%xxxm\\ Ham ^rV^J Hibtary %tt\ittX i. Eaube QJallfttian 134a iMemnrtal C^ift af tlje g'tubentB of tlje QJocncU ffiaiu Srljool PE 1574.T79"'lS"87"""' """'^ On the study of words: 3 1924 024 877""l"7l" DATE DUE -MUA #01 GAYLORD PRINTED IN U,SA Cornell University Jbrary The original of tliis book is in the Cornell University Library. There are no known copyright restrictions in the United States on the use of the text. http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924024877171 SUPLEE'S TRENCH STUDY OF WORDS. SUPLEE'S TRENCH ON WORDS. ON THE STUDY OF WORDS LECTURES ADDRESSED (ORIGINALLV) TO THE PUPILS AT THE DIOCESAN TRAINING-SCHOOL, WINCHESTER BY RICHARD CHENEVIXJTRENCH, D.D. archbishop of dublin. from the latest revised english edition. With an Exhaustive Analysis, Additional Words fob Illustration, and Questions for Examination. THOMAS D. SUPLEE, HEAD MASTER OF ST. AUGUSTINE'S COLLEGE, BENICIA, CALirORNIA. NEW YORK A. C. ARMSTRONG & SON ?14 Broadway 1887 \ 01OO/3 5' Copyright, W. J. WlDDLETON. 1877. '^^ JUL \> 23 ^958 PREFATORY NOTE. IT is now twenty-six years since Dean Trench's book " On the Study of Words " was first given to the, public. Originally addressed to the pupils of the Diocesan Training School at Winchester, in the shape of lectures, and retaining that form in publication, the book was but poorly adapted for use in the school-room as a text-book. The editor has long deplored this, in common with many other teachers ; hence no apology is necessary for the appearance of the present volume. The advantages claimed for it, over all other editions, are about as follows : 1. A complete and exhaustive analysis of the revised text has been added. 2. A set of questions has been prepared, designed not only to call forth the facts stated by the author, but also to follow up lines of thought suggested by him. 3. At the end of each lecture a list of words has been added, illustrating its various topics, and intended to en- courage original research on the part of the pupil. The nev/ arrangement of the text, analysis, and questions cannot fail to be of great assistance both to the teacher and 6 PREFATORY NOTE. pupil. It is recommended that the latter be compelled to commit the outlines and exercises to memory, place them on the blackboard, and then, assuming the r6le of lecturer, proceed to expand the leading ideas. In this way the best results of the analytical method of teaching are secured, and the pupil is trained to think and talk while on the floor. As these helps have already been of great service to the editor in the work of teaching, it is hoped that they may also assist others, now that they are associated with the following lectures. Thomas D. Supl£e. Benicia, Cal., July 4, 1877. PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION. THESE lectures will not, I trust, be found any- where to have left out of sight seriously, or for long, the peculiar needs of those for whom they were originsilly intended, and to whom they were prima- rily 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 ob- tained 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 rig- idly restricted myself in the choice of my materials. Yet I should greatly regret to have admitted 30 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, 8 PREFACE. 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 maybe 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 Home 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 in- tellectual 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 PREFACE. 9 weighed words in the balances, and so earnestly pressed upon all with whom his voice went for any- thing, 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 com- position, 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 : t "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 circu- late 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 meta- phorical 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. lO PREFACE. Hence they who feel an inward call to teach and enlighten their countrymen, should deem it an im- portant 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 whic^ Time brings upon all things, and from which language has no exemption, and to endeavor to give distinct- ness and precision to whatever in it is confused, or obscure, or dimly seen." — Guesses at Truth, First Series, p. 295. Itchenstoke, Oct. 9, 1851. GENERAL OUTLINE OF LECTURES. LECTURE I. INTRODUCTORY. I. Study of words not tedious. II. Language fossil poetry. III. " " ethics. IV. " " history. v. Origin of language. VI. Language of savage tribes. VII. Poverty of languages. VIII. Savage vocabularies. IX. Words the guardians of thoughts X. The birth of language. XI. Greatness of a language. XII. Agreement between names and things, XIII. Names changed to worse. XIV. Prophecy in names. XV. Significance of names. XVI. Words, implements of teaching. LECTURE II. ON THE POETRY IN WORDS. I. Unconscious poetry. II. Poetry of popular language. III. " in the names of places. IV. " " " flowers. V. animals. VI. Poetic legends in words. VII. Revival of poetry in words. 13 OUTLINE OF LECTURES. Vin. Poetry of nomenclature. IX. " in architectural terms. X. " " tiie changes of words. XI. Man a born poet. LECTURE III. ON THE MORALITY IN WORDS. I. The witness of language. II. Records of sin in language. III. Degeneration of words. IV. Elevation of words. V. Attestations to God's truth in words. VI. Failings of the human heart shown by words, VII. Moral perversity in words. VIII. The fatalist's use of words. IX. Fair words for ugly things. X. Question-begging words. XI. National morals in words. XII. Absence of words from a language. XIII. Potency of words. LECTURE IV. ON THE HISTORY IN WORDS. I. Consanguinity of languages. II. Saxon and Norman relations. III. Language the oldest history. IV. History in single words. V. Contributions of the Crusades. VI. " " Church. VII. " " Schoolmen. VIII. Influence of words on opinions. IX. Legends in natural history. X. Historical misnomers. XI. Importance of correctness in naming. XII. Names of parties, sects, and officials. XIII. History of commerce in words. XIV. Transformation of proper names. XV. Names drawn from books. OUTLINE OF LECTURES. 13 XVI, Mistakes in words and etymologies. XVII. Words embodying past customs and errorsi XVIII. Legends in words. XIX. Needless scruples about words. XX. Rise and fall of words. LECTURE V. ON THE RISE OF NEW WORDS. I. First appearance of words. II. Rise of the term " Christians." HI. How new words become necessary. IV, Christianity and the classical languages. V. Effect of increased knowledge on words. VI. Deliberate coining of words. VII. Wants detected and supplied. VI 11. Cicero's coinings. IX. Comprehensive words. X. Scientific gains. XI. New things require new names. XII. French contributions. XIII. Contributions of English history. XIV. Comic words. XV. Resistance to new words. XVI. Late birth of new words. XVII. Naturalization of words. XVIII. Popular origin of words. XIX. Derivations forgotten or lost sight ofc XX. " irrecoverable. XXI. Parentage of words. XXII. Testimony of Whewell. LECTURE VL ON THE DISTINCTION OF WORDS. I. Definition and discussion of synonyms. II. Difficulties of translation. III. Words liable to be confounded. IV. How synonyms exist. 14 OUTLINE OF LECTURES. V. Process of desynonymizing. VL Words which require nice discrimination. VII. Duplicate words. VIII. Words once synonymous. IX.- Greek and Latin synonyms. X. Synonyms having fundamental etymological distinctions. XI. Improper synonyms. XII. Present value of words. XIII . Milton's etymologies. XIV. Moral gain of synonyms. XV. Synonyms in controversy. XVI. Historical synonyms. XVII. Habit of distinguishing synonyms. XVIII. Words left unemployed. XIX. Truth and falsehood of words. LECTURE VII. THE schoolmaster's USE OF WORDS. I. The material helps of education. II. Learning and teaching. III. Etymological resemblances. IV. Random etymologies. V. Accidental coincidences. VI. Phonetic spelling. VII. Relationship of words. VIII. Heterodynamic words. IX. Words which provoke and reward inquiry. X. Classics, why so called. XI. Words borrowed from life. XII. Relaxation and amusement in the study of worda XIII. Significance of the names of places. XIV. Social and political changes in names. XV. Words compared to money. XVI. Church words. XVII. Latin words in an English dress. ON THE STUDY OF WORDS. INTRODUCTORY LECTURE. THERE are few who would not readily acknowl- edge that mainly in worthy books are preservec and hoarded the treasures of wisdom and knowledge which the world has accumulated ; and that chiefly by aid of these 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 con- templated singly, there are boundless stores of moral, and historic truth, and no less of passion and imagi- nation, 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 (though, with teaching such as you enjoy, the subject will not be new) 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 life. It will indeed l6 INTRODUCTORV LECTURE. repay you far better than j^ou can easily believe. 1 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 better 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, and one therefore 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 mindjj 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 STUDY OF WORDS NOT TEDIOUS: 1/ there have been wrought, of the great hearts which spent themselves there. We, hke him, wanting the knowledge and insight which wbuld 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 investi- gation, slight though it may be, of the treasures con- tained in themj 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, be- l8 INTRODUCTORY LECTURE, cause they only had to with words ;' disclaiming any part with those who thus asked pity for themselves, as though they were 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, compar- ing, tracing the derivation and usage of words, had been to him no drudgery, but a delight and labor of love. 