plighted troth of the Roman soldier to
+his captain and commander, was that which had most to do with the
+transfer of the word to Baptism; wherein we, with more than one
+allusion to this oath of theirs, pledge ourselves to fight manfully
+under Christ's banner, and to continue his faithful soldiers and
+servants to our life's end; while the _mysterious_ character of the
+Holy Eucharist was mainly that which earned for it this name.
+
+We have already found history imbedded in the word 'frank'; but I must
+bring forward the Franks again, to account for the fact with which we
+are all familiar, that in the East not Frenchmen alone, but _all_
+Europeans, are so called. Why, it may be asked, should this be? This
+wide use of 'Frank' dates from the Crusades; Michaud, the chief French
+historian of these, finding evidence here that his countrymen took a
+decided lead, as their gallantry well fitted them to do, in these
+romantic enterprises of the Middle Ages; impressed themselves so
+strongly on the imagination of the East as _the_ crusading nation of
+Europe, that their name was extended to all the warriors of Christendom.
+He is not here snatching for them more than the honour which is justly
+theirs. A very large proportion of the noblest Crusaders, from Godfrey
+of Bouillon to St. Lewis, as of others who did most to bring these
+enterprises about, as Pope Urban II., as St. Bernard, were French, and
+thus gave, in a way sufficiently easy to explain, an appellation to all.
+[Footnote: See Fuller, _Holy War_, b. i. c. 13.]
+
+To the Crusades also, and to the intense hatred which they roused
+throughout Christendom against the Mahomedan infidels, we owe
+'miscreant,' as designating one to whom the vilest principles and
+practices are ascribed. A 'miscreant,' at the first, meant simply a
+misbeliever. The name would have been applied as freely, and with as
+little sense of injustice, to the royal-hearted Saladin as to the
+vilest wretch that fought in his armies. By degrees, however, those who
+employed it tinged it more and more with their feeling and passion,
+more and more lost sight of its primary use, until they used it of any
+whom they regarded with feelings of abhorrence, such as those which
+they entertained for an infidel; just as 'Samaritan' was employed by
+the Jews simply as a term of reproach, and with no thought whether he
+on whom it was fastened was in fact one of that detested race or not;
+where indeed they were quite sure that he was not (John viii. 48).
+'Assassin' also, an Arabic word whose story you will find no difficulty
+in obtaining,--you may read it in Gibbon, [Footnote: Decline and Fall, c.
+64.]--connects itself with a romantic chapter in the history of the
+Crusades.
+
+Various explanations of 'cardinal' have been proposed, which should
+account for the appropriation of this name to the parochial clergy of
+the city of Rome with the subordinate bishops of that diocese. This
+appropriation is an outgrowth, and a standing testimony, of the
+measureless assumptions of the Roman See. One of the favourite
+comparisons by which that See was wont to set out its relation of
+superiority to all other Churches of Christendom was this; it was the
+hinge, or 'cardo,' on which all the rest of the Church, as the door, at
+once depended and turned. It followed presently upon this that the
+clergy of Rome were 'cardinales,' as nearest to, and most closely
+connected with, him who was thus the hinge, or 'cardo,' of all.
+[Footnote: Thus a letter professing to be of Pope Anacletus the First
+in the first century, but really belonging to the ninth: Apostolica
+Sedes _cardo_ et caput omnium Ecclesiarum a Domino est constituta; et
+sicut _cardine_ ostium regitur, sic hujus S. Sedis auctoritate omnes
+Ecclesiae reguntur. And we have 'cardinal' put in relation with this
+'cardo' in a genuine letter of Pope Leo IX.: Clerici summae Sedis
+_Cardinales_ dicuntur, _cardini_ utique illi quo cetera moventur,
+vicinius adhaerentes.]
+
+'Legend' is a word with an instructive history. We all have some notion
+of what at this day a 'legend' means. It is a tale which is _not_ true,
+which, however historic in form, is not historic in fact, claims no
+serious belief for itself. It was quite otherwise once. By this name of
+'legends' the annual commemorations of the faith and patience of God's
+saints in persecution and death were originally called; these legends
+in this title which they bore proclaiming that they were worthy to be
+read, and from this worthiness deriving their name. At a later day, as
+corruptions spread through the Church, these 'legends' grew, in
+Hooker's words, 'to be nothing else but heaps of frivolous and
+scandalous vanities,' having been 'even with disdain thrown out, the
+very nests which bred them abhorring them.' How steeped in falsehood,
+and to what an extent, according to Luther's indignant turn of the word,
+the 'legends' (legende) must have become 'lyings' (l�gende), we can
+best guess, when we measure the moral forces which must have been at
+work, before that which was accepted at the first as 'worthy to be
+read,' should have been felt by this very name to announce itself as
+most unworthy, as belonging at best to the region of fable, if not to
+that of actual untruth.
+
+An inquiry into the pedigree of 'dunce' lays open to us an important
+page in the intellectual history of Europe. Certain theologians in the
+Middle Ages were termed Schoolmen; having been formed and trained in
+the cloister and cathedral _schools_ which Charlemagne and his
+immediate successors had founded. These were men not to be lightly
+spoken of, as they often are by those who never read a line of their
+works, and have not a thousandth part of their wit; who moreover little
+guess how many of the most familiar words which they employ, or
+misemploy, have descended to them from these. 'Real,' 'virtual,'
+'entity,' 'nonentity,' 'equivocation,' 'objective,' 'subjective,' with
+many more unknown to classical Latin, but now almost necessities to us,
+were first coined by the Schoolmen; and, passing over from them into
+the speech of others more or less interested in their speculations,
+have gradually filtered through the successive strata of society, till
+now some of them have reached to quite the lowest. At the Revival of
+Learning, however, their works fell out of favour: they were not
+written in classical Latin: the forms into which their speculations
+were thrown were often unattractive; it was mainly in their authority
+that the Roman Church found support for her perilled dogmas. On all
+these accounts it was esteemed a mark of intellectual progress to have
+broken with them, and thrown off their yoke. Some, however, still clung
+to these Schoolmen, and to one in particular, John _Duns_ Scotus, the
+most illustrious teacher of the Franciscan Order. Thus it came to pass
+that many times an adherent of the old learning would seek to
+strengthen his position by an appeal to its famous doctor, familiarly
+called Duns; while those of the new learning would contemptuously
+rejoin, 'Oh, you are a _Dunsman_' or more briefly, 'You are a _Duns_,'
+--or, 'This is a piece of _duncery_'; and inasmuch as the new learning
+was ever enlisting more and more of the genius and scholarship of the
+age on its side, the title became more and more a term of scorn.
+'Remember ye not,' says Tyndal, 'how within this thirty years and far
+less, the old barking curs, _Dunce's_ disciples, and like draff called
+Scotists, the children of darkness, raged in every pulpit against Greek,
+Latin, and Hebrew?' And thus from that conflict long ago extinct
+between the old and the new learning, that strife between the medieval
+and the modern theology, we inherit 'dunce' and 'duncery.' The lot of
+Duns, it must be confessed, has been a hard one, who, whatever his
+merits as a teacher of Christian truth, was assuredly one of the
+keenest and most subtle-witted of men. He, the 'subtle Doctor' by pre-
+eminence, for so his admirers called him, 'the wittiest of the school-
+divines,' as Hooker does not scruple to style him, could scarcely have
+anticipated, and did not at all deserve, that his name should be turned
+into a by-word for invincible stupidity.
+
+This is but one example of the singular fortune waiting upon words. We
+have another of a parallel injustice, in the use which 'mammetry,' a
+contraction of 'Mahometry,' obtained in our early English. Mahomedanism
+being the most prominent form of false religion with which our
+ancestors came in contact, 'mammetry' was used, up to and beyond the
+Reformation, to designate first any false religion, and then the
+worship of idols; idolatry being proper to, and a leading feature of,
+most of the false religions of the world. Men did not pause to remember
+that Mahomedanism is the great exception, being as it is a protest
+against all idol-worship whatsoever; so that it was a signal injustice
+to call an idol a 'mawmet' or a Mahomet, and idolatry 'mammetry.'
+
+A misnomer such as this may remind us of the immense importance of
+possessing such names for things as shall not involve or suggest an
+error. We have already seen this in the province of the moral life; but
+in other regions also it nearly concerns us. Resuming, as words do, the
+past, shaping the future, how important it is that significant facts or
+tendencies in the world's history should receive their right names. It
+is a corrupting of the very springs and sources of knowledge, when we
+bind up not a truth, but an error, in the very nomenclature which we
+use. It is the putting of an obstacle in the way, which, however
+imperceptibly, is yet ever at work, hindering any right apprehension of
+the thing which has been thus erroneously noted.
+
+Out of a sense of this, an eminent German scholar of the last century,
+writing _On the Influence of Opinions on Language_, did not stop here,
+nor make this the entire title of his book, but added another and
+further clause--_and on the Influence of Language on Opinions_;
+[Footnote: _Von dem Einfluss der Meinungen in die Sprache, und der
+Sprache in die Meinungen_, von J, D. Micha�lis, Berlin, 1760.] the
+matter which fulfils the promise of this latter clause constituting by
+far the most interesting and original portion of his work: for while
+the influence of opinions on words is so little called in question,
+that the assertion of it sounds almost like a truism, this, on the
+contrary, of words on opinions, would doubtless present itself as a
+novelty to many. And yet it is an influence which has been powerfully
+felt in every region of human knowledge, in science, in art, in morals,
+in theology. The reactive energy of words, not merely on the passions
+of men (for that of course), but on their opinions calmly and
+deliberately formed, would furnish a very curious chapter in the
+history of human knowledge and human ignorance.
+
+Sometimes words with no fault of theirs, for they did not originally
+involve any error, will yet draw some error in their train; and of that
+error will afterwards prove the most effectual bulwark and shield. Let
+me instance--the author just referred to supplies the example--the word
+'crystal.' The strange notion concerning the origin of the thing,
+current among the natural philosophers of antiquity, and which only two
+centuries ago Sir Thomas Browne thought it worth while to place first
+and foremost among the _Vulgar Errors_ that he undertook to refute, was
+plainly traceable to a confusion occasioned by the name. Crystal, as
+men supposed, was ice or snow which had undergone such a process of
+induration as wholly and for ever to have lost its fluidity: [Footnote:
+Augustine: Quid est crystallum? Nix est glacie durata per multos annos,
+ita ut a sole vel igne facile dissolvi non possit. So too in Beaumont
+and Fletcher's tragedy of _Valentinian_, a chaste matron is said to be
+'cold as crystal _never to be thawed again_.'] and Pliny, backing up
+one mistake by another, affirmed that it was only found in regions of
+extreme cold. The fact is, that the Greek word for crystal originally
+signified ice; but after a while was also imparted to that diaphanous
+quartz which has so much the look of ice, and which alone _we_ call by
+this name; and then in a little while it was taken for granted that the
+two, having the same name, were in fact the same substance; and this
+mistake it took ages to correct.
+
+Natural history abounds in legends. In the word 'leopard' one of these
+has been permanently bound up; the error, having first given birth to
+the name, being afterwards itself maintained and propagated by it. The
+leopard, as is well known, was not for the Greek and Latin zoologists a
+species by itself, but a mongrel birth of the male panther or pard and
+the lioness; and in 'leopard' or 'lion-pard' this fabled double descent
+is expressed. [Footnote: This error lasted into modern times; thus
+Fuller (_A Pisgah Sight of Palestine_, vol. i. p. 195): 'Leopards and
+mules are properly no creatures.'] 'Cockatrice' embodies a somewhat
+similar fable; the fable however in this case having been invented to
+account for the name. [Footnote: See Wright, _The Bible Word Book_, s.
+v. [The word _cockatrice_ is a corrupt form of Late Latin _cocodrillus_,
+which again is a corruption of Latin _crocodilus_, Gr. [Greek:
+krokodeilos], a crocodile.]]
+
+It was Eichhorn who first suggested the calling of a certain group of
+languages, which stand in a marked contradistinction to the Indo-
+European or Aryan family, by the common name of 'Semitic.' A word which
+should include all these was wanting, and this one was handy and has
+made its fortune; at the same time implying, as 'Semitic' does, that
+these are all languages spoken by races which are descended from Shem,
+it is eminently calculated to mislead. There are non-Semitic races, the
+Phoenicians for example, which have spoken a Semitic language; there
+are Semitic races which have not spoken one. Against 'Indo-European'
+the same objection may be urged; seeing that several languages are
+European, that is, spoken within the limits of Europe, as the Maltese,
+the Finnish, the Hungarian, the Basque, the Turkish, which lie
+altogether outside of this group.
+
+'Gothic' is plainly a misnomer, and has often proved a misleader as
+well, when applied to a style of architecture which belongs not to one,
+but to all the Germanic tribes; which, moreover, did not come into
+existence till many centuries after any people called Goths had ceased
+from the earth. Those, indeed, who first called this medieval
+architecture 'Gothic,' had no intention of ascribing to the Goths the
+first invention of it, however this language may seem now to bind up in
+itself an assertion of the kind. 'Gothic' was at first a mere random
+name of contempt. The Goths, with the Vandals, being the standing
+representatives of the rude in manners and barbarous in taste, the
+critics who would fain throw scorn on this architecture as compared
+with that classical Italian which alone seemed worthy of their
+admiration, [Footnote: The name, as the designation of a style of
+architecture, came to us from Italy. Thus Fuller in his _Worthies_:
+'Let the Italians deride our English and condemn them for _Gothish_
+buildings.' See too a very curious expression of men's sentiments about
+Gothic architecture as simply equivalent to barbarous, in Phillips's
+_New World of Words_, 1706, s.v. 'Gothick.'] called it 'Gothic,'
+meaning rude and barbarous thereby. We who recognize in this Gothic
+architecture the most wondrous and consummate birth of genius in one
+region of art, find it hard to believe that this was once a mere title
+of slight and scorn, and sometimes wrongly assume a reference in the
+word to the people among whom first it arose.
+
+'Classical' and 'romantic,' names given to opposing schools of
+literature and art, contain an absurd antithesis; and either say
+nothing at all, or say something erroneous. 'Revival of Learning' is a
+phrase only partially true when applied to that mighty intellectual
+movement in Western Europe which marked the fifteenth century and the
+beginning of the sixteenth. A revival there might be, and indeed there
+was, of _Greek_ learning at that time; but there could not be properly
+affirmed a revival of Latin, inasmuch as it had never been dead; or,
+even as those who dissent from this statement must own, had revived
+nearly two centuries before. 'Renaissance,' applied in France to the
+new direction which art took about the age of Francis the First, is
+another question-begging word. Very many would entirely deny that the
+bringing back of an antique pagan spirit, and of pagan forms as the
+utterance of this, into Christian art was a 'renaissance' or new birth
+of it at all.
+
+But inaccuracy in naming may draw after it more serious mischief in
+regions more important. Nowhere is accuracy more vital than in words
+having to do with the chief facts and objects of our faith; for such
+words, as Coleridge has observed, are never inert, but constantly
+exercise an immense reactive influence, whether men know it or not, on
+such as use them, or often hear them used by others. The so-called
+'Unitarians,' claiming by this name of theirs to be asserters of the
+unity of the Godhead, claim that which belongs to us by far better
+right than to them; which, indeed, belonging of fullest right to us,
+does not properly belong to them at all. I should, therefore, without
+any intention of offence, refuse the name to them; just as I should
+decline, by calling those of the Roman Obedience 'Catholics,' to give
+up the whole question at issue between them and us. So, also, were I
+one of them, I should never, however convenient it might sometimes
+prove, consent to call the great religious movement of Europe in the
+sixteenth century the 'Reformation.' Such in _our_ esteem it was, and
+in the deepest, truest sense; a shaping anew of things that were amiss
+in the Church. But how any who esteem it a disastrous, and, on their
+parts who brought it about, a most guilty schism, can consent to call
+it by this name, has always surprised me.
+
+Let me urge on you here the importance of seeking in every case to
+acquaint yourselves with the circumstances under which any body of men
+who have played an important part in history, above all in the history
+of your own land, obtained the name by which they were afterwards
+themselves willing to be known, or which was used for their designation
+by others. This you may do as a matter of historical inquiry, and
+keeping entirely aloof in spirit from the bitterness, the contempt, the
+calumny, out of which very frequently these names were first imposed.
+Whatever of scorn or wrong may have been at work in them who coined or
+gave currency to the name, the name itself can never without serious
+loss be neglected by any who would truly understand the moral
+significance of the thing; for always something, oftentimes much, may
+be learned from it. Learn, then, about each one of these names which
+you meet in your studies, whether it was one that men gave to
+themselves; or one imposed on them by others, but never recognized by
+them; or one that, first imposed by others, was yet in course of time
+admitted and allowed by themselves. We have examples in all these kinds.
+Thus the 'Gnostics' call _themselves_ such; the name was of their own
+devising, and declared that whereof they made their boast; it was the
+same with the 'Cavaliers' of our Civil War. 'Quaker,' 'Puritan,'
+'Roundhead,' were all, on the contrary, names devised by others, and
+never accepted by those to whom they were attached. To the third class
+'Whig' and 'Tory' belong. These were nicknames originally of bitterest
+party hate, withdrawn from their earlier use, and fastened by two
+political bodies in England each on the other, [Footnote: In North's
+_Examen_. p. 321, is a very lively, though not a very impartial,
+account of the rise of these names.] the 'Whig' being properly a
+Scottish covenanter, [Footnote: [For a full account of the name see
+Nares, and Todd's _Johnson_.]] the 'Tory' an Irish bog-trotting
+freebooter; while yet these nicknames in tract of time so lost and let
+go what was offensive about them, that in the end they were adopted by
+the very parties themselves. Not otherwise the German 'Lutherans' were
+originally so called by their antagonists. [Footnote: Dr. Eck, one of
+the earliest who wrote against the Reformation, first called the
+Reformed 'Lutherani.'] 'Methodist,' in like manner, was a title not
+first taken by the followers of Wesley, but fastened on them by others,
+while yet they have been subsequently willing, though with a certain
+reserve, to accept and to be known by it. 'Momiers' or 'Mummers,' a
+name in itself of far greater offence, has obtained in Switzerland
+something of the same allowance. Exactly in the same way 'Capuchin' was
+at first a jesting nickname, given by the gamins in the streets to that
+reformed branch of the Franciscans which afterwards accepted it as
+their proper designation. It was provoked by the peaked and pointed
+hood ('cappuccio,' 'cappucino') which they wore. The story of the
+'Gueux,' or 'Beggars,' of Holland, and how they appropriated their name,
+is familiar, as I doubt not, to many. [Footnote: [See chapter on
+Political Nicknames in D'Israeli's _Curiosities of Literature_.]]
+
+A 'Premier' or 'Prime Minister,' though unknown to the law of England,
+is at present one of the institutions of the country. The acknowledged
+leadership of one member in the Government is a fact of only gradual
+growth in our constitutional history, but one in which the nation has
+entirely acquiesced,--nor is there anything invidious now in the title.
+But in what spirit the Parliamentary Opposition, having coined the term,
+applied it first to Sir Robert Walpole, is plain from some words of his
+spoken in the House of Commons, Feb. 11, 1742: 'Having invested me with
+a kind of mock dignity, and styled me a _Prime Minister_, they [the
+Opposition] impute to me an unpardonable abuse of the chimerical
+authority which they only created and conferred.'
+
+Now of these titles some undoubtedly, like 'Capuchin' instanced just
+now, stand in no very intimate connexion with those who bear them; and
+such names, though seldom without their instruction, yet plainly are
+not so instructive as others, in which the innermost heart of the thing
+named so utters itself, that, having mastered the name, we have placed
+ourselves at the central point, from whence best to master everything
+besides. It is thus with 'Gnostic' and 'Gnosticism'; in the prominence
+given to _gn�sis_ or knowledge, as opposed to faith, lies the key to
+the whole system. The Greek Church has loved ever to style itself the
+Holy 'Orthodox' Church, the Latin, the Holy 'Catholic' Church. Follow
+up the thoughts which these words suggest. What a world of teaching
+they contain; above all when brought into direct comparison and
+opposition one with the other. How does all which is innermost in the
+Greek and Roman mind unconsciously reveal itself here; the Greek Church
+regarding as its chief blazon that its speculation is right, the Latin
+that its empire is universal. Nor indeed is it merely the Greek and
+Latin Churches which utter themselves here, but Greece and Rome in
+their deepest distinctions, as these existed from their earliest times.
+The key to the whole history, Pagan as well as Christian, of each is in
+these words. We can understand how the one established a dominion in
+the region of the mind which shall never be overthrown, the other
+founded an empire in the world whose visible effects shall never be
+done away. This is an illustrious example; but I am bold to affirm that,
+in their degree, all parties, religious and political, are known by
+names that will repay study; by names, to understand which will bring
+us far to an understanding of their strength and their weakness, their
+truth and their error, the idea and intention according to which they
+wrought. Thus run over in thought a few of those which have risen up in
+England. 'Puritans,' 'Fifth-Monarchy men,' 'Seekers,' 'Levellers,'
+'Independents,' 'Friends,' 'Rationalists,' 'Latitudnarians,'
+'Freethinkers,' these titles, with many more, have each its
+significance; and would you get to the heart of things, and thoroughly
+understand what any of these schools and parties intended, you must
+first understand what they were called. From this as from a central
+point you must start; even as you must bring back to this whatever
+further knowledge you may acquire; putting your later gains, if
+possible, in subordination to the name; at all events in connexion and
+relation with it.
+
+You will often be able to glean information from names, such as, if not
+always important, will yet rarely fail to be interesting and
+instructive in its way. Thus what a record of inventions, how much of
+the past history of commerce do they embody and preserve. The 'magnet'
+has its name from Magnesia, a district of Thessaly; this same Magnesia,
+or else another like-named district in Asia Minor, yielding the
+medicinal earth so called. 'Artesian' wells are from the province of
+Artois in France, where they were long in use before introduced
+elsewhere. The 'baldachin' or 'baudekin' is from Baldacco, the Italian
+form of the name of the city of Bagdad, from whence the costly silk of
+this canopy originally came. [Footnote: [See Devic's Supplement to
+Littr�; the Italian _l_ is an attempt to pronounce the Arabic guttural
+Ghain. In the Middle Ages _Baldacco_ was often supposed to be the same
+as 'Babylon'; see Florio's _Ital. Dict._ (s.v. _baldacca_).]] The'
+bayonet' suggests concerning itself, though perhaps wrongly, that it
+was first made at Bayonne--the 'bilbo,' a finely tempered Spanish blade,
+at Bilbao--the 'carronade' at the Carron Ironworks in Scotland--
+'worsted' that it was spun at a village not far from Norwich--
+'sarcenet' that it is a Saracen manufacture--'cambric' that it reached
+us from Cambray--'copper' that it drew its name from Cyprus, so richly
+furnished with mines of this metal--'fustian' from Fostat, a suburb of
+Cairo--'frieze' from Friesland--'silk' or 'sericum' from the land of
+the Seres or Chinese--'damask' from Damascus--'cassimere' or
+'kersemere' from Cashmere--'arras' from a town like-named--'duffel,'
+too, from a town near Antwerp so called, which Wordsworth has
+immortalized--'shalloon' from Chalons--'jane' from Genoa--'gauze' from
+Gaza. The fashion of the 'cravat' was borrowed from the Croats, or
+Crabats, as this wild irregular soldiery of the Thirty Years' War used
+to be called. The 'biggen,' a plain cap often mentioned by our early
+writers, was first worn by the Beguines, communities of pietist women
+in the Low Countries in the twelfth century. The 'dalmatic' was a
+garment whose fashion was taken to be borrowed from Dalmatia. (_See_
+Marriott.) England now sends her calicoes and muslins to India and the
+East; yet these words give standing witness that we once imported them
+from thence; for 'calico' is from Calicut, a town on the coast of
+Malabar, and 'muslin' from Mossul, a city in Asiatic Turkey. 'Cordwain'
+or 'cordovan' is from Cordova--'delf' from Delft--'indigo' (indicum)
+from India--'gamboge' from Cambodia--the 'agate' from a Sicilian river,
+Achates--the 'turquoise' from Turkey--the 'chalcedony' or onyx from
+Chalcedon--'jet' from the river Gages in Lycia, where this black stone
+is found. [Footnote: In Holland's _Pliny_, the Greek form 'gagates' is
+still retained, though he oftener calls it 'jeat' or 'geat.'] 'Rhubarb'
+is a corruption of Rha barbarum, the root from the savage banks of the
+Rha or Volga--'jalap' is from Jalapa, a town in Mexico--'tobacco' from
+the island Tobago--'malmsey' from Malvasia, for long a flourishing city
+in the Morea--'sherry,' or 'sherris' as Shakespeare wrote it, is from
+Xeres--'macassar' oil from a small Malay kingdom so named in the
+Eastern Archipelago--'dittany' from the mountain Dicte, in Crete--
+'parchment' from Pergamum--'majolica' from Majorca--'faience' from the
+town named in Italian Faenza. A little town in Essex gave its name to
+the 'tilbury'; another, in Bavaria, to the 'landau.' The 'bezant' is a
+coin of Byzantium; the 'guinea' was originally coined (in 1663) of gold
+brought from the African coast so called; the pound 'sterling' was a
+certain weight of bullion according to the standard of the Easterlings,
+or Eastern merchants from the Hanse Towns on the Baltic. The 'spaniel'
+is from Spain; the 'barb' is a steed from Barbary; the pony called a
+'galloway' from the county of Galloway in Scotland; the 'tarantula' is
+a poisonous spider, common in the neighbourhood of Tarentum. The
+'pheasant' reached us from the banks of the Phasis; the 'bantam' from a
+Dutch settlement in Java so called; the 'canary' bird and wine, both
+from the island so named; the 'peach' (persica) declares itself a
+Persian fruit; 'currants' derived their name from Corinth, whence they
+were mostly shipped; the 'damson' is the 'damascene' or plum of
+Damascus; the 'bergamot' pear is named from Bergamo in Italy; the
+'quince' has undergone so many changes in its progress through Italian
+and French to us, that it hardly retains any trace of Cydon (malum
+Cydonium), a town of Crete, from which it was supposed to proceed.
+'Solecisms,' if I may find room for them here, are from Soloe, an
+Athenian colony in Cilicia, whose members soon forgot the Attic
+refinement of speech, and became notorious for the ungrammatical Greek
+which they talked.
+
+And as things thus keep record in the names which they bear of the
+quarters from which they reached us, so also will they often do of the
+persons who, as authors, inventors, or discoverers, or in some other
+way, stood in near connexion with them. A collection in any language of
+all the names of persons which have since become names of things--from
+nomina _apellativa_ have become nomina _realia_--would be very curious
+and interesting, I will enumerate a few. Where the matter is not
+familiar to you, it will not be unprofitable to work back from the word
+or thing to the person, and to learn more accurately the connexion
+between them.
+
+To begin with mythical antiquity--the Chimaera has given us
+'chimerical,' Hermes 'hermetic,' Pan 'panic,' Paean, being a name of
+Apollo, the 'peony,' Tantalus 'to tantalize,' Hercules 'herculean,'
+Proteus 'protean,' Vulcan 'volcano' and 'volcanic,' and Daedalus
+'dedal,' if this word, for which Spenser, Wordsworth, and Shelley have
+all stood godfathers, may find allowance with us. The demi-god Atlas
+figures with a world upon his shoulders in the title-page of some early
+works on geography; and has probably in this way lent to our map-books
+their name. Gordius, the Phrygian king who tied the famous 'gordian'
+knot which Alexander cut, will supply a natural transition from
+mythical to historical. The 'daric,' a Persian gold coin, very much of
+the same value as our own rose noble, had its name from Darius.
+Mausolus, a king of Caria, has left us 'mausoleum,' Academus 'academy,'
+Epicurus 'epicure,' Philip of Macedon a 'philippic,' being such a
+discourse as Demosthenes once launched against the enemy of Greece, and
+Cicero 'cicerone.' Mithridates, who had made himself poison-proof, gave
+us the now forgotten 'mithridate' (Dryden) for antidote; as from
+Hippocrates we derived 'hipocras,' or 'ypocras,' often occurring in our
+early poets, being a wine supposed to be mingled after the great
+physician's receipt. Gentius, a king of Illyria, gave his name to the
+plant 'gentian,' having been, it is said, the first to discover its
+virtues. [Footnote: Pliny, _H. N._ xxv. 34.] Glaubers, who has
+bequeathed his salts to us, was a Dutch chemist of the seventeenth
+century. A grammar used to be called a 'donat' or 'donet' (Chaucer),
+from Donatus, a Roman grammarian of the fourth century, whose Latin
+grammar held its place as a school-book during a large part of the
+Middle Ages. Othman, more than any other the grounder of the Turkish
+dominion in Europe, reappears in our 'Ottoman'; and Tertullian,
+strangely enough, in the Spanish 'tertulia.' The beggar Lazarus has
+given us 'lazar' and 'lazaretto'; Veronica and the legend connected
+with her name, a 'vernicle,' being a napkin with the Saviour's face
+impressed upon it. Simon Magus gave us 'simony'; this, however, as we
+understand it now, is not a precise reproduction of his sin as recorded
+in Scripture. A common fossil shell is called an 'ammonite' from the
+fanciful resemblance to the twisted horns of Jupiter Ammon which was
+traced in it; Ammon again appearing in 'ammonia.' Our 'pantaloons' are
+from St. Pantaleone; he was the patron saint of the Venetians, who
+therefore very commonly received Pantaleon as their Christian name; it
+was from them transferred to a garment which they much affected.
+'Dunce,' as we have seen, is derived from Duns Scotus. To come to more
+modern times, and not pausing at Ben Jonson's 'chaucerisms,' Bishop
+Hall's 'scoganisms,' from Scogan, Edward the Fourth's jester, or his
+'aretinisms,' from Aretin; these being probably not intended even by
+their authors to endure; a Roman cobbler named Pasquin has given us the
+'pasquil' or 'pasquinade.' Derrick was the common hangman in the time
+of Charles II.; he bequeathed his name to the crane used for the
+lifting and moving of heavy weights. [Footnote: [But _derick_ in the
+sense of 'gallows' occurs as early as 1606 in Dekker's _Seven Deadly
+Sins of London_, ed. Arber, p. 17; see Skeat's _Etym. Dict._, ed. 2, p.
+799.]] 'Patch,' a name of contempt not unfrequent in Shakespeare, was,
+it is said, the proper name of a favourite fool of Cardinal Wolsey's.