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 affection- ately 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 accustom- ing young people to seek for the etymology or pri- mary meaning of the words they use. There are cases in which more knowledge of' more value may be con- veyed by the history of a word than by the history of a campaign." Impressing the same truth, Emerson has somewhere characterized language as "fossil poetry." He evi- dently means that just as in some fossil, curious and beautiful shapes of vegetable or animal Hfe, 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 have otherwise been theirs,— so ' in words are beautiful LANGUAGE FOSSIL POETRY. 19 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, these, which would so easily have perished too, preserved and made safe for ever. The phrase is a striking one ; the only fault which one might be tempted to 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 con- victions of the moral common sense, as of the imagi- nation 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 ordi- nary 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 20 INTRODUCTORY LECTURE. 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 sig- nifies " that which will endure to be held up to and judged by the sunlight," gave first its ethical signifi- cation 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 se^l of truth upon language, that men are con- tinually uttering deeper things than they know, as- serting mighty principles, it may be asserting them against themselves, in words that to them may seem nothing more than the current coin pf society. Thus to what grand moral purposes Bishop Butler turns the word • pastime ; ' how solemn the testimony BISHOP^ butler's use OF PASTIME. 21 •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 sat- isfy the mind and fill it with the sense of an abiding and satisfying joy ;* 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 attend- ing 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 con- fession, 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 de- clare that the good which will really fill our souls and satisfy them to the uttermost, is not in us, but * Sermon xiv. Upon the Love of God. Curiously dnougli, Mon- taigne lias, in his Essays, drawn the same testimony out of the word : " This ordinary phrase of Pass-time, and passing away the time, repre- sents the customs 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 favorable circumstances that we commonly complain of ourselves, if it be troublesome to us or slide unprofitable away," 22 INTRODUCTORY LECTURE. 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 JJ 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 the misuse, of the word ' re- ligion,' during all the ages of Papal domination in Europe. A ' religious ' person did not mean any one who felt and allowed the bonds that bound him to God and to his fellow-men, but one who had taken peculiar vows upon him, a member of one of the monkish orders ; a * rehgious ' house did not 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 to- gether according to the rule of some man. A ' re- ligion ' meant not a service of God, but a monastic Order ; and taking the monastic vows was termed going into a ' religion.' 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 ' re- ligion,' and nothing else was deserving of 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 several duties of their stations, but only to those LANGUAGE FOSSIL HISTORY, 23 who had devised such a self-chosen service for them- selves.* 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 t 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, honorably 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 reviewer in Preiser's Magazine, Dec., 185 1, 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), forbid- ding the further multiplication of monastic Orders, runs thus : Ne nimia religionum diversitas gravem in Ecclesia Dei confusionem in- ducat, firmiter prohibemus, ne quis de cetero novam religionem in- veniat, sed quicunque voluerit ad religionem converti, unam de appro- batis assumat. f Pott {Etym. Forsch., vol. ii. pt. ii. p. 869) does not consider this explanation of the name ' Franks ' as lifted above all doubt. 24 INTRODUCTORY LECTURE. a man of the conquering German race, but was an epithet applied to any man possessed of certain high ■ moral quaUties, 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 tht result of great historic changes, bears testimony to facts of history, whereof it may well happen that the speakers have never heard.* The word ' slave ' has undergone a process entirely analogous, although in an opposite direc- tion. " 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 Sclave has come to express the most degraded condition of man. What centu- ries of violence and warfare does the history- of this word disclose, "t Having given by anticipation this handful of ex- amples in illustration of what in these lectures I pro- pose, 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 lan- * '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. t Isaac Taylor, IVoriis and Places^ p. 441 ; cf. Gibbon, Decline and Fall, c. SS. ORIGIN OF LANGUAGE. ' 25- guage in which, however, we will not entangle our- selves 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 main- tain 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. --f 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 exer- cise. 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 inter- course 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 2 6 INTRODUCTORY LECTURE. very page of Genesis, and every notice of our actual xperience— the ' urang-utang theory,' as it has been o happily termed— that, I mean, according to which he primitive condition of man was the savage one, ,nd the savage himself the seed out of which in due ime the civilized man was unfolded; whereas, in act, so far from being this living seed, he might lore justly be considered as a dead withered leaf, torn ■iolently away from the great trunk of humanity' nd with no more power to produce anything nobler dan himself out of himself, than that dead withered ;af to unfold itself into the oak of the forest. So far •om being the child with the latent capabilities of lanhood, he is himself rather the man prematurely ged, and decrepit, and outworn. But the truer answer to the inquiry how language rose, is this : God gave man language, just as He ave him reason, and just because He gave him ;ason ; for what is man's word but his reason, oming forth that it may behold itself ? They are in- eed so essentially one and the same that the Greek inguage has one word for them both. He gave it ) him, because he could not be man, that is, a social eing, without it. Yet this must not be taken to [firm that man started at the first furnished with a ill-formed vocabulary of words, and as it were with is first dictionary and first grammar ready-made to is hands. He did not thus begin the world with ames, but with the power of naming : for man is ot a mere speaking machine ; God did not teach im words, as one of us teaches a parrot, from with- ut ; but gave him a capacity, and then evoked the ORIGIN OF LANGUAGE. 2/ 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 acqui- sition, 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 pro- duced 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, or from his fellow-man ; as each object to be named appeared before his eyes, each relation of things to one an- other arose before his mind. It was not merely the 28 INTRODUCTORY LECTURE. possible, but the necessary emanation of the spirit ■with which he had been endowed. Man makes his own language, bt t he makes it as the bee makes its cells, as the bird its nest ; he cannot do otherwise. *^ 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 neces- sity 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 being the law of highest * Renan has much of interest on this matter, both in his work De r Origins du Langage, and in his Hist, des Langues Simitiques. I quote from the latter, p. 445 : " Sans doute les langues, comme tout ce qui est organise, sont sujettes k la loi du developpement graduel. En soutenant que le langage primitif possedait les elements necessaires ^ son integrite, nous sommes loin de dire que les mecanismes d'un age plus avance y fussent arrives k leur pleine existence. Tout y etait, mais confusSment et sans distinction. Le temps seul et les progrds de I'esprit humain pouvaient opferer un discernement dans cette obscure synthase, et assignor & chaque element son r61e special. La vie, en un mot, n'etait ici, comme partout, qu'Ji la condition de revolution du germe primitif, de la distribution des rSles et de la separation des or- ganes. Mais ces organes eux-memes furent determines d^s le premier ' jour, et depuis I'acte ggnerateur qui le fit gtre, le langage ne s'est en- richi d'aucune fonction vraiment nouvelle. Un germe est posfe, renfer- mant en puissance tout ce que I'etre sera un jour ; le germe se d^ve- loppe,.les formes se constituent dans leurs proportions r^gulijres, ce qui etait en puissance devient en acte ; mais rien ne se crfee, rien ne s'ajoute ; telle est la loi commune des Stres sounds aux conditions de la vie. Telle fut aussi la loi du langage." LANGUAGE OF SAVAGE TRIBES. 29 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, answer- ing his barest needs, and only after centuries of toil and pain growing for his sons' sons into a stately palace for pleasure and delight. rWere 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 begin- nings, 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 in- deed 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 ad^ vance 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 30 INTRODUCTORY LECTURE. of memory, and thus after a while have been wholly lost. Moffat, in his Missionary Labors 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 spiritustl 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 spir- itual 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 remem- bered in his youth to have heard speak of ' Morimo ; ' and this word, once so deeply significant, only sur- vived now in the spells and charms of the so-called rain-makers and sorcerers, who misused it to desig- nate a fabulous ghost, of whom they told the ab- surdest 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 can- not impart to any man more than the words which he understands either now contain, or can be made, in- telligibly to him, to contain. Language is as truly on one side the limit and restraint of thought, as on tho POVERTY OF LANGUAGES. 3 1 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 en- tirely absent from their hearts, that they should not have possessed the corresponding word in their vo- cabularies ? Nay, how should they have had it there ? And that in this absence lies the true ex- planation is plain from a fact which the same writer records, that, although inveterate askers, they never showed the slightest sense of obligation or of grati- tude 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 de- basement, 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, 33 INTRODUCTORY tECTURE. rich in words which proclaim their shame, poor l:\ 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 ex- pect 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.* 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 * 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 un- born child." He has at the same time done me the favor 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 tfhich, he assures me, would yield proofs quite as terrible, altogether untouched. It is im- possible 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 be- half 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 honor 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 hid- eous 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 — roasting and eating it before his face, and taunting him the while ; the ditptaTripii!;eiv of the Greeks, with the cannibalism added. But of this enough. SAVAGE VOCABULARIES. 33 native language of that island there are 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 ex- pressions for this extreme utterance of hate, he also reports that a word for ' love ' is wanting in it alto- gether. 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 unin- telligible to fhe speaker ; or some other note, which proclaims his language to be the remains of a dissi- pated 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 progeni- tors) over large kingdoms of thought, which now have escaped wholly from his sway.* 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 * See on this matter Tylor, Early History of Mankind, pp. 150- 190; and, still better, the Duke of Argyll, On Primeval Man. Among some of the Papuans the faintest rudiments of the family sur- vive ; of the tribe no trace whatever ; while yet of these one has lately written : — ' Sie haben religiose Gebrauche und Uebungen, welche, mit einigen anderen Erscheinungen in ihrem Leben, -mit ihremjetzigen Cul- turzustande ganz unvereinbar erscheinen, wenn man dariu nicht die Spuren einer friiher hiihern Bildung erkennen will. ' 2* 34 INTRODUCTORY LECTURE. 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 dis- tinguish, 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 hearty new facts coming within the sphere of its knowledge, there will language be growing and advancing too^J 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 inheri- tance, till he has fixed it in language, till he can con- template it, not as himself, but as his word ; he is conscious that he must express truth, if he is to pre- serve 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 at- tachment to all the more volatile objects of thought and feeling. Impressions that when past might be dissipated for ever, are by their connection with lan- guage 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." EXACT TERMINOLOGY. 35 Men sdmetimes 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. Biit this could not have been otherwise, unless the gams through those controver- sies 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 ex- act phraseology, its thinking is to very little purpose in the end. ' Terms,' says Whewell, ' record dis- coveries.' .That which was seen, it may be with crystal clearness, and in bold outline, in the con- sciousness of an individual thinker, may fail to be- come 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 phraseol- ogy 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 accur- ate 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 pro- portions with which it first came up, and then handed over to other minds, a fixed and scientific quantity."* * Shedd, History of Christian Doctrine^ vol. i. p. 362 ; compare Guesses at Truth, 1866, p. 217 ; and Gerber, Sprache als Kunst, voL ». p. 145. $6 INTRODUCTORY LECTURE. And on the necessity of names at once forthe preser« vation and the propagation of truth it has been justly- observed : " Hardly any original thoughts on mental or social subjects ever make their way among man- kind, 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." * And this hoMs 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 raging of the battle in many directions, " the high places of the field," the critical position, on the maintaining 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 heboid to affirm that the entire sect of Buddhism is in the ' 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 exer- cised a far mightier influence on the minds of all who received it, than except for this it would have ever * Mill, System of Logic, vol. ii. ji. 291. COMPREHENSIVE TERMS. 37 done. It is sometimes not a word, but a phrase, which proves thus mighty in operation. ' Reforma- tion in the head and in the members ' was the watch- word, for more than a century before an actual Re- formation came, of all who were conscious of the deeper needs of the Church. What intelligent ac- quaintance with Darwin's speculations would the world in general have made, except for two or three happy and comprehensive terms, as ' the struggle for existence,' ' the survival of the fittest,' ' 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 Httle, from the subject immediately before us. What was just now said of the manner in which lan- guage enriches itself does not contradict a prior as- sertion, that man starts with language as God's per- fect 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 con- scious ; but that up to his needs (those needs in- cluding not merely his animal wants, but all his higher spiritual cravings), he would find utterance freely. LThe great logical, or grammatical, framework of lan- guage (for grammar is the logic of speech, even as 38 INTRODUCTORY LECTURE. 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 reflection setting these in order, and drawing general rules from them ; but as that rather which alone had made those acquisi- tions possible ; as that according to which he uncon- sciously 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 lan- guage should be thus instructive for us, that it should yield us so much, when we come to analyze and probe it ; and yield us the more, the more deeply and accu- rately we do so. It is full of instruction, becausejit is the embodiment, the incarnation, if I may so speak, of the feelings and thoughts and experiences of a na- tion, 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 pro- gressing of these. .The mighty moral instincts which have been working in the popular mind have found therein their unconscious voice ; and the single king- lier 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 WORDS THE GUARDIANS OF THOUGHTS. 39 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 per- ishing, 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 suf- fered 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 com- posed 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.* Pceradise Lost is a noble posses- sion for a people to have inherited, but the English tongue is a nobler heritage yet.f 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 * On the Greek language and its merits, as compared with the other Indo-Germanic languages, see Curtius, History of Greece, English translation, vol. i. pp. 18-28. t Gerber (Sprache ah 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, anziieignen, sondern zugleich um sie selbst als herrliche, architektonische Geisteswerke kennen zu lernen, und sich an ihrer Kunstschonheit zu erfreuen. 40 INTRODUCTORY LECTURE. have given a distinct account of the matter to our- selves 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 pre- sented itself to hiin as exactly fitting a foremost person of the epic he was composing ; and that in- stantly returning home, he caused all the joy-bells of the village to be rung, to celebrate the happy inven- tion. 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 Recollec- tions 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 char- acter 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 — or, which naturally takes a still stronger hold upon them, in any^ manifest contradiction between the AGREEMENT OF NAMES AND THINGS. . 41 name and the name-bearer ; as, for instancy, if Mr. Strongitharra 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 disa- greements as these. Such use is not unfrequent in Scripture, though it is seldon 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." 