+[Footnote: [The Cardinal's two fools were occasionally called _patch_,
+a term for a 'domestic fool,' from the patchy, parti-coloured dress;
+see Skeat (s. v.).]] Colonel Negus in Queen Anne's time is reported to
+have first mixed the beverage which goes by his name. Lord Orrery was
+the first for whom an 'orrery' was constructed; Lord Spencer first wore,
+or first brought into fashion, a 'spencer'; and the Duke of Roquelaure
+the cloak which still bears his name. Dahl, a Swede, introduced from
+Mexico the cultivation of the 'dahlia'; the 'fuchsia' is named after
+Fuchs, a German botanist of the sixteenth century; the 'magnolia' after
+Magnol, a distinguished French botanist of the beginning of the
+eighteenth; while the 'camelia' was introduced into Europe from Japan
+in 1731 by Camel, a member of the Society of Jesus; the 'shaddock' by
+Captain Shaddock, who first transplanted this fruit from the West
+Indies. In 'quassia' we have the name of a negro sorcerer of Surinam,
+who in 1730 discovered its properties, and after whom it was called. An
+unsavoury jest of Vespasian has attached his name in French to an
+unsavoury spot. 'Nicotine,' the poison recently drawn from tobacco,
+goes back for its designation to Nicot, a physician, who first
+introduced the tobacco-plant to the general notice of Europe. The
+Gobelins were a family so highly esteemed in France that the
+manufactory of tapestry which they had established in Paris did not
+drop their name, even after it had been purchased and was conducted by
+the State. A French Protestant refugee, Tabinet, first made 'tabinet'
+in Dublin; another Frenchman, Goulard, a physician of Montpellier, gave
+his to the soothing lotion, not unknown in our nurseries. The 'tontine'
+was conceived by Tonti, an Italian; another Italian, Galvani, first
+noted the phenomena of animal electricity or 'galvanism'; while a third,
+Volta, lent a title to the 'voltaic' battery. Dolomieu, a French
+geologist, first called attention to a peculiar formation of rocks in
+Eastern Tyrol, called 'dolomites' after him. Colonel Martinet was a
+French officer appointed by Louvois as an army inspector; one who did
+his work excellently well, but has left a name bestowed often since on
+mere military pedants. 'Macintosh,' 'doyly,' 'brougham,' 'hansom,' 'to
+mesmerize,' 'to macadamize,' 'to burke,' 'to boycott,' are all names of
+persons or words formed from their names, and then transferred to
+things or actions, on the ground of some sort of connexion between the
+one and the other. [Footnote: Several other such words we have in
+common with the French. Of their own they have 'sardanapalisme,' any
+piece of profuse luxury, from Sardanapalus. For 'lambiner,' to dally or
+loiter over a task, they are indebted to Denis Lambin, a worthy Greek
+scholar of the sixteenth century, but accused of sluggish movement and
+wearisome diffuseness in style. Every reader of Pascal's _Provincial
+Letters_ will remember Escobar, the famous casuist of the Jesuits,
+whose convenient devices for the relaxation of the moral law have there
+been made famous. To the notoriety which he thus acquired, he owes his
+introduction into the French language; where 'escobarder' is used in
+the sense of to equivocate, and 'escobarderie' of subterfuge or
+equivocation. A pale green colour is in French called 'c�ladon' from a
+personage of this name, of a feeble and _fade_ tenderness, who figures
+in _Astr�e_, a popular romance of the seventeenth century. An unpopular
+minister of finance, M. de Silhouette, unpopular because he sought to
+cut down unnecessary expenses in the State, saw his name transferred to
+the slight and thus cheap black outline portrait called a 'silhouette'
+(Sismondi, _Hist, des Fran�ais_, vol. xix, pp. 94, 95). In the
+'mansarde' roof we are reminded of Mansart, the architect who
+introduced it. In 'marivaudage' the name of Marivaux is bound up, who
+was noted for the affected euphuism which goes by this name; very much
+as the sophist Gorgias gave [Greek: gorgiazein] to the Greek. The point
+of contact between the 'fiacre' and St. Fiacre is well known: hackney
+carriages, when first established in Paris, waited for their hiring in
+the court of an hotel which was adorned with an image of the Scottish
+saint.] To these I may add 'guillotine,' though Dr. Guillotin did not
+invent this instrument of death, even as it is a baseless legend that
+he died by it. Some improvements in it he made, and it thus happened
+that it was called after him.
+
+Nor less shall we find history, at all events literary history, in the
+noting of the popular characters in books, who have supplied words that
+have passed into common speech. Thus from Homer we have 'mentor' for a
+monitor; 'stentorian' for loud-voiced; and inasmuch as, with all of
+Hector's nobleness, there is a certain amount of big talk about him, he
+has given us 'to hector'; [Footnote: See Col. Mure, _Language and
+Literature of Ancient Greece_, vol. i. p. 350.] while the medieval
+romances about the siege of Troy ascribe to Pandarus that shameful
+traffic out of which his name has passed into the words 'to pander' and
+'pandarism.' 'Rodomontade' is from Rodomonte, a hero of Boiardo; who
+yet, it must be owned, does not bluster and boast, as the word founded
+on his name seems to imply; adopted by Ariosto, it was by him changed
+into Rodamonte. 'Thrasonical' is from Thraso, the braggart of Roman
+comedy. Cervantes has given us 'quixotic'; Swift 'lilliputian'; to
+Moli�re the French language owes 'tartuffe' and 'tartufferie.'
+'Reynard' with us is a sort of duplicate for fox, while in French
+'renard' has quite excluded the old 'volpils' being originally no more
+than the proper name of the fox-hero, the vulpine Ulysses, in that
+famous beast-epic of the Middle Ages, _Reineke Fuchs_. The immense
+popularity of this poem we gather from many evidences--from none more
+clearly than from this. 'Chanticleer' is the name of the cock, and
+'Bruin' of the bear in the same poem. [Footnote: See G�nin, _Des
+Variations du Langage Fran�ais_, p.12] These have not made fortune to
+the same extent of actually putting out of use names which before
+existed, but contest the right of existence with them.
+
+Occasionally a name will embody and give permanence to an error; as
+when in 'America' the discovery of the New World, which belonged to
+Columbus, is ascribed to another eminent discoverer, but one who had no
+title to this honour, even as he was entirely guiltless of any attempt
+to usurp it for himself. [Footnote: Humboldt has abundantly shown this
+(_Kosmos_, vol. ii. note 457). He ascribes its general reception to its
+introduction into a popular work on geography, published in 1507. The
+subject has also been very carefully treated by Major, _Life of Prince
+Henry the Navigator_, 1868. pp. 382-388] Our 'turkeys' are not from
+Turkey, as was assumed by those who so called them, but from that New
+World where alone they are native. This error the French in another
+shape repeat with their 'dinde' originally 'poulet _d'Inde_,' or Indian
+fowl. There lies in 'gipsy' or Egyptian, the assumption that Egypt was
+the original home of this strange people; as was widely believed when
+they made their first appearance in Europe early in the fifteenth
+century. That this, however, was a mistake, their language leaves no
+doubt; proclaiming as it does that they are wanderers from a more
+distant East, an outcast tribe from Hindostan. 'Bohemians' as they are
+called by the French, testifies to a similar error, to the fact that at
+their first apparition in Western Europe they were supposed by the
+common people in France to be the expelled Hussites of Bohemia.
+
+Where words have not embodied an error, it will yet sometimes happen
+that the sound or spelling will _to us_ suggest one. Against such in
+these studies it will be well to be on our guard. Thus many of us have
+been tempted to put 'domus' and 'dominus' into a connexion which really
+does not exist. There has been a stage in most boys' geographical
+knowledge, when they have taken for granted that 'Jutland' was so
+called, not because it was the land of the Jutes, but on account of its
+_jutting_ out into the sea in so remarkable a manner. At a much later
+period of their education, 'Aborigines,' being the proper name of an
+Italian tribe, might very easily lead astray. [Footnote: See Pauly,
+_Encyclop._ s. v. Latium.] Who is there that has not mentally put the
+Gulf of Lyons in some connexion with the city of the same name? We may
+be surprised that the Gulf should have drawn its title from a city so
+remote and so far inland, but we accept the fact notwithstanding: the
+river Rhone, flowing by the one, and disemboguing in the other, seems
+to offer to us a certain link of connexion. There is indeed no true
+connexion at all between the two. In old texts this Gulf is generally
+called _Sinus Gallicus_; in the fourteenth century a few writers began
+to call it _Sinus Leonis_, the Gulf of the Lion, possibly from the
+fierceness of its winds and waves, but at any rate by a name having
+nothing to do with Lyons on the Rhone. The oak, in Greek [Greek: drys],
+plays no inconsiderable part in the Ritual of the Druids; it is not
+therefore wonderful if most students at one time of their lives have
+put the two in etymological relation. The Greeks, who with so
+characteristic a vanity assumed that the key to the meaning of words in
+all languages was to be found in their own, did this of course. So, too,
+there have not been wanting those who have traced in the name 'Jove' a
+heathen reminiscence of the awful name of Jehovah; while yet, however
+specious this may seem, on closer scrutiny the words declare that they
+have no connexion with one another, any more than 'Iapetus' and
+'Japheth,' or, I may add, than 'God' and 'good,' which yet by an
+honourable moral instinct men can hardly refrain from putting into an
+etymological relation with each other.
+
+Sometimes a falsely-assumed derivation of a word has reacted upon and
+modified its spelling. Thus it may have been with 'hurricane.' In the
+tearing up and _hurrying_ away of the _canes_ in the sugar plantations
+by this West-Indian tornado, many have seen an explanation of the name;
+just in the same way as the Latin 'calamitas' has been derived from
+'calamus,' the stalk of the corn. In both cases the etymology is
+faulty; 'hurricane,' originally a Carib word, is only a transplanting
+into our tongue of the Spanish 'huracan.'
+
+It is a signal evidence of the conservative powers of language, that we
+may continually trace in speech the record of customs and states of
+society which have now passed so entirely away as to survive in these
+words alone. For example, a 'stipulation' or agreement is so called, as
+many affirm, from 'stipula,' a straw; and tells of a Roman custom, that
+when two persons would make a mutual engagement with one another,
+[Footnote: See on this disputed point, and on the relation between the
+Latin 'stipulatio' and the old German custom not altogether dissimilar,
+J. Grimm, _Deutsche Rechtsalterth�mer_, pp. 121, sqq. [This account of
+the derivation of 'stipulatio' is generally given up now; for Greek
+cognates of the word see Curtius, _Greek Etymology_, No. 224.]] they
+would break a straw between them. We all know what fact of English
+history is laid up in 'curfew,' or 'couvre-feu.' The 'limner,' or
+'illuminer,' for so we find the word in Fuller, throws us back on a
+time when the _illumination_ of manuscripts was a leading occupation of
+the painter. By 'lumber,' we are reminded that Lombards were the first
+pawnbrokers, even as they were the first bankers, in England: a
+'lumber'-room being a 'lombard'-room, or a room where the pawnbroker
+stored his pledges. [Footnote: See my _Select Glossary_, s. v. Lumber.]
+Nor need I do more than remind you that in our common phrase of
+'_signing_ our name,' we preserve a record of a time when such first
+rudiments of education as the power of writing, were the portion of so
+few, that it was not as now an exception, but the custom, of most
+persons to make their mark or 'sign'; great barons and kings themselves
+not being ashamed to set this _sign_ or cross to the weightiest
+documents. To 'subscribe' the name would more accurately express what
+now we do. As often as we term arithmetic the science of calculation,
+we implicitly allude to that rudimental stage in this science, when
+pebbles (calculi) were used, as now among savage tribes they often are,
+to help the practice of counting; the Greeks made the same use of one
+word of theirs ([Greek: psephizein]); while in another ([Greek:
+pempazein]) they kept record of a period when the _five_ fingers were
+so employed. 'Expend,' 'expense,' tell us that money was once weighed
+out (Gen. xxiii. 16), not counted out as now; 'pecunia,' 'peculatus,'
+'fee' (vieh) keep record all of a time when cattle were the main
+circulating medium. In 'library' we preserve the fact that books were
+once written on the bark (liber) of trees; in 'volume' that they were
+mostly rolls; in 'paper,' that the Egyptian papyrus, 'the paper-reeds
+by the brooks,' furnished at one time the ordinary material on which
+they were written.
+
+Names thus so often surviving things, we have no right to turn an
+etymology into an argument. There was a notable attempt to do this in
+the controversy so earnestly carried on between the Greek and Latin
+Churches, concerning the bread, whether it should be leavened or
+unleavened, that was used at the Table of the Lord. Those of the
+Eastern Church constantly urged that the Greek word for bread (and in
+Greek was the authoritative record of the first institution of this
+sacrament), implied, according to its root, that which was raised or
+lifted up; not, therefore, to use a modern term, 'sad' or set, or, in
+other words, unleavened bread; such rather as had undergone the process
+of fermentation. But even if the etymology on which they relied (artos
+from airo, to raise) had been as certain as it is questionable, they
+could draw no argument of the slightest worth from so remote an
+etymology, and one which had so long fallen out of the consciousness of
+those who employed the word.
+
+Theories too, which long since were utterly renounced, have yet left
+their traces behind them. Thus 'good humour.' 'bad humour.' 'humours,'
+and, strangest contradiction of all, '_dry_ humour,' rest altogether on
+a now exploded, but a very old and widely accepted, theory of medicine;
+according to which there were four principal moistures or 'humours' in
+the natural body, on the due proportion and combination of which the
+disposition alike of body and mind depended. [Footnote: See the
+_Prologue_ to Ben Jonson's _Every Man out of His Humour_.] Our present
+use of 'temper' has its origin in the same theory; the due admixture,
+or right tempering, of these humours gave what was called the happy
+temper, or mixture, which, thus existing inwardly, manifested itself
+also outwardly; while 'distemper,' which we still employ in the sense
+of sickness, was that evil frame either of a man's body or his mind
+(for it was used of both), which had its rise in an unsuitable mingling
+of these humours. In these instances, as in many more, the great
+streams of thought and feeling have changed their course, flowing now
+in quite other channels from those which once they filled, but have
+left these words as abiding memorials of the channels wherein once they
+ran. Thus 'extremes,' 'golden mean,' 'category,' 'predicament,'
+'axiom,' 'habit'--what are these but a deposit in our ethical
+terminology which Aristotle has left behind him?
+
+But we have not exhausted our examples of the way in which the record
+of old errors, themselves dismissed long ago, will yet survive in
+language--being bound up in words that grew into use when those errors
+found credit, and that maintain their currency still. The mythology
+which Saxon or Dane brought with them from their German or Scandinavian
+homes is as much extinct for us as are the Lares, Larvae, and Lemures
+of heathen Rome; yet the deposit it has permanently left behind it in
+the English language is not inconsiderable. 'Lubber,' 'dwarf,' 'oaf,'
+'droll,' 'wight,' 'puck,' 'urchin,' 'hag,' 'night-mare,' 'gramary,'
+'Old Nick,' 'changeling' (wechselkind), suggest themselves, as all
+bequeathed to us by that old Teutonic demonology. [Footnote: [But the
+words _puck_, _urchin_, _gramary_, are not of Teutonic origin. The
+etymology of _puck_ is unknown; _urchin_ means properly 'a hedgehog,'
+being the old French _eri�on_ (in modern French _h�risson_), a
+derivative from the Latin _ericius_, 'a hedgehog'; _gramary_ is simply
+Old French _gramaire_, 'grammar' = Lat. _grammatica_ (_ars_), just as
+Old French _mire_, 'a medical man' = Lat. _medicum_.]] Few now have
+any faith in astrology, or count that the planet under which a man is
+born will affect his temperament, make him for life of a disposition
+grave or gay, lively or severe. Yet our language affirms as much; for
+we speak of men as 'jovial' or 'saturnine,' or 'mercurial'--'jovial,'
+as being born under the planet Jupiter or Jove, which was the
+joyfullest star, and of happiest augury of all: [Footnote: 'Jovial' in
+Shakespeare's time (see _Cymbeline_, act 5, sc. 4) had not forgotten
+its connexion with Jove.] a gloomy severe person is said to be
+'saturnine,' born, that is, under the planet Saturn, who makes those
+that own his influence, having been born when he was in the ascendant,
+grave and stern as himself: another we call 'mercurial,' or light-
+hearted, as those born under the planet Mercury were accounted to be.
+The same faith in the influence of the stars survives in 'disastrous,'
+'ill-starred,' 'ascendancy,' 'lord of the ascendant,' and, indeed, in
+'influence' itself. What a record of old speculations, old certainly as
+Aristotle, and not yet exploded in the time of Milton, [Footnote: See
+_Paradise Lost_, iii. 714-719.] does the word 'quintessence' contain;
+and 'arsenic' the same; no other namely than this that metals are of
+different sexes, some male ([Greek: arsenika]), and some female. Again,
+what curious legends belong to the 'sardonic' [Footnote: See an
+excellent history of this word, in Rost and Palm's _Greek Lexicon_, s.
+v. [Greek: sardonios].] or Sardinian, laugh; a laugh caused, as was
+supposed, by a plant growing in Sardinia, of which they who ate, died
+laughing; to the 'barnacle' goose, [Footnote: For a full and most
+interesting study on this very curious legend, see Max M�ller's
+_Lectures on Language_, vol. ii. pp. 533-551; [for the etymology of the
+word _barnacle_ in this connexion see the _New English Dictionary_ (s.
+v.).]] to the 'amethyst' esteemed, as the word implies, a preventive
+or antidote of drunkenness; and to other words not a few, which are
+employed by us still.
+
+A question presents itself here, and one not merely speculative; for it
+has before now become a veritable case of conscience with some whether
+they ought to use words which originally rested on, and so seem still
+to affirm, some superstition or untruth. This question has practically
+settled itself; the words will keep their ground: but further, they
+have a right to do this; for no word need be considered so to root
+itself in its etymology, and to draw its sap and strength from thence,
+that it cannot detach itself from this, and acquire the rights of an
+independent existence. And thus our _weekly_ newspapers commit no
+absurdity in calling themselves 'journals,' or 'diurnals'; and we as
+little when we name that a 'journey' which occupies not one, but
+several days. We involve ourselves in no real contradiction, speaking
+of a 'quarantine' of five, ten, or any number of days more or fewer
+than _forty_; or of a population 'decimated' by a plague, though
+exactly a tenth of it has not perished. A stone coffin may be still a
+'sarcophagus,' without thereby implying that it has any special
+property of consuming the flesh of bodies which are laid within
+it. [Footnote: See Pliny, _H. N._ ii. 96; xxxvi. 17.] In like manner the
+wax of our 'candles' ('candela,' from 'candeo') is not necessarily
+_white_; our 'rubrics' retain their name, though seldom printed in
+_red_ ink; neither need our 'miniatures' abandon theirs, though no
+longer painted with _minium_ or carmine; our 'surplice' is not usually
+worn over an undergarment of skins; our 'stirrups' are not ropes by
+whose aid we climb upon our horses; nor are 'haversacks' sacks for the
+carrying of oats; it is not barley or bere only which we store up in
+our 'barns,' nor hogs' fat in our 'larders'; a monody need not be sung
+by a single voice; and our lucubrations are not always by candlelight;
+a 'costermonger' or 'costardmonger' does not of necessity sell costards
+or apples; there are 'palaces' which are not built on the Palatine
+Hill; and 'nausea' [Footnote: [From _nausea_ through the French comes
+our English _noise_; see Bartsch and Horning, Section 90.]] which is
+not sea-sickness. I remember once asking a class of school-children,
+whether an announcement which during one very hard winter appeared in
+the papers, of a '_white_ _black_bird' having been shot, might be
+possibly correct, or was on the face of it self-contradictory and
+absurd. The less thoughtful members of the class instantly pronounced
+against it; while after a little consideration, two or three made
+answer that it might very well be, that, while without doubt the bird
+had originally obtained this name from its blackness, yet 'blackbird'
+was now the name of a species, and a name so cleaving to it, as not to
+be forfeited, even when the blackness had quite disappeared. We do not
+question the right of the '_New_ Forest' to retain this title of New,
+though it has now stood for eight hundred years; nor of 'Naples' to be
+_New_ City (Neapolis) still, after an existence three or four times as
+long.
+
+It must, then, be esteemed a piece of ethical prudery, and an ignorance
+of the laws which languages obey, when the early Quakers refused to
+employ the names commonly given to the days of the week, and
+substituted for these, 'first day,' 'second day,' and so on. This they
+did, as is well known, on the ground that it became not Christian men
+to give that sanction to idolatry which was involved in the ordinary
+style--as though every time they spoke of Wednesday they were rendering
+homage to Woden, of Thursday to Thor, of Friday to Friga, and thus with
+the rest; [ Footnote: It is curious to find Fuller prophesying, a very
+few years before, that at some future day such a protest as theirs
+might actually be raised (_Church History_, b. ii. cent. 6): 'Thus we
+see the whole week bescattered with Saxon idols, whose pagan gods were
+the godfathers of the days, and gave them their names. This some zealot
+may behold as the object of a necessary reformation, desiring to have
+the days of the week new dipt, and called after other names. Though,
+indeed, this supposed scandal will not offend the wise, as beneath
+their notice; and cannot offend the ignorant, as above their
+knowledge.'] or at all events recognizing their existence. Now it is
+quite intelligible that the early Christians, living in the midst of a
+still rampant heathenism, should have objected, as we know they did, to
+'dies _Solis_,' or Sunday, to express the first day of the week, their
+Lord's-Day. But when the later Friends raised _their_ protest, the case
+was altogether different. The false gods whose names were bound up in
+these words had ceased to be worshipped in England for about a thousand
+years; the words had wholly disengaged themselves from their
+etymologies, of which probably not one in a thousand had the slightest
+suspicion. Moreover, had these precisians in speech been consistent,
+they could not have stopped where they did. Every new acquaintance with
+the etymology or primary use of words would have entangled them in some
+new embarrassment, would have required a new purging of their
+vocabulary. 'To charm,' 'to bewitch,' 'to fascinate,' 'to enchant,'
+would have been no longer lawful words for those who had outlived the
+belief in magic, and in the power of the evil eye; nor 'lunacy,' nor
+'lunatic,' for such as did not count the moon to have anything to do
+with mental unsoundness; nor 'panic' fear, for those who believed that
+the great god Pan was indeed dead; nor 'auguries,' nor 'auspices,' for
+those to whom divination was nothing; while to speak of 'initiating' a
+person into the 'mysteries' of an art, would have been utterly
+heathenish language. Nay, they must have found fault with the language
+of Holy Scripture itself; for a word of honourable use in the New
+Testament expressing the function of an interpreter, and reappearing in
+our 'hermeneutics,' is directly derived from and embodies the name of
+Hermes, a heathen deity, and one who did not, like Woden, Thor, and
+Friga, pertain to a long extinct mythology, but to one existing in its
+strength at the very time when he wrote. And how was it, as might have
+been fairly asked, that St. Paul did not protest against a Christian
+woman retaining the name of Phoebe (Rom. xvi. I), a goddess of the same
+mythology?
+
+The rise and fall of words, the honour which in tract of time they
+exchanged for dishonour, and the dishonour for honour--all which in my
+last lecture I contemplated mainly from an ethical point of view--is in
+a merely historic aspect scarcely less remarkable. Very curious is it
+to watch the varying fortune of words--the extent to which it has fared
+with them, as with persons and families; some having improved their
+position in the world, and attained to far higher dignity than seemed
+destined for them at the beginning, while others in a manner quite as
+notable have lost caste, have descended from their high estate to
+common and even ignoble uses. Titles of dignity and honour have
+naturally a peculiar liability to be some lifted up, and some cast down.
+Of words which have risen in the world, the French 'mar�chal' affords
+us an excellent example. 'Mar�chal,' as Howell has said, 'at first was
+the name of a smith-farrier, or one that dressed horses'--which indeed
+it is still--'but it climbed by degrees to that height that the
+chiefest commanders of the gendarmery are come to be called marshals.'
+But if this has risen, our 'alderman' has fallen. Whatever the civic
+dignity of an alderman may now be, still it must be owned that the word
+has lost much since the time that the 'alderman' was only second in
+rank and position to the king. Sometimes a word will keep or even
+improve its place in one language, while at the same time it declines
+from it in another. Thus 'demoiselle' (dominicella) cannot be said to
+have lost ground in French, however 'donzelle' may; while 'damhele,'
+being the same word, designates in Walloon the farm-girl who minds the
+cows. [Footnote: See Littr�, _Etudes et Glanures_, p. 16; compare p. 30.
+Elsewhere he says: Les mots ont leurs d�ch�ances comme les families.]
+'Pope' is the highest ecclesiastical dignitary in the Latin Church;
+every parish priest is a 'pope' in the Greek. 'Queen' (gunae) has had a
+double fortune. Spelt as above it has more than kept the dignity with
+which it started, being the title given to the lady of the kingdom;
+while spelt as 'quean' it is a designation not untinged with
+contempt. [Footnote: [_Queen_ and _quean_ are not merely different
+spellings of the same Old English word; for _queen_ represents Anglo-
+Saxon _cwe:n_, Gothic _qens_, whereas _quean_ is the phonetic
+equivalent of Anglo-Saxon _cwene_ Gothic _qino_]] 'Squatter' remains for
+us in England very much where it always was; in Australia it is now the
+name by which the landed aristocracy are willing to be known. [Footnote:
+Dilke, _Greater Britain_, vol. ii. p. 40]
+
+After all which has thus been adduced, you will scarcely deny that we
+have a right to speak of a history in words. Now suppose that the
+pieces of money which in the intercourse and traffic of daily life are
+passing through our hands continually, had each one something of its
+own that made it more or less worthy of note; if on one was stamped
+some striking maxim, on another some important fact, on the third a
+memorable date; if others were works of finest art, graven with rare
+and beautiful devices, or bearing the head of some ancient sage or hero
+king; while others, again, were the sole surviving monuments of mighty
+nations that once filled the world with their fame; what a careless
+indifference to our own improvement--to all which men hitherto had felt
+or wrought--would it argue in us, if we were content that these should
+come and go, should stay by us or pass from us, without our vouchsafing
+to them so much as one serious regard. Such a currency there is, a
+currency intellectual and spiritual of no meaner worth, and one with
+which we have to transact so much of the higher business of our lives.
+Let us take care that we come not in this matter under the condemnation
+of any such incurious indifference as that which I have imagined.
+
+
+
+
+LECTURE V.
+
+ON THE RISE OF NEW WORDS.
+
+
+If I do not much mistake, you will find it not a little interesting to
+follow great and significant words to the time and place of their birth.
+And not these alone. The same interest, though perhaps not in so high a
+degree, will cleave to the upcoming of words not a few that have never
+played a part so important in the world's story. A volume might be
+written such as few would rival in curious interest, which should do no
+more than indicate the occasion upon which new words, or old words
+employed in a new sense--being such words as the world subsequently
+heard much of--first appeared; with quotation, where advisable, of the
+passages in proof. A great English poet, too early lost, 'the young
+Marcellus of our tongue,' as Dryden so finely calls him, has very
+grandly described the emotion of
+
+     'some watcher of the skies,
+      When a new planet swims into his ken.'
+
+Not very different will be our feeling, as we watch, at the moment of
+its rising above the horizon, some word destined, it may be, to play
+its part in the world's story, to take its place for ever among the
+luminaries in the moral and intellectual firmament above us.
+
+But a caution is necessary here. We must not regard as certain in every
+case, or indeed in most cases, that the first rise of a word will have
+exactly consented in time with its first appearance within the range of
+our vision. Such identity will sometimes exist; and we may watch i the
+actual birth of some word, and may affirm with confidence that at such
+a time and on such an occasion it first saw the light--in this book, or
+from the lips of that man. Of another we can only say, About this time
+and near about this spot it first came into being, for we first meet it
+in such an author and under such and such conditions. So mere a
+fragment of ancient literature has come down to us, that, while the
+earliest appearance there of a word is still most instructive to note,
+it cannot in all or in nearly all cases be affirmed to mark the exact
+moment of its nativity. And even in the modern world we must in most
+instances be content to fix a period, we may perhaps add a local
+habitation, within the limits of which the term must have been born,
+either in legitimate scientific travail, or the child of some flash of
+genius, or the product of some _generatio aequivoca_, the necessary
+result of exciting predisposing causes; at the same time seeking by
+further research ever to narrow more and more the limits within which
+this must have happened.
+
+To speak first of words religious and ecclesiastical. Very noteworthy,
+and in some sort epoch-making, must be regarded the first appearance of
+the following:--'Christian'; [Footnote: Acts xi. 26.] 'Trinity';
+[Footnote: Tertullian, _Adv. Prax._ 3.] 'Catholic,' as applied to the
+Church; [Footnote: Ignatius, _Ad Smyrn_. 8.] 'canonical,' as a
+distinctive title of the received Scriptures; [Footnote: Origen, _Opp_.
+vol. iii. p. 36 (ed. De la Rue).] 'New Testament,' as describing the
+complex of the sacred books of the New Covenant; [Footnote: Tertullian,
+_Adv. Marc._ iv. I; _Adv. Prax._ xv. 20.] 'Gospels,' as applied to the
+four inspired records of the life and ministry of our Lord. [Footnote:
+Justin Martyr, _Apol_. i. 66.] We notice, too, with interest, the
+first coming up of 'monk' and 'nun,' [Footnote: 'Nun' (nonna) first
+appears in Jerome (_Ad Eustoch. Ep._ 22); 'monk' (monachus) a little
+earlier: Rutilius, a Latin versifier of the fifth century, who still
+clung to the old Paganism, gives the derivation:
+     Ipsi se _monachos_ Graio cognomine dicunt,
+     Quod _soli_ nullo vivere teste volunt.] marking as they do the
+beginnings of the monastic system;--of 'transubstantiation,' [Footnote:
+Hildebert, Archbishop of Tours (d. 1134), is the first to use it
+(_Serm_. 93).] of 'concomitance,' [Footnote: Thomas Aquinas is
+reported to have been the first to use this word.] expressing as does
+this word the grounds on which the medieval Church defended communion
+in one kind only for the laity; of 'limbo' in its theological
+sense; [Footnote: Thomas Aquinas first employs 'limbus' in this sense.]
+witnessing as these do to the _consolidation_ of errors which had long
+been floating in the Church.
+
+Not of so profound an interest, but still very instructive to note, is
+the earliest apparition of names historical and geographical, above all
+of such as have since been often on the lips of men; as the first
+mention in books of 'Asia'; [Footnote: Aeschylus, _Prometheus Vinctus_,
+412.] of 'India'; [Footnote: Id. _Suppl_. 282.] of 'Europe'; [Footnote:
+Herodotus, iv. 36.] of 'Macedonia'; [Footnote: Id. v. 17.] of 'Greeks';
+[Footnote: Aristotle, _Meteor_, i. 14. But his _Graikoi_ are only an
+insignificant tribe, near Dodona. How it came to pass that Graeci, or
+Graii, was the Latin name by which all the Hellenes were known, must
+always remain a mystery.] of 'Germans' and 'Germany'; [Footnote:
+Probably first in the _Commentaries_ of Caesar; see Grimm, _Gesch. d.
+Deutschen Sprache_, p. 773.] of 'Alemanni'; [Footnote: Spartian,
+_Caracalla_, c. 9.] of 'Franks'; [Footnote: Vopiscus, _Aurel_. 7;
+about A.D. 240.] of 'Prussia' and 'Prussians'; [Footnote: 'Pruzia' and
+'Pruzzi' first appear in the _Life of S. Adalbert_, written by his
+fellow-labourer Gaudentius, between 997-1006.] of 'Normans'; [Footnote:
+The _Geographer of Ravenna_.] the earliest notice by any Greek author
+of Rome; [Footnote: Probably in Hellanicus, a contemporary of Herodotus.]
+the first use of 'Italy' as comprehending the entire Hesperian peninsula;
+[Footnote: In the time of Augustus Caesar; see Niebuhr, _History of
+Rome_, Engl. Translation, vol. i. p. 12.] of 'Asia Minor' to designate
+Asia on this side Taurus. [Footnote: Orosius, i. 2: in the fifth century
+of our era.] 'Madagascar' may hereafter have a history, which will make
+it interesting to know that this name was first given, so far as we can
+trace, by Marco Polo to the huge African island. Neither can we regard
+with indifference the first giving to the newly-discovered continent in
+the West the name of 'America'; and still less should we Englishmen
+fail to take note of the date when this island exchanged its earlier
+name of Britain for 'England'; or again, when it resumed 'Great
+Britain' as its official designation. So also, to confirm our assertion
+by examples from another quarter, it cannot be unprofitable to mark the
+exact moment at which 'tyrant' and 'tyranny,' forming so distinct an
+epoch as this did in the political history of Greece, first appeared;
+[Footnote: In the writings of Archilochus, about 700 B.C. A 'tyrant'
+was not for Greeks a bad king, who abused a rightful position to
+purposes of lust or cruelty or other wrong. It was of the essence of a
+'tyrant' that he had attained supreme dominion through a violation of
+the laws and liberties of the state; having done which, whatever the
+moderation of his after-rule, he would not escape the name. Thus the
+mild and bounteous Pisistratus was 'tyrant' of Athens, while a
+Christian II. of Denmark, 'the Nero of the North,' would not in Greek
+eyes have been one. It was to their honour that they did not allow the
+course of the word to be arrested or turned aside by occasional or
+partial exceptions in the manner of the exercise of this ill-gotten
+dominion; but in the hateful secondary sense which 'tyrant' with them
+acquired, and which has passed over to us, the moral conviction,
+justified by all experience, spake out, that the ill-gotten would be
+ill-kept; that the 'tyrant' in the earlier sense of the word, dogged by
+suspicion, fear, and an evil conscience, must, by an almost inevitable
+law, become a 'tyrant' in our later sense of the word.] or again, when,
+and from whom, the fabric of the external universe first received the
+title of 'cosmos,' or beautiful order; [ Footnote: Pythagoras, born B.C.