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 bear 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 — "* * Ajax, or PClas, in the play of Sophocles, which bears his name, does the same with the eu ai which lies in that name (422, 423) ; just as in the BacchcE of Euripides, not Pentheus himself, but others for him, in- dicate the prophecy of a mighty irevdo; or grief, which is shut up in his 42 INTRODUCTORY LECTURE. 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 ? " Thus too, if one be engaged in a controversy or quarrel, and his name import something good, an adversary will lay hold of the name, will seek to bring out a real contradiction between it and its bearer, so that he shall appear as one presenting him- self under false colors, affecting a merit which he does not really possess. Examples of this are in- numerable. For instance, there was one Vigilantius in the early Church ; — his name might be interpreted ' The Watchful.' He was engaged in a controversy with St. Jerome, about certain vigils ; which he thought perilous to Christian morality, but of which Jerome was a very eager promoter ; who instantly gave a turn to his name, and proclaimed that he, the enemy of these watches, the friend of slumber and sloth, should have been not Vigilantius, or The Watcher, but ' Dormitantius,' or The Sleeper, rather. Dante declares Assisi, the birthplace of S. Francis, to have been ill-named, for it was not the kindled — he spells the name Ascesi, to help out his play on words — but the kindler.* Felix, Bishop of Urgel, a chief champion of the Adoptianist heresy, is con- stantly 'Infelix' in the writings of Alcuin. iThe Spanish peasantry during the Peninsular War would name. A tragic writer, less known than Euripides, does the same; JlevBivSf iffotiivtis (rvfithus, 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 was taken for granted none could really pos- sess ; and the word abides, a proof of the world's dis- belief in the realities of goodness, of its resolution to treat them as hypocrisies and shows. Again, why should • simple ' be used slightingly, and ' simpleton ' more slightingly still ?• The ' sim- ple ' is one properly of a single fold ; * a Nathanael, whom as such Christ honored to the highest (John i. 47) ; and, indeed, what honor can be higher than to- have nothing double about us, to be without duplici- ties or fold^ ? Even the world, which despises ' sim- plicity,' 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 * I have allowed this to stand (1876), and certainly it is better to find ' semel plico ' in ' simplex ' than ' sine plica ' (see Donaldson, Varronianus, p. 390) ; but perhaps this is all that can be said. Il8 ON THE MORALITY IN WORDS. - word of highest honor, carries with it in this world of ours something of contempt.* Nor can we help no- ting 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 ' in- nocent' assuming that to do hurt and harm is the chief employment to which men turn their intellectu- al powers, that where they are wise, they are qjten- est wise to do evil. Nor are these isolated examples of the contempt- uous employment of words expressive of goodness. Such meet us on every side. Our * silly ' is the Old- English ' saelig,' or blessed. We see it in a transi- tion state in our early poets, with whom ' silly ' is an affectionate epithet which sheep obtain for their harmlessness. One among our earliest calls the new- born Lord of Glory Himself, " this harmless silly babe." But ' silly ' has gone through the same pro- cess as ' simple,' ' innocent,' and so many other words. The same moral phenomenon repeats itself continually. Thus 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 intention, slightly to mispronounce this name, turning ' Christ- us ' into ' Chrestus ' — that is, the benevolent or be- * ' Schlecht,' which in modern German means bad, good for noth- ing, 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 ' in like manner (Max Miiller, Science of Language, 2d series, p. 274). Fatalistic use of words. iig nign. That they who intentionally did this meant no honor thereby to the Lord of Life, but the con- trary, is certain; and indeed this word, like 'silly,' ' innocent' ' simple,' had already contracted a slight tinge of contempt, or else 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 evrjdeia. Lady Shiel tells us of the Persians of our own day, " They have odd names for describing the moral qualities ; ' Seda- kat ' means sincerity, honesty, candor ; but when a man is said to be possessed of ' Sedakat,' the mean- ing is that he is a credulous, contemptible simple- toii." * It is to the honor 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 For- tune rather than to Him who is the author of every good thing which we enjoy. 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.t Against a similar misuse * Life and Manners in Persia, p. 247. f The heathen with their eiSai/iovla, inadequate as this word must be allowed to be, put us here to shame. 120 ON THE MORALITY IN WORDS. 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 insuffi- cient aspect which men take of their duties, or which 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 labor 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-men, unless this latter had in good part for- gotten that, annexed to those hands which he would purchase to toil for him, were also heads and hearts * — a fact, by the way, of which, if he persists in forget ting it, he may be reminded in very unwelcome ways at the last. In Scripture there is another not unfre- quent 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 * A similar use of criifiara 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 (Gen. xxxvi. 6; 2 Mace. viiL 11; Tob. X. 10) ; and occurs onceta the New Testament (Rev. xviii. 13). FAIR WORDS FOR UGLY THINGS. 121 words mainly displays itself, and in which they work their worst mischief ; that is, when honorable names are given to dishonorable things, when sin is made plausible ; arrayed, it may be, in the very colors of goodness, or, if not so, yet in such as go far to con- ceal 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 colors. I cannot think these last-named expositors are right, though it is posible to find such a meaning in the words ; at the same time the connection of the Greek for ' tongue ' with our ' gloze,' ' glossy,' with the German ' gleissen,' to smooth over or polish, and with an obsolete Greek word signifying the same, is not accidental, but real ; even as it points to uses whereunto we may turn this " best," but, as it would then prove, this worst " member that we have." 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 di- vinely reared landmarks of right and wrong, thus bringing the user 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 very matter, South has written four of his grandest sermons, bearing this striking 6 ' . ^ 122 ON THE MORALITY IN WORDS. title, Of the fatal Imposture and Force of Words* 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 ever- more diffusing, a savor of life or of death, which we insensibly inhale at each moral breath we draw.f " 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 it loathsomeness and de- formity ; 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. . In Sussex it is never heard say of a man that he is drunk. He may be ' tight,' or ' primed,' or ' crank,' or ' concerned in liquor,' nay, it may even be admit- ted that he had taken as much liquor as was good * Sermons, 1737, vol. ii. pp. 313-351; vol. vi. pp. 3-120. Thus on those who pleaded that their 'honor' was engaged, and that there- fore they could not go back from this or that sinful act : — " Honor is indeed a noble thing, aud therefore the word which signifies it must needs be Very plausible. But as a rich and glistening garment may be ca'Bt 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 humor of him who bestows them. But the body changes not, though the garments do." f Bacon's words have been often quoted, but they will bear being quoted once more : Credunt enim homines rationem suam verbis impe- rare. Sed fit etiam ut verba vim suam super intellectum retorqueant et refiectant. WORDS CLOAKS FOR. SIN, 123 for him ; but that he was "drunk, oh never.* Fair words for foul things are everywhere only too fre- quent ; as when in Italy, during the period when poisoning was rifest, nobody was said to be poi- soned ; it was only that the deaths of some 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 sub- tle poison, by which impatient heirs delivered them- selves 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 peo- ple in an advanced state of artificial cultivation. But it is not so. Captain Erskine, who visited the Fiji Islands when they were not so well known as they are now, and who gives some extraordinary de- tails of the extent to which cannibalism then pre- vailed 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 pre- pared 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 agains^t it, was at- tested by their uniform desire to conceal, if possible, all traces of the practice from European eyes. * 'Pransus' and 'potus,' as every Latin scholar knows, mean much more than they say. 124 ON THE MORALITY IN WORDS. 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 bas- tard. 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 ' pur- veyors.' * The thieves in Shakespeare are only true to human nature, when they name themselves ' St. Nicholas' clerks,' ' michers,' ' nuthooks,' anything, in short, but thieves ; when they claim for their stealing that it shall not be so called, 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 re- ceive, not bribes — they are most 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 thought to smell a great deal sweeter by any other name than by their own, ; Thus, to deal again with bribes, call * Rhei., iii. 2 : al K^jotoX ajroiis TropiaTcij KoXoim. vvv- NAMES WHICH CONCEAL SIN. 125 one of these ' palm oil,' or a ' pot de vin,' and how much of its ugliness is gone. '^ Coarse as, according to our present usages of lan- guage, may be esteemed the words by which our plain-speaking Anglo-Saxon fathers were wont to designate the unhappy women who make a trade of seUing their bodies to the lusts of men, yet how ' much better the truth which is in them than the falsehood of many other titles by which they have been known — names which may themselves be called • whited sepulchres,' fair without, yet hiding so much foul within ; as, for instance, that in the French lan- guage which ascribes joy to a life which more surely than any other dries up all the sources of gladness in the heart, brings anguish, astonishment, blankest melancholy on all who have addicted themselves to it. In the same way how much more moral words are the English " sharper ' and. ' blackleg ' than the French ' chevalier d'industrie : ' * 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 sentimetital side, rather than in its own proper deformity and ugliness, t * For the rise of this phrase, see Lemontey, Louis XlP'.^ p. 43. f This tendency of men to throw the mantle of an honorable word over a dishonorable thing, or, vice versa, to degrade an honorable thing, when they do not love it, by a dishonorable appellation, has in Greek a word to describe it, uwoKopffctrfloi, 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 126 ON THE MORALITY IN WORDS. Use and custom soon dim our eyes in such matters as these ; else we should be deeply struck by a fa- miliar instance of this falsehood in names, one which perhaps has never struck us at all — I mean the pro- fane appropriation of ' eau de vie' (water of life), a name borrowed from some of the Saviour's most pre- cious promises (John iv. 14; Rev. xxii. 17), to a drink which the untutored savage with a truer in- stinct 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 appro- priation of the language of heaven to that which, not indeed in its use, but too frequent abuse, is the in- strument of hell, that is almost without a parallel.* ^ the fearful moral ruin which her great Civil War had wrought, he ad- duces this alteration of the received value of words, this fitting of false names to everything — names of honor to the base, and of baseness to the honorable — 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. * 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, quocve loquendi proprietas quotidiana populo sit, parvi interesse arbitrandum est, qu£e res Athenis non serael saluti fuit ; immo vero, quod Platonis sententia est, immutato vestiendi more habituque graves in Republica motus mutationesque portendi, equidem potius coUabente ip vitium . atque errorem loquendi usu occasum ejus urbis remque humilem et ob- scuram subsequi crediderim : veiba enim partim inscita et putida, par- tim mendosa et perperam prolata, quid si ignavos et oscitantes et ad QUESTION-BEGGING WORDS. 12/ If I wanted any further evidence of this, the moral atmosphere which words diffuse, I would ask yt>u 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 honor- able name to themselves, such as, if possible, shall beg the whole matter in dispute, and at the same, time to affix on their adversaries a name which shall place them in a ridiculous or contemptible, an invi- dious or odi6us light.* There is a deep instinct in men, deeper perhaps than they give any account of to themselves, which fells them how far this will go ; that multitudes, utterly unable to weigh the argu- ments of the case, will yet be receptive of the influ- ences which these words are evermore, however im- perceptibly, diffusing. By arguments 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 Royahsts, it is servile quidvis jam olim paratos incolarum animos haud levi indicio de- clarant ? -Contra nullum unquam audivimus imperium, nullam civita- tem non mediocriter saltern floruisse, quamdiu linguae sua gratia, su- usque cultus constitit. Compare an interesting Epistle (the 114th) of Seneca. * See p. 33. 128 ON THE MORALITY IN WORDS. true, made exactly the same employment of question- begging words, of words steeped quite as deeply in the passions which animated them. So, too, the Franciscans, when they nicknamed the Dominicans • Maculists,' as denying, or at all events refusing to affirm, that the Blessed Virgin was conceived with- out 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 ven- omous snake. Something effectual has been done when this name has been fastened, a's it has lately been, by one party in America on its political oppo- nents. 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 tinder fewest disguises, most nearly as they are. Too many have had a hand in language, and in bringing it to the shape in which we find it, it is too entirely the collective work of the whole nation, the result of the united contributions of all, it obeys too immuta- ble laws, to allow any successful tampering with it, any making of it to witness other than the actual facts of the case.* * Terrien Poncel {Du Langage, p. 231) : Les langues sont faites i I'usage des peuples qai les parlent ; elles sont animfees chacune d'uii esprit different, et suivent un mode particulier d'action, conforme a leul NATIONAL MORALS IN WORDS. 129 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 indig- nation against evil, all this will find an utterance in the employment of solemn and earnest words in senses comparatively trivial or even ridiculous. ' Ge- henna,' that word of such terrible significance on the lips of our Lord, has in French issued in ' gene,' and in this shape expresses no more than a flight and petty annoyance. ' Ennui ' meant once something very different from what now it means. Littre 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 what- ever." ' Honnetete,' 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. ' Verite ' is at this day so worn out, has been used so. often where another and very different word would have been far principe. " L'esprit d'une nation et le caractere de sa langue," a ecrit G. de Humboldt, " sont si intimeraent lies ensemble, qui si I'un etait donne, I'autre devrait pouvoir s'en deduire exactement." La langue n'est autre chose que la manifestation exterieure de l'esprit des peuples ; leur langue est leur esprit, et leur esprit est leur lapgue, de telle sorte qu'en dfeveloppant et perfectionnant I'un, ils developpent et perfection- nent necessairement I'autre. And a recent German writer has well said. Die Sprache, das selbstgewebte Kleid der Vorstellung, in wel- chem jeder Faden wieder ein Vorstellung ist, kann uns, richtig betrach- tet, ofFenbaren, welche Vorstellungen die Grundfaden bildeten (Ger- ber. Die Sprache ah Kunst). . 6* 130 ON THE MORALITY IN WORDS. more appropriate, that a Frenchman at this present who would fain convince us of the truth of his com- munication counts that he can only do so by assuring us that it is ' la vraie verite.' 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 imply- ing once the deepest moral guilt, as is the case with ' perfide,' 'malice,' 'malin,' in French, should be employed now almost in honor, or at all events 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 vol- umes written expressly with the intention of impart- ing this insight. Thus ' idiot,' a Greek word, is abundantly characteristic of Greek life. The ' i,^oti' or IBuorrj'i, was originally the private man, as contra- distinguished 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 con- tact with public life was indispensable even to the right development of the intellect,* a conviction * Hare, Mission of tlie Comforter, p. 552, NATIONAL CHARACTERISTICS. 131 which could 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 its powers unexercised, is but 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 (/eaXo?), to express the beautiful and the good — goodness being thus contemplated as the high- est beauty ; while over against this stands another word {aia-'xpo'i), used now for the ugly, and now 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 friends, than to have joy in his life. But the Hebrew had a deeper longing within him, and one~\^hich 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 such at the first, nor would they have held their ground, if evel they had become such altogether. 132 ON THE MORALITY IN WORDS. 1 How irluch, again, will be sometimes involved ia 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 to the Roman Court* 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 altered its meaning, — this may reveal to us, as per- haps nothing else would, fundamental diversities of character existing between them. The word in Greek , exactly corresponding to our ' self-sufiicient ' is one of honor, 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 " See on this matter The Pope and the Council, by Janus, p. 215. NATIONAL DEGENERACY. I 33 ' 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 de- sires now to be attributed to him. The word carries for us its own condemnation and its different uses for honor 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 centu- ries in which she degraded ' virtuoso,' or the virtuous mgjj, to signify one skilled in the appreciation of painting, music, and sculpture ; for these, the orna- mental fringe of a nation'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 ' valor ' is his value, is the measure of his worth ; seeing that no virtue can exist unless men have learned, in Milton's glorious phrase, " to hate the cowardice of doing wrong. " * It could not but be morally ill with a people among whom ' morbidezza ' * It did not escape Plutarch, poor Latin scholar as he was, that ' virtus ' had far more the sense of aySpfia than of aperii {Coriol. i). 