+570, is said to have been the first who made this application of the
+word. For much of interest on its history see Humboldt, _Kosmos_, 1846,
+English edit., vol. i. p. 371.] a name not new in itself, but new in
+this application of it; with much more of the same kind.
+
+Let us go back to one of the words just named, and inquire what may be
+learned from acquaintance with the time and place of its first
+appearance. It is one the coming up of which has found special record
+in the Book of life: 'The disciples,' as St. Luke expressly tells us,
+'were called Christians first in Antioch' (Acts xi. 26). That we have
+here a notice which we would not willingly have missed all will
+acknowledge, even as nothing can be otherwise than curious which
+relates to the infancy of the Church. But there is here much more than
+an interesting notice. Question it a little closer, and how much it
+will be found to contain, how much which it is waiting to yield up.
+What light it throws on the whole story of the apostolic Church to know
+where and when this name of 'Christians' was first imposed on the
+faithful; for imposed by adversaries it certainly was, not devised by
+themselves, however afterwards they may have learned to glory in it as
+the name of highest dignity and honour. They did not call themselves,
+but, as is expressly recorded, they 'were called,' Christians first at
+Antioch; in agreement with which statement, the name occurs nowhere in
+Scripture, except on the lips of those alien from, or opposed to, the
+faith (Acts xxvi. 28; I Pet. iv. 16). And as it was a name imposed by
+adversaries, so among these adversaries it was plainly heathens, and
+not Jews, who were its authors; for Jews would never have called the
+followers of Jesus of Nazareth, 'Christians,' or those of Christ, the
+very point of their opposition to Him being, that He was _not_ the
+Christ, but a false pretender to the name. [Footnote: Compare Tacitus
+(_Annal_, xv. 24): Quos _vulgus_ ... Christianos appellabat. It is
+curious too that, although a Greek word and coined in a Greek city, the
+termination is Latin. Christianos is formed on the model of Romanus,
+Albanus, Pompeianus, and the like.]
+
+Starting then from this point, that 'Christians' was a title given to
+the disciples by the heathen, what may we deduce from it further? At
+Antioch they first obtained this name--at the city, that is, which was
+the head-quarters of the Church's missions to the heathen, in the same
+sense as Jerusalem had been the head-quarters of the mission to the
+seed of Abraham. It was there, and among the faithful there, that a
+conviction of the world-wide destination of the Gospel arose; there it
+was first plainly seen as intended for all kindreds of the earth.
+Hitherto the faithful in Christ had been called by their adversaries,
+and indeed often were still called, 'Galileans,' or 'Nazarenes,'--both
+names which indicated the Jewish cradle wherein the Church had been
+nursed, and that the world saw in the new Society no more than a Jewish
+sect. But it was plain that the Church had now, even in the world's
+eyes, chipped its Jewish shell. The name 'Christians,' or those of
+Christ, while it told that Christ and the confession of Him was felt
+even by the heathen to be the sum and centre of this new faith, showed
+also that they comprehended now, not all which the Church would be, but
+something of this; saw this much, namely, that it was no mere sect and
+variety of Judaism, but a Society with a mission and a destiny of its
+own. Nor will the thoughtful reader fail to observe that the coming up
+of this name is by closest juxtaposition connected in the sacred
+narrative, and still more closely in the Greek than in the English,
+with the arrival at Antioch, and with the preaching there, of that
+Apostle, who was God's appointed instrument for bringing the Church to
+a full sense that the message which it had, was not for some men only,
+but for all. As so often happens with the rise of new names, the rise
+of this one marked a new epoch in the Church's life, and that it was
+entering upon a new stage of its development. [Footnote: Renan (_Les
+Ap�tres_ pp. 233-236) has much instruction on this matter. I quote a
+few words; though even in them the spirit in which the whole book is
+conceived does not fail to make itself felt: L'heure o� une cr�ation
+nouvelle re�oit son nom est solennelle; car le nom est le signe
+d�finitif de l'existence. C'est par le nom qu'un �tre individuel ou
+collectif devient lui-m�me, et sort d'un autre. La formation du mot
+'chr�tien' marque ainsi la date pr�cise o� l'Eglise de J�sus se s�para
+du juda�sme.... Le christianisme est compl�tement d�tach� du sein de sa
+m�re; la vraie pens�e de J�sus a triomph� de l'ind�cision de ses
+premiers disciples; l'Eglise de J�rusalem est d�pass�e; l'Aram�en, la
+langue de J�sus, est inconnue � une partie de son �cole; le
+christianisme parle grec; il est lanc� d�finitivement dans le grand
+tourbillon du monde grec et romain; d'o� il ne sortira plus.] It is a
+small matter, yet not without its own significance, that the invention
+of this name is laid by St. Luke,--for so, I think, we may confidently
+say,--to the credit of the Antiochenes. Now the idle, frivolous, and
+witty inhabitants of the Syrian capital were noted in all antiquity for
+the invention of nicknames; it was a manufacture for which their city
+was famous. And thus it was exactly the place where beforehand we might
+have expected that such a title, being a nickname or little better in
+their mouths who devised it should first come into being.
+
+This one example is sufficient to show that new words will often repay
+any amount of attention which we may bestow upon them, and upon the
+conditions under which they were born. I proceed to consider the causes
+which suggest or necessitate their birth, the periods when a language
+is most fruitful in them, the sources from which they usually proceed,
+with some other interesting phenomena about them.
+
+And first of the causes which give them birth. Now of all these causes
+the noblest is this--namely, that in the appointments of highest Wisdom
+there are epochs in the world's history, in which, more than at other
+times, new moral and spiritual forces are at work, stirring to their
+central depths the hearts of men. When it thus fares with a people,
+they make claims on their language which were never made on it before.
+It is required to utter truths, to express ideas, remote from it
+hitherto; for which therefore the adequate expression will naturally
+not be forthcoming at once, these new thoughts and feelings being
+larger and deeper than any wherewith hitherto the speakers of that
+tongue had been familiar. It fares with a language then, as it would
+fare with a river bed, suddenly required to deliver a far larger volume
+of waters than had hitherto been its wont. It would in such a case be
+nothing strange, if the waters surmounted their banks, broke forth on
+the right hand and on the left, forced new channels with a certain
+violence for themselves. Something of the kind they must do. Now it was
+exactly thus that it fared--for there could be no more illustrious
+examples--with the languages of Greece and Rome, when it was demanded
+of them that they should be vehicles of the truths of revelation.
+
+These languages, as they already existed, might have sufficed, and did
+suffice, for heathenism, sensuous and finite; but they did not suffice
+for the spiritual and infinite, for the truths at once so new and so
+mighty which claimed now to find utterance in the language of men. And
+thus it continually befell, that the new thought must weave a new
+garment for itself, those which it found ready made being narrower than
+that it could wrap itself in them; that the new wine must fashion new
+vessels for itself, if both should be preserved, the old being neither
+strong enough, nor expansive enough, to hold it. [ Footnote: Renan,
+speaking on this matter, says of the early Christians: La langue leur
+faisait d�faut. Le Grec et le S�mitique les trahissaient �galement. De
+l� cette �norme violence que le Christianisme naissant fit au langage
+(_Les Ap�tres_, p. 71)] Thus, not to speak of mere technical matters,
+which would claim an utterance, how could the Greek language possess a
+word for 'idolatry,' so long as the sense of the awful contrast between
+the worship of the living God and of dead things had not risen up in
+their minds that spoke it? But when Greek began to be the native
+language of men, to whom this distinction between the Creator and the
+creature was the most earnest and deepest conviction of their souls,
+words such as 'idolatry,' 'idolater,' of necessity appeared. The
+heathen did not claim for their deities to be 'searchers of hearts,'
+did not disclaim for them the being 'accepters of persons'; such
+attributes of power and righteousness entered not into their minds as
+pertaining to the objects of their worship. The Greek language,
+therefore, so long as they only employed it, had not the words
+corresponding. [Footnote: [Greek: Prosopolaeptaes, kardiognostaes.]]
+It, indeed, could not have had them, as the Jewish Hellenistic Greek
+could not be without them. How useful a word is 'theocracy'; what good
+service it has rendered in presenting a certain idea clearly and
+distinctly to the mind; yet where, except in the bosom of the same
+Jewish Greek, could it have been born? [Footnote: We preside at its
+birth in a passage of Josephus, _Con. Apion._ ii. 16.]
+
+These difficulties, which were felt the most strongly when the thought
+and feeling that had been at home in the Hebrew, the original language
+of inspiration, needed to be transferred into Greek, reappeared, though
+not in quite so aggravated a form, when that which had gradually woven
+for itself in the Greek an adequate clothing, again demanded to find a
+suitable garment in the Latin. An example of the difficulty, and of the
+way in which the difficulty was ultimately overcome, will illustrate
+this far better than long disquisitions. The classical language of
+Greece had a word for 'saviour' which, though often degraded to
+unworthy uses, bestowed as a title of honour not merely on the false
+gods of heathendom, but sometimes on men, such as better deserved to be
+styled 'destroyers' than 'saviours' of their fellows, was yet in itself
+not unequal to the setting forth the central office and dignity of Him,
+who came into the world to _save_ it. The word might be likened to some
+profaned temple, which needed a new consecration, but not to be
+abolished, and another built in its room. With the Latin it was
+otherwise. The language seemed to lack a word, which on one account or
+another Christians needed continually to utter: indeed Cicero, than
+whom none could know better the resources of his own tongue, remarkably
+enough had noted its want of any single equivalent to the Greek
+'saviour.' [Footnote: Hoc [Greek: soter] quantum est? ita magnum ut
+Latin� uno verbo exprimi non possit.] 'Salvator' would have been the
+natural word; but the classical Latin of the best times, though it had
+'salus' and 'salvus,' had neither this, nor the verb 'salvare'; some,
+indeed, have thought that 'salvare' had always existed in the common
+speech. 'Servator' was instinctively felt to be insufficient, even as
+'Preserver' would for us fall very short of uttering all which
+'Saviour' does now. The seeking of the strayed, the recovery of the
+lost, the healing of the sick, would all be but feebly and faintly
+suggested by it, if suggested at all. God '_preserveth_ man and beast,'
+but He is the 'Saviour' of his own in a more inward and far more
+endearing sense. It was long before the Latin Christian writers
+extricated themselves from this embarrassment, for the 'Salutificator'
+of Tertullian, the 'Sospitator' of another, assuredly did not satisfy
+the need. The strong good sense of Augustine finally disposed of the
+difficulty. He made no scruple about using 'Salvator'; observing with a
+true insight into the conditions under which new words should be
+admitted, that however 'Salvator' might not have been good Latin before
+the Saviour came, He by his coming and by the work had made it such;
+for, as shadows wait upon substances, so words wait upon things.
+[Footnote: _Serm_. 299. 6: Christus Jesus, id est Christus Salvator:
+hoc est enim Latine Jesus. Nec quaerant grammatici quam sit Latinum,
+sed Christiani, quam verum. Salus enim Latinum nomen est; salvare et
+salvator non fuerunt haec Latina, antequam veniret Salvator: quando ad
+Latinos venit, et haec Latina fecit. Cf. _De Trin_. 13. 10: Quod verbum
+[salvator] Latina lingua antea non habebat, sed habere poterat; sicut
+potuit quando voluit. Other words which we owe to Christian Latin,
+probably to the Vulgate or to the earlier Latin translations, are
+these--'carnalis,' 'clarifico,' 'compassio,' 'deitas' (Augustine, _Civ.
+Dei_, 7. i), 'glorifico,' 'idololatria,' 'incarnatio,' 'justifico,'
+'justificatio,' 'longanimitas,' 'mortifico,' 'magnalia,' 'mundicors,'
+'passio,' 'praedestinatio,' 'refrigerium' (Ronsch, _Vulgata_, p. 321),
+'regeneratio,' 'resipiscentia,' 'revelatio,' 'sanctificatio,'
+'soliloquium,' 'sufficientia,' 'supererogatio,' 'tribulatio.' Many of
+these may seem barbarous to the Latin scholar, but there is hardly one
+of them which does not imply a new thought, or a new feeling, or the
+sense of a new relation of man to God or to his fellow-man. Strange too
+and significant that heathen Latin could get as far as 'peccare' and
+'peccatum,' but stopped short of 'peccator' and 'peccatrix.'] Take
+another example. It seemed so natural a thing, in the old heathen world,
+to expose infants, where it was not found convenient to rear them, the
+crime excited so little remark, was so little regarded as a crime at
+all, that it seemed not worth the while to find a name for it; and thus
+it came to pass that the word 'infanticidium' was first born in the
+bosom of the Christian Church, Tertullian being the earliest in whose
+writings it appears.
+
+Yet it is not only when new truth, moral or spiritual, has thus to fit
+itself to the lips of men, that such enlargements of speech become
+necessary: but in each further unfolding of those seminal truths
+implanted in man at the first, in each new enlargement of his sphere of
+knowledge, outward or inward, the same necessities make themselves felt.
+The beginnings and progressive advances of moral philosophy in Greece,
+[Footnote: See Lobeck, _Phrynichus_, p. 350.] the transplantation of
+the same to Rome, the rise of the scholastic, and then of the mystic,
+theology in the Middle Ages, the discoveries of modern science and
+natural philosophy, these each and all have been accompanied with
+corresponding extensions in the domain of language. Of the words to
+which each of these has in turn given birth, many, it is true, have
+never travelled beyond their own peculiar sphere, having remained
+purely technical, or scientific, or theological to the last; but many,
+too, have passed over from the laboratory and the school, from the
+cloister and the pulpit, into everyday use, and have, with the ideas
+which they incorporate, become the common heritage of all. For however
+hard and repulsive a front any study or science may present to the
+great body of those who are as laymen in regard of it, there is yet
+inevitably such a detrition as this continually going forward, and one
+which it would be well worth while to trace in detail.
+
+Where the movement is a popular one, stirring the heart and mind of a
+people to its depths, there these new words will for the most part
+spring out of their bosom, a free spontaneous birth, seldom or never
+capable of being referred to one man more than another, because in a
+manner they belong to all. Where, on the contrary, the movement is more
+strictly theological, or has for its sphere those regions of science
+and philosophy, where, as first pioneers and discoverers, only a few
+can bear their part, there the additions to the language and extensions
+of it will lack something of the freedom, the unconscious boldness,
+which mark the others. Their character will be more artificial, less
+spontaneous, although here also the creative genius of a single man, as
+there of a nation, will oftentimes set its mark; and many a single word
+will come forth, which will be the result of profound meditation, or of
+intuitive genius, or of both in happiest combination--many a word,
+which shall as a torch illuminate vast regions comparatively obscure
+before, and, it may be, cast its rays far into the yet unexplored
+darkness beyond; or which, summing up into itself all the acquisitions
+in a particular direction of the past, shall furnish a mighty vantage-
+ground from which to advance to new conquests in those realms of mind
+or of nature, not as yet subdued to the intellect and uses of man.
+
+'Cosmopolite' has often now a shallow or even a mischievous use; and he
+who calls himself 'cosmopolite' may mean no more than that he is _not_
+a patriot, that his native country does _not_ possess his love. Yet, as
+all must admit, he could have been no common man who, before the
+preaching of the Gospel, launched this word upon the world, and claimed
+this name for himself. Nor was he a common man; for Diogenes the Cynic,
+whose sayings are among quite the most notable in antiquity, was its
+author. Being demanded of what city or country he was, Diogenes
+answered that he was a 'cosmopolite'; in this word widening the range
+of men's thoughts, bringing in not merely a word new to Greek ears, but
+a thought which, however commonplace and familiar to us now, must have
+been most novel and startling to those whom he addressed. I am far from
+asserting that contempt for his citizenship in its narrower sense may
+not have mingled with this his challenge for himself of a citizenship
+wide as the world; but there was not the less a very remarkable
+reaching out here after truths which were not fully born into the world
+until _He_ came, in whom and in whose Church all national differences
+and distinctions are done away.
+
+As occupying somewhat of a middle place between those more deliberate
+word-makers and the multitude whose words rather grow of themselves
+than are made, we must not omit him who is a _maker_ by the very right
+of his name--I mean, the poet. That creative energy with which he is
+endowed, 'the high-flying liberty of conceit proper to the poet,' will
+not fail to manifest itself in this region as in others. Extending the
+domain of thought and feeling, he will scarcely fail to extend that
+also of language, which does not willingly lag behind. And the loftier
+his moods, the more of this maker he will be. The passion of such times,
+the all-fusing imagination, will at once suggest and justify audacities
+in speech, upon which in calmer moods he would not have ventured, or,
+venturing, would have failed to carry others with him: for it is only
+the fluent metal that runs easily into novel shapes and moulds. Nor is
+it merely that the old and the familiar will often become new in the
+poet's hands; that he will give the stamp of allowance, as to him will
+be free to do, to words which hitherto have lived only on the lips of
+the people, or been confined to some single dialect and province; but
+he will enrich his native tongue with words unknown and non-existent
+before--non-existent, that is, save in their elements; for in the
+historic period of a language it is not permitted to any man to do more
+than work on pre-existent materials; to evolve what is latent therein,
+to combine what is apart, to recall what has fallen out of sight.
+
+But to return to the more deliberate coining of words. New necessities
+have within the last few years called out several of these deliberate
+creations in our own language. The almost simultaneous discovery of
+such large abundance of gold in so many quarters of the world led some
+nations so much to dread an enormous depreciation of this metal, that
+they ceased to make it the standard of value--Holland for instance did
+so for a while, though she has since changed her mind; and it has been
+found convenient to invent a word, 'to demonetize' to express this
+process of turning a precious metal from being the legal standard into
+a mere article of commerce. So, too, diplomacy has recently added more
+than one new word to our vocabulary. I suppose nobody ever heard of
+'extradition' till within the last few years; nor of 'neutralization'
+except, it might be, in some treatise upon chemistry, till in the
+treaty of peace which followed the Crimean War the 'neutralization' of
+the Black Sea was made one of the stipulations. 'Secularization,' in
+like manner, owes its birth to the long and weary negotiations which
+preceded the Treaty of Westphalia (1648). Whenever it proved difficult
+to find anywhere else compensation for some powerful claimant, there
+was always some abbey or bishopric which with its revenues might be
+seized, stripped of its ecclesiastical character, and turned into a
+secular possession. Our manifold points of contact with the East, the
+necessity that has thus arisen of representing oriental words to the
+western world by means of an alphabet not its own, with the manifold
+discussions on the fittest equivalents, all this has brought with it
+the need of a word which should describe the process, and
+'transliteration' is the result.
+
+We have long had 'assimilation' in our dictionaries; 'dissimilation'
+has as yet scarcely found its way into them, but it speedily will. [It
+has already appeared in our books on language. [Footnote: See Skeat's
+_Etym. Dict_. (s. v. _truffle_). Pott (_Etym. Forsch_. vol. ii. p. 65)
+introduced the word 'dissimilation' into German.]] Advances in
+philology have rendered it a matter of necessity that we should possess
+a term to designate a certain process which words unconsciously undergo,
+and no other would designate it at all so well. There is a process of
+'assimilation' going on very extensively in language; the organs of
+speech finding themselves helped by changing one letter for another
+which has just occurred, or will just occur in a word; thus we say not
+'a_df_iance,' but 'a_ff_iance,' not 're_n_ow_m_,' as our ancestors did
+when 'renom' was first naturalized, but 're_n_ow_n_'; we say too,
+though we do not write it, 'cu_b_board' and not 'cu_p_board,'
+'su_t_tle' and not 'su_b_tle.' But side by side with this there is
+another opposite process, where some letter would recur too often for
+euphony or ease in speaking, were the strict form of the word too
+closely held fast; and where consequently this letter is exchanged for
+some other, generally for some nearly allied; thus 'cae_r_uleus' was
+once 'cae_l_uleus,' from caelum [Footnote: The connexion of _caeruleus_
+with _caelum_ is not at all certain.] 'me_r_idies' is for 'me_d_idies/
+or medius dies. In the same way the Italians prefer 've_l_eno' to
+'ve_n_eno'; the Germans '_k_artoffel' to '_t_art�ffel,' from Italian
+'tartufola' = Latin terrae tuber, an old name of the potato; and we
+'cinnamo_n_' to 'cinnamo_m_' (the earlier form). So too in 'turtle,'
+'marble,' 'purple,' we have shrunk from the double '_r_' of 'turtur,'
+'marmor,' 'purpura.' [Footnote: See Dwight, _Modern Philology_, 2nd
+Series, p. 100; Heyse, _System der Sprachwissenschaft_, Section 139-
+141; and Peile, _Introduction to Greek and Latin Etymology_, pp. 357-
+379.] New necessities, new evolutions of society into more complex
+conditions, evoke new words; which come forth, because they are
+required now; but did not formerly exist, because in an anterior period
+they were not required. For example, in Greece so long as the poet sang
+his own verses, 'singer' (aoidos) sufficiently expressed the double
+function; such a 'singer' was Homer, and such Homer describes Demodocus,
+the bard of the Phaeacians; that double function, in fact, not being in
+his time contemplated as double, but each of its parts so naturally
+completing the other, that no second word was required. When, however,
+in the division of labour one made the verses which another chaunted,
+then 'poet' or 'maker,' a word unknown to the Homeric age, arose. In
+like manner, when 'physicians' were the only natural philosophers, the
+word covered this meaning as well as that other which it still retains;
+but when the investigation of nature and natural causes detached itself
+from the art of healing, became an independent study, the name
+'physician' remained to that which was as the stock and stem of the art,
+while the new offshoot sought out and obtained a new name for itself.
+
+But it is not merely new things which will require new names. It will
+often be discovered that old things have not got a name at all, or,
+having one, are compelled to share it with something else, often to the
+serious embarrassment of both. The manner in which men become aware of
+such deficiencies, is commonly this. Comparing their own language with
+another, and in some aspects a richer, compelled, it may be, to such
+comparison through having undertaken to transfer treasures of that
+language into their own, they become conscious of much worthy to be
+uttered in human speech, and plainly utterable therein, since another
+language has found utterance for it; but which hitherto has found no
+voice in their own. Hereupon with more or less success they proceed to
+supply the deficiency. Hardly in any other way would the wants in this
+way revealed make themselves felt even by the most thoughtful; for
+language is to so large an extent the condition and limit of thought,
+men are so little accustomed, indeed so little able, to contemplate
+things, except through the intervention, and by the machinery, of words,
+that the absence of words from a language almost necessarily brings
+with it the absence of any sense of that absence. Here is one advantage
+of acquaintance with other languages besides our own, and of the
+institution that will follow, if we have learned those other to any
+profit, of such comparisons, namely, that we thus become aware that
+names are not, and least of all the names in any one language, co-
+extensive with things (and by 'things' I mean subjects as well as
+objects of thought, whatever one can _think_ about), that innumerable
+things and aspects of things exist, which, though capable of being
+resumed and connoted in a word, are yet without one, unnamed and
+unregistered; and thus, vast as may be the world of names, that the
+world of realities, and of realities which are nameable, is vaster
+still. Such discoveries the Romans made, when they sought to transplant
+the moral philosophy of Greece to an Italian soil. They discovered that
+many of its terms had no equivalents with them; which equivalents
+thereupon they proceeded to devise for themselves, appealing for this
+to the latent capabilities of their own tongue. For example, the Greek
+schools had a word, and one playing no unimportant part in some of
+their philosophical systems, to express 'apathy' or the absence of all
+passion and pain. As it was absolutely necessary to possess a
+corresponding word, Cicero invented 'indolentia,' as that 'if I may so
+speak' with which he paves the way to his first introduction of it,
+sufficiently declares. [Footnote: _Fin_. ii. 4; and for 'qualitas' see
+_Acad_. i. 6.] Sometimes, indeed, such a skilful mint-master of words,
+such a subtle watcher and weigher of their force as was Cicero,
+[Footnote: Ille verborum vigilantissimus appensor ac mensor, as
+Augustine happily terms him.] will have noticed even apart from this
+comparison with other languages, an omission in his own, which
+thereupon he will endeavour to supply. Thus the Latin had two
+adjectives which, though not kept apart as strictly as they might have
+been, possessed each its peculiar meaning, 'invidus' one who is envious,
+'invidiosus' one who excites envy in others; [Footnote: Thus the
+monkish line:
+     _Invidiosus_ ego, non _invidus_ esse laboro.] at the same time
+there was only one substantive, 'invidia' the correlative of them both;
+with the disadvantage, therefore, of being employed now in an active,
+now in a passive sense, now for the envy which men feel, and now for
+the envy which they excite. The word he saw was made to do double duty;
+under a seeming unity there lurked a real dualism, from which manifold
+confusions might follow. He therefore devised 'invidentia,' to express
+the active envy, or the envying, no doubt desiring that 'invidia'
+should be restrained to the passive, the being envied. 'Invidentia' to
+all appearance supplied a real want; yet Cicero himself did not succeed
+in giving it currency; does not seem himself to have much cared to
+employ it again. [Footnote: _Tusc._ iii. 9; iv. 8; cf. D�derlein,
+_Synon._ vol. iii, p. 68.] We see by this example that not every word,
+which even an expert in language proposes, finds acceptance; [Footnote:
+Quintilian's advice, based on this fact, is good (i. 6. 42): Etiamsi
+potest nihil peccare, qui utitur iis verbis quae summi auctores
+tradiderunt, multum tamen refert non solum quid _dixerint_, sed etiam
+quid _persuaserint_. He himself, as he informs us, invented 'vocalitas'
+to correspond with the Greek [Greek: euphonia] (_Instit._ i. 5. 24),
+but I am not conscious that he found any imitators here.] for, as
+Dryden, treating on this subject, has well observed, 'It is one thing
+to draw a bill, and another to have it accepted.' Provided some words
+live, he must be content that others should fall to the ground and die.
+Nor is this the only unsuccessful candidate for admission into the
+language which Cicero put forward. His 'indolentia' which I mentioned
+just now, hardly passed beyond himself; [Footnote: Thus Seneca a little
+later is unaware, or has forgotten, that Cicero made any such
+suggestion. Taking no notice of it, he proposes 'impatientia' as an
+adequate rendering of [Greek: apatheia]. There clung this inconvenience
+to the word, as he himself allowed, that it was already used in exactly
+the opposite sense (_Ep_. 9). Elsewhere he claims to be the inventor of
+'essentia' (_Ep_. 38;.)] his 'vitiositas,' [Footnote: _Tusc_. iv. 15.]
+'indigentia,' [Footnote: _Ibid_. iv. 9. 21.] and 'mulierositas,'
+[Footnote: _Ibid_. iv. ii.] not at all. 'Beatitas' too and 'beatitudo,'
+[Footnote: Nat. Dear. i. 34.] both of his coining, yet, as he owns
+himself, with something strange and unattractive about them, found
+almost no acceptance at all in the classical literature of Rome:
+'beatitude,' indeed, obtained a home, as it deserved to do, in the
+Christian Church, but 'beatitas' none. Coleridge's 'esemplastic,' by
+which he was fain to express the all-atoning or unifying power of the
+imagination, has not pleased others at all in the measure in which it
+pleased himself; while the words of Jeremy Taylor, of such Latinists as
+Sir Thomas Browne and Henry More, born only to die, are multitudinous
+as the fallen leaves of autumn. [Footnote: See my _English Past and
+Present_, 13th edit. p. 113.] Still even the word which fails is often
+an honourable testimony to the scholarship, or the exactness of thought,
+or the imagination of its author; and Ben Jonson is over-hard on
+'neologists,' if I may bring this term back to its earlier meaning,
+when he says: 'A man coins not a new word without some peril, and less
+fruit; for if it happen to be received, the praise is but moderate; if
+refused, the scorn is assured,' [Footnote: Therefore the maxim: Moribus
+antiquis, praesentibus utere verbis.]
+
+I spoke just now of comprehensive words, which should singly say what
+hitherto it had taken many words to say, in which a higher term has
+been reached than before had been attained. The value of these is
+incalculable. By the cutting short of lengthy explanations and tedious
+circuits of language, they facilitate mental processes, such as would
+often have been nearly or quite impossible without them; and such as
+have invented or put these into circulation, are benefactors of a high
+order to knowledge. In the ordinary traffic of life, unless our
+dealings are on the smallest scale, we willingly have about us our
+money in the shape rather of silver than of copper; and if our
+transactions are at all extensive, rather in gold than in silver: while,
+if we were setting forth upon a long and costly journey, we should be
+best pleased to turn even our gold coin itself into bills of exchange
+or circular notes; in fact, into the highest denomination of money
+which it was capable of assuming. How many words with which we are now
+perfectly familiar are for us what the circular note or bill of
+exchange is for the traveller or the merchant. As innumerable pence, a
+multitude of shillings, not a few pounds are gathered up and
+represented by one of these, so have we in some single word the
+quintessence and final result of an infinite number of anterior mental
+processes, ascending one above the other, until all have been at length
+summed up for us in that single word. This last may be compared to
+nothing so fitly as to some mighty river, which does not bring its
+flood of waters to the sea, till many rills have been swallowed up in
+brooks, and brooks in streams, and streams in tributary rivers, each of
+these affluents having lost its separate name and existence in that
+which at last represents and contains them all.
+
+Science is an immense gainer by words which thus say singly, what whole
+sentences might with difficulty have succeeded in saying. Thus
+'isothermal' is quite a modern invention; but how much is summed up by
+the word; what a long story is saved, as often as we speak of
+'isothermal' lines. Physiologists have given the name of 'atavism' to
+the emerging again of a face in a family after its disappearance during
+two or three generations. What would have else needed a sentence is
+here accomplished by a word. Lord Bacon somewhere describes a certain
+candidate for the Chair of St. Peter as being 'papable.' There met,
+that is, in him all the conditions, and they were many, which would
+admit the choice of the Conclave falling upon him. When Bacon wrote,
+one to be 'papable' must have been born in lawful wedlock; must have no
+children nor grandchildren living; must not have a kinsman already in
+the Conclave; must be already a Cardinal; all which facts this single
+word sums up. When Aristotle, in the opening sentences of his
+_Rhetoric_, declares that rhetoric and logic are antistrophic,' what a
+wonderful insight into both, and above all into their relations to one
+another, does the word impart to those who have any such special
+training as enables them to take in all which hereby he intends. Or
+take a word so familiar as 'circle,' and imagine how it would fare with
+us, if, as often as in some long and difficult mathematical problem we
+needed to refer to this figure, we were obliged to introduce its entire
+definition, no single word representing it; and not this only, but the
+definition of each term employed in the definition;--how well nigh
+impossible it would prove to carry the whole process in the mind, or to
+take oversight of all its steps. Imagine a few more words struck out of
+the vocabulary of the mathematician, and if all activity and advance in
+his proper domain was not altogether arrested, yet would it be as
+effectually restrained and hampered as commercial intercourse would be,
+if in all its transactions iron or copper were the sole medium of
+exchange. Wherever any science is progressive, there will be progress
+in its nomenclature as well. Words will keep pace with things, and with
+more or less felicity resuming in themselves the labours of the past,
+will at once assist and abridge the labours of the future; like tools
+which, themselves the result of the finest mechanical skill, do at the
+same time render other and further triumphs of art possible, oftentimes
+such as would prove quite unattainable without them. [Footnote: See
+Mill, _System of Logic_, iv. 6, 3.]