134 ON THE MORALITY IN WORDS, was used as a word of praise, expressive of a beauty which claimed for this its ' sickly softness ' to be ad- mired. There was too sure a witness here for the decay of moral strength and health, when these could not merely be disconnected from beauty, but impli- citly put in opposition to it. Nor less must it have fared ill with them, 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. Far better the pride and assumption of that ancient people who called all things and persons beyond their own pale, barba- rous and barbarians ; far better our own ' outlandish,' used with something of the same contempt. There may be a certain intolerance in these ; yet this how much healthier than so far to have fallen out of con- ceit with one's own country, so far to affect things foreign, that these last, merely on the strength of be- ing 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 been content so far to degrade the name of one among their noblest, that every glib and lo- quacious hireling who shows strangers about their picture-galleries, palaces, and ruins, is called ' cice- rone,' or a Cicero ! It is unfortunate that terms like these, having once grown 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 main- ACQUIRED MEANINGS. 1 35 tain it, long after the temper that pro.duced them has passed away.* Happily it is nearly impossible for us in England to understand the mingled scorn, hatred, fear, sus- picion, contempt, which in time past were associated with the word ' sbirri ' in Italian. 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 honorable, thus acquire a hateful undertone. What a world of oppression, chicane, and fraud must have found place, before tax-gatherer, or exciseman, ' publican,' as in our English Bible, could be a word steeped in uttermost scorn, as alike for Greek and Jew it was ; while, on the other hand, however unwelcome the visits of the one or the inter- ference of the other may be to us, yet the sense of the entire fairness and justice with which their exac- tions are made, acquits these names for us of the slightest sense of dishonor. ' Policeman ' has no evil subaudition with us ; thsugh in the last century, when our police was otherwise administered than now, ' catchpole,' in Wiclif s time quite an honorable word, had acquired such. So, too, if at this day any accidental profits fall or ' escheat ' to the Crown, they • See on this matter Marsh, Ott the English Language, New York, i860, p. 224. 136 ON THE MORALITY IN WORDS. are levied with so much fairness and more than fair- ness 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 so 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 equivaleht to the German ' Pfaffe,' which, identical with ' papa ' and ' pope,' and meaning at first but a priest, now carries with it the insinuation of almost every unworthiness in the forms of meanness, servil- ity, 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 them of home-growth — this in most cases, if not in all, testifying that the thing itself was not native, was only an exotic, transplanted like the word which 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 ABSENCE OF WORDS. 137 of the associates could have only had their rise under such-favorable 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 modera- tion and self-restraint, could they long have been en- dured. It was comparatively easy to adopt the word ; but the ill success of the ' club ' itself every- where 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 in- structive, 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 occa- sionally its absence. How curious, for instance, are the conclusions which Cicero in his high Roman fashion draws from the absence of any word in the Greek corresponding to the Latin ' ineptus ; ' not from this concluding, as we might have anticipated, that the character designated by the word was want- ing, but rather that the fault was so common, so uni- versal with the Greeks that they failed to recognize it as a fault at all.* *De Orat. ii. 4, 7 : Quem enira 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 qui- buscum est, vel dignitatis vel commodi rationem non habet, aut denique in aliquo genere aut inconcinnus aut multus est, is ineptus esse dicitur. 138 ON THE MORALITY IN WORDS. The' petty spite which unhappily so often reigns between nations dwelling side by side with one an- other, as it embodies itself in many shapes, so it finds vent in the words which they borrow from one an- other, and the use to which they put them. Thus the French, borrowing ' hablador ' from the Spanish, in which it means simply a speaker, give it in ' hab- leur' the sense of a braggart; the Spaniards paying them off in exactly their own coin, for of ' parleur,' which is but a speaker in French, they make ' par- lador,' which is pretty nearly the braggart again. 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 the passive vehicles, now of the truth, and now of falsehood. 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 further to propagate and diffuse. Must we not own then that there is a wondrous and mysteri- Hoc vitio cumulata est eruditissima ilia Giaecorum natio, Itaquequod vim hujus mali Graeci non vident, ne nomen quidem ei vitio imposue- runt. Ut enim quxras omnia, quomodo Greeci ineptum appellent, non POTENCY OF WORDS. 139 ous 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, so mighty to wound or to heal, to kill or to make alive ? and may not a deeper meaning than hitherto we have at- tached to it, lie in that saying, " By thy words thou shalt be justified, and by thy words thou shalt be condemned " ? I40 ON THE MORALITY IN WORDS. BLACKBOARD EXERCISES. LECTURE III. ON THE MORALITY IN WORDS. EXERCISE No. I. INTRODUCTION. I. Proof of man's divine origin in language. II. Proof of man's fall in language. Examples — 1. "Ah "and "Alas." 2. "Affliction." 3. " Agony." 4. "Anguish." 5. " Assassin." 6. "Atheist." 7. " Avarice." 8. St. Paul's use of words. III. Records of sin in language. 1 . Words expressive of pleasure in calamity. 2. "Abbacinare." 3. " dfCpCBTljpiaffti/." 4. "Toganch." 5. Sinful oral tradition. EXERCISE No. II. DETERIORATION OF WORDS. 1. " Knave." 2. " Villain." 3LACKB0ARD EXERCISES, 141 3- 4- S- 6. 7- 8. 9- 10. II. 12. 13- 14. IS- i6. 17- i8. 19- 20. 21. 22. 23- 24. 25. 26. 27. 28. 29. 30. "Boor."" " Varlet.'' " Menial." " Paramour." "Minion." " Pedant." " Swindler." " Ringleader." " Time-server." " Conceits." " To carp." " Officious." " Demure." " Crafty." " Cunning. " Craft." " Artful." " Magdalen." "Tinsel." " Specious." " Voluble." " Plausible." " Lewd." " To resent." " Retaliate." " Animosity." " Prejudice." " Retract." EXERCISE No. m. ELEVATION OF WORDS. I. " Humility." " Angels." " Martyrs." " Apostles." " Evangels." " Advocates." 142 ON THE MORALITY IN WORDS. 7. " Paradise." 8. " Regeneration." 9. " Sacrament." 10. " Mystery." EXERCISE No. IV. TESTIMONY OF WORDS. I. Attestations to God's truth. 1. "Pain." 2. " Plague." 3. " Vox populi, vox Dei." 4. " Miser." II. Testimony to great moral truths. 1. " Integritas." 2. " Trovrjpia," III. Witness of words to a central truth of our FAITH. 1. " Siinde " and " Suhnen." 2. " Piaculum." IV. Witness to failings of the human heart. 1. " Assentator." 2. "Jaherr." EXERCISE No. V. MORAL INTERPRETATIONS. I. Words which convey moral instruction. 1. "Blackener." 2. " Libertine." 3. " Passion." 4. " Humanitas." 5. "Talents." 6. "Oblige." 7. " Virtue." 8. "Kind." II. Words which imply moral perversity. I. "Prude." BLACKBOARD EXERCISES. J42 2. "Simple." 3. "Silly." 4. "Christus." 5. " Bonhomie." 6. "fV/jflem." 7. "Sedakat." 8. "Simplex." III. Words which reveal man's faith in chance. 1. "Happy." 2. " Fortunate." 3. " Unfortunate." 4. " fvSai/xoi/ia." IV. Words which reveal wrong views of duty. 1. " Hands." 2. " Souls." 3. " Sanara." EXERCISE No. VI. THE MORALS OF NAMES. I. Honorable names for dishonorable things. 1. Reading of St. James iii. 7. " The tongue." 2. " The imposture of words." II. Words which palliate or conceal sin. 1. " Tight," " primed," or " crank." 2. "Aiutata." 3. " Poudre de succession." 4. " SAorf pig," and " long pig." 5. " Chevalier d'industrie." III. Words which throw a veil of sentiment over sin. 1. "Love-child." 2. " Purveyors." 3. " St. Nicholas' clerks." 4. "Michers."' 5. "Nuthooks." 6. " Conveying." 7. " Head-money." 144 ON THE MORALITY IN WORDS. 8. "Palm oil." 9. " Pot de vin." 10. " Fils de joie." 11. " Conciliatrix." IV. Ugly words for ugly things. 1. "Harlot." 2. "Sharper." 3. "Blackleg." V. Falsehood in names. 1. " Eau de vie.'' 2. " British water." VI. Question-begging words. 1. "Godly." 2. " Malignants." 3. " Maculists." 4. "Copperheads." EXERCISE No. VII. LANGUAGE A MORAL BAROMETER. I. Language shows the frivolity or an age or NATION. 1. " Gene " for " gehenna." 2. "Ennui." 3. "Honnetet€." 4. "Vferite." 5. "Spirituel." 6. " Perfide," " malice," and " malin." II. Language shows a nation's habits of thought AND feeling. 1. " Idiot, fcaXdf, aliiaTa " ? How do words work their worst mischief? What is said of the reading of St. James iii. 7 ? What is said of fair words for ugly things ? What of the imposture of words ? Give examples of words which conceal sin among civilized people. What does Captain Erskine testify ? What does " love-child " illustrate ? By what names are thieves called in Shakespeare ? How is " head-money " used ? " palm-oil" ? " pot de vin" ? What kind of names are " whited sepulchres " ? Give examples of better moral words. Give instances of falsehood in words. What is said of question-begging words ? Give examples; How is language a moral barometer ? Mention words which testify to the frivolity of an age or nation. How do words give us an insight of a people's habits of thought and feeling ? Give the history of " idiot." What do the " rejoice" of the Greeks and the " peace " of the Hebrews show ? Give an example of the gradual disuse of a name. QUESTIONS. 