+
+It is not merely the widening of men's intellectual horizon, which,
+bringing new thoughts within the range of their vision, compels the
+origination of corresponding words; but as often as regions of this
+outward world hitherto closed are laid open, the novel objects of
+interest which these contain will demand to find their names, and not
+merely to be catalogued in the nomenclature of science, but, so far as
+they present themselves to the popular eye, will require to be
+popularly named. When a new thing, a plant, or fruit, or animal, or
+whatever else it may be, is imported from some foreign land, or so
+comes within the sphere of knowledge that it needs to be thus named,
+there are various ways by which this may be done. The first and
+commonest way is to import the name and the thing together,
+incorporating the former, unchanged, or with slight modification, into
+the language. Thus we did with the potato, which is only another form
+of 'batata,' in which shape the original Indian word appears in our
+earlier voyagers. But this is not the only way of naming; and the
+example on which I have just lighted affords good illustration of
+various other methods which may be adopted. Thus a name belonging to
+something else, which the new object nearly resembles, may be
+transferred to it, and the confusion arising from calling different
+things by the same name disregarded. It was thus in German, 'kartoffel'
+being only a corruption, which found place in the last century, of
+'tartuffel' from the Italian 'tartiiffolo'(Florio), properly the name
+of the truffle; but which not the less was transferred to the potato,
+on the ground of the many resemblances between them. [Footnote: [See
+Kluge, _Etym. Dict_. (s. v. _Kartoffel_).]] Or again this same transfer
+may take place, but with some qualifying or distinguishing addition.
+Thus in Italy also men called the potato 'tartufo,' but added 'bianco,'
+the white truffle; a name now giving way to 'patata.' Thus was it, too,
+with the French; who called it apple, but 'apple of the earth'; even as
+in many of the provincial dialects of Germany it bears the name of
+'erdapfel' or earth-apple to this day.
+
+It will sometimes happen that a language, having thus to provide a new
+name for a new thing, will seem for a season not to have made up its
+mind by which of these methods it shall do it. Two names will exist
+side by side, and only after a time will one gain the upper hand of the
+other. Thus when the pineapple was introduced into England, it brought
+with it the name of 'ananas' erroneously 'anana' under which last form
+it is celebrated by Thomson in his _Seasons_. [Footnote: [The word
+ananas is from a native Peruvian name _nanas_. The pineapple was first
+seen by Europeans in Peru; see the _New English Dictionary_ (s. v.).]]
+This name has been nearly or quite superseded by 'pineapple' manifestly
+suggested by the likeness of the new fruit to the cone of the pine. It
+is not a very happy formation; for it is not _likeness_, but _identity_,
+which 'pineapple' suggests, and it gives some excuse to an error, which
+up to a very late day ran through all German-English and French-English
+dictionaries; I know not whether even now it has disappeared. In all of
+these 'pineapple' is rendered as though it signified not the anana, but
+this cone of the pine; and not very long ago, the _Journal des D�bats_
+made some uncomplimentary observations on the voracity of the English,
+who could wind up a Lord Mayor's banquet with fir-cones for dessert.
+
+Sometimes the name adopted will be one drawn from an intermediate
+language, through which we first became acquainted with the object
+requiring to be named. 'Alligator' is an example of this. When that
+ugly crocodile of the New World was first seen by the Spanish
+discoverers, they called it, with a true insight into its species, 'el
+lagarto,' _the_ lizard, as being the largest of that lizard species to
+which it belonged, or sometimes 'el lagarto de las Indias,' the Indian
+lizard. In Sir Walter Raleigh's _Discovery of Guiana_ the word still
+retains its Spanish form. Sailing up the Orinoco, 'we saw in it,' he
+says, 'divers sorts of strange fishes of marvellous bigness, but for
+_lagartos_ it exceeded; for there were thousands of these ugly serpents,
+and the people call it, for the abundance of them, the river of
+_lagartos_, in their language.' We can explain the shape which with us
+the word gradually assumed, by supposing that English sailors who
+brought it home, and had continually heard, but may have never seen it
+written, blended, as in similar instances has often happened, the
+Spanish article 'el' with the name. In Ben Jonson's 'alligarta,' we
+note the word in process of transformation. [Footnote: 'Alcoran'
+supplies another example of this curious annexation of the article.
+Examples of a like absorption or incorporation of it are to be found in
+many languages; in our own, when we write 'a newt,' and not an ewt, or
+when our fathers wrote 'a nydiot' (Sir T. More), and not an idiot; in
+the Italian, which has 'lonza' for onza; but they are still more
+numerous in French. Thus 'lierre,' ivy, was written by Ronsard,
+'l'hierre,' which is correct, being the Latin 'hedera.' 'Lingot' is our
+'ingot,' but with fusion of the article; in 'larigot' and 'loriot' the
+word and the article have in the same manner grown together. In old
+French it was l'endemain,' or, le jour en demain: 'le lendemain,' as
+now written, is a barbarous excess of expression. 'La Pouille,' a name
+given to the southern extremity of Italy, and in which we recognize
+'Apulia,' is another variety of error, but moving in the same sphere
+(G�nin, _R�cr�ations Philologiques_, vol. i. pp. 102-105); of the same
+variety is 'La Natolie,' which was written 'L'Anatolie' once. An Irish
+scholar has observed that in modern Irish 'an' (='the') is frequently
+thus absorbed in the names of places, as in 'Nenagh, 'Naul'; while
+sometimes an error exactly the reverse of this is committed, and a
+letter supposed to be the article, but in fact a part of the word,
+dropt: thus 'Oughaval,' instead of 'Noughhaval' or New Habitation. [See
+Joyce, _Irish Local Names_.]]
+
+Less honourable causes than some which I have mentioned, give birth to
+new words; which will sometimes reflect back a very fearful light on
+the moral condition of that epoch in which first they saw the light. Of
+the Roman emperor, Tiberius, one of those 'inventors of evil things,'
+of whom St. Paul speaks (Rom. i. 30), Tacitus informs us that under his
+hateful dominion words, unknown before, emerged in the Latin tongue,
+for the setting out of wickednesses, happily also previously unknown,
+which he had invented. It was the same frightful time which gave birth
+to 'delator,' alike to the thing and to the word.
+
+The atrocious attempt of Lewis XIV. to convert the Protestants in his
+dominions to the Roman Catholic faith by quartering dragoons upon them,
+with license to misuse to the uttermost those who refused to conform,
+this 'booted mission' (mission bott�e), as it was facetiously called at
+the time, has bequeathed 'dragonnade' to the French language. 'Refugee'
+had at the same time its rise, and owed it to the same event. They were
+called 'r�fugi�s' or 'refugees' who took refuge in some land less
+inhospitable than their own, so as to escape the tender mercies of
+these missionaries. 'Convertisseur' belongs to the same period. The
+spiritual factor was so named who undertook to convert the Protestants
+on a large scale, receiving so much a head for the converts whom he
+made.
+
+Our present use of 'rou�' throws light on another curious and shameful
+page of French history. The 'rou�,' by which word now is meant a man of
+profligate character and conduct, is properly and primarily one broken
+on the wheel. Its present and secondary meaning it derived from that
+Duke of Orleans who was Regent of France after the death of Lewis XIV.
+It was his miserable ambition to gather round him companions worse, if
+possible, and wickeder than himself. These, as the Duke of St. Simon
+assures us, he was wont to call his 'rou�s'; every one of them
+abundantly deserving to be broken on the wheel,--which was the
+punishment then reserved in France for the worst malefactors.
+[Footnote: The 'rou�s' themselves declared that the word expressed
+rather their readiness to give any proof of their affection, even to
+the being broken upon the wheel, to their protector and friend.] When
+we have learned the pedigree of the word, the man and the age rise up
+before us, glorying in their shame, and not caring to pay to virtue
+even that hypocritical homage which vice finds it sometimes convenient
+to render.
+
+The great French Revolution made, as might be expected, characteristic
+contributions to the French language. It gives us some insight into its
+ugliest side to know that, among other words, it produced the
+following: 'guillotine,' 'incivisme,' 'lanterner,' 'noyade,'
+'sansculotte,' 'terrorisme.' Still later, the French conquests in North
+Africa, and the pitiless severities with which every attempt at
+resistance on the part of the free tribes of the interior was put down
+and punished, have left their mark on it as well; 'razzia' which is
+properly an Arabic word, having been added to it, to express the swift
+and sudden sweeping away of a tribe, with its herds, its crops, and all
+that belongs to it. The Communist insurrection of 1871 bequeathed one
+contribution almost as hideous as itself, namely 'p�troleuse,' to the
+language. It is quite recently that we have made any acquaintance with
+'recidivist'--one, that is, who falls back once more on criminal
+courses.
+
+But it would ill become us to look only abroad for examples in this
+kind, when perhaps an equal abundance might be found much nearer home.
+Words of our own keep record of passages in our history in which we
+have little reason to glory. Thus 'mob' and 'sham' had their birth in
+that most disgraceful period of English history, the interval between
+the Restoration and the Revolution. 'I may note,' says one writing
+towards the end of the reign of Charles II., 'that the rabble first
+changed their title, and were called "the mob" in the assemblies of
+this [The Green Ribbon] Club. It was their beast of burden, and called
+first "mobile vulgus," but fell naturally into the contraction of one
+syllable, and ever since is become proper English.' [Footnote: North,
+_Examen_, p. 574; for the origin of 'sham' see p. 231. Compare Swift in
+_The Tatler_, No. ccxxx. 'I have done the utmost,' he there says, 'for
+some years past to stop the progress of "mob" and "banter"; but have
+been plainly borne down by numbers, and betrayed by those who promised
+to assist me.'] At a much later date a writer in _The Spectator_ speaks
+of 'mob' as still only struggling into existence. 'I dare not answer,'
+he says, 'that mob, rap, pos, incog., and the like, will not in time be
+looked at as part of our tongue.' In regard of 'mob,' the mobile
+multitude, swayed hither and thither by each gust of passion or caprice,
+this, which _The Spectator_ hardly expected, while he confessed it
+possible, has actually come to pass. 'It is one of the many words
+formerly slang, which are now used by our best writers, and received,
+like pardoned outlaws, into the body of respectable citizens.' Again,
+though the murdering of poor helpless lodgers, afterwards to sell their
+bodies for dissection, can only be regarded as the monstrous wickedness
+of one or two, yet the verb 'to burke,' drawn from the name of a wretch
+who long pursued this hideous traffic, will be evidence in all after
+times, unless indeed its origin should be forgotten, to how strange a
+crime this age of ours could give birth. Nor less must it be
+acknowledged that 'to ratten' is no pleasant acquisition which the
+language within the last few years has made; and as little 'to
+boycott,' which is of still later birth. [Footnote: This word has found
+its way into most European languages, see the New English Dictionary (s.
+v.)]
+
+We must not count as new words properly so called, although they may
+delay us for a minute, those comic words, most often comic combinations
+formed at will, wherein, as plays and displays of power, writers
+ancient and modern have delighted. These for the most part are meant to
+do service for the moment, and, this done, to pass into oblivion; the
+inventors of them themselves having no intention of fastening them
+permanently on the language. Thus Aristophanes coined [Greek:
+mellonikiao], to loiter like Nicias, with allusion to the delays by
+whose aid this prudent commander sought to put off the disastrous
+Sicilian expedition, with other words not a few, familiar to every
+scholar. The humour will sometimes consist in their enormous
+length, [Footnote: As in the [Greek: amphiptolemopedesistratos] of
+Eupolis; the [Greek: spermagoraiolekitholachanopolis] of Aristophanes.
+There are others a good deal longer than these.] sometimes in their
+mingled observance and transgression of the laws of the language, as in
+the [Greek: danaotatos], in the [Greek: autotatos] of the Greek comic
+poet, the 'patruissimus' and 'oculissimus,' comic superlatives of
+patruus and oculus, 'occisissimus' of occisus; 'dominissimus' of
+dominus; 'asinissimo' (Italian) of asino; or in superlative piled on
+superlative, as in the 'minimissimus' and 'pessimissimus' of Seneca,
+the 'ottimissimo' of the modern Italian; so too in the 'dosones,'
+'dabones,' which in Greek and in medieval Latin were names given to
+those who were ever promising, ever saying 'I will give,' but never
+crowning promise with performance. Plautus, with his exuberant wit, and
+exulting in his mastery of the Latin language, is rich in these,
+'fustitudinus,' 'ferricrepinus' and the like; will put together four or
+five lines consisting wholly of comic combinations thrown off for the
+occasion. [Footnote: _Persa_, iv. 6, 20-23.] Of the same character is
+Chaucer's 'octogamy,' or eighth marriage; Butler's 'cynarctomachy,' or
+battle of a dog and bear; Southey's 'matriarch,' for by this name he
+calls the wife of the Patriarch Job; but Southey's fun in this line of
+things is commonly poor enough; his want of finer scholarship making
+itself felt here. What humour for example can any one find in
+'philofelist' or lover of cats? Fuller, when he used 'to avunculize,'
+meaning to tread in the footsteps of one's uncle, scarcely proposed it
+as a lasting addition to the language; as little did Pope intend more
+than a very brief existence for 'vaticide,' or Cowper for 'extra-
+foraneous,' or Carlyle for 'gigmanity,' for 'tolpatchery,' or the like.
+
+Such are some of the sources of increase in the wealth of a language;
+some of the quarters from which its vocabulary is augmented. There have
+been, from time to time, those who have so little understood what a
+language is, and what are the laws which it obeys, that they have
+sought by arbitrary decrees of their own to arrest its growth, have
+pronounced that it has reached the limits of its growth, and must not
+henceforward presume to develop itself further. Even Bentley with all
+his vigorous insight into things is here at fault. 'It were no
+difficult contrivance,' he says, 'if the public had any regard to it,
+to make the English tongue immutable, unless hereafter some foreign
+nation shall invade and overrun us.' [Footnote: Works, vol. II. p. 13.]
+But a language has a life, as truly as a man, or as a tree. As a man,
+it must grow to its full stature; unless indeed its life is prematurely
+abridged by violence from without; even as it is also submitted to his
+conditions of decay. As a forest tree, it will defy any feeble bands
+which should attempt to control its expansion, so long as the principle
+of growth is in it; as a tree too it will continually, while it casts
+off some leaves, be putting forth others. And thus all such attempts to
+arrest have utterly failed, even when made under conditions the most
+favourable for success. The French Academy, numbering all or nearly all
+the most distinguished writers of France, once sought to exercise such
+a domination over their own language, and might have hoped to succeed,
+if success had been possible for any. But the language heeded their
+decrees as little as the advancing tide heeded those of Canute. Could
+they hope to keep out of men's speech, or even out of their books,
+however they excluded from their own _Dictionary_, such words as
+'blague,' 'blaguer,' 'blagueur,' because, being born of the people,
+they had the people's mark upon them? After fruitless resistance for a
+time, they have in cases innumerable been compelled to give way--though
+in favour of the words just cited they have not yielded yet--and in
+each successive edition of their _Dictionary_ have thrown open its
+doors to words which had established themselves in the language, and
+would hold their ground there, altogether indifferent whether they
+received the Academy's seal of allowance or not. [Footnote: Nisard
+(_Curiosites de l'Etym. Franc._ p. 195) has an article on these words,
+where with the epigrammatic neatness which distinguishes French prose,
+he says, Je regrette que l'Acad�mie repousse de son Dictionnaire les
+mots _blague, blagueur_, laissant gronder � sa porte ces fils effront�s
+du peuple, qui finiront par l'enfoncer. On this futility of struggling
+against popular usage in language Montaigne has said, 'They that will
+fight custom with grammar are fools'; and, we may add, not less fools,
+as engaged in as hopeless a conflict, they that will fight it with
+dictionary.]
+
+Littr�, the French scholar who single-handed has given to the world a
+far better Dictionary than that on which the Academy had bestowed the
+collective labour of more than two hundred years, shows a much juster
+estimate of the actual facts of language. If ever there was a word born
+in the streets, and bearing about it tokens of the place of its birth,
+it is 'gamin'; moreover it cannot be traced farther back than the year
+1835; when first it appeared in a book, though it may have lived some
+while before on the lips of the people. All this did not hinder his
+finding room for it in the pages of his _Dictionary_. He did the same
+for 'fl�neur,' and for 'rococo,' and for many more, bearing similar
+marks of a popular origin. [Footnote: A work by Darmesteter, _De la
+Cr�ation actuelle de Mots nouveaux dans la Langue Fran�aise_, Paris,
+1877, is well worth consulting here.] And with good right; for though
+fashions may descend from the upper classes to the lower, words, such I
+mean as constitute real additions to the wealth of a language, ascend
+from the lower to the higher; and of these not a few, let fastidious
+scholars oppose or ignore them for a while as they may, will assert a
+place for themselves therein, from which they will not be driven by the
+protests of all the scholars and all the academicians in the world. The
+world is ever moving, and language has no choice but to move with it.
+[Footnote: One has well said, 'The subject of language, the instrument,
+but also the restraint, of thought, is endless. The history of language,
+the mouth speaking from the fulness of the heart, is the history of
+human action, faith, art, policy, government, virtue, and crime. When
+society progresses, the language of the people necessarily runs even
+with the line of society. You cannot unite past and present, still less
+can you bring back the past; moreover, the law of progress is the law
+of storms, it is impossible to inscribe an immutable statute of
+language on the periphery of a vortex, whirling as it advances. Every
+political development induces a concurrent alteration or expansion in
+conversation and composition. New principles are generated, new
+authorities introduced; new terms for the purpose of explaining or
+concealing the conduct of public men must be created: new
+responsibilities arise. The evolution of new ideas renders the change
+as easy as it is irresistible, being a natural change indeed, like our
+own voice under varying emotions or in different periods of life: the
+boy cannot speak like the baby, nor the man like the boy, the wooer
+speaks otherwise than the husband, and every alteration in
+circumstances, fortune or misfortune, health or sickness, prosperity or
+adversity, produces some corresponding change of speech or inflection
+of tone.']
+
+Those who make attempts to close the door against all new comers are
+strangely forgetful of the steps whereby that vocabulary of the
+language, with which they are so entirely satisfied that they resent
+every endeavour to enlarge it, had itself been gotten together--namely
+by that very process which they are now seeking by an arbitrary decree
+to arrest. We so take for granted that words with which we have been
+always familiar, whose right to a place in the language no one dreams
+now of challenging or disputing, have always formed part of it, that it
+is oftentimes a surprise to discover of how very late introduction many
+of these actually are; what an amount, it may be, of remonstrance and
+resistance some of them encountered at the first. To take two or three
+Latin examples: Cicero, in employing 'favor,' a word soon after used by
+everybody, does it with an apology, evidently feels that he is
+introducing a questionable novelty, being probably first applied to
+applause in the theatre; 'urbanus,' too, in our sense of urbane, had in
+his time only just come up; 'obsequium' he believes Terence to have
+been the first to employ. [Footnote: On the new words in classical
+Latin, see Quintilian, Inst. viii. 3. 30-37.] 'Soliloquium' seems to us
+so natural, indeed so necessary, a word, this 'soliloquy,' or talking
+of a man with himself alone, something which would so inevitably demand
+and obtain its adequate expression, that we learn with surprise that no
+one spoke of a 'soliloquy' before Augustine; the word having been
+coined, as he distinctly informs us, by himself. [Footnote: Solil. 2.
+7.]
+
+Where a word has proved an unquestionable gain, it is interesting to
+watch it as it first emerges, timid, and doubtful of the reception it
+will meet with; and the interest is much enhanced if it has thus come
+forth on some memorable occasion, or from some memorable man. Both
+these interests meet in the word 'essay.' Were we asked what is the
+most remarkable volume of essays which the world has seen, few, capable
+of replying, would fail to answer, Lord Bacon's. But they were also the
+first collection of these, which bore that name; for we gather from the
+following passage in the (intended) dedication of the volume to Prince
+Henry, that 'essay' was itself a recent word in the language, and, in
+the use to which he put it, perfectly novel: he says--'To write just
+treatises requireth leisure in the writer, and leisure in the
+reader; ... which is the cause which hath made me choose to write
+certain brief notes set down rather significantly than curiously, which
+I have called _Essays_. The word is late, but the thing is ancient.'
+From this dedication we gather that, little as 'essays' now can be
+considered a word of modesty, deprecating too large expectations on the
+part of the reader, it had, as 'sketches' perhaps would have now, as
+'commentary' had in the Latin, that intention in its earliest use. In
+this deprecation of higher pretensions it resembled the 'philosopher'
+of Pythagoras. Others had styled themselves, or had been willing to be
+styled, 'wise men.' 'Lover of wisdom' a name at once so modest arid so
+beautiful, was of his devising. [Footnote: Diogenes La�rtius, Prooem.
+Section 12.] But while thus some words surprise us that they are so new,
+others surprise us that they are so old. Few, I should imagine, are
+aware that 'rationalist,' and this in a theological, and not merely a
+philosophical sense, is of such early date as it is; or that we have
+not imported quite in these later times both the name and the thing
+from Germany. Yet this is very far from the case. There were
+'rationalists' in the time of the Commonwealth; and these challenging
+the name exactly on the same grounds as those who in later times have
+claimed it for their own. Thus, the author of a newsletter from London,
+of date October 14, 1646, among other things mentions: 'There is a new
+sect sprung up among them [the Presbyterians and Independents], and
+these are the _Rationalists_, and what their reason dictates them in
+Church or State stands for good, until they be convinced with better;'
+[Footnote: _Clarendon State Papers_, vol. ii. p. 40 of the _Appendix._]
+with more to the same effect. 'Christology' has been lately
+characterized as a monstrous importation from Germany. I am quite of
+the remonstrant's mind that English theology does not need, and can do
+excellently well without it; yet this novelty it is not; for in the
+_Preface_ to the works of that illustrious Arminian divine of the
+seventeenth century, Thomas Jackson, written by Benjamin Oley, his
+friend and pupil, the following passage occurs: 'The reader will find
+in this author an eminent excellence in that part of divinity which I
+make bold to call _Christology_, in displaying the great mystery of
+godliness, God the Son manifested in human flesh.' [Footnote: _Preface
+to Dr. Jackson's Works_, vol. i. p. xxvii. A work of Fleming's,
+published in 1700, bears the title, _Christology_.] In their power of
+taking up foreign words into healthy circulation and making them truly
+their own, languages differ much from one another, and the same
+language from itself at different periods of its life. There are
+languages of which the appetite and digestive power, the assimilative
+energy, is at some periods almost unlimited. Nothing is too hard for
+them; everything turns to good with them; they will shape and mould to
+their own uses and habits almost any material offered to them. This,
+however, is in their youth; as age advances, the assimilative energy
+diminishes. Words are still adopted; for this process of adoption can
+never wholly cease; but a chemical amalgamation of the new with the old
+does not any longer find place; or only in some instances, and very
+partially even in them. The new comers lie upon the surface of the
+language; their sharp corners are not worn or rounded off; they remain
+foreign still in their aspect and outline, and, having missed their
+opportunity of becoming otherwise, will remain so to the end. Those who
+adopt, as with an inward misgiving about their own gift and power of
+stamping them afresh, make a conscience of keeping them in exactly the
+same form in which they have received them; instead of conforming them
+to the laws of that new community into which they are now received.
+Nothing will illustrate this so well as a comparison of different words
+of the same family, which have at different periods been introduced
+into our language. We shall find that those of an earlier introduction
+have become English through and through, while the later introduced,
+belonging to the same group, have been very far from undergoing the
+same transforming process. Thus 'bishop' [A.S. biscop], a word as old
+as the introduction of Christianity into England, though derived from
+'episcopus,' is thoroughly English; while 'episcopal,' which has
+supplanted 'bishoply,' is only a Latin word in an English dress.
+'Alms,' too, is thoroughly English, and English which has descended to
+us from far; the very shape in which we have the word, one syllable for
+'ele�mosyna' of six, sufficiently testifying this; 'letters,' as Horne
+Tooke observes,' like soldiers, being apt to desert and drop off in a
+long march.' The seven-syllabled and awkward 'ele�mosynary' is of far
+more recent date. Or sometimes this comparison is still more striking,
+when it is not merely words of the same family, but the very same word
+which has been twice adopted, at an earlier period and a later--the
+earlier form will be thoroughly English, as 'palsy'; the later will be
+only a Greek or Latin word spelt with English letters, as 'paralysis.'
+'Dropsy,' 'quinsy,' 'megrim,' 'squirrel,' 'rickets,' 'surgeon,'
+'tansy,' 'dittany,' 'daffodil,' and many more words that one might name,
+have nothing of strangers or foreigners about them, have made
+themselves quite at home in English. So entirely is their physiognomy
+native, that it would be difficult even to suspect them to be of Greek
+descent, as they all are. Nor has 'kickshaws' anything about it now
+which would compel us at once to recognize in it the French 'quelques
+choses' [Footnote: 'These cooks have persuaded us their coarse fare is
+the best, and all other but what they dress to be mere _quelques
+choses_, made dishes of no nourishing' (Whitlock, _Zootomia_, p.
+147).]--'French _kickshose_,' as with allusion to the quarter from
+which it came, and while the memory of that was yet fresh in men's
+minds, it was often called by our early writers. A very notable fact
+about new words, and a very signal testimony of their popular origin,
+of their birth from the bosom of the people, is the difficulty so often
+found in tracing their pedigree. When the _causae vocum_ are sought, as
+they very fitly are, and out of much better than mere curiosity, for
+the _causae rerum_ are very often wrapt up in them, those continually
+elude our research. Nor does it fare thus merely with words to which
+attention was called, and interest about their etymology awakened, only
+after they had been long in popular use--for that such should often
+give scope to idle guesses, should altogether refuse to give up their
+secret, is nothing strange--but words will not seldom perplex and
+baffle the inquirer even where an investigation of their origin has
+been undertaken almost as soon as they have come into existence. Their
+rise is mysterious; like almost all acts of _becoming_, it veils itself
+in deepest obscurity. They emerge, they are in everybody's mouth; but
+when it is inquired from whence they are, nobody can tell. They are but
+of yesterday, and yet with inexplicable rapidity they have already lost
+all traces of the precise circumstances under which they were born.
+
+The rapidity with which this comes to pass is nowhere more striking
+than in the names of political or religious parties, and above all in
+names of slight or of contempt. Thus Baxter tells us that when he wrote
+there already existed two explanations of 'Roundhead,' [Footnote:
+_Narrative of my Life and Times_, p. 34; 'The original of which name is
+not certainly known. Some say it was because the Puritans then commonly
+wore short hair, and the King's party long hair; some say, it was
+because the Queen at Stafford's trial asked who that _round-headed_ man
+was, meaning Mr. Pym, because he spake so strongly.'] a word not nearly
+so old as himself. How much has been written about the origin of the
+German 'ketzer' (= our 'heretic'), though there can scarcely be a doubt
+that the Cathari make their presence felt in this word. [Footnote: See
+on this word Kluge's _Etym. Dict_.] Hardly less has been disputed about
+the French 'cagot.' [Footnote: The word meant in old times 'a leper';
+see Cotgrave's _Dictionary_, also _Athenceum_, No. 2726.] Is 'Lollard,'
+or 'Loller' as we read it in Chaucer, from 'lollen,' to chaunt? that is,
+does it mean the chaunting or canting people? or had the Lollards their
+title from a principal person among them of this name, who suffered at
+the stake?--to say nothing of 'lolium,' found by some in the name,
+these men being as _tares_ among the wholesome wheat. [Footnote: Hahn,
+_Ketzer im Mittelalter_ vol. ii. p. 534.] The origin of 'Huguenot' as
+applied to the French Protestants, was already a matter of doubt and
+discussion in the lifetime of those who first bore it. A distinguished
+German scholar has lately enumerated fifteen explanations which have
+been offered of the word. [Footnote: Mahn, _Etymol. Untersuch_. p. 92.
+Littr�, who has found the word in use as a Christian name two centuries
+before the Reformation, has no doubt that here is the explanation of it.
+At any rate there is here what explodes a large number of the proposed
+explanations, as for instance that Huguenot is another and popular
+shape of 'Eidgenossen.'] [How did the lay sisters in the Low Countries,
+the 'Beguines' get their name? Many derivations have been suggested,
+but the most probable account is that given in Ducange, that the
+appellative was derived from 'le B�gue' the Stammerer, the nickname of
+Lambert, a priest of Li�ge in the twelfth century, the founder of the
+order. (See the document quoted in Ducange, and the 'New English
+Dictionary' (s. v.).)] Were the 'Waldenses' so called from one Waldus,
+to whom these 'Poor Men of Lyons' as they were at first called, owed
+their origin? [Footnote: [It is not doubted now that the Waldenses got
+their name from Peter Waldez or Valdo, a native of Lyons in the twelfth
+century. Waldez was a rich merchant who sold his goods and devoted his
+wealth to furthering translations of the Bible, and to the support of a
+set of poor preachers. For an interesting account of the Waldenses see
+in the _Guardian_, Aug. 18, 1886, a learned review by W. A. B. C. of
+_Histoire Litt�raire des Vaudois_, par E. Montet.]] As little can any
+one tell us with any certainty why the 'Paulicians' and the 'Paterines'
+were severally named as they are; or, to go much further back, why the
+'Essenes' were so called. [Footnote: Lightfoot, _On the Colossians_, p.
+114 sqq.] From whence had Johannes Scotus, who anticipated so much of
+the profoundest thinking of later times, his title of 'Erigena,' and
+did that title mean Irish-born, or what? [Footnote: [There is no doubt
+whatever that _Erigena_ in this case means 'Irish-born.']] 'Prester
+John' was a name given in the Middle Ages to a priest-king, real or
+imaginary, of wide dominion in Central Asia. But whether there was ever
+actually such a person, and what was intended by his name, is all
+involved in the deepest obscurity. How perplexing are many of the
+Church's most familiar terms, and terms the oftenest in the mouth of
+her children; thus her 'Ember' days; her 'Collects'; [Footnote: Freeman,
+_Principles of Divine Service_, vol. i. p. 145.] her 'Breviary'; her
+'Whitsunday'; [Footnote: See Skeat, s. v.] the derivation of 'Mass'
+itself not being lifted above all question. [Footnote: Two at least of
+the ecclesiastical terms above mentioned are no longer perplexing, and
+are quite lifted above dispute: _ember_ in 'Ember Days' represents
+Anglo-Saxon _ymb-ryne_, literally 'a running round, circuit, revolution,
+anniversary'; see Skeat (s. v.); and _Whitsunday_ means simply 'White
+Sunday,' Anglo-Saxon _hwita Sunnan-daeg_.] As little can any one inform
+us why the Roman military standard on which Constantine inscribed the
+symbols of the Christian faith should have been called 'Labarum.' And
+yet the inquiry began early. A father of the Greek Church, almost a
+contemporary of Constantine, can do no better than suggest that
+'labarum' is equivalent to 'laborum,' and that it was so called because
+in that victorious standard was the end of _labour_ and toil (finis
+laborum)! [Footnote: Mahn, _Elym. Untersuch_. p. 65; cf. Kurtz,
+_Kirchen-geschichte_, 3rd edit. p. 115.] The 'ciborium' of the early
+Church is an equal perplexity; [Footnote: The word is first met in
+Chrysostom, who calls the silver models of the temple at Ephesus (Acts
+xix, 24) [Greek: mikra kiboria]. [A primary meaning of the Greek
+[Greek: kiborion] was the cup-like seed-vessel of the Egyptian water-
+lily, see _Dict. of Christian Antiquities_, p. 65.]] and 'chapel'
+(capella) not less. All later investigations have failed effectually to
+dissipate the mystery of the 'Sangraal.' So too, after all that has
+been written upon it, the true etymology of 'mosaic' remains a question
+still.
+
+And not in Church matters only, but everywhere, we meet with the same
+oblivion resting on the origin of words. The Romans, one might
+beforehand have assumed, must have known very well why they called
+themselves 'Quirites,' but it is manifest that this knowledge was not
+theirs. Why they were addressed as Patres Conscripti is a matter
+unsettled still. They could have given, one would think, an explanation
+of their naming an outlying conquered region a 'province.'
+Unfortunately they offer half a dozen explanations, among which we may
+make our choice. 'German' and 'Germany' were names comparatively recent
+when Tacitus wrote; but he owns that he has nothing trustworthy to say
+of their history; [Footnote: _Germania_, 2.] later inquirers have not
+mended the matter, [Footnote: Pott, _Etymol. Forsch._ vol. ii. pt. 2,
+pp. 860-872.]