149 What is illustrated by the word in Greek for " self-suf- ficient " ? What do we learn from " virtuoso " and " virtus " ? " mor- bidezza"? " pellegrino " ? "cicerone"? "sbirri"? "publi- can"? "catchpole"? "escheat"? "pfaffe"? What is said of transplanted words ? Illustrate by " club." What is said of the absence of a word from a language ? Give an example. How do words embody national spites ? Give examples. What is the moral of the lecture ? ADDITIONAL WORDS FOR ILLUSTRATION. LECTURE III. On the Morality in Words. 1. Askance. 2. Autograph. 3. Blackguard. 4. Compassion. 5. Eucharist. 6. Fulsome. 7. Gaudy. 8. Ggntleman. 9. Gushing. 10. Hale-, fi. Harangue. 12. Harbinger. 13. Heresy. 14. Hoax. 15. Hobby. 16. Humbug. 17. Hypocrisy. 18. Imp. 19. Inert. 20. Jade. 21. Jealous. 22. Jeopardy. 23. Jesuitical. 24. Lackey. 25. Lady. 26. Lampoon. 27. Leer. 28. Libel 29. Lyceum. 30. Massacre. 31. Minister. 32. Monster. Jljr-Moody. 34. Obsequious. 35. Ostracism. 36. Pragmatic. 37. Revolution. 38. Sad. 39. Satan. 40. Scandal. 41. Shrew. ~ 42. Traitor. 43. Whiskey. 44. Zealot. LECTUEE IV. ON THE HISTORY IN WORDS. LANGUAGE, which is ever in flux and flow, which among nations that have not invented or adopted letters, exists only for the ear and as a sound, we might beforehand have assumed would prove the frailest, the most untrnstworthy, of all vehicles of the knowledge of the past ; that one which would most certainly betray its charge. So far, however, from this being the fact, it is the main, oftentimes the only, connecting link between that past and our present ; it is oftentimes 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 * — itself a far older and at the same time a far more instructive monument and document than any book, inscription, or other * 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 dis- appeared 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'3 Principles of Comparative Philology, pp. 175-181. CONSANGUINITY OF LANGUAGES. Ijl ^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 us, if only we know how to question it aright. What a voice and testimony it has on a question perhaps the most deeply interesting of all. Some, as you are aware, on one ground or another deny the accuracy of the Scripture statement that the whole earth was peopled from a single pair ; urge, on the contrary, that there must have been many begin- nings, many original centres of human population. Dr. Prichard and others have shown that Science, quite independent of Revelation, though unable to prove, yet decisively points to, a physical unity of the human race. But this is not all. There is much to lead us to anticipate that a stronger evidence and a moral argument for the unity of mankind more convincing yet, will some day be forthcoming. We have seen in our own time the consanguinity plainly traced and by all admitted, of families of languages which not many years ago were esteemed to have absolutely no connection with one another ; and while very much remains still to be done, yet as- suredly the tendency of all later investigations into languages and their relations, is more and more to refer them to a common stock and single fountain- head. Such investigations as these, it is true, lie plainly out of your sphere. Not so, however, those hum- bler yet not less interesting inquiries, which by the aid of any tolerable dictionary you may carry on into 152 ON THE HISTORY IN WORDS. 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 knowl- edge of the successive physical changes through which a region has passed ; is in a condition to preside at those changes, to measure the forces which were at work to produce them, and almost to indicate their date. Now with such a language as the English be- fore us, bearing as it does the marks and footprints of great revolutions profoundly impresse'd upon it, we may carry on moral and historical researches pre- cisely analogous to his. Here too are strata and de- posits, not of gravel and chalk, sandstone and lime- stone, but of Celtic, Latin, Low German, Danish, Norman words, and then once more Latin and French, with slighter intrusions from other quarters : and anyone with skill to analyse the language might re-create for himself the history of the people speak- ing that language, might with tolerable accuracy appreciate the divers elements out of which that people was composed, in what proportion these were mingled, and in what succession they followed, one upon the other. He would 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 lan- guage, as bequeathed to us jointly by them both. SAXON AND NORMAN RELATIONS. 153 Supposing all other records to have perished, we might still work out and almost reconstruct the histo- ry by these aids ; even as now, when so many docu- ments, 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 in- nermost 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 come down to us in its present shape. There was a time when the languages which the English and the Nor- man severally spoke, existed each by the side of, but unmingled 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 reconcil- iation and partial fusion of the two races, the two languages effected a transaction ; one indeed pre- vailed 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 thfng, it became a question how the relative claims of the English and French 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 agree- ment ; but practically one was to be taken and one left. Which was it that should maintain its ground ? 7* 154 ON THE HISTORY IN WORDS. 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 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, honor, and pre-eminence, with one remarkable exception (to be adduced presently), de- scend 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 Nor- man), ' chancellor,' ' treasurer,' ' palace,' ' castle,' ' hall,' ' 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 SAXON AND NORMAN WORDS. 1 55 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 adorn- ment, are Norman throughout ; with the broad basis of the language, and therefore of the life, it is other- wise. 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 unborrowed. ' Pal- ace ' and ' castle ' may have reached us from the Nor- man, but to the Saxon we owe far dearer names, the 'house,' the 'roof,' thfe '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 this 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 ' flail,' the ' plough,' the 'share,' the 'rake,' the 'scythe,' the 'harrow,' the ' wain,' the ' sickle,' the ' spade,' are expressed in IS6 ON THE HISTORY IN WORDS. his language ; so too the main products of the earth, as wheat, rye, oats, bare, 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,* 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 labor 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 his reach, is the single ex- ception. 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 mani- fest tokens preserved in our language, of the Saxon having been for a reason an inferior and even an op- pressed race, the stable elements of English life, how- ever overlaid for a while, has 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 conclu- sion all other historic records, and the present social condition of England, consent in bearing witness, f * Wallis, in his Grammar, p 20, had done so before, f Compare Donaldson, New Cratylus, 3rd edition, p. 17 ; and Morris, English Accidence^ pp. 35-38. LANGUAGE THE OLDEST HISTORY. IS/ 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, and so many other words like them — ' cypher,' ' algebra,' ■ zero,' ' almanack,' ' zenith,' ' nadir,' ' azimuth,' ' alkali,' ' alcohol,' * alchemy,' ' alembic,' ' elixir,' • magazine,' ' tariff ' ? — for if one or two of these were originally Greek, they reached us through the Arabic, and with the 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 mo- nastic 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 con- stituent elements of the system, as * monk,' ' monas- tery,' ' cenobite,' ' anchorite,' * ascetic,' ' hermit,' • archimandrite,' 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 well, had attained, while it was dwelling still as one family in that which was its common home in the East. No voices of history, the very faintest IS8 ON THE HISTORY IN WORDS. 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-Euro- pean race, while yet these several groups of it dwelt in the Asiatic highlands as one undivided family to- gether. 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 with which they severally went their way, each to set up for itself and work out its own destinies in its own appointed region of HISTORY OF THE WORD CHURCH. I $9 the earth.* 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.f This is one way in which words by their presence or their absence may teach us history which else we could 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 some- times 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 Kvpiaicij, ' that which pertains to the Lord,' or ' the house which is the Lord's.' A difficul- . ty indeed meets us here. How explain the presence of a Greek word in the vocabulary of our Anglo-Sax- on forefathers ? for that we do not derive it immedi- ♦ See Mommsen, Romische Geschkkte, vol. i, c. 2 ; Max Miiller, On the Science of Language^ part ii. p. 223. f Ozanam (Z« Germains avant le Cristianisme, 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 lame, du devoir, sont assez pures chez lui pour ne souffrir que des termes exacts. On mesure la puissance de ses institutions par le nom- bre et la propriete des termes qu'elles veulent, pour leur service ; la liturgie a ses paroles sacramentelles, la procedure ses formules. Enfin, si ce peuple a etudie la nature, il faut voir \ quel point il en a pSnetrS les secrets, par quelle variete d'expressions, par quels sons flatteurs ou Snergiques, il a cherche i decrire les divers aspects du ciel et de la terre, k. faire, pour ainsi dire, rinveutaire des richesses temporelles dont il dis- pose. l6o OKf THE HISTORY IN WORDS. ately from the Greek, is certain. What contact, di- rect 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 Ro- man Empire, or by its missionaries, some Goths on the Lower Danube had been brought at an earli- er date to the knowledge of Christ hy Greek mis- sionaries from Constantinople ; and this tcvpiaKij, 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 fore- fathers among the rest ; and by this circuit it has come round from Constantinople to us.