+
+The derivation of words which are the very key to the understanding of
+the Middle Ages, is often itself wrapt in obscurity. On 'fief' and
+'feudal' how much has been disputed. [Footnote: Stubbs, _Constitutional
+History of England_, vol. i. p. 251.] 'Morganatic' marriages are
+recognized by the public law of Germany, but why called 'morganatic' is
+unsettled still. [Footnote: [There is no mystery about this word; see a
+good account of the term in Skeat's _Diet_. (s. v.).]] Gypsies in
+German are 'zigeuner'; but when this is resolved into 'zichgauner,' or
+roaming thieves, the explanation has about as much scientific value as
+the not less ingenious explanation of 'Saturnus' as satur annis,
+[Footnote: Cicero, _Nat. Deor._ ii. 25.] of 'severitas' as saeva
+veritas (Augustine); of 'cadaver' as composed of the first syllables of
+_ca_ro _da_ta, _ver_mibus. [Footnote: Dwight, _Modern Philology_, lst
+series, p. 288.] Littr� has evidently little confidence in the
+explanation commonly offered of the 'Salic' law, namely, that it was
+the law which prevailed on the banks of the Saal. [Footnote: For a full
+and learned treatment of the various derivations of 'Mephistopheles'
+which have been proposed, and for the first appearance of the name in
+books, see Ward's _Marlowe's Doctor Faustus_, p. 117.]
+
+And the modern world has unsolved riddles innumerable of like kind. Why
+was 'Canada' so named? And whence is 'Yankee' a title little more than
+a century old? having made its first appearance in a book printed at
+Boston, U.S., 1765. Is 'Hottentot' an African word, or, more probably,
+a Dutch or Low Frisian; and which, if any, of the current explanations
+of it should be accepted? [Footnote: See _Transactions of the
+Philological Society_, 1866, pp. 6-25.] Shall we allow Humboldt's
+derivation of 'cannibal,' and find 'Carib' in it? [Footnote: See Skeat,
+s. v.] Whence did the 'Chouans,' the insurgent royalists of Brittany,
+obtain their title? When did California obtain its name, and why?
+Questions such as these, to which we can give no answer or a very
+doubtful one, might be multiplied without end. Littr� somewhere in his
+great Dictionary expresses the misgiving with which what he calls
+'anecdotal etymology' fills him; while yet it is to this that we are
+continually tempted here to have recourse.
+
+But consider now one or two words which have _not_ lost the secret of
+their origin, and note how easily they might have done this, and having
+once lost, how unlikely it is that any searching would have recovered
+it. The traveller Burton tells us that the coarse cloth which is the
+medium of exchange, in fact the money of Eastern Africa, is called
+'merkani.' The word is a native corruption of 'American,' the cloth
+being manufactured in America and sold under this name. But suppose a
+change should take place in the country from which this cloth was
+brought, men little by little forgetting that it ever had been imported
+from America, who then would divine the secret of the word? So too, if
+the tradition of the derivation of 'paraffin' were once let go and lost,
+it would, I imagine, scarcely be recovered. Mere ingenuity would
+scarcely divine the fact that a certain oil was so named because 'parum
+affinis,' having little affinity which chemistry could detect, with any
+other substance.
+
+So, too, it is not very probable that the derivation of 'licorice,'
+once lost, would again be recovered. It would exist, at the best, but
+as one guess among many. There can be no difficulty about it when we
+find it spelt, as we do in Fuller, 'glycyrize or liquoris.'
+
+Those which I cite are but a handful of examples of the way in which
+words forget, or under predisposing conditions might forget, the
+circumstances of their birth. Now if we could believe in any merely
+_arbitrary_ words, standing in connexion with nothing but the mere
+lawless caprice of some inventor, the impossibility of tracing their
+derivation would be nothing strange. Indeed it would be lost labour to
+seek for the parentage of all words, when many probably had none. But
+there is no such thing; there is no word which is not, as the Spanish
+gentleman loves to call himself, an 'hidalgo,' or son of something.
+[Footnote: The Spanish _hijo dalgo_, a gentleman, means a son of wealth,
+or an estate; see Stevens' _Dict_. (s. v.)] All are embodiments, more
+or less successful, of a sensation, a thought, or a fact; or if of more
+fortuitous birth, still they attach themselves somewhere to the already
+subsisting world of words and things, [Footnote: J. Grimm, in an
+interesting review of a little volume dealing with what the Spaniards
+call 'German�a' with no reference to Germany, the French 'argot,' and
+we 'Thieves' Language,' finds in this language the most decisive
+evidence of this fact (_Kleine Schrift_. vol. iv. p. 165): Der
+nothwendige Zusammenhang aller Sprache mit Ueberlieferung zeigt sich
+auch hier; kaum ein Wort dieser Gaunermundart scheint leer erfunden,
+und Menschen eines Gelichters, das sich sonst kein Gewissen aus L�gen
+macht, besch�men manchen Sprachphilosophen, der von Erdichtung einer
+allgemeinen Sprache getr�umt hat. Van Helmont indeed, a sort of modern
+Paracelsus, is said to have _invented_ the word 'gas'; but it is
+difficult to think that there was not a feeling here after 'geest' or
+'geist,' whether he was conscious of this or not.] and have their point
+of contact with it and departure from it, not always discoverable, as
+we see, but yet always existing. [Footnote: Some will remember here the
+old dispute--Greek I was tempted to call it, but in one shape or
+another it emerges everywhere--whether words were imposed on things
+[Greek: thesei] or [Greek: physei], by arbitrary arrangement or by
+nature. We may boldly say with Bacon, Vestigia certe rationis verba
+sunt, and decide in favour of nature. If only they knew their own
+history, they could always explain, and in most cases justify, their
+existence. See some excellent remarks on this subject by Renan, _De
+l'Origine du Langage_, pp. 146-149; and an admirable article on 'Slang'
+in the _Times_, Oct. 18, 1864.] And thus, when a word entirely refuses
+to tell us anything about itself, it must be regarded as a riddle which
+no one has succeeded in solving, a lock of which no man has found the
+key--but still a riddle which has a solution, a lock for which there is
+a key, though now, it may be, irrecoverably lost. And this difficulty--
+it is oftentimes an impossibility--of tracing the genealogy even of
+words of a very recent formation, is, as I observed, a strong argument
+for the birth of the most notable of these out of the heart and from
+the lips of the people. Had they first appeared in books, something in
+the context would most probably explain them. Had they issued from the
+schools of the learned, these would not have failed to leave a
+recognizable stamp and mark upon them.
+
+There is, indeed, another way in which obscurity may rest on a new word,
+or a word employed in a new sense. It may tell the story of its birth,
+of the word or words which compose it, may so bear these on its front,
+that there can be no question here, while yet its purpose and intention
+may be hopelessly hidden from our eyes. The secret once lost, is not
+again to be recovered. Thus no one has called, or could call, in
+question the derivation of 'apocryphal' that it means 'hidden away.'
+When, however, we begin to inquire why certain books which the Church
+either set below the canonical Scriptures, or rejected altogether, were
+called 'apocryphal' then a long and doubtful discussion commences. Was
+it because their origin was _hidden_ to the early Fathers of the Church,
+and thus reasonable suspicions of their authenticity entertained?
+[Footnote: Augustine (_De Civ. Dei_, xv. 23): Apocrypha nuncupantur eo
+quod eorum occulta origo non claruit Patribus. Cf. _Con. Faust_, xi.
+2.] Or was it because they were mysteriously kept out of sight and
+_hidden_ by the heretical sects which boasted themselves in their
+exclusive possession? Or was it that they were books not laid up in the
+Church chest, but _hidden away_ in obscure corners? Or were they books
+_worthier to be hidden_ than to be brought forward and read to the
+faithful? [Footnote: For still another reason for the epithet
+'apocryphal' see Skeat's _Etym. Dict_.]--for all these explanations
+have been offered, and none with such superiority of proof on its side
+as to have deprived others of all right to be heard. In the same way
+there is no question that 'tragedy' is the song of the goat; but why
+this, whether because a goat was the prize for the best performers of
+that song in which the germs of Greek tragedy lay, or because the first
+actors were dressed like satyrs in goatskins, is a question which will
+now remain unsettled to the end. [Footnote: See Bentley, _Works_, vol.
+i. p. 337.] You know what 'leonine' verses are; or, if you do not, it
+is very easy to explain. They are Latin hexameters into which an
+internal rhyme has forced its way. The following, for example, are all
+'leonine':
+
+     Qui pingit _florem_ non pingit floris _odorem_:
+     Si quis det _mannos_, ne quaere in dentibus _annos_.
+     Una avis in _dextra_ melior quam quattuor _extra_.
+
+The word has plainly to do with 'leo' in some shape or other; but are
+these verses leonine from one Leo or Leolinus, who first composed them?
+or because, as the lion is king of beasts, so this, in monkish
+estimation, was the king of metres? or from some other cause which none
+have so much as guessed at? [Footnote: See my _Sacred Latin Poetry_,
+3rd edit. p. 32.] It is a mystery which none has solved. That frightful
+system of fagging which made in the seventeenth century the German
+Universities a sort of hell upon earth, and which was known by the name
+of 'pennalism,' we can scarcely disconnect from 'penna'; while yet this
+does not help us to any effectual scattering of the mystery which rests
+upon the term. [Footnote: See my _Gustavus Adolphus in Germany_, p. 131.
+[_Pennal_ meant 'a freshman,' a term given by the elder students in
+mockery, because the student in his first year was generally more
+industrious, and might be often seen with his _pennal_ or pen-case
+about him.]] The connexion of 'dictator' with 'dicere', 'dictare,' is
+obvious; not so the reason why the 'dictator' obtained his name.
+'Sycophant' and 'superstition' are words, one Greek and one Latin, of
+the same character. No one doubts of what elements they are composed;
+and yet their secret has been so lost, that, except as a more or less
+plausible guess, it can never now be recovered. [Footnote: For a good
+recapitulation of what best has been written on 'superstitio' see Pott,
+_Etym. Forschungen_, vol. ii. p. 921.]
+
+But I must conclude. I may seem in this present lecture a little to
+have outrun your needs, and to have sometimes moved in a sphere too
+remote from that in which your future work will lie. And yet it is in
+truth very difficult to affirm of any words, that they do not touch us,
+do not in some way bear upon our studies, on what we shall hereafter
+have to teach, or shall desire to learn; that there are any conquests
+which language makes that concern only a select few, and may be
+regarded indifferently by all others. For it is here as with many
+inventions in the arts and luxuries of life; which, being at the first
+the exclusive privilege and possession of the wealthy and refined,
+gradually descend into lower strata of society, until at length what
+were once the elegancies and luxuries of a few, have become the
+decencies, well-nigh the necessities, of all. Not otherwise there are
+words, once only on the lips of philosophers or theologians, of the
+deeper thinkers of their time, or of those directly interested in their
+speculations, which step by step have come down, not debasing
+themselves in this act of becoming popular, but training and elevating
+an ever-increasing number of persons to enter into their meaning, till
+at length they have become truly a part of the nation's common stock,
+'household words,' used easily and intelligently by nearly all.
+
+I cannot better conclude this lecture than by quoting a passage, one
+among many, which expresses with a rare eloquence all I have been
+labouring to utter; for this truth, which many have noticed, hardly any
+has set forth with the same fulness of illustration, or the same sense
+of its importance, as the author of _The Philosophy of the Inductive
+Sciences_. 'Language,' he observes, 'is often called an instrument of
+thought, but it is also the nutriment of thought; or rather, it is the
+atmosphere in which thought lives; a medium essential to the activity
+of our speculative powers, although invisible and imperceptible in its
+operation; and an element modifying, by its qualities and changes, the
+growth and complexion of the faculties which it feeds. In this way the
+influence of preceding discoveries upon subsequent ones, of the past
+upon the present, is most penetrating and universal, although most
+subtle and difficult to trace. The most familiar words and phrases are
+connected by imperceptible ties with the reasonings and discoveries of
+former men and distant times. Their knowledge is an inseparable part of
+ours: the present generation inherits and uses the scientific wealth of
+all the past. And this is the fortune, not only of the great and rich
+in the intellectual world, of those who have the key to the ancient
+storehouses, and who have accumulated treasures of their own, but the
+humblest inquirer, while he puts his reasonings into words, benefits by
+the labours of the greatest. When he counts his little wealth, he finds
+he has in his hands coins which bear the image and superscription of
+ancient and modern intellectual dynasties, and that in virtue of this
+possession acquisitions are in his power, solid knowledge within his
+reach, which none could ever have attained to, if it were not that the
+gold of truth once dug out of the mine circulates more and more widely
+among mankind.'
+
+
+
+
+LECTURE VI.
+
+ON THE DISTINCTION OF WORDS.
+
+
+Synonyms, and the study of synonyms, with the advantages to be derived
+from a careful noting of the distinction between them, constitute the
+subject with which in my present Lecture I shall deal. But what, you
+may ask, is meant when, comparing certain words with one another, we
+affirm of them that they are synonyms? We imply that, with great and
+essential resemblances of meaning, they have at the same time small,
+subordinate, and partial differences--these differences being such as
+either originally, and on the strength of their etymology, were born
+with them; or differences which they have by usage acquired; or such as,
+though nearly or altogether latent now, they are capable of receiving
+at the hands of wise and discreet masters of language. Synonyms are
+thus words of like significance in the main; with a large extent of
+ground which they occupy in common, but also with something of their
+own, private and peculiar, which they do not share with one another.
+[Footnote: The word 'synonym' only found its way into the English
+language about the middle of the seventeenth century. Its recent
+incoming is marked by the Greek or Latin termination which for a while
+it bore; Jeremy Taylor writing 'synonymon,' Hacket 'synonymum,' and
+Milton (in the plural) 'synonyma.' Butler has 'synonymas.' On the
+subject of this chapter see Marsh, _Lectures on the English Language_,
+New York, 1860, p. 571, sqq.]
+
+So soon as the term 'synonym' is defined thus, it will be at once
+perceived by any acquainted with its etymology, that, strictly speaking,
+it is a misnomer, and is given, with a certain inaccuracy and
+impropriety, to words which stand in such relations as I have just
+traced to one another; since in strictness of speech the terms,
+'synonyms' and 'synonymous' applied to words, affirm of them that they
+cover not merely almost, but altogether, the same extent of meaning,
+that they are in their signification perfectly identical and
+coincident; circles, so to speak, with the same centre and the same
+circumference. The term, however, is not ordinarily so used; it
+evidently is not so by such as undertake to trace out the distinction
+between synonyms; for, without venturing to deny that there may be such
+perfect synonyms, words, that is, with this absolute coincidence of the
+one with the other, yet these could not be the objects of any such
+discrimination; since, where no real difference exists, it would be
+lost labour and the exercise of a perverse ingenuity to attempt to draw
+one out.
+
+There are, indeed, those who assert that words in one language are
+never exactly synonymous, or in all respects commensurate, with words
+in another; that, when they are compared with one another, there is
+always something more, or something less, or something different, in
+one as compared with the other, which hinders this complete equivalence.
+And, those words being excepted which designate objects in their nature
+absolutely incapable of a more or less and of every qualitative
+difference, I should be disposed to consider other exceptions to this
+assertion exceedingly rare. 'In all languages whatever,' to quote
+Bentley's words, 'a word of a moral or of a political significance,
+containing several complex ideas arbitrarily joined together, has
+seldom any correspondent word in any other language which extends to
+all these ideas.' Nor is it hard to trace reasons sufficient why this
+should be so. For what, after all, is a word, but the enclosure for
+human use of a certain district, larger or smaller, from the vast
+outfield of thought or feeling or fact, and in this way a bringing of
+it under human cultivation, a rescuing of it for human uses? But how
+extremely unlikely it is that nations, drawing quite independently of
+one another these lines of enclosure, should draw them in all or most
+cases exactly in the same direction, neither narrower nor wider; how
+almost inevitable, on the contrary, that very often the lines should
+not coincide--and this, even supposing no moral forces at work to
+disturb the falling of the lines.
+
+How immense and instructive a field of comparison between languages
+does this fact lay open to us; while it is sufficient to drive a
+translator with a high ideal of the task which he has undertaken well-
+nigh to despair. For indeed in the transferring of any matter of high
+worth from one language to another there are losses involved, which no
+labour, no skill, no genius, no mastery of one language or of both can
+prevent. The translator may have worthily done his part, may have
+'turned' and not 'overturned' his original (St. Jerome complains that
+in his time many _versiones_ deserved to be called _eversiones_
+rather); he may have given the lie to the Italian proverb, 'Traduttori
+Traditori,' or 'Translators Traitors,' men, that is, who do not
+'render' but' surrender' their author's meaning, and yet for all this
+the losses of which I speak will not have been avoided. Translations,
+let them have been carried through with what skill they may, are, as
+one has said, _belles infideles_ at the best.
+
+How often in the translation of Holy Scripture from the language
+wherein it was first delivered into some other which offers more words
+than one whereby some all-important word in the original record may be
+rendered, the perplexity has been great which of these should be
+preferred. Not, indeed, that there was here an embarrassment of riches,
+but rather an embarrassment of poverty. Each, it may be, has advantages
+of its own, but each also its own drawbacks and shortcomings. There is
+nothing but a choice of difficulties anyhow, and whichever is selected,
+it will be found that the treasure of God's thought has been committed
+to an earthen vessel, and one whose earthiness will not fail at this
+point or at that to appear; while yet, with all this, of what far-
+reaching importance it is that the best, that is, the least inadequate,
+word should be chosen. Thus the missionary translator, if he be at all
+aware of the awful implement which he is wielding, of the tremendous
+crisis in a people's spiritual life which has arrived, when their
+language is first made the vehicle of the truths of Revelation, will
+often tremble at the work he has in hand; he will tremble lest he
+should permanently lower or confuse the whole spiritual life of a
+people, by choosing a meaner and letting go a nobler word for the
+setting forth of some leading truth of redemption; and yet the choice
+how difficult, the nobler itself falling how infinitely below his
+desires, and below the truth of which he would make it the bearer.
+
+Even those who are wholly ignorant of Chinese can yet perceive how vast
+the spiritual interests which are at stake in China, how much will be
+won or how much lost for the whole spiritual life of its people, it may
+be for ages to come, according as the right or the wrong word is
+selected by our missionaries there for designating the true and the
+living God. As many of us indeed as are ignorant of the language can be
+no judges in the controversy which on this matter is, or was lately,
+carried on; but we can all feel how vital the question, how enormous
+the interests at stake; while, not less, having heard the allegations
+on the one side and on the other, we must own that there is only an
+alternative of difficulties here. Nearer home there have been
+difficulties of the same kind. At the Reformation, for example, when
+Latin was still more or less the language of theology, how earnest a
+controversy raged round the word in the Greek Testament which we have
+rendered 'repentance'; whether 'poenitentia' should be allowed to stand,
+hallowed by long usage as it was, or 'resipiscentia,' as many of the
+Reformers preferred, should be substituted in its room; and how much on
+either side could be urged. Not otherwise, at an earlier date, 'Sermo'
+and 'Verbum' contended for the honour of rendering the 'Logos' of St.
+John; though here there can be no serious doubt on which side the
+advantage lay, and that in 'Verbum' the right word was chosen.
+
+But this of the relation of words in one language to words in another,
+and of all the questions which may thus be raised, is a sea too large
+for me to launch upon now; and with thus much said to invite you to
+have open eyes and ears for such questions, seeing that they are often
+full of teaching, [Footnote: Pott in his _Etymol. Forschungen_, vol. v.
+p. lxix, and elsewhere, has much interesting instruction on the subject.
+There were four attempts to render [Greek: eironeia], itself, it is
+true, a very subtle word. They are these: 'dissimulatio' (Cicero);
+'illusio' (Quintilian); 'simulatio' and 'irrisio.'] I must leave this
+subject, and limit myself in this Lecture to a comparison between words,
+not in different languages, but in the same.
+
+Synonyms then, as the term is generally understood, and as I shall use
+it, are words in the same language with slight differences either
+already established between them, or potentially subsisting in them.
+They are not on the one side words absolutely identical, for such, as
+has been said already, afford no room for discrimination; but neither
+on the other side are they words only remotely similar to one another;
+for the differences between these last will be self-evident, will so
+lie on the surface and proclaim themselves to all, that it would be as
+superfluous an office as holding a candle to the sun to attempt to make
+this clearer than it already is. It may be desirable to trace and fix
+the difference between scarlet and crimson, for these might easily be
+confounded; but who would think of so doing between scarlet and green?
+or between covetousness and avarice; while it would be idle and
+superfluous to do the same for covetousness and pride. They must be
+words more or less liable to confusion, but which yet ought not to be
+confounded, as one has said; in which there originally inhered a
+difference, or between which, though once absolutely identical, such
+has gradually grown up, and so established itself in the use of the
+best writers, and in the instinct of the best speakers of the tongue,
+that it claims to be openly recognized by all.
+
+But here an interesting question presents itself to us: How do
+languages come to possess synonyms of this latter class, which are
+differenced not by etymology, nor by any other deep-lying cause, but
+only by usage? Now if languages had been made by agreement, of course
+no such synonyms as these could exist; for when once a word had been
+found which was the adequate representative of a thought, feeling, or
+fact, no second one would have been sought. But languages are the
+result of processes very different from this, and far less formal and
+regular. Various tribes, each with its own dialect, kindred indeed, but
+in many respects distinct, coalesce into one people, and cast their
+contributions of language into a common stock. Thus the French possess
+many synonyms from the _langue d'Oc_ and _langue d'Oil_, each having
+contributed its word for one and the same thing; thus 'atre' and
+'foyer,' both for hearth. Sometimes different tribes of the same people
+have the same word, yet in forms sufficiently different to cause that
+both remain, but as words distinct from one another; thus in Latin
+'serpo' and 'repo' are dialectic variations of the same word; just as
+in German, 'odem' and 'athem' were no more than dialectic differences
+at the first. Or again, a conquering people have fixed themselves in
+the midst of a conquered; they impose their dominion, but do not
+succeed in imposing their language; nay, being few in number, they find
+themselves at last compelled to adopt the language of the conquered;
+yet not so but that a certain compromise between the two languages
+finds place. One carries the day, but on the condition that it shall
+admit as naturalized denizens a number of the words of the other; which
+in some instances expel, but in many others subsist as synonyms side by
+side with, the native words.
+
+These are causes of the existence of synonyms which reach far back into
+the history of a nation and a language; but other causes at a later
+period are also at work. When a written literature springs up, authors
+familiar with various foreign tongues import from one and another words
+which are not absolutely required, which are oftentimes rather luxuries
+than necessities. Sometimes, having a very sufficient word of their own,
+they must needs go and look for a finer one, as they esteem it, from
+abroad; as, for instance, the Latin having its own expressive
+'succinum' (from 'succus'), for amber, some must import from the Greek
+the ambiguous 'electrum.' Of these thus proposed as candidates for
+admission, some fail to obtain the rights of citizenship, and after
+longer or shorter probation are rejected; it may be, never advance
+beyond their first proposer. Enough, however, receive the stamp of
+popular allowance to create embarrassment for a while; until, that is,
+their relations with the already existing words are adjusted. As a
+single illustration of the various quarters from which the English has
+thus been augmented and enriched, I would instance the words 'wile,'
+'trick,' device,' finesse,' 'artifice,' and 'stratagem.' and remind you
+of the various sources from which we have drawn them. Here 'wile,' is
+Old-English, 'trick' is Dutch, 'devise' is Old-French, 'finesse' is
+French, 'artificium' is Latin, and '[Greek: stratagema]' Greek.
+
+By and by, however, as a language becomes itself an object of closer
+attention, at the same time that society, advancing from a simpler to a
+more complex condition, has more things to designate, more thoughts to
+utter, and more distinctions to draw, it is felt as a waste of
+resources to employ two or more words for the designating of one and
+the same thing. Men feel, and rightly, that with a boundless world
+lying around them and demanding to be catalogued and named, and which
+they only make truly their own in the measure and to the extent that
+they do name it, with infinite shades and varieties of thought and
+feeling subsisting in their own minds, and claiming to find utterance
+in words, it is a wanton extravagance to expend two or more signs on
+that which could adequately be set forth by one--an extravagance in one
+part of their expenditure, which will be almost sure to issue in, and
+to be punished by, a corresponding scantness and straitness in another.
+Some thought or feeling or fact will wholly want one adequate sign,
+because another has two. [Footnote: We have a memorable example of this
+in the history of the great controversy of the Church with the Arians,
+In the earlier stages of this, the upholders of the orthodox faith used
+[Greek: ousia] and [Greek: hypostasis] as identical in force and
+meaning with one another, Athanasius, in as many words, affirming them
+to be such. As, however, the controversy went forward, it was perceived
+that doctrinal results of the highest importance might be fixed and
+secured for the Church through the assigning severally to these words
+distinct modifications of meaning. This, accordingly, in the Greek
+Church, was done; while the Latin, desiring to move _pari passu_ did
+yet find itself most seriously embarrassed and hindered in so doing by
+the fact that it had, or assumed that it had, but the one word,
+'substantia,' to correspond to the two Greek.] Hereupon that which has
+been well called the process of 'desynonymizing' begins--that is, of
+gradually discriminating in use between words which have hitherto been
+accounted perfectly equivalent, and, as such, indifferently employed.
+It is a positive enriching of a language when this process is at any
+point felt to be accomplished; when two or more words, once
+promiscuously used, have had each its own peculiar domain assigned to
+it, which it shall not itself overstep, upon which others shall not
+encroach. This may seem at first sight only as a better regulation of
+old territory; for all practical purposes it is the acquisition of new.
+
+This desynonymizing process is not carried out according to any
+prearranged purpose or plan. The working genius of the language
+accomplishes its own objects, causes these synonymous words insensibly
+to fall off from one another, and to acquire separate and peculiar
+meanings. The most that any single writer can do, save indeed in the
+terminology of science, is to assist an already existing inclination,
+to bring to the clear consciousness of all that which already has been
+obscurely felt by many, and thus to hasten the process of this
+disengagement, or, as it has been well expressed, 'to regulate and
+ordinate the evident nisus and tendency of the popular usage into a
+severe definition'; and establish on a firm basis the distinction, so
+that it shall not be lost sight of or brought into question again. Thus
+long before Wordsworth wrote, it was obscurely felt by many that in
+'imagination' there was more of the earnest, in 'fancy' of the play, of
+the spirit, that the first was a loftier faculty and power than the
+second. The tendency of the language was all in this direction. None
+would for some time back have employed 'fancy' as Milton employs
+it, [Footnote: _Paradise Lost_, v. 102-105 5 so too Longinus, _De
+Subl._ 15.] ascribing to it operations which we have learned to reserve
+for 'imagination' alone, and indeed subordinating 'imaginations' to
+fancy, as a part of the materials with which it deals. Yet for all this
+the words were continually, and not without injury, confounded.
+Wordsworth first, in the _Preface_ to his _Lyrical Ballads_, rendered
+it impossible for any, who had read and mastered what he had written
+on the matter, to remain unconscious any longer of the essential
+difference between them. [Footnote: Thus De Quincey (_Letters to a
+Young Man whose Education has been neglected_): 'All languages tend to
+clear themselves of synonyms, as intellectual culture advances; the
+superfluous words being taken up and appropriated by new shades and
+combinations of thought evolved in the progress of society. And long
+before this appropriation is fixed and petrified, as it were, into the
+acknowledged vocabulary of the language, an insensible _clinamen_ (to
+borrow a Lucretian word) prepares the way for it. Thus, for instance,
+before Mr. Wordsworth had unveiled the great philosophic distinction
+between the powers of _fancy_ and _imagination_, the two words had
+begun to diverge from each other, the first being used to express a
+faculty somewhat capricious and exempted from law, the other to express
+a faculty more self-determined. When, therefore, it was at length
+perceived, that under an apparent unity of meaning there lurked a real
+dualism, and for philosophic purposes it was necessary that this
+distinction should have its appropriate expression, this necessity was
+met half way by the _clinamen_ which had already affected the popular
+usage of the words.' Compare what Coleridge had before said on the same
+matter, _Biogr. Lit_. vol. i. p. 90; and what Ruskin, _Modern Painters_
+part 3, Section 2, ch. 3, has said since. It is to Coleridge that we
+owe the word 'to desynonymize' (_Biogr. Lit_. p. 87)--which is
+certainly preferable to Professor Grote's 'despecificate.' Purists
+indeed will object that it is of hybrid formation, the prefix Latin,
+the body of the word Greek; but for all this it may very well stand
+till a better is offered. Coleridge's own contributions, direct and
+indirect, in this province are perhaps more in number and in value than
+those of any other English writer; thus to him we owe the
+disentanglement of 'fanaticism' and 'enthusiasm' (_Lit. Rem_. vol. ii.
+p. 365); of 'keenness' and 'subtlety' (_Table-Talk_, p. 140); of
+'poetry' and 'poesy' (_Lit. Rem_. vol. i. p. 219); of 'analogy' and
+'metaphor' (_Aids to Reflection_, 1825, p. 198); and that on which he
+himself laid so great a stress, of 'reason' and 'understanding.'] This
+is but one example, an illustrious one indeed, of what has been going
+forward in innumerable pairs of words. Thus in Wiclif's time and long
+after, there seems to have been no difference recognized between a
+'famine' and a 'hunger'; they both expressed the outward fact of a
+scarcity of food. It was a genuine gain when, leaving to 'famine' this
+meaning, by 'hunger' was expressed no longer the outward fact, but the
+inward sense of the fact. Other pairs of words between which a
+distinction is recognized now which was not recognized some centuries
+ago, are the following: 'to clarify' and 'to glorify'; 'to admire' and
+'to wonder'; 'to convince' and 'to convict'; 'reign' and 'kingdom';
+'ghost' and 'spirit'; 'merit' and 'demerit'; 'mutton' and 'sheep';
+'feminine' and 'effeminate'; 'mortal' and 'deadly'; 'ingenious' and
+'ingenuous'; 'needful' and 'needy'; 'voluntary' and 'wilful.'
+[footnote: For the exact difference between these, and other pairs or
+larger groups of words, see my _Select Glossary_.]
+
+A multitude of words in English are still waiting for a similar
+discrimination. Many in due time will obtain it, and the language prove
+so much the richer thereby; for certainly if Coleridge had right when
+he affirmed that 'every new term expressing a fact or a difference not
+precisely or adequately expressed by any other word in the same
+language, is a new organ of thought for the mind that has learned
+it.' [footnote: _Church and State_, p. 200.] we are justified in
+regarding these distinctions which are still waiting to be made as so
+much reversionary wealth in our mother tongue. Thus how real an ethical
+gain would it be, how much clearness would it bring into men's thoughts
+and actions, if the distinction which exists in Latin between
+'vindicta' and 'ultio,' that the first is a moral act, the just
+punishment of the sinner by his God, of the criminal by the judge, the
+other an act in which the self-gratification of one who counts himself
+injured or offended is sought, could in like manner be fully
+established (vaguely felt it already is) between our 'vengeance' and
+'revenge'; so that 'vengeance' (with the verb 'to avenge') should never
+be ascribed except to God, or to men acting as the executors of his
+righteous doom; while all retaliation to which not zeal for his
+righteousness, but men's own sinful passions have given the impulse and
+the motive, should be termed 'revenge.' As it now is, the moral
+disapprobation which cleaves, and cleaves justly, to 'revenge,' is
+oftentimes transferred almost unconsciously to 'vengeance'; while yet
+without vengeance it is impossible to conceive in a world so full of
+evil-doing any effectual assertion of righteousness, any moral
+government whatever.
+
+The causes mentioned above, namely that our modern English, Teutonic in
+its main structure, yet draws so large a portion of its verbal wealth
+from the Latin, and has further welcomed, and found place for, many
+later accessions, these causes have together effected that we possess a
+great many duplicates, not to speak of triplicates, or of such a
+quintuplicate as that which I adduced just now, where the Teutonic,
+French, Italian, Latin, and Greek had each yielded us a word. Let me
+mention a few duplicate substantives, Old-English and Latin: thus we
+have 'shepherd' and 'pastor'; 'feeling' and 'sentiment'; 'handbook' and
+'manual'; 'ship' and 'nave'; 'anger' and 'ire'; 'grief' and 'sorrow';
+'kingdom,' 'reign,' and 'realm'; 'love' and 'charity'; 'feather' and
+'plume'; 'forerunner' and 'precursor'; 'foresight' and 'providence';
+'freedom' and 'liberty'; 'bitterness' and 'acerbity'; 'murder' and
+'homicide'; 'moons' and 'lunes.' Sometimes, in theology and science
+especially, we have gone both to the Latin and to the Greek, and drawn
+the same word from them both: thus 'deist' and 'theist'; 'numeration'
+and 'arithmetic'; 'revelation' and 'apocalypse'; 'temporal' and
+'chronic'; 'compassion' and 'sympathy'; 'supposition' and 'hypothesis';
+'transparent' and 'diaphanous'; 'digit' and 'dactyle.' But to return to
+the Old-English and Latin, the main factors of our tongue. Besides
+duplicate substantives, we have duplicate verbs, such as 'to whiten'
+and 'to blanch'; 'to soften' and 'to mollify'; 'to unload' and 'to
+exonerate'; 'to hide' and 'to conceal'; with many more. Duplicate
+adjectives also are numerous, as 'shady' and 'umbrageous'; 'unreadable'
+and 'illegible'; 'unfriendly' and 'inimical'; 'almighty' and
+'omnipotent'; 'wholesome' and 'salubrious'; 'unshunnable' and
+'inevitable.' Occasionally our modern English, not adopting the Latin
+substantive, has admitted duplicate adjectives; thus 'burden' has not
+merely 'burdensome' but also 'onerous,' while yet 'onus' has found no
+place with us; 'priest' has 'priestly' and 'sacerdotal'; 'king' has
+'kingly,' 'regal,' which is purely Latin, and 'royal,' which is Latin
+distilled through the French. 'Bodily' and 'corporal,' 'boyish' and
+'puerile,' 'fiery' and 'igneous,' 'wooden' and 'ligneous,' 'worldly'
+and 'mundane,' 'bloody' and 'sanguine,' 'watery' and 'aqueous,'
+'fearful' and 'timid,' 'manly' and 'virile,' 'womanly' and 'feminine,'
+'sunny' and 'solar,' 'starry' and 'stellar,' 'yearly' and 'annual,'
+'weighty' and 'ponderous,' may all be placed in the same list. Nor are
+these more than a handful of words out of the number which might be
+adduced. You would find both pleasure and profit in enlarging these
+lists, and, as far as you are able, making them gradually complete.
+
+If we look closely at words which have succeeded in thus maintaining
+their ground side by side, and one no less than the other, we shall
+note that in almost every instance they have little by little asserted
+for themselves separate spheres of meaning, have in usage become more
+or less distinct. Thus we use 'shepherd' almost always in its primary
+meaning, keeper of sheep; while 'pastor' is exclusively used in the
+tropical sense, one that feeds the flock of God; at the same time the
+language having only the one adjective, 'pastoral,' that is of
+necessity common to both. 'Love' and 'charity' are used in our
+Authorized Version of Scripture promiscuously, and out of the sense of
+their equivalence are made to represent one and the same Greek word;
+but in modern use 'charity' has come predominantly to signify one
+particular manifestation of love, the ministry to the bodily needs of
+others, 'love' continuing to express the affection of the soul. 'Ship'
+remains in its literal meaning, while 'nave' has become a symbolic term
+used in sacred architecture alone. 'Kingdom' is concrete, as the
+'kingdom' of Great Britain; 'reign' is abstract, the 'reign' of Queen
+Victoria. An 'auditor' and a 'hearer' are now, though they were not
+once, altogether different from one another. 'Illegible' is applied to
+the handwriting, 'unreadable' to the subject-matter written; a man
+writes an 'illegible' hand; he has published an 'unreadable' book.
+'Foresight' is ascribed to men, but' providence' for the most part
+designates, as _pronoia_ also came to do, the far-looking wisdom of God,
+by which He governs and graciously cares for his people. It becomes
+boys to be 'boyish,' but not men to be 'puerile.' 'To blanch' is to
+withdraw colouring matter: we 'blanch' almonds or linen; or the cheek
+by the withdrawing of the blood is 'blanched' with fear; but we
+'whiten' a wall, not by withdrawing some other colour, but by the
+superinducing of white; thus 'whited sepulchres.' When we 'palliate'
+our own or other people's faults, we do not seek 'to cloke' them
+altogether, but only to extenuate the guilt of them in part.
+
+It might be urged that there was a certain preparedness in these words
+to separate off in their meaning from one another, inasmuch as they
+originally belonged to different stocks; and this may very well have
+assisted; but we find the same process at work where original
+difference of stock can have supplied no such assistance. 'Astronomy'
+and 'astrology' are both words drawn from the Greek, nor is there any
+reason beforehand why the second should not be in as honourable use as
+the first; for it is the _reason_, as 'astronomy' the _law_, of the
+stars. [footnote: So entirely was any determining reason wanting, that
+for some while it was a question _which_ word should obtain the
+honourable employment, and it seemed as if 'astrology' and 'astrologer'
+would have done so, as this extract from Bishop Hooper makes abundantly
+plain (_Early Writings_, Parker Society, p. 331): 'The _astrologer_ is
+he that knoweth the course and motions of the heavens and teacheth the
+same; which is a virtue if it pass not its bounds, and become of an
+astrologer an _astronomer_, who taketh upon him to give judgment and
+censure of these motions and courses of the heavens, what they
+prognosticate and destiny unto the creature.'] But seeing there is a
+true and a false science of the stars, both needing words to utter them,
+it has come to pass that in our later use, 'astrology' designates
+always that pretended science of imposture, which affecting to submit
+the moral freedom of men to the influences of the heavenly bodies,
+prognosticates future events from the position of these, as contrasted
+with 'astronomy' that true science which investigates the laws of the
+heavenly bodies in their relations to one another and to the planet
+upon which we dwell.
+
+As these are both from the Greek, so 'despair' and 'diffidence' are
+both, though the second more directly than the first, from the Latin.
+At a period not very long past the difference between them was hardly
+appreciable; one was hardly stronger than the other. If in one the
+absence of all _hope_, in the other that of all faith, was implied. In
+_The Pilgrim's Progress_, a book with which every English schoolmaster
+should be familiar, 'Mistress _Diffidence_' is 'Giant _Despair's_' wife,
+and not a whit behind him in deadly enmity to the pilgrims; even as
+Jeremy Taylor speaks of the impenitent sinner's '_diffidence_ in the
+hour of death,' meaning, as the context plainly shows, his despair. But
+to what end two words for one and the same thing? And thus 'diffidence'
+did not retain that energy of meaning which it had at the first, but
+little by little assumed a more mitigated sense, (Hobbes speaks of
+'men's diffidence,' meaning their distrust 'of one another,') till it
+has come now to signify a becoming distrust of ourselves, a humble
+estimate of our own powers, with only a slight intimation, as in the
+later use of the Latin 'verecundia,' that perhaps this distrust is
+carried too far.
+
+Again, 'interference' and 'interposition' are both from the Latin; and
+here too there is no anterior necessity that they should possess those
+different shades of meaning which actually they have obtained among
+us;--the Latin verbs which form their latter halves being about as
+strong one as the other. [Footnote: The word _interference_ is a
+derivative from the verb _ferire_ to strike, which is certainly
+stronger in meaning than _ponere_, to place.] And yet in our practical
+use, 'interference' is something offensive; it is the pushing in of
+himself between two parties on the part of a third, who was not asked,
+and is not thanked for his pains, and who, as the feeling of the word
+implies, had no business there; while 'interposition' is employed to
+express the friendly peace-making mediation of one whom the act well
+became, and who even if he was not specially invited thereunto, is
+still thanked for what he has done. How real an increase is it in the
+wealth and efficiency of a language thus to have discriminated such
+words as these; and to be able to express acts outwardly the same by
+different words, according as we would praise or blame the temper and
+spirit out of which they sprung. [Footnote: If in the course of time
+distinctions are thus created, and if this is the tendency of language,
+yet they are also sometimes, though far less often, obliterated. Thus
+the fine distinction between 'yea' and 'yes,' 'nay' and 'no,' once
+existing in English, has quite disappeared. 'Yea' and 'Nay,' in Wiclif
+s time, and a good deal later, were the answers to questions framed in
+the affirmative. 'Will he come?' To this it would have been replied,
+'Yea' or 'Nay,' as the case might be. But 'Will he not come?'--to this
+the answer would have been, 'Yes,' or 'No.' Sir Thomas More finds fault
+with Tyndale, that in his translation of the Bible he had not observed
+this distinction, which was evidently therefore going out even then,
+that is in the reign of Henry VIII., and shortly after it was quite
+forgotten.]
+
+Take now some words not thus desynonymized by usage only, but having a
+fundamental etymological distinction,--one, however, which it would be
+easy to overlook, and which, so long as we dwell on the surface of the
+word, we shall overlook; and try whether we shall not be gainers by
+bringing out the distinction into clear consciousness. Here are
+'arrogant,' 'presumptuous,' and 'insolent'; we often use them
+promiscuously; yet let us examine them a little more closely, and ask
+ourselves, as soon as we have traced the lines of demarcation between
+them, whether we are not now in possession of three distinct thoughts,
+instead of a single confused one. He is 'arrogant' who claims the
+observance and homage of others as his due (ad rogo); who does not wait
+for them to offer, but himself demands all this; or who, having right
+to one sort of observance, claims another to which he has no right.
+Thus, it was 'arrogance' in Nebuchadnezzar, when he required that all
+men should fall down before the image which he had reared. He, a man,
+was claiming for man's work the homage which belonged only to God. But
+one is 'presumptuous' who _takes_ things to himself _before_ he has
+acquired any title to them (prae sumo); as the young man who already
+usurps the place of the old, the learner who speaks with the authority
+of the teacher. By and by all this may very justly be his, but it is
+'presumption' to anticipate it now. 'Insolent' means properly no more
+than unusual; to act 'insolently' is to act unusually. The offensive
+meaning which 'insolent' has acquired rests upon the sense that there
+is a certain well-understood rule of society, a recognized standard of
+moral and social behaviour, to which each of its members should conform.
+The 'insolent' man is one who violates this rule, who breaks through
+this order, acting in an _unaccustomed_ manner. The same sense of the
+orderly being also the moral, is implied in 'irregular'; a man of
+'irregular' is for us a man of immoral life; and yet more strongly in
+Latin, which has but one word (mores) for customs and morals.
+
+Or consider the following words: 'to hate,' 'to loathe,' 'to detest,'
+'to abhor'. It would be safe to say that our blessed Lord 'hated' to
+see his Father's house profaned, when, the zeal of that house consuming
+Him, He drove forth in anger the profaners from it (John ii. 15); He
+'loathed' the lukewarmness of the Laodiceans, when He threatened to
+spue them out of his mouth (Rev. iii. 16); He 'detested' the hypocrisy
+of the Pharisees and Scribes, when He affirmed and proclaimed their sin,
+and uttered those eight woes against them (Matt, xxiii.); He 'abhorred'
+the evil suggestions of Satan, when He bade the Tempter to get behind
+Him, shrinking from him as one would shrink from a hissing serpent in
+his path.
+
+Sometimes words have no right at all to be considered synonyms, and yet
+are continually used one for the other; having through this constant
+misemployment more need than synonyms themselves to be discriminated.
+Thus, what confusion is often made between 'genuine' and 'authentic';
+what inaccuracy exists in their employment. And yet the distinction is
+a very plain one. A 'genuine' work is one written by the author whose
+name it bears; an 'authentic' work is one which relates truthfully the
+matters of which it treats. For example, the apocryphal _Gospel of St.
+Thomas_ is neither 'genuine' nor 'authentic.' It is not 'genuine' for
+St. Thomas did not write it; it is not 'authentic,' for its contents
+are mainly fables and lies. _The History of the Alexandrian War_, which
+passes under Caesar's name, is not 'genuine,' for he did not write it;
+it is 'authentic,' being in the main a truthful record of the events
+which it professes to relate. Thiers' _History of the French Empire_,
+on the contrary, is 'genuine,' for he is certainly the author, but very
+far indeed from 'authentic '; while Thucydides' _History of the
+Peloponnesian War_ is both 'authentic' and 'genuine.' [Footnote: On
+this matter see the _New English Dictionary_ (s. v. _authentic_). It
+will there be found that the prevailing sense of 'authentic' is
+reliable, trustworthy, of established credit; it being often used by
+writers on Christian Evidences in contradistinction to 'genuine.'
+However, the Dictionary shows us that careful writers use the word in
+the sense of 'genuine,' of undisputed origin, not forged, or
+apocryphal: there is a citation bearing witness to this meaning from
+Paley. The Greek [Greek: authentikos] meant 'of firsthand authority,
+original.']
+
+You will observe that in most of the words just adduced, I have sought
+to refer their usage to their etymologies, to follow the guidance of
+these, and by the same aid to trace the lines of demarcation which
+divide them. For I cannot but think it an omission in a very
+instructive little volume upon synonyms edited by the late Archbishop
+Whately, and a partial diminution of its usefulness, that in the
+valuation of words reference is so seldom made to their etymologies,
+the writer relying almost entirely on present usage and the tact and
+instinct of a cultivated mind for the appreciation of them aright. The
+accomplished author (or authoress) of this book indeed justifies this
+omission on the ground that a work on synonyms has to do with the
+present relative value of words, not with their roots and derivations;
+and, further, that a reference to these often brings in what is only a
+disturbing force in the process, tending to confuse rather than to
+clear. But while it is quite true that words will often ride very
+slackly at anchor on their etymologies, will be borne hither and
+thither by the shifting tides and currents of usage, yet are they for
+the most part still holden by them. Very few have broken away and
+drifted from their moorings altogether. A 'novelist,' or writer of
+_new_ tales in the present day, is very different from a 'novelist' or
+upholder of _new_ theories in politics and religion, of two hundred
+years ago; yet the idea of _newness_ is common to them both. A
+'naturalist' was once a denier of revealed truth, of any but _natural_
+religion; he is now an investigator, often a devout one, of _nature_
+and of her laws; yet the word has remained true to its etymology all
+the while. A 'methodist' was formerly a follower of a certain 'method'
+of philosophical induction, now of a 'method' in the fulfilment of
+religious duties; but in either case 'method' or orderly progression,
+is the central idea of the word. Take other words which have changed or
+modified their meaning--'plantations,' for instance, which were once
+colonies of men (and indeed we still 'plant' a colony), but are now
+nurseries of trees, and you will find the same to hold good. 'Ecstasy'
+_was_ madness; it _is_ intense delight; but has in no wise thereby
+broken with the meaning from which it started, since it is the nature
+alike of madness and of joy to set men out of and beside themselves.
+
+And even when the fact is not so obvious as in these cases, the
+etymology of a word exercises an unconscious influence upon its uses,
+oftentimes makes itself felt when least expected, so that a word, after
+seeming quite to have forgotten, will after longest wanderings return
+to it again. And one main device of great artists in language, such as
+would fain evoke the latent forces of their native tongue, will very
+often consist in reconnecting words by their use of them with their
+original derivation, in not suffering them to forget themselves and
+their origin, though they would. How often and with what signal effect
+does Milton compel a word to return to its original source, 'antiquam
+exquirere matrem'; while yet how often the fact that he is doing this
+passes even by scholars unobserved. [Footnote: Everyone who desires, as
+he reads Milton, thoroughly to understand him, will do well to be ever
+on the watch for such recalling, upon his part, of words to their
+primitive sense; and as often as he detects, to make accurate note of
+it for his own use, and, so far as he is a teacher, for the use of
+others. Take a few examples out of many: 'afflicted' (_P. L._ i. 186);
+'alarmed' (_P. L._ iv. 985); 'ambition' (_P. L._ i. 262; _S. A._ 247);
+'astonished' (_P. L._ i. 266); 'chaos' (_P. L._ vi. 55); 'diamond' (_P.
+L._ vi. 364); 'emblem' (_P. L._ iv. 703); 'empiric' (_P. L._ v. 440);
+'engine' (_P. L._ i. 750); 'entire' (= integer, _P. L._ ix. 292);
+'extenuate' (_P. L._ x. 645); 'illustrate' (_P. L._ v. 739); 'implicit'
+(_P. L._ vii. 323); 'indorse' (_P. R._ iii. 329); 'infringe' (_P. R._ i.
+62); 'mansion' (_Com_. 2); 'moment' (_P. L._ x. 45); 'oblige' (_P. L._
+ix. 980); 'person' (_P. L._ x. 156); 'pomp' (_P. L._ viii. 61);
+'sagacious' (_P. L._ x. 28l); 'savage' (_P. L._ iv. l72); 'scene' (_P.
+L._ iv. 140;) 'secular' (_S. A._ 1707); 'secure' (_P. L._ vi. 638);
+'seditious' (_P. L._ vi. 152); 'transact' (_P. L._ vi. 286); 'voluble'
+(_P. L._ ix. 436). We may note in Jeremy Taylor a similar reduction of
+words to their origins; thus, 'insolent' for unusual, 'metal' for mine,
+'irritation' for a making vain, 'extant' for standing out (applied to a
+bas-relief), 'contrition' for bruising ('the _contrition_ of the
+serpent'), 'probable' for worthy of approval ('a _probable_ doctor').
+The author of the excellent _Lexique de la Langue de Corneille_ claims
+the same merit for him and for his great contemporaries or immediate
+successors: Faire rendre aux mots tout ce qu'ils peuvent donner, en
+varier habilement les acceptions et les nuances, les ramener � leur
+origine, les retremper fr�quemment � leur source �tymologique,
+constituait un des secrets principaux des grands �crivains du dix-
+septi�me si�cle. It is this putting of old words in a new light, and to
+a new use, though that will be often the oldest of all, on which Horace
+sets so high a store:
+        Dixeris egregie, notum si callida verbum
+        Reddiderit junctura novum; and not less Montaigne: 'The
+handling and utterance of fine wits is that which sets off a language;
+not so much by innovating it, as by putting it to more vigorous and
+various service, and by straining, bending, and adapting it to this.
+They do not create words, but they enrich their own, and give them
+weight and signification by the uses they put them to.']
+
+Moreover, even if all this were not so, yet the past history of a word,
+a history that must needs _start_ from its derivation, how soon soever
+this may be left behind, can hardly be disregarded, when we are seeking
+to ascertain its present value. What Barrow says is quite true, that
+'knowing the primitive meaning of words can seldom or never _determine_
+their meaning anywhere, they often in common use declining from it';
+but though it cannot 'determine,' it can as little be omitted or
+forgotten, when this determination is being sought. A man may be wholly
+different now from what once he was; yet not the less to know his
+antecedents is needful, before we can ever perfectly understand his
+present self; and the same holds good with words.
+
+There is a moral gain which synonyms will sometimes yield us, enabling
+us, as they do, to say exactly what we intend, without exaggerating or
+putting more into our speech than we feel in our hearts, allowing us to
+be at once courteous and truthful. Such moral advantage there is, for
+example, in the choice which we have between the words 'to felicitate'
+and 'to congratulate,' for the expressing of our sentiments and wishes
+in regard of the good fortune that may happen to others. To
+'felicitate' another is to wish him happiness, without affirming that
+his happiness is also ours. Thus, out of that general goodwill with
+which we ought to regard all, we might 'felicitate' one almost a
+stranger to us; nay, more, I can honestly 'felicitate' one on his
+appointment to a post, or attainment of an honour, even though _I_ may
+not consider him the fittest to have obtained it, though I should have
+been glad if another had done so; I can desire and hope, that is, that
+it may bring all joy and happiness to him. But I could not, without a
+violation of truth, 'congratulate' him, or that stranger whose
+prosperity awoke no lively delight in my heart; for when I
+'congratulate' a person (congratulor), I declare that I am sharer in
+his joy, that what has rejoiced him has rejoiced also me. We have all,
+I dare say, felt, even without having analysed the distinction between
+the words, that 'congratulate' is a far heartier word than
+'felicitate,' and one with which it much better becomes us to welcome
+the good fortune of a friend; and the analysis, as you perceive,
+perfectly justifies the feeling. 'Felicitations' are little better than
+compliments; 'congratulations' are the expression of a genuine sympathy
+and joy.
+
+Let me illustrate the importance of synonymous distinctions by another
+example, by the words, 'to invent' and 'to discover'; or 'invention'
+and 'discovery.' How slight may seem to us the distinction between them,
+even if we see any at all. Yet try them a little closer, try them,
+which is the true proof, by aid of examples, and you will perceive that
+they can by no means be indifferently used; that, on the contrary, a
+great truth lies at the root of their distinction. Thus we speak of the
+'invention' of printing, of the 'discovery' of America. Shift these
+words, and speak, for instance, of the 'invention' of America; you feel
+at once how unsuitable the language is. And why? Because Columbus did
+not make that to be, which before him had not been. America was there,
+before he revealed it to European eyes; but that which before _was_, he
+_showed_ to be; he withdrew the veil which hitherto had concealed it;
+he 'discovered' it. So too we speak of Newton 'discovering' the law of
+gravitation; he drew aside the veil whereby men's eyes were hindered
+from perceiving it, but the law had existed from the beginning of the
+world, and would have existed whether he or any other man had traced it
+or no; neither was it in any way affected by the discovery of it which
+he had made. But Gutenberg, or whoever else it may be to whom the
+honour belongs, 'invented' printing; he made something to be, which
+hitherto was not. In like manner Harvey 'discovered' the circulation of
+the blood; but Watt 'invented' the steam-engine; and we speak, with a
+true distinction, of the 'inventions' of Art, the 'discoveries' of
+Science. In the very highest matters of all, it is deeply important
+that we be aware of and observe the distinction. In religion there have
+been many 'discoveries,' but (in true religion I mean) no 'inventions.'
+Many discoveries--but God in each case the discoverer; He draws aside
+the veils, one veil after another, that have hidden Him from men; the
+discovery or revelation is from Himself, for no man by searching has
+found out God; and therefore, wherever anything offers itself as an
+'invention' in matters of religion, it proclaims itself a lie,--as are
+all self-devised worships, all religions which man projects from his
+own heart. Just that is known of God which He is pleased to make known,
+and no more; and men's recognizing or refusing to recognize in no way
+affects it. They may deny or may acknowledge Him, but He continues the
+same.
+
+As involving in like manner a distinction which cannot safely be lost
+sight of, how important the difference, the existence of which is
+asserted by our possession of the two words, 'to apprehend' and 'to
+comprehend' with their substantives 'apprehension' and 'comprehension.'
+For indeed we 'apprehend' many truths, which we do not 'comprehend.'
+The great mysteries of our faith--the doctrine, for instance, of the
+Holy Trinity, we lay hold upon it, we hang on it, our souls live by it;
+but we do not '_com_prehend' it, that is, we do not take it all in; for
+it is a necessary attribute of God that He is _incomprehensible_; if He
+were not so, either He would not be God, or the Being that comprehended
+Him would be God also (Matt, xi. 27). But it also belongs to the idea
+of God that He may be '_ap_prehended' though not '_com_prehended' by
+his reasonable creatures; He has made them to know Him, though not to
+know Him _all_, to '_ap_prehend' though not to '_com_prehend' Him. We
+may transfer with profit the same distinction to matters not quite so
+solemn. Thus I read Goldsmith's _Traveller_, or one of Gay's _Fables_,
+and I feel that I 'comprehend' it;--I do not believe, that is, that
+there was anything stirring in the poet's mind or intention, which I
+have not in the reading reproduced in my own. But I read _Hamlet_, or
+_King Lear_: here I 'apprehend' much; I have wondrous glimpses of the
+poet's intention and aim; but I do not for an instant suppose that I
+have 'comprehended,' taken in, that is, all that was in his mind in the
+writing; or that his purpose does not stretch in manifold directions
+far beyond the range of my vision; and I am sure there are few who
+would not shrink from affirming, at least if they at all realized the
+force of the words they were using, that they 'comprehended
+'Shakespeare; however much they may 'apprehend' in him.
+
+How often 'opposite' and 'contrary' are used as if there was no
+difference between them, and yet there is a most essential one, one
+which perhaps we may best express by saying that 'opposites' complete,
+while 'contraries' exclude one another. Thus the most 'opposite' moral
+or mental characteristics may meet in one and the same person, while to
+say that the most 'contrary' did so, would be manifestly absurd; for
+example, a soldier may be at once prudent and bold, for these are
+opposites; he could not be at once prudent and rash, for these are
+contraries. We may love and fear at the same time and the same person;
+we pray in the Litany that we may love and dread God, the two being
+opposites, and thus the complements of one another; but to pray that we
+might love and hate would be as illogical as it would be impious, for
+these are contraries, and could no more co-exist together than white
+and black, hot and cold, in the same subject at the same time. Or to
+take another illustration, sweet and sour are 'opposites,' sweet and
+bitter are 'contraries,' [Footnote: See Coleridge, _Church and State_,
+p. 18.] It will be seen then that there is always a certain relation
+between 'opposites'; they unfold themselves, though in different
+directions, from the same root, as the positive and negative forces of
+electricity, and in their very opposition uphold and sustain one
+another; while 'contraries' encounter one another from quarters quite
+diverse, and one only subsists in the exact degree that it puts out of
+working the other. Surely this distinction cannot be an unimportant one
+either in the region of ethics or elsewhere.
+
+It will happen continually, that rightly to distinguish between two
+words will throw a flood of light upon some controversy in which they
+play a principal part, nay, may virtually put an end to that
+controversy altogether. Thus when Hobbes, with a true instinct, would
+have laid deep the foundations of atheism and despotism together,
+resolving all right into might, and not merely robbing men, if he could,
+of the power, but denying to them the duty, of obeying God rather than
+man, his sophisms could stand only so long as it was not perceived that
+'compulsion' and 'obligation,' with which he juggled, conveyed two
+ideas perfectly distinct, indeed disparate, in kind. Those sophisms of
+his collapsed at once, so soon as it was perceived that what pertained
+to one had been transferred to the other by a mere confusion of terms
+and cunning sleight of hand, the former being a _physical_, the latter
+a _moral_, necessity.
+
+There is indeed no such fruitful source of confusion and mischief as
+this--two words are tacitly assumed as equivalent, and therefore
+exchangeable, and then that which may be assumed, and with truth, of
+one, is assumed also of the other, of which it is not true. Thus, for
+instance, it often is with 'instruction' and 'education,' Cannot we
+'instruct' a child, it is asked, cannot we teach it geography, or
+arithmetic, or grammar, quite independently of the Catechism, or even
+of the Scriptures? No doubt you may; but can you 'educate' without
+bringing moral and spiritual forces to bear upon the mind and
+affections of the child? And you must not be permitted to transfer the
+admissions which we freely make in regard of 'instruction,' as though
+they also held good in respect of 'education.' For what is 'education'?
+Is it a furnishing of a man from without with knowledge and facts and
+information? or is it a drawing forth from within and a training of the
+spirit, of the true humanity which is latent in him? Is the process of
+education the filling of the child's mind, as a cistern is filled with
+waters brought in buckets from some other source? or the opening up for
+that child of fountains which are already there? Now if we give any
+heed to the word 'education,' and to the voice which speaks therein, we
+shall not long be in doubt. Education must educe, being from 'educare,'
+which is but another form of 'educere'; and that is to draw out, and
+not to put in. 'To draw out' what is in the child, the immortal spirit
+which is there, this is the end of education; and so much the word
+declares. The putting in is indeed most needful, that is, the child
+must be instructed as well as educated, and 'instruction' means
+furnishing; but not instructed instead of educated. He must first have
+powers awakened in him, measures of value given him; and then he will
+know how to deal with the facts of this outward world; then instruction
+in these will profit him; but not without the higher training, still
+less as a substitute for it.
+
+It has occasionally happened that the question which out of two
+apparent synonyms should be adopted in some important state-document
+has been debated with no little earnestness and passion; as at the
+great English Revolution of 1688, when the two Houses of Parliament
+were at issue whether it should be declared of James II, that he had
+'abdicated,' or had 'deserted,' the throne. This might seem at first
+sight a mere strife about words, and yet, in reality, serious
+constitutional questions were involved in the debate. The Commons
+insisted on the word 'abdicated,' not as wishing to imply that in any
+act of the late king there had been an official renunciation of the
+crown, which would have been manifestly untrue; but because 'abdicated'
+in their minds alone expressed the fact that James had so borne himself
+as virtually to have entirely renounced, disowned, and relinquished the
+crown, to have forfeited and separated himself from it, and from any
+right to it for ever; while 'deserted' would have seemed to leave room
+and an opening for a return, which they were determined to declare for
+ever excluded; as were it said of a husband that he had 'deserted' his
+wife, or of a soldier that he had 'deserted' his colours, this language
+would imply not only that he might, but that he was bound to return.
+The speech of Lord Somers on the occasion is a masterly specimen of
+synonymous discrimination, and an example of the uses in highest
+matters of state to which it may be turned. As little was it a mere
+verbal struggle when, at the restoration a good many years ago of our
+interrupted relations with Persia, Lord Palmerston insisted that the
+Shah should address the Queen of England not as 'Maleketh' but as
+'Padischah,' refusing to receive letters which wanted this
+superscription.
+
+Let me press upon you, in conclusion, some few of the many advantages
+to be derived from the habit of distinguishing synonyms. These
+advantages we might presume to be many, even though we could not
+ourselves perceive them; for how often do the greatest masters of style
+in every tongue, perhaps none so often as Cicero, the greatest of all,
+[Footnote: Thus he distinguishes between 'voluntas' and 'cupiditas';
+'cautio' and 'metus' (_Tusc_. iv. 6); 'gaudium,' 'laetitia,' 'voluptas'
+(_Tusc_. iv. 6; _Fin_. ii. 4); 'prudentia' and 'sapientia' (_Off_. i.
+43); 'caritas' and 'amor' (_De Part. Or_. 25); 'ebrius' and 'ebriosus,'
+'iracundus' and 'iratus,' 'anxietas' and 'angor' (_Tusc_. iv. 12);
+'vitium,' 'morbus,' and 'aegrotatio' (_Tusc_. iv. 13); 'labor' and
+'dolor' (_Tusc_. ii. 15); 'furor' and 'insania' (_Tusc_. iii. 5);
+'malitia' and 'vitiositas' (_Tusc_. iv. 15); 'doctus' and 'peritus'
+(_Off_. i. 3). Quintilian also often bestows attention on synonyms,
+observing well (vi. 3. 17): 'Pluribus nominibus in eadem re vulgo
+utimur; quae tamen si diducas, suam quandam propriam vim ostendent;' he
+adduces 'salsum,' 'urbanum,' 'facetum'; and elsewhere (v. 3) 'rumor'
+and 'fama' are discriminated happily by him. Among Church writers
+Augustine is a frequent and successful discriminator of words. Thus he
+separates off from one another 'flagitium' and 'facinus' (_De Doct.
+Christ_, iii. 10); 'aemulatio' and 'invidia' (_Expl. ad Gal._ x. 20);
+'arrha' and 'pignus' (_Serm._ 23. 8,9); 'studiosus' and 'curiosus' (_De
+Util. Cred._ 9); 'sapientia' and 'scientia' (_De Div. Quaes_. 2, qu.
+2); 'senecta' and 'senium' (_Enarr. in Ps._ 70. l8); 'schisma' and
+'haeresis' (_Con. Cresc_. 2. 7); with many more (see my _Synonyms of
+the N.T._ Preface, p. xvi). Among the merits of the Grimms'
+_W�rterbuch_ is the care which they, and those who have taken up their
+work, bestow on the discrimination of synonyms; distinguishing, for
+example, 'degen' and 'schwert'; 'feld,' 'acker' and 'heide'; 'aar' and
+'adler'; 'antlitz' and 'angesicht'; 'kelch,' 'becher' and 'glas';
+'frau' and 'weib'; 'butter,' 'schmalz' and 'anke'; 'kopf' and 'haupt';
+'klug' and 'weise'; 'geben' and 'schenken'; 'heirath' and 'ehe.']
+pause to discriminate between the words they are using; how much care
+and labour, how much subtlety of thought, they have counted well
+bestowed on the operation; how much importance they avowedly attach to
+it; not to say that their works, even where they do not intend it, will
+afford a continual lesson in this respect: a great writer merely in the
+precision and accuracy with which he employs words will always be
+exercising us in synonymous distinction. But the advantages of
+attending to synonyms need not be taken on trust; they are evident. How
+large a part of true wisdom it is to be able to distinguish between
+things that differ, things seemingly, but not really, alike, is very
+remarkably attested by our words 'discernment' and 'discretion'; which
+are now used as equivalent, the first to 'insight,' the second to
+'prudence'; while yet in their earlier usage, and according to their
+etymology, being both from 'discerno,' they signify the power of so
+seeing things that in the seeing we distinguish and separate them one
+from another. [Footnote: L'esprit consiste � connaitre la ressemblance
+des choses diverses, et la diff�rence des choses semblables
+(Montesquieu). Saint-Evremond says of a reunion of the Pr�cieuses at
+the Hotel Rambouillet, with a raillery which is not meant to be
+disrespectful--
+    'L� se font distinguer les fiert�s des rigueurs,
+     Les d�dains des m�pris, les tourments des langueurs;
+     On y sait d�m�ler la crainte et les alarmes,
+     Discerner les attraits, les appas et les charmes.'] Such were
+originally 'discernment' and 'discretion,' and such in great measure
+they are still. And in words is a material ever at hand on which to
+train the spirit to a skilfulness in this; on which to exercise its
+sagacity through the habit of distinguishing there where it would be so
+easy to confound. [Footnote: I will suggest here a few pairs or larger
+groups of words on which those who are willing to exercise themselves
+in the distinction of synonyms might perhaps profitably exercise their
+skill;--'fame,' 'popularity,' 'celebrity,' 'reputation,' 'renown';--
+'misfortune,' 'calamity,' 'disaster';--'impediment,' 'obstruction,'
+'obstacle,' 'hindrance';--'temerity,' 'audacity,' 'boldness';--
+'rebuke,' 'reprimand,' 'censure,' 'blame';--'adversary,' 'opponent,'
+'antagonist,' 'enemy';--'rival,' 'competitor';--'affluence,'
+'opulence,' 'abundance,' 'redundance';--'conduct,' 'behaviour,'
+'demeanour,' 'bearing';--'execration,' 'malediction,' 'imprecation,'
+'anathema';--'avaricious,' 'covetous,' 'miserly,' 'niggardly';--
+'hypothesis,' 'theory,' 'system' (see De Quincey, _Lit. Rem._ American
+ed. p.229);--'masculine,' 'manly';--'effeminate,' 'feminine';--
+'womanly,' 'womanish';--'malicious,' 'malignant';--'savage,'
+'barbarous,' 'fierce,' 'cruel,' 'inhuman';--'low, 'mean,' 'abject,'
+'base';--'to chasten,' 'to punish,' 'to chastise';--'to exile,' 'to
+banish';--'to declare,' 'to disclose,' 'to reveal,' 'to divulge';--'to
+defend,' 'to protect,' 'to shelter';--'to excuse,' 'to palliate';--'to
+compel,' 'to coerce,' 'to constrain,' 'to force.'] Nor is this habit
+of discrimination only valuable as a part of our intellectual training;
+but what a positive increase is it of mental wealth when we have
+learned to discern between things which really differ, and have made
+the distinctions between them permanently our own in the only way
+whereby they can be made secure, that is, by assigning to each its
+appropriate word and peculiar sign.
+
+In the effort to trace lines of demarcation you may little by little be
+drawn into the heart of subjects the most instructive; for only as you
+have thoroughly mastered a subject, and all which is most
+characteristic about it, can you hope to trace these lines with
+accuracy and success. Thus a Roman of the higher classes might bear
+four names: 'praenomen,' 'nomen,' 'cognomen,' 'agnomen'; almost always
+bore three. You will know something of the political and family life of
+Rome when you can tell the exact story of each of these, and the
+precise difference between them. He will not be altogether ignorant of
+the Middle Ages and of the clamps which in those ages bound society
+together, who has learned exactly to distinguish between a 'fief' and a
+'benefice.' He will have obtained a firm grasp on some central facts of
+theology who can exactly draw out the distinction between
+'reconciliation,' 'propitiation,' 'atonement,' as used in the New
+Testament; of Church history, who can trace the difference between a
+'schism' and a 'heresy.' One who has learned to discriminate between
+'detraction' and 'slander,' as Barrow has done before him, [Footnote:
+'Slander involveth an imputation of falsehood, but detraction may be
+couched in truth, and clothed in fair language. It is a poison often
+infused in sweet liquor, and ministered in a golden cup.' Compare
+Spenser, _Fairy Queen_, 5. 12. 28-43.] or between 'emulation' and
+'envy,' in which South has excellently shown him the way, [Footnote:
+_Sermons_, 1737, vol. v. p. 403. His words are quoted in my _Select
+Glossary_, s. v 'Emulation.'] or between 'avarice' and 'covetousness,'
+with Cowley, will have made no unprofitable excursion into the region
+of ethics.
+
+How effectual a help, moreover, will it prove to the writing of a good
+English style, if instead of choosing almost at hap-hazard from a group
+of words which seem to us one about as fit for our purpose as another,
+we at once know which, and which only, we ought in the case before us
+to employ, which will prove the exact vesture of our thoughts. It is
+the first characteristic of a well-dressed man that his clothes fit
+him: they are not too small and shrunken here, too large and loose
+there. Now it is precisely such a prime characteristic of a good style,
+that the words fit close to the thoughts. They will not be too big here,
+hanging like a giant's robe on the limbs of a dwarf; nor too small
+there, as a boy's garments into which the man has painfully and
+ridiculously thrust himself. You do not, as you read, feel in one place
+that the writer means more than he has succeeded in saying; in another
+that he has said more than he means; in a third something beside what
+his precise intention was; in a fourth that he has failed to convey any
+meaning at all; and all this from a lack of skill in employing the
+instrument of language, of precision in knowing what words would be the
+exactest correspondents and aptest exponents of his thoughts. [Footnote:
+La propri�t� des termes est le caract�re distinctif des grands
+�crivains; c'est par l� que leur style est toujours au niveau de leur
+sujet; c'est � cette qualit� qu'on reconna�t le vrai talent d'�crire,
+et non � l'art futile de d�guiser par un vain coloris les id�es
+communes. So D'Alembert; but Caesar long before had said, Delectus
+verborum, eloquentiae origo.]
+
+What a wealth of words in almost every language lies inert and unused;
+and certainly not fewest in our own. How much of what might be as
+current coin among us, is shut up in the treasure-house of a few
+classical authors, or is never to be met at all but in the columns of
+the dictionary, we meanwhile, in the midst of all this riches,
+condemning ourselves to a voluntary poverty; and often, with tasks the
+most delicate and difficult to accomplish,--for surely the clothing of
+thought in its most appropriate garment of words is such,--needlessly
+depriving ourselves of a large portion of the helps at our command;
+like some workman who, being furnished for an operation that will
+challenge all his skill with a dozen different tools, each adapted for
+its own special purpose, should in his indolence and self-conceit
+persist in using only one; doing coarsely what might have been done
+finely; or leaving altogether undone that which, with such assistances,
+was quite within his reach. And thus it comes to pass that in the
+common intercourse of life, often too in books, a certain restricted
+number of words are worked almost to death, employed in season and out
+of season--a vast multitude meanwhile being rarely, if at all, called
+to render the service which _they_ could render far better than any
+other; so rarely, indeed, that little by little they slip out of sight
+and are forgotten nearly or altogether. And then, perhaps, at some
+later day, when their want is felt, the ignorance into which we have
+allowed ourselves to fall, of the resources offered by the language to
+satisfy new demands, sends us abroad in search of outlandish
+substitutes for words which we already possess at home. [Footnote: Thus
+I observe in modern French the barbarous 'derailler,' to get off the
+rail; and this while it only needed to recall 'derayer' from the
+oblivion into which it had been allowed to fall.] It was, no doubt, to
+avoid so far as possible such an impoverishment of the language which
+he spoke and wrote, for the feeding of his own speech with words
+capable of serving him well, but in danger of falling quite out of his
+use, that the great Lord Chatham had Bailey's Dictionary', the best of
+his time, twice read to him from one end to the other.
+
+And let us not suppose the power of exactly saying what we mean, and
+neither more nor less than we mean, to be merely a graceful mental
+accomplishment. It is indeed this, and perhaps there is no power so
+surely indicative of a high and accurate training of the intellectual
+faculties. But it is much more than this: it has a moral value as well.
+It is nearly allied to morality, inasmuch as it is nearly connected
+with truthfulness. Every man who has himself in any degree cared for
+the truth, and occupied himself in seeking it, is more or less aware
+how much of the falsehood in the world passes current under the
+concealment of words, how many strifes and controversies,
+     'Which feed the simple, and offend the wise,'
+find all or nearly all the fuel that maintains them in words carelessly
+or dishonestly employed. And when a man has had any actual experience
+of this, and at all perceived how far this mischief reaches, he is
+sometimes almost tempted to say with Shakespeare, 'Out, idle words,
+servants to shallow fools'; to adopt the saying of his clown, 'Words
+are grown so false I am loathe to prove reason with them.' He cannot,
+however, forego their employment; not to say that he will presently
+perceive that this falseness of theirs whereof he accuses them, this
+cheating power, is not of their proper use, but only of their abuse;
+he will see that, however they may have been enlisted in the service of
+lies, they are yet of themselves most true; and that, where the bane is,
+there the antidote should be sought as well. If Goethe's _Faust_
+denounces words and the falsehood of words, it is by the aid of words
+that he does it. Ask then words what they mean, that you may deliver
+yourselves, that you may help to deliver others, from the tyranny of
+words, and, to use Baxter's excellent phrase, from the strife of 'word-
+warriors.' Learn to distinguish between them, for you have the authority
+of Hooker, that 'the mixture of those things by speech, which by nature
+are divided, is the mother of all error.' [Footnote: See on all this
+matter in Locke's _Essay on Human Understanding,_ chapters 9, 10 and 11
+of the 3rd book, certainly the most remarkable in the _Essay;_ they bear
+the following titles: _Of the Imperfection of Words, Of the Abuse of
+Words, Of the Remedies of the Imperfection and Abuse of Words._] And
+although I cannot promise you that the study of synonyms, or the
+acquaintance with derivations, or any other knowledge but the very highest
+knowledge of all, will deliver you from the temptation to misuse this or
+any other gift of God--a temptation always lying so near us--yet I am sure
+that these studies rightly pursued will do much in leading us to stand in
+awe of this gift of speech, and to tremble at the thought of turning it to
+any other than those worthy ends for which God has endowed us with a
+faculty so divine.
+
+
+
+
+LECTURE VII.
+
+THE SCHOOLMASTER'S USE OF WORDS.
+
+
+At the Great Exhibition of 1851, there might be seen a collection,
+probably by far the completest which had ever been got together, of
+what were called _the material helps of education_. There was then
+gathered in a single room all the outward machinery of moral and
+intellectual training; all by which order might be best maintained, the
+labour of the teacher and the taught economized, with a thousand
+ingenious devices suggested by the best experience of many minds, and
+of these during many years. Nor were these material helps of education
+merely mechanical. There were in that collection vivid representations
+of places and objects; models which often preserved their actual forms
+and proportions, not to speak of maps and of books. No one who is aware
+how much in schools, and indeed everywhere else, depends on what
+apparently is slight and external, would lightly esteem the helps and
+hints which such a collection would furnish. And yet it would be well
+for us to remember that even if we were to obtain all this apparatus in
+its completest form, at the same time possessing the most perfect skill
+in its application, so that it should never encumber but always assist
+us, we should yet have obtained very little compared with that which,
+as a help to education, is already ours. When we stand face to face
+with a child, that spoken or unspoken word which the child possesses in
+common with ourselves is a far more potent implement and aid of
+education than all these external helps, even though they should be
+accumulated and multiplied a thousandfold. A reassuring thought for
+those who may not have many of these helps within their reach, a
+warning thought for those who might be tempted to put their trust in
+them. On the occasion of that Exhibition to which I have referred, it
+was well said, 'On the structure of language are impressed the most
+distinct and durable records of the habitual operations of the human
+powers. In the full possession of language each man has a vast, almost
+an inexhaustible, treasure of examples of the most subtle and varied
+processes of human thought. Much apparatus, many material helps, some
+of them costly, may be employed to assist education; but there is no
+apparatus which is so necessary, or which can do so much, as that which
+is the most common and the cheapest--which is always at hand, and ready
+for every need. Every language contains in it the result of a greater
+number of educational processes and educational experiments, than we
+could by any amount of labour and ingenuity accumulate in any
+educational exhibition expressly contrived for such a purpose.'
+
+Being entirely convinced that this is nothing more than the truth, I
+shall endeavour in my closing lecture to suggest some ways in which you
+may effectually use this marvellous implement which you possess to the
+better fulfilling of that which you have chosen as the proper task of
+your life. You will gladly hear something upon this matter; for you
+will never, I trust, disconnect what you may yourselves be learning
+from the hope and prospect of being enabled thereby to teach others
+more effectually. If you do, and your studies in this way become a
+selfish thing, if you are content to leave them barren of all profit to
+others, of this you may be sure, that in the end they will prove not
+less barren of profit to yourselves. In one noble line Chaucer has
+characterized the true scholar:--
+
+'And gladly would he learn, and gladly teach.'
+
+Print these words on your remembrance. Resolve that in the spirit of
+this line you will work and live.
+
+But take here a word or two of warning before we advance any further.
+You cannot, of course, expect to make any original investigations in
+language; but you can follow safe guides, such as shall lead you by
+right paths, even as you may follow such as can only lead you astray.
+Do not fail to keep in mind that perhaps in no region of human
+knowledge are there such a multitude of unsafe leaders as in this; for
+indeed this science of words is one which many, professing for it an
+earnest devotion, have done their best or their worst to bring into
+discredit, and to make a laughing-stock at once of the foolish and the
+wise. Niebuhr has somewhere noted 'the unspeakable spirit of absurdity'
+which seemed to possess the ancients, whenever they meddled with this
+subject; but the charge reaches others beside them. Their mantle, it
+must be owned, has in after times often fallen upon no unworthy
+successors.
+
+What is commoner, even now, than to find the investigator of words and
+their origin looking round about him here and there, in all the
+languages, ancient and modern, to which he has any access, till he
+lights on some word, it matters little to him in which of these, more
+or less resembling that which he wishes to derive? and this found, to
+consider his problem solved, and that in this phantom hunt he has
+successfully run down his prey. Even Dr. Johnson, with his robust,
+strong, English common-sense, too often offends in this way. In many
+respects his _Dictionary_ will probably never be surpassed. We shall
+never have more concise, more accurate, more vigorous explanations of
+the actual meaning of words, at the time when it was published, than he
+has furnished. But even those who recognize the most fully this merit,
+must allow that he was ill equipped by any preliminary studies for
+tracing the past history of words; that in this he errs often and
+signally; sometimes where the smallest possible amount of knowledge
+would have preserved him from error; as for instance when he derives
+the name of the peacock from the peak, or tuft of pointed feathers, on
+its head! while other derivations proposed or allowed by him and others
+are so far more absurd than this, that when Swift, in ridicule of the
+whole band of philologers, suggests that 'ostler' is only a contraction
+of oat-stealer, and 'breeches' of bear-riches, these etymologies are
+scarcely more ridiculous than many which have in sober earnest, and by
+men of no inconsiderable reputation, been proposed.
+
+Oftentimes in this scheme of random etymology, a word in one language
+is derived from one in another, in bold defiance of the fact that no
+points of historic contact or connexion, mediate or immediate, have
+ever existed between the two; the etymologist not caring to ask himself
+whether it was thus so much as possible that the word should have
+passed from the one language to the other; whether in fact the
+resemblance is not merely superficial and illusory, one which, so soon
+as they are stripped of their accidents, disappears altogether. Take a
+few specimens of this manner of dealing with words; and first from the
+earlier etymologists. Thus, what are men doing but extending not the
+limits of their knowledge but of their ignorance, when they deduce,
+with Varro, 'pavo' from 'pavor,' because of the fear which the harsh
+shriek of the peacock awakens; or with Pliny, 'panthera' from [Greek:
+pan thaerion], because properties of all beasts meet in the panther; or
+persuade themselves that 'formica,' the ant, is 'ferens micas,' the
+grain-bearer. Medieval suggestions abound, as vain, and if possible,
+vainer still. Thus Sirens, as Chaucer assures us, are 'serenes' being
+fair-weather creatures only to be seen in a calm. [Footnote: _Romaunt
+of the Rose_, 678.] 'Apis,' a bee, is [Greek: apous] or without feet,
+bees being born without feet, the etymology and the natural history
+keeping excellent company together. Or what shall we say of deriving
+'mors' from 'amarus,' because death is bitter; or from 'Mars,' because
+death is frequent in war; or '� _morsu_ vetiti pomi,' because that
+forbidden bite brought death into the world; or with a modern
+investigator of language, and one of high reputation in his time,
+deducing 'girl' from 'garrula,' because girls are commonly talkative?
+[Footnote: M�nage is one of these 'blind leaders of the blind,' of
+whom I have spoken above. With all their real, though not very accurate,
+erudition, his three folio volumes, two on French, one on Italian
+etymologies, have done nothing but harm to the cause which they were
+intended to further. G�nin (_R�cr�ations Philologiques_, pp. 12-15)
+passes a severe but just judgment upon them. M�nage, comme tous ses
+devanciers et la plupart de ses successeurs, semble n'avoir �t� dirig�
+que par un seul principe en fait d'�tymologie. Le voici dans son
+expression la plus nette. Tout mot vient du mot qui lui ressemble le
+mieux. Cela pos�, M�nage, avec son �rudition polyglotte, s'abat sur le
+grec, le latin, l'italien, l'espagnol, l'allemand, le celtique, et ne
+fait difficult� d'aller jusqu'� l'h�breu. C'est dommage que de son
+temps on ne cultiv�t pas encore le sanscrit, l'hindotistani, le
+thib�tain et l'arabe: il les e�t contraints � lui livrer des
+�tymologies fran�aises. Il ne se met pas en peine des chemins par o�
+un mot h�breu ou carthaginois aurait pu passer pour venir s'�tablir en
+France. Il y est, le voil�, suffit! L'identit� ne peut �tre mise en
+question devant la ressemblance, et souvent Dieu sait quelle
+ressemblance! Compare Amp�re, _Formation de la Langue Fran�aise_, pp.
+194, 195.]
+
+All experience, indeed, proves how perilous it is to etymologize at
+random, and on the strength of mere surface similarities of sound. Let
+me illustrate the absurdities into which this may easily betray us by
+an amusing example. A clergyman, who himself told me the story, had
+sought, and not unsuccessfully, to kindle in his schoolmaster a passion
+for the study of derivations. His scholar inquired of him one day if he
+were aware of the derivation of 'crypt'? He naturally applied in the
+affirmative, that 'crypt' came from a Greek word to conceal, and meant
+a covered place, itself concealed, and where things which it was wished
+to conceal were placed. The other rejoined that he was quite aware the
+word was commonly so explained, but he had no doubt erroneously; that
+'crypt,' as he had now convinced himself, was in fact contracted from
+'cry-pit'; being the pit where in days of Popish tyranny those who were
+condemned to cruel penances were plunged, and out of which their cry
+was heard to come up--therefore called the 'cry-pit,' now contracted
+into 'crypt'! Let me say, before quitting my tale, that I would far
+sooner a schoolmaster made a hundred such mistakes than that he should
+be careless and incurious in all which concerned the words which he was
+using. To make mistakes, as we are in the search of knowledge, is far
+more honourable than to escape making them through never having set out
+in this search at all
+
+But while errors like his may very well be pardoned, of this we may be
+sure, that they will do little in etymology, will continually err and
+cause others to err, who in these studies leave this out of sight for
+an instant--namely, that no amount of resemblance between words in
+different languages is of itself sufficient to prove that they are akin,
+even as no amount of apparent unlikeness in sound or present form is
+sufficient to disprove consanguinity. 'Judge not according to
+appearances,' must everywhere here be the rule. One who in many regions
+of human knowledge anticipated the discoveries of later times, said
+well a century and a half ago, 'Many etymologies are true, which at the
+first blush are not probable'; [Footnote: Leibnitz (_Opp_. vol. v. p.
+61): Saepe fit ut etymologiae verae sint, quae primo aspectu
+verisimiles non sunt.] and, as he might have added, many appear
+probable, which are not true. This being so, it is our wisdom on the
+one side to distrust superficial likenesses, on the other not to be
+repelled by superficial differences. Have no faith in those who
+etymologize on the strength of _sounds_, and not on that of _letters_,
+and of letters, moreover, dealt with according to fixed and recognized
+laws of equivalence and permutation. Much, as was said so well, is true,
+which does not seem probable. Thus 'dens' [Footnote: Compare Max Muller,
+_Chips from a German Workshop_, vol. iv. p. 25; Heyse, _System der
+Sprachwissenschaft_, p. 307.] and 'zahn' and 'tooth' are all the same
+word, and such in like manner are [Greek: chen], 'anser,' 'gans,' and
+'goose;' and again, [Greek: dakru] and 'tear.' Who, on the other hand,
+would not take for granted that our 'much' and the Spanish 'mucho,'
+identical in meaning, were also in etymology nearly related? There is
+in fact no connexion between them. Between 'vulgus' and 'volk' there is
+as little. 'Auge' the German form of our 'eye,' is in every letter
+identical with a Greek word for splendour ([Greek: auge]); and yet,
+intimate as is the connexion between German and Greek, these have no
+relation with one another whatever. Not many years ago a considerable
+scholar identified the Greek 'holos' ([Greek: holos]) and our 'whole;'
+and few, I should imagine, have not been tempted at one stage of their
+knowledge to do the same. These also are in no way related. Need I
+remind you here of the importance of seeking to obtain in every case
+the earliest spelling of a word which is attainable? [Footnote: What
+signal gains may in this way be made no one has shown more remarkably
+than Skeat in his _Etymological Dictionary_.]
+
+Here then, as elsewhere, the condition of all successful investigation
+is to have learned to disregard phenomena, the deceitful shows and
+appearances of things; to have resolved to reach and to grapple with
+the things themselves. It is the fable of Proteus over again. He will
+take a thousand shapes wherewith he will seek to elude and delude one
+who is determined to extort from him that true answer, which he is
+capable of yielding, but will only yield on compulsion. The true
+inquirer is deceived by none of these. He still holds him fast; binds
+him in strong chains; until he takes his proper shape at the last; and
+answers as a true seer, so far as answer is possible, whatever question
+may be put to him. Nor, let me observe by the way, will that man's gain
+be small who, having so learned to distrust the obvious and the
+plausible, carries into other regions of study and of action the
+lessons which he has thus learned; determines to seek the ground of
+things, and to plant his foot upon that; believes that a lie may look
+very fair, and yet be a lie after all; that the truth may show very
+unattractive, very unlikely and paradoxical, and yet be the very truth
+notwithstanding.
+
+To return from a long, but not unnecessary digression. Convinced as I
+am of the immense advantage of following up words to their sources, of
+'deriving' them, that is, of tracing each little rill to the river from
+whence it was first drawn, I can conceive no method of so effectually
+defacing and barbarizing our English tongue, of practically emptying it
+of all the hoarded wit, wisdom, imagination, and history which it
+contains, of cutting the vital nerve which connects its present with
+the past, as the introduction of the scheme of phonetic spelling, which
+some have lately been zealously advocating among us. I need hardly tell
+you that the fundamental idea of this is that all words should be spelt
+as they are sounded, that the writing should, in every case, be
+subordinated to the speaking. [Footnote: I do not know whether the
+advocates of phonetic spelling have urged the authority and practice of
+Augustus as being in their favour. Suetonius, among other amusing
+gossip about this Emperor, records of him: Videtur eorum sequi
+opinionem, qui perinde scribendum ac loquamur, existiment (_Octavius_.
+c. 88).] This, namely that writing should in every case and at all
+costs be subordinated to speaking, which is everywhere tacitly assumed
+as not needing any proof, is the fallacy which runs through the whole
+scheme. There is, indeed, no necessity at all for this. Every word, on
+the contrary, has _two_ existences, as a spoken word and a written; and
+you have no right to sacrifice one of these, or even to subordinate it
+wholly, to the other. A word exists as truly for the eye as for the
+ear; and in a highly advanced state of society, where reading is almost
+as universal as speaking, quite as much for the one as for the other.
+That in the _written_ word moreover is the permanence and continuity of
+language and of learning, and that the connexion is most intimate of a
+true orthography with all this, is affirmed in our words, 'letters,'
+'literature,' 'unlettered,' as in other languages by words exactly
+corresponding to these. [Footnote: As [Greek: grammata, agrammatos],
+litterae, belles-lettres.] The gains consequent on the introduction of
+such a change in our manner of spelling would be insignificantly small,
+the losses enormously great. There would be gain in the saving of a
+certain amount of the labour now spent in learning to spell. The amount
+of labour, however, is absurdly exaggerated by the promoters of the
+scheme. I forget how many thousand hours a phonetic reformer lately
+assured us were on an average spent by every English child in learning
+to spell; or how much time by grown men, who, as he assured us, for the
+most part rarely attempted to write a letter without a Johnson's
+_Dictionary_ at their side. But even this gain would not long remain,
+seeing that pronunciation is itself continually changing; custom is
+lord here for better and for worse; and a multitude of words are now
+pronounced in a manner different from that of a hundred years ago,
+indeed from that of ten years ago; so that, before very long, there
+would again be a chasm between the spelling and the pronunciation of
+words;--unless indeed the spelling varied, which it could not
+consistently refuse to do, as the pronunciation varied, reproducing
+each of its capricious or barbarous alterations; these last, it must be
+remembered, being changes not in the pronunciation only, but in the
+word itself, which would only exist as pronounced, the written word
+being a mere shadow servilely waiting upon the spoken. When these
+changes had multiplied a little, and they would indeed multiply
+exceedingly on the removal of the barriers to change which now exist,
+what the language before long would become, it is not easy to guess.
+
+This fact however, though sufficient to show how ineffectual the scheme
+of phonetic spelling would prove, even for the removing of those
+inconveniences which it proposes to remedy, is only the smallest
+objection to it. The far more serious charge which may be brought
+against it is, that in words out of number it would obliterate those
+clear marks of birth and parentage, which they bear now upon their
+fronts, or are ready, upon a very slight interrogation, to reveal.
+Words have now an ancestry; and the ancestry of words, as of men, is
+often a very noble possession, making them capable of great things,
+because those from whom they are descended have done great things
+before them; but this would deface their scutcheon, and bring them all
+to the same ignoble level. Words are now a nation, grouped into tribes
+and families, some smaller, some larger; this change would go far to
+reduce them to a promiscuous and barbarous horde. Now they are often
+translucent with their inner thought, lighted up by it; in how many
+cases would this inner light be then quenched! They have now a body and
+a soul, the soul quickening the body; then oftentimes nothing but a
+body, forsaken by the spirit of life, would remain. These objections
+were urged long ago by Bacon, who characterizes this so-called
+reformation, 'that writing should be consonant to speaking,' as 'a
+branch of unprofitable subtlety;' and especially urges that thereby
+'the derivations of words, especially from foreign languages, are
+utterly defaced and extinguished.' [Footnote: The same attempt to
+introduce phonography has been several times made, once in the
+sixteenth century, and again some thirty years ago in France. What
+would be there the results? We may judge of these from the results of a
+partial application of the system. 'Temps' is now written 'tems,' the
+_p_ having been ejected as superfluous. What is the consequence? at
+once its visible connexion with the Latin 'tempus,' with the Spanish
+'tiempo,' with the Italian 'tempo,' with its own 'temporel' and
+'temporaire,' is broken, and for many effaced. Or note the result from
+another point of view. Here are 'poids' a weight, 'poix' pitch, 'pois'
+peas. No one could mark in speaking the distinction between these; and
+thus to the ear there maybe confusion between them, but to the eye
+there is none; not to say that the _d_ in poi_d_s' puts it for us in
+relation with 'pon_d_us,' the _x_ in 'poi_x_' with 'pu_x_,' the _s_ in
+'poi_s_' with the Low Latin 'pi_s_um.' In each case the letter which
+these reformers would dismiss as useless, and worse than useless, keeps
+the secret of the word. On some other attempts in the same direction
+see in D'Israeli, _Amenities of Literature_, an article _On Orthography
+and Orthoepy_; and compare Diez, _Romanische Sprache_, vol. i. p. 52.
+[In the form _poids_ we have a striking example of a wretchedly bad
+spelling which is due to an attempt to make the spelling etymological.
+Unfortunately the etymology is erroneous: the French word for weight
+has nothing in the world to do with Latin _pondus_; it is the phonetic
+representative of the Latin _pensum_, and should be spelt _pois_.]]
+
+From the results of various approximations to phonetic spelling, which
+at different times have been made, and the losses thereon ensuing, we
+may guess what the loss would be were the system fully carried out. Of
+those fairly acquainted with Latin, it would be curious to know how
+many have seen 'silva' in 'savage,' since it has been so written, and
+not 'salvage,' as of old? or have been reminded of the hindrances to a
+civilized and human society which the indomitable forest, more perhaps
+than any other obstacle, presents. When 'fancy' was spelt 'phant'sy,'
+as by Sylvester in his translation of Du Bartas, and other scholarly
+writers of the seventeenth century, no one could doubt of its identity
+with 'phantasy,' as no Greek scholar could miss its relation with
+phantasia. Spell 'analyse' as I have sometimes seen it, and as
+phonetically it ought to be, 'annalize,' and the tap-root of the word
+is cut. How many readers will recognize in it then the image of
+dissolving and resolving aught into its elements, and use it with a
+more or less conscious reference to this? It may be urged that few do
+so even now. The more need they should not be fewer; for these few do
+in fact retain the word in its place, from which else it might
+gradually drift; they preserve its vitality, and the propriety of its
+use, not merely for themselves, but also for the others that have not
+this knowledge. In phonetic spelling is, in fact, the proposal that the
+learned and the educated should of free choice place themselves under
+the disadvantages of the ignorant and uneducated, instead of seeking to
+elevate these last to their own more favoured condition.
+
+On this subject one observation more. The multitude of difficulties of
+every sort and size which would beset the period of transition, and
+that no brief period, from our present spelling to the very easiest
+form of phonetic, seem to me to be almost wholly overlooked by those
+who are the most eager to press forward this scheme: while yet it is
+very noticeable that so soon as ever the 'Spelling Reform' approaches,
+however remotely, a practical shape, the Reformers, who up to this time
+were at issue with all the rest of the world, are at once at issue
+among themselves. At once the question comes to the front, Shall the
+labour-pangs of this immense new-birth or transformation of English be
+encountered all at once? or shall they be spread over years, and little
+by little the necessary changes introduced? It would not be easy to
+bring together two scholars who have bestowed more thought and the
+results of more laborious study on the whole subject of phonetic
+spelling than Mr. Ellis and Dr. Murray have done, while yet at the last
+annual meeting of the Philological Society (May 20, 1881) these two
+distinguished scholars, with mutual respect undiminished, had no choice
+but to acknowledge that, while they were seeking the same objects, the
+means by which they sought to attain them were altogether different,
+and that, in the judgment of each, all which the other was doing in
+setting forward results equally dear to both was only tending to put
+hindrances in the way, and to make the attainment of those results
+remoter than ever. [Footnote: [For arguments in defence of phonetic
+spelling the student is referred to Sweet's _Handbook of Phonetics_
+(Appendix); Skeat's _Principles of English Etymology_, p. 294; Max
+Muller's _Lectures on the Science of Language_, ii. 108.]]
+
+But to return. Even now the relationships of words, so important for
+our right understanding of them, are continually overlooked; a very
+little matter serving to conceal from us the family to which they
+pertain. Thus how many of our nouns are indeed unsuspected participles,
+or are otherwise most closely connected with verbs, with which we
+probably never think of putting them in relation. And yet with how
+lively an interest shall we discover those to be of closest kin, which
+we had never considered but as entire strangers to one another; what
+increased mastery over our mother tongue shall we through such
+discoveries obtain. Thus 'wrong' is the perfect participle of 'to
+wring' that which has been 'wrung' or wrested from the right; as in
+French 'tort,' from 'torqueo,' is the twisted. The 'brunt' of the
+battle is its heat, where it 'burns' the most fiercely; [Footnote: The
+word _brunt_ is a somewhat difficult form to explain. It is probably of
+Scandinavian origin; compare Danish _brynde_, heat. For the dental
+suffix -_t_, see Douse, _Gothic_, p. 101. The suffix is not
+participial.] the 'haft' of a knife, that whereby you 'have' or hold it.
+
+This exercise of putting words in their true relation and connexion
+with one another might be carried much further. Of whole groups of
+words, which may seem to acknowledge no kinship with one another, it
+will not be difficult to show that they had the same parentage, or, if
+not this, a cousinship in common. For instance, here are 'shore,'
+'share,' 'shears'; 'shred,' 'sherd'; all most closely connected with
+the verb 'to sheer.' 'Share' is a portion of anything divided off;
+'shears' are instruments effecting this process of separation; the
+'shore' is the place where the continuity of the land is interrupted by
+the sea; a 'shred' is that which is shorn from the main piece; a
+'sherd,' as a pot-'sherd,' (also 'pot-share,' Spenser,) that which is
+broken off and thus divided from the vessel; these not all exhausting
+this group or family of words, though it would occupy more time than we
+can spare to put some other words in their relation with it.
+
+But this analysing of groups of words for the detecting of the bond of
+relationship between them, and their common root, may require more
+etymological knowledge than you possess, and more helps from books than
+you can always command. There is another process, and one which may
+prove no less useful to yourselves and to others, which will lie more
+certainly within your reach. You will meet in books, sometimes in the
+same book, and perhaps in the same page of this book, a word used in
+senses so far apart from one another that at first it will seem to you
+absurd to suppose any bond of connexion between them. Now when you thus
+fall in with a word employed in these two or more senses so far removed
+from one another, accustom yourselves to seek out the bond which there
+certainly is between these several uses. This tracing of that which is
+common to and connects all its meanings can only be done by getting to
+its centre and heart, to the seminal meaning, from which, as from a
+fruitful seed, all the others unfold themselves; to the first link in
+the chain, from which every later one, in a direct line or a lateral,
+depends. We may proceed in this investigation, certain that we shall
+find such, or at least that such there is to be found. For nothing can
+be more certain than this (and the non-recognition of it is a serious
+blemish in Johnson's _Dictionary_), that a word has originally but one
+meaning, that all other uses, however widely they may diverge from one
+another and recede from this one, may yet be affiliated to it, brought
+back to the one central meaning, which grasps and knits them all
+together; just as the several races of men, black, white, and yellow
+and red, despite of all their present diversity and dispersion, have a
+central point of unity in that one pair from which they all have
+descended.
+
+Let me illustrate this by two or three familiar examples. How various
+are the senses in which 'post' is used; as 'post'-office; 'post'-haste;
+a 'post' standing in the ground; a military 'post'; an official 'post';
+'to post' a ledger. Is it possible to find anything which is common to
+all these uses of 'post'? When once we are on the right track, nothing
+is easier. 'Post' is the Latin 'positus,' that which is _placed_; the
+piece of timber is 'placed' in the ground, and so a 'post'; a military
+station is a 'post,' for a man is 'placed' in it, and must not quit it
+without orders; to travel 'post,' is to have certain relays of horses
+''placed' at intervals, that so no delay on the road may occur; the
+'post '-office avails itself of this mode of communication; to 'post' a
+ledger is to 'place' or register its several items.
+
+Once more, in what an almost infinite number of senses 'stock' is
+employed; we have live 'stock,' 'stock' in trade or on the farm, the
+village 'stocks,' the 'stock' of a gun, the 'stock'-dove, the 'stocks,'
+on which ships are built, the 'stock' which goes round the neck, the
+family 'stock,' the 'stocks,' or public funds, in which money is
+invested, with other 'stocks' besides these. What point in common can
+we find between them all? This, that being all derived from one verb,
+they cohere in the idea of _fixedness_ which is common to them all.
+Thus, the 'stock' of a gun is that in which the barrel is fixed; the
+village 'stocks' are those in which the feet are fastened; the 'stock'
+in trade is the fixed capital; and so too, the 'stock' on the farm,
+although the fixed capital has there taken the shape of horses and
+cattle; in the 'stocks' or public funds, money sticks fast, inasmuch as
+those who place it there cannot withdraw or demand the capital, but
+receive only the interest; the 'stock' of a tree is fast set in the
+ground; and from this use of the word it is transferred to a family;
+the 'stock' is that from which it grows, and out of which it unfolds
+itself. And here we may bring in the 'stock'-dove, as being the 'stock'
+or stirps of the domestic kinds. I might group with these, 'stake' in
+both its spellings; a 'stake' is stuck in the hedge and there remains;
+the 'stakes' which men wager against the issue of a race are paid down,
+and thus fixed or deposited to answer the event; a beef-'steak' is a
+portion so small that it can be stuck on the point of a fork; and so
+forward. [Footnote: See the _Instructions for Parish Priests_, p. 69,
+published by the _Early English Texts Society_.] When we thus affirm
+that the divergent meanings of a word can all be brought back to some
+one point from which, immediately or mediately, they every one proceed,
+that none has primarily more than one meaning, it must be remembered
+that there may very well be two words, or, as it will sometimes happen,
+more, spelt as well as pronounced alike, which yet are wholly different
+in their derivation and primary usage; and that, of course, between
+such homonyms or homographs as these no bond of union on the score of
+this identity is to be sought. Neither does this fact in the least
+invalidate our assertion. We have in them, as Cobbett expresses it well,
+the same combination of letters, but not the same word. Thus we have
+'page,' the side of a leaf, from 'pagina,' and 'page,' a small boy;
+'league,' a treaty (F. ligue), from 'ligare,' to bind, and 'league' (O.
+F. legue), from leuca, a Celtic measure of distance; 'host' (hostis),
+an army, 'host' (O. F. hoste), from the Latin hospitem, and 'host'
+(hostia), in the Roman Catholic sacrifice of the mass. We have two
+'ounces' (uncia and Pers. yuz); two 'seals' (sigillum and seolh); two
+'moods' (modus and mod); two 'sacks' (saccus and sec); two 'sounds'
+(sonus and sund); two 'lakes' (lacus and lacca); two 'kennels' (canalis
+and canile); two 'partisans' (partisan and partegiana); two 'quires'
+(choeur and cahier); two 'corns' (corn and cornu); two 'ears' (ohr and
+�hre); two 'doles' (deuil and theil); two 'perches' (pertica and
+perca); two 'races' (raes and the French race); two 'rocks,' two
+'rooks,' two 'sprays,' two 'saws,' two 'strains,' two 'trunks,' two
+'burrows,' two 'helms,' two 'quarries'; three 'moles,' three 'rapes'
+(as the 'rape' of Proserpine, the 'rape' of Bramber, 'rape'-seed); four
+'ports,' three 'vans,' three 'smacks.' Other homonyms in the language
+are the following: 'ash,' 'barb,' 'bark,' 'barnacle,' 'bat,' 'beam,'
+'beetle,' 'bill,' 'bottle,' 'bound,' 'breeze,' 'bugle,' 'bull,' 'cape,'
+'caper,' 'chap,' 'cleave,' 'club,' 'cob,' 'crab,' 'cricket,' 'crop,'
+'crowd,' 'culver,' 'dam,' 'elder,' 'flag,' 'fog,' 'fold,' 'font,'
+'fount,' 'gin,' 'gore,' 'grain,' 'grin,' 'gulf,' 'gum,' 'gust,' 'herd,'
+'hind,' 'hip,' 'jade,' 'jar,' 'jet,' 'junk,' 'lawn,' 'lime,' 'link,'
+'mace,' 'main,' 'mass,' 'mast,' 'match,' 'meal,' 'mint,' 'moor,'
+'paddock,' 'painter,' 'pernicious,' 'plot,' 'pulse,' 'punch,' 'rush,'
+'scale,' 'scrip,' 'shingle,' 'shock,' 'shrub,' 'smack,' 'soil,' 'stud,'
+'swallow,' 'tap,' 'tent,' 'toil,' 'trinket,' 'turtle.' You will find it
+profitable to follow these up at home, to trace out the two or more
+words which have clothed themselves in exactly the same outward garb,
+and on what etymologies they severally repose; so too, as often as you
+suspect the existence of homonyms, to make proof of the matter for
+yourselves, gradually forming as complete a list of these as you
+can. [Footnote: For a nearly complete list of homonyms in English see
+List of Homonyms at the end of Skeat's _Etym. Dict._; Kock's
+_Historical Grammar of the English Language_, vol. i. p. 223; M�tzner's
+_Engl. Grammatik_, vol. i. pp. 187-204; and compare Dwight's _Modern
+Philology_, vol. ii. p. 311.] You may usefully do the same in any other
+language which you study, for they exist in all. In them the identity
+is merely on the surface and in sound, and it would, of course, be lost
+labour to seek for a point of contact between meanings which have no
+closer connexion with one another in reality than they have in
+appearance.
+
+Let me suggest some further exercises in this region of words. There
+are some which at once provoke and promise to reward inquiry, by the
+evident readiness with which they will yield up the secret, if duly
+interrogated by us. Many, as we have seen, have defied, and will
+probably defy to the end, all efforts to dissipate the mystery which
+hangs over them; and these we must be content to leave; but many
+announce that their explanations cannot be very far to seek. Let me
+instance 'candidate.' Does it not argue an incurious spirit to be
+content that this word should be given and received by us a hundred
+times, as at a contested election it is, and we never ask ourselves,
+What does it mean? why is one offering himself to the choice of his
+fellows called a 'candidate'? If the word lay evidently beyond our
+horizon, we might acquiesce in our ignorance; but resting, as
+manifestly it does, upon the Latin 'candidus,' it challenges inquiry,
+and a very little of this would at once put us in possession of the
+Roman custom for which it witnesses--namely, that such as intended to
+claim the suffrages of the people for any of the chief offices of the
+State, presented themselves beforehand to them in a _white_ toga, being
+therefore called 'candidati.' And as it so often happens that in
+seeking information upon one subject we obtain it upon another, so will
+it probably be here; for in fully learning what this custom was, you
+will hardly fail to learn how we obtained 'ambition,' what originally
+it meant, and how Milton should have written--
+
+     'To reign is worth ambition, though in hell.
+
+Or again, any one who knows so much as that 'verbum' means a word,
+might well be struck by the fact (and if he followed it up would be led
+far into the relation of the parts of speech to one another), that in
+grammar it is not employed to signify any word whatsoever, but
+restricted to the verb alone; 'verbum' is the verb. Surely here is
+matter for reflection. What gives to the verb the right to monopolize
+the dignity of being 'the word'? Is it because the verb is the
+animating power, the vital principle of every sentence, and that
+without which understood or uttered, no sentence can exist? or can you
+offer any other reason? I leave this to your own consideration.
+
+We call certain books 'classics.' We have indeed a double use of the
+word, for we speak of the Greek and Latin as the 'classical' languages,
+and the great writers in these as '_the_ classics'; while at other
+times you hear of a 'classical' English style, or of English
+'classics.' Now 'classic' is connected plainly with 'classis.' What
+then does it mean in itself, and how has it arrived at this double use?
+'The term is drawn from the political economy of Rome. Such a man was
+rated as to his income in the third class, such another in the fourth,
+and so on; but he who was in the highest was emphatically said to be of
+_the_ class, "classicus"--a class man, without adding the number, as in
+that case superfluous; while all others were infra classem. Hence, by
+an obvious analogy, the best authors were rated as "classici," or men
+of the highest class; just as in English we say "men of rank"
+absolutely, for men who are in the highest ranks of the state.' The
+mental process by which this title, which would apply rightly to the
+best authors in _all_ languages, came to be restricted to those only in
+two, and these two to be claimed, to the seeming exclusion of all
+others, as _the_ classical languages, is one constantly recurring,
+making itself felt in all regions of human thought; to which therefore
+I would in passing call your attention, though I cannot now do more.
+
+There is one circumstance which you must by no means suffer to escape
+your own notice, nor that of your pupils--namely, that words out of
+number, which are now employed only in a figurative sense, did yet
+originally rest on some fact of the outward world, vividly presenting
+itself to the imagination; which fact the word has incorporated and
+knit up with itself for ever. If I may judge from my own experience,
+few intelligent boys would not feel that they had gained something,
+when made to understand that 'to insult' means properly to leap as on
+the prostrate body of a foe; 'to affront,' to strike him on the face;
+that 'to succour' means by running to place oneself under one that is
+falling; 'to relent,' (connected with 'lentus,') to slacken the
+swiftness of one's pursuit; [Footnote: 'But nothing might _relent_ his
+hasty flight,' Spenser _F. Q._ iii. 4.] 'to reprehend,' to lay hold of
+one with the intention of forcibly pulling him back; 'to exonerate,' to
+discharge of a burden, ships being exonerated once; that 'to be
+examined' means to be weighed. They would be pleased to learn that a
+man is called 'supercilious,' because haughtiness with contempt of
+others expresses itself by the raising of the eyebrows or
+'supercilium'; that 'subtle' (subtilis for subtexilis) is literally
+'fine-spun'; that 'astonished' (attonitus) is properly thunderstruck;
+that 'sincere' is without wax, (sine cera,) as the best and finest
+honey should be; that a 'companion,' probably at least, is one with
+whom we share our bread, a messmate; that a 'sarcasm' is properly such
+a lash inflicted by the 'scourge of the tongue' as brings away the
+_flesh_ after it; with much more in the same kind.
+
+'Trivial' is a word borrowed from the life. Mark three or four persons
+standing idly at the point where one street bisects at right angles
+another, and discussing there the idle nothings of the day; there you
+have the living explanation of 'trivial,' 'trivialities,' such as no
+explanation not rooting itself in the etymology would ever give you, or
+enable you to give to others. You have there the 'tres viae,' the
+'trivium'; and 'trivialities' properly mean such talk as is holden by
+those idle loiterers that gather at this meeting of three
+roads. [Footnote: But 'trivial' may be from 'trivium' in another sense;
+that is, from the 'trivium,' or three preparatory disciplines,--grammar,
+arithmetic, and geometry,--as distinguished from the four more advanced,
+or 'quadrivium'; these and those together being esteemed in the Middle
+Ages to constitute a complete liberal education. Preparatory schools
+were often called '_trivial_ schools,' as occupying themselves with the
+'trivium.'] 'Rivals' properly are those who dwell on the banks of the
+same river. But as all experience shows, there is no such fruitful
+source of contention as a water-right, and these would be often at
+strife with one another in regard of the periods during which they
+severally had a right to the use of the stream, turning it off into
+their own fields before the time, or leaving open the sluices beyond
+the time, or in other ways interfering, or being counted to interfere,
+with the rights of their neighbours. And in this way 'rivals' came to
+be applied to any who were on any grounds in unfriendly competition
+with one another.
+
+By such teaching as this you may often improve, and that without
+turning play-time into lesson-time, the hours of relaxation and
+amusement. But 'relaxation,' on which we have just lighted as by chance,
+must not escape us. How can the bow be 'relaxed' or slackened (for this
+is the image), which has not been bent, whose string has never been
+drawn tight? Having drawn tight the bow of our mind by earnest toil, we
+may then claim to have it from time to time 'relaxed.' Having been
+attentive and assiduous then, but not otherwise, we may claim
+'relaxation' and amusement. But 'attentive' and 'assiduous' are
+themselves words which will repay us to understand exactly what they
+mean. He is 'assiduous' who sits close to his work; he is 'attentive,'
+who, being taught, stretches out his neck that so he may not lose a
+word. 'Diligence' too has its lesson. Derived from 'diligo,' to love,
+it reminds us that the secret of true industry in our work is love of
+that work. And as truth is wrapped up in 'diligence,' what a lie, on
+the other hand, lurks in 'indolence,' or, to speak more accurately, in
+our present employment of it! This, from 'in' and 'doleo,' not to
+grieve, is properly a state in which we have no grief or pain; and
+employed as we now employ it, suggests to us that indulgence in sloth
+constitutes for us the truest negation of pain. Now no one would wish
+to deny that 'pain' and 'pains' are often nearly allied; but yet these
+pains hand us over to true pleasures; while indolence is so far from
+yielding that good which it is so forward to promise, that Cowper spoke
+only truth, when, perhaps meaning to witness against the falsehood I
+have just denounced, he spoke of
+
+    'Lives spent in _indolence_, and therefore _sad_,'
+
+not 'therefore _glad_,' as the word 'indolence' would fain have us to
+believe.
+
+There is another way in which these studies I have been urging may be
+turned to account. Doubtless you will seek to cherish in your scholars,
+to keep lively in yourselves, that spirit and temper which find a
+special interest in all relating to the land of our birth, that land
+which the providence of God has assigned as the sphere of our life's
+task and of theirs. Our schools are called 'national,' [Footnote: This
+was written in England, and in the year 1851.] and if we would have
+them such in reality, we must neglect nothing that will foster a
+national spirit in them. I know not whether this is sufficiently
+considered among us; yet certainly we cannot have Church-schools worthy
+the name, least of all in England, unless they are truly national as
+well. It is the anti-national character of the Roman Catholic system
+which perhaps more than all else offends Englishmen; and if their sense
+of this should ever grow weak, their protest against that system would
+soon lose much of its energy and strength. But here, as everywhere else,
+knowledge must be the food of love. Your pupils must know something
+about England, if they are to love it; they must see some connexion of
+its past with its present, of what it has been with what it is, if they
+are to feel that past as anything to them.
+
+And as no impresses of the past are so abiding, so none, when once
+attention has been awakened to them, are so self-evident as those which
+names preserve; although, without this calling of the attention to them,
+the most broad and obvious of these foot-prints which the past time has
+left may continue to escape our observation to the end of our lives.
+Leibnitz tells us, and one can quite understand, the delight with which
+a great German Emperor, Maximilian I., discovered that 'Habsburg,' or
+'Hapsburg,' the ancestral name of his house, really had a meaning, one
+moreover full of vigour and poetry. This he did, when he heard it by
+accident on the lips of a Swiss peasant, no longer cut short and thus
+disguised, but in its original fulness, 'Habichtsburg,' or 'Hawk's-
+Tower,' being no doubt the name of the castle which was the cradle of
+his race. [Footnote: _Opp._ vol. vi. pt. 2. p. 20.] Of all the thousands
+of Englishmen who are aware that Angles and Saxons established
+themselves in this island, and that we are in the main descended from
+them, it would be curious to know how many have realized to themselves
+a fact so obvious as that this 'England' means 'Angle-land,' or that in
+the names 'Essex,' 'Sussex,' and 'Middlesex,' we preserve a record of
+East Saxons, South Saxons, and Middle Saxons, who occupied those
+several portions of the land; or that 'Norfolk' and 'Suffolk' are two
+broad divisions of 'northern' and 'southern folk,' into which the East
+Anglian kingdom was divided. 'Cornwall' does not bear its origin quite
+so plainly upon its front, or tell its story so that every one who runs
+may read. At the same time its secret is not hard to attain to. As the
+Teutonic immigrants advanced, such of the British population as were
+not either destroyed or absorbed by them retreated, as we all have
+learned, into Wales and Cornwall, that is, till they could retreat no
+further. The fact is evidently preserved in the name of 'Wales', which
+means properly 'The foreigners,'--the nations of Teutonic blood calling
+all bordering tribes by this name. But though not quite so apparent on
+the surface, this fact is also preserved in 'Cornwall', written
+formerly 'Cornwales', or the land inhabited by the Welsh of the Corn or
+Horn. The chroniclers uniformly speak of North Wales and Corn-Wales.
+[Footnote: See _Anglo-Saxon Chronicle_, year 997, where mention is made
+of the _Cornwealas_, the Cornish people.] These Angles, Saxons, and
+Britons or Welshmen, about whom our pupils may be reading, will be to
+them more like actual men of flesh and blood, who indeed trod this same
+soil which we are treading now, when we can thus point to traces
+surviving to the present day, which they have left behind them, and
+which England, as long as it is England, will retain.
+
+The Danes too have left their marks on the land. We all probably, more
+or less, are aware how much Danish blood runs in English veins; what
+large colonies from Scandinavia (for as many may have come from Norway
+as from modern Denmark), settled in some parts of this island. It will
+be interesting to show that the limits of this Danish settlement and
+occupation may even now be confidently traced by the constant
+recurrence in all such districts of the names of towns and villages
+ending in 'by,' which signified in their language a dwelling or single
+village; as Nether_by_, Apple_by_, Der_by_, Whit_by_, Rug_by_. Thus if
+you examine closely a map of Lincolnshire, one of the chief seats of
+the Danish settlement, you will find one hundred, or well nigh a fourth
+part, of the towns and villages to have this ending, the whole coast
+being studded with them--they lie nearly as close to one another as in
+Sleswick itself; [Footnote: Pott, _Etym. Forsch._ vol. ii. pt. 2,
+p.1172] while here in Hampshire 'by' as such a termination, is utterly
+unknown. Or again, draw a line transversely through England from
+Canterbury by London to Chester, the line, that is, of the great Roman
+road, called Watling Street, and north of this six hundred instances of
+the occurrence of the same termination may be found, while to the south
+there are almost none. 'Thorpe,' equivalent to the German 'dorf' as
+Bishops_thorpe_, Al_thorp_, tells the same tale of a Norse occupation
+of the soil; and the terminations, somewhat rarer, of 'thwaite,'
+'haugh,' 'garth,' 'ness,' do the same no less. On the other hand, where,
+as in this south of England, the 'hams' abound (the word is identical
+with our 'home'), as Bucking_ham_, Eg_ham_, Shore_ham_, there you may
+be sure that not Norsemen but West Germans took possession of the soil.
+'Worth,' or 'worthy,' tells the same story, as Bos_worth_,
+Kings_worthy_; [Footnote: See Sweet's _Oldest English Texts_ (index).]
+the 'stokes' in like manner, as Basing_stoke_, Itchen_stoke_, are Saxon,
+being (as some suppose) places _stock_aded, with stocks or piles for
+defence. You are yourselves learning, or hereafter you may be teaching
+others, the names and number of the English counties or shires. What a
+dull routine task for them and for you this may be, supplying no food
+for the intellect, no points of attachment for any of its higher powers
+to take hold of! And yet in these two little words, 'shire' and
+'county,' if you would make them render up even a small part of their
+treasure, what lessons of English history are contained! One who knows
+the origin of these names, and how we come to possess such a double
+nomenclature, looks far into the social condition of England in that
+period when the strong foundations of all that has since made England
+glorious and great were being laid; by aid of these words may detect
+links which bind its present to its remotest past; for of lands as of
+persons it may be said, 'the child is father of the man,' 'Shire' is
+connected with 'shear,' 'share,' and is properly a portion 'shered' or
+'shorn' off. [Footnote: It must be confessed that there are insuperable
+difficulties in the way of connecting Anglo-Saxon _scir_ with the verb
+_sceron_, to shear, and of explaining it as equivalent to 'shorn off.'
+The derivation of 'shire' has not yet been ascertained.] When a Saxon
+king would create an earl, it did not lie in men's thoughts, accustomed
+as they were to deal with realities, that such could be a merely
+titular creation, or exist without territorial jurisdiction; and a
+'share' or 'shire' was assigned him to govern, which also gave him his
+title. But at the Conquest this Saxon officer was displaced by a Norman,
+the 'earl' by the 'count'--this title of 'count,' borrowed from the
+later Roman empire, meaning originally 'companion' (comes), one who had
+the honour of being closest companion to his leader; and the 'shire'
+was now the 'county' (comitatus), as governed by this 'comes.' In that
+singular and inexplicable fortune of words, which causes some to
+disappear and die out under the circumstances apparently most
+favourable for life, others to hold their ground when all seemed
+against them, 'count' has disappeared from the titles of English
+nobility, while 'earl' has recovered its place; although in evidence of
+the essential identity of the two titles, or offices rather, the wife
+of the earl is entitled a 'countess'; and in further memorial of these
+great changes that so long ago came over our land, the two names
+'shire' and 'county' equally survive as in the main interchangeable
+words in our mouths.
+
+A large part of England, all that portion of it which the Saxons
+occupied, is divided into 'hundreds'. Have you ever asked yourselves
+what this division means, for something it must mean? The 'hundred' is
+supposed to have been originally a group or settlement of one hundred
+free families of Saxon incomers. If this was so, we have at once an
+explanation of the strange disproportion between the area of the
+'hundred' in the southern and in the more northern counties--the
+average number of square miles in a 'hundred' of Sussex or Kent being
+about four and twenty; of Lancashire more than three hundred. The Saxon
+population would naturally be far the densest in the earlier
+settlements of the east and south, while more to west and north their
+tenure would be one rather of conquest than of colonization, and the
+free families much fewer and more scattered. [Footnote: Kemble, _The
+Saxons in England_, vol. i. p. 420; Stubbs, _Constitutional History of
+England,_ p. 98.] But further you have noticed, I dare say, the
+exceptional fact that the county of Sussex, besides the division into
+hundreds, is divided also into six 'rapes'; thus the 'rape' of Bramber
+and so on. [This 'rape' is connected by Lappenberg, ii. 405 (1881),
+with the Icel. _hreppr_, which according to the Gr�g�s was a district
+in which twenty or more peasants maintained one poor person].
+
+Let us a little consider, in conclusion, how we may usefully bring our
+etymologies and other notices of words to bear on the religious
+teaching which we would impart in our schools. To do this with much
+profit we must often deal with words as the Queen does with the gold
+and silver coin of the realm. When this has been current long, and by
+often passing from man to man, with perhaps occasional clipping in
+dishonest hands, has lost not only the clear brightness, the well-
+defined sharpness of outline, but much of the weight and intrinsic
+value which it had when first issued from the royal mint, it is the
+sovereign's prerogative to recall it, and issue it anew, with the royal
+image stamped on it afresh, bright and sharp, weighty and full, as at
+first. Now to a process such as this the true mint-masters of language,
+and all of us may be such, will often submit the words which they use.
+Where use and custom have worn away their significance, we too may
+recall and issue them afresh. With how many it has thus fared!--for
+example, with one which will be often in your mouths. You speak of the
+'lessons' of the day; but what is 'lessons' here for most of us save a
+lazy synonym for the morning and evening chapters appointed to be read
+in church? But realize what the Church intended in calling these
+chapters by this name; namely, that they should be the daily
+instruction of her children; listen to them yourselves as such; lead
+your scholars to regard them as such, and in this use of 'lessons' what
+a lesson for every one of us there may be! [Footnote: [Still
+etymologically _lessons_ mean simply 'readings, the word representing
+French _le�ons_ = Latin _lectiones_.]] 'Bible' itself, while we not
+irreverently use it, may yet be no more to us than the verbal sign by
+which we designate the written Word of God. Keep in mind that it
+properly means 'the book' and nothing more; that once it could be
+employed of any book (in Chaucer it is so), and what matter of thought
+and reflection lies in this our present restriction of 'bible' to one
+book, to the exclusion of all others! So strong has been the sense of
+Holy Scripture being '_the_ Book,' the worthiest and best, that book
+which explains all other books, standing up in their midst,--like
+Joseph's kingly sheaf, to which all the other sheaves did obeisance,--
+that this name of 'Bible' or 'Book' has been restrained to it alone:
+just as 'Scripture' means no more than 'writing'; but this inspired
+Writing has been acknowledged so far above all other writings, that
+this name also it has obtained as exclusively its own.
+
+Again, something may be learned from knowing that the 'surname,' as
+distinguished from the 'Christian' name, is the name over and above,
+not 'sire'-name, or name received from the father, as some explain, but
+'sur'-name (super nomen). There was never, that is, a time when every
+baptized man had not a Christian name, the recognition of his personal
+standing before God; while the surname, the name expressing his
+relation, not to the kingdom of God, but to a worldly society, is of
+much later growth, super-added to the other, as the word itself
+declares. What a lesson at once in the growing up of a human society,
+and in the contrast between it and the heavenly Society of the Church,
+might be appended to this explanation! There was a period when only a
+few had surnames; had, that is, any significance in the order of things
+temporal; while the Christian name from the first was the possession of
+every baptized man. All this might be brought usefully to bear on your
+exposition of the first words in the Catechism.
+
+There are long words from the Latin which, desire as we may to use all
+plainness of speech, we cannot do without, nor find their adequate
+substitutes in homelier parts of our language; words which must always
+remain the vehicles of much of that truth whereby we live. Now in
+explaining these, make it your rule always to start, where you can,
+from the derivation, and to return to that as often as you can. Thus
+you wish to explain 'revelation.' How much will be gained if you can
+attach some distinct image to the word, one to which your scholars, as
+often as they hear it, may mentally recur. Nor is this difficult. God's
+'revelation' of Himself is a drawing back of the veil or curtain which
+concealed Him from men; not man finding out God, but God discovering
+Himself to man; all which is contained in the word. Or you wish to
+explain 'absolution.' Many will know that it has something to do with
+the pardon of sins; but how much more accurately will they know this,
+when they know that 'to absolve' means 'to loosen from': God's
+'absolution' of men being his releasing of them from the bands of those
+sins with which they were bound. Here every one will connect a distinct
+image with the word, such as will always come to his help when he would
+realize what its precise meaning may be. That which was done for
+Lazarus naturally, the Lord exclaiming, 'Loose him, and let him go,'
+the same is done spiritually for us, when we receive the 'absolution'
+of our sins.
+
+Tell your scholars that 'atonement' means 'at-one-ment'--the setting at
+one of those who were at twain before, namely God and man, and they
+will attach to 'atonement' a definite meaning, which perhaps in no way
+else it would have possessed for them; and, starting from this point,
+you may muster the passages in Scripture which describe the sinner's
+state as one of separation, estrangement, alienation, from God, the
+Christian's state as one in which he walks together with God, because
+the two have been set 'at one.' Or you have to deal with the following,
+'to redeem,' 'Redeemer,' 'redemption.' Lose not yourselves in vague
+generalities, but fasten on the central point of these, that they imply
+a 'buying,' and not this merely, but a 'buying back'; and then connect
+with them, so explained, the whole circle of statements in Scripture
+which rest on this image, which speak of sin as a slavery, of sinners
+as bondsmen of Satan, of Christ's blood as a ransom, of the Christian
+as one restored to his liberty.
+
+Many words more suggest themselves; I will not urge more than one; but
+that one, because in it is a lesson more for ourselves than for others,
+and with such I would fain bring these lectures to a close. How solemn
+a truth we express when we name our work in this world our 'vocation,'
+or, which is the same in homelier Anglo-Saxon, our 'calling.' What a
+calming, elevating, ennobling view of the tasks appointed us in this
+world, this word gives us. We did not come to our work by accident; we
+did not choose it for ourselves; but, in the midst of much which may
+wear the appearance of accident and self-choosing, came to it by God's
+leading and appointment. How will this consideration help us to
+appreciate justly the dignity of our work, though it were far humbler
+work, even in the eyes of men, than that of any one of us here present!
+What an assistance in calming unsettled thoughts and desires, such as
+would make us wish to be something else than that which we are! What a
+source of confidence, when we are tempted to lose heart, and to doubt
+whether we shall carry through our work with any blessing or profit to
+ourselves or to others! It is our 'vocation,' not our choosing but our
+'calling'; and He who 'called' us to it, will, if only we will ask Him,
+fit us for it, and strengthen us in it.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's On the Study of Words, by Richard C Trench
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