* Or again, interrogate ' pagan ' and ' paganism,' and you will find important history in them. You are aware that ' pagani,' derived from ' pagus,' a vil- lage, had at first no religious significance, but desig- nated the dwellers in hamlets and villages, as distin- guished from the inhabitants of towns and cities. It * The passage most illustrative of the parentage of the word is from Walafrid Strabo (about A.D. 840) : Ab ipsis autem Grsecis Kyrch k Kyrios, et alia multa accepimus. Sicut domus Dei Basilica, i.e. Regia h Rege, sic etiam Kyrica, i.e. Dominica, k Domino, nuncupatur. Si autem quseritur, qua occasione ad nos vestigia hsec grsecitatis advenerint, dicendum pnecipu^ k Gothis, qui et Getse, ciim eo tempore, quo ad fidem Christi perducti sunt, in Graecorum provinciis commorantes, nos- trum, i.e. theotiscum sermonem habuerint. Cf. Rudolf von Raumer, Binwirkung des Christenthums auf die AUhockdeutscki Sprache, p. 288; Neidner, Kirch. Geschichte, p. 2. PAGAN AND HEATHEN. l6l was, indeed, often applied to all civilians, as contra- distinguished 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 fol- lowing way that it became 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 tri- umphs were won ; while, long after these had ac- cepted 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 super- stitions, 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 was first introduced into Germany, it was the wild dwellers on the heaths who were the last to accept it, the last probably whom it reached. One hardly expects an etymology in Piers Ploughman ; but this is there (10541, 2) : ' Hethen is to mene after heeth, And untiled erthe.' 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 ; an- other, morally more important, that it did not shun discussion, feared not to encounter the wit and wis- dom of this world, or to expose its claims to the 1 62 ON THE HISTORY IN WORDS. 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.* I quoted in my first lecture the words of one who, magnifying the advantage to be derived from such studies as ours, observed that oftentimes more might be learned from the history of a word than from the history of a campaign. Take some Latin word, ' im- perator ' for example ; follow this, as Dean Merivale has followed it in his History of the Romans,^ and I think you will own as much. But words of our own out of number, such as ' sophist,' % ' barbarous,' •clerk,' 'romance,' 'benefice,' 'sacrament,' suggest themselves to me, any one of which 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 this, while we confine ourselves strictly to this history, not needlessly med- dling with discussions about the thing, its place and importance in the Christian scheme. We shall 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 * There is a good note on 'pagan' in Gibbon's Z)if(r//«i?3«rf ^3//, 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. f Vol. iii. pp. 441 -452. X For a history of ' sophist ' see Sir Alexander Grant's Elhics 0/ Aris- totle, 2nd ed. vol. i. p. Io6, sqq. SACRAMENT. 163 themselves to one another ; the loser of the suit for- feiting 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, desig- nating 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 Imperator — 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 • sacra- mentum ' had already passed through, before the Church claimed it for her own, or indeed herself ex- isted 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 sancti- ty, 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 1 64 ON THE HISTORY IN WORDS. Rome do not include in the ' sacraments ' properly so called, by the same name ; and this evidence, prov- ing too much, in fact proves nothing at all. One other stage in the word's history remains ; its limita- tion, 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 con- tinue his faithful soldiers and servants to our life's end ; while the mysterious character of the Holy Eu- charist 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 histo- rian of these, finding evidence here that his country- men took a decided lead, as their gallantry well fitted them to do, in these romantic enterprises of the mid- dle 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 war- riors of Christendom. He is not here snatchifig for them more than their just right. A very large pro- portion of the noblest Crusaders, from Godfrey of MISCREANT, ASSASSIN, CARDINAL. 1 65 Bouillon to S. Lewis, as of others who did most to bring these enterprises about, as Peter the Hermit, Pope Urban the Second, S. Bernard, were French, and thus gave, in a way sufficiently easy to explain, an appellation to all.* To the Crusades also, and to the intense hatred ~ which they roused throughout Christendom against the Mahometan infidels, we owe ' miscreant,' as des- ignating one to whom^the vilest principles and prac- tice 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,t — connects itself with a romantic chapter in the history of the Crusades. Various explanations of ' cardinal ' have been pro- posed, which should account for the appropriation * See Fuller, Holy War, b. i. c. 13. f Decline and Fall, c. 64. l66 ON THE HISTORY IN WORDS. 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 favorite 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.* ' Legend ' is a word with an instructive history. We all know what a ' legend ' means now. It is a tale which is not true, which, however historic in form, is not so in fact, claims no serious belief for it- self 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 * Thus a letter professing to be of Pope Anaeletus the First in the first century, but really belonging to the ninth : Apostolica Sedes car- do et caput omnium Ecclesiarum k Domino est constituta ; et sicut cardine ostium regitur, sic hujus S. Sedis auctoritate omnes Ecclesize reguntur. And we have 'cardinal' put in relation with this 'cardo' in a genuine letter of Pope Leo the Ninth : Clerici summse Sedis Car- dinales dicuntur, cardini utique illi quo cetera moventur, vicinius ad- hserentes. WORDS COINED BY THE SCHOOLMEN. l6f 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 term of the word, the ' legends ' (legende) must have be- come ' lyings ' (lugende), 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 foun- ded. 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 misem- ploy, have descended to them from these. ' Real,' 'virtual,' 'entity,' 'nonentity,' 'equivocation,' all these, 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 those more or less interested in their speculations, have gradually filtered through the suc- cessive strata of society, till now they have reached, I68 ON THE HISTORY IN WORDS. some of them, to quite the lowest. At the revival of learning, however, their works fell out of favor : 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 its 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 partic- ular. Duns Scotus, the greatest teacher of the Fran- ciscan Order ; and 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 contemptu- ously rejoin, " Oh, you are a Dunsman," or more briefly, " You are a Dtins" — or, " This is a piece of dunsery ; " 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 He- brew ? " And thus from that conflict long ago ex- tinct 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- MAMMETRY AND MAMMETS. 169 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 tiie singular fortune waiting upon words. We have another of a parallel injustice, in the use which ' mammetry,' a contrac- tion of ' Mahometry,' obtained in our early English, Mahometanism being the most prominent form of false religion with which our ancestors came in con- tact, ' 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 Mahometanism is the great excep- tion, being as it is a protest against all idol-worships whatsoever ; so that it was a signal injustice to call an idol ' a mammet ' or a Mahomet, and idolatry ' mammetry,' To pursue the fortunes of the word a little further, at the next step not religious images only, but dolls were called ' mammets ; ' and when in Romeo and Juliet old Capulet contemptuously styles his daughter ' a whining mammet,' the process is strange, yet its every step easy to be traced, where- by the name of the Arabian false prophet is fastened on the fair maiden of Verona. 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 5 170 ON THE HISTORY IN WORDS. 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, moulding 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 Opin- ions 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 ; * the matter which fulfils the promise of this latter clause constituting by far the most interest- ing 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 deliber- * Von dem Einfluss der Meinungen in die Spracke, und der Sprache in die Meinungen, von J. D. Michaelis, Berlin, 1760. CRYSTAL. 171 ately formed, would furnish a very curious chapter in the history of human knowledge and human igno- rance. Sometimes words with no fault of theirs, for they did not originally bind up an error, will' yet draw some error in their train, of which error they 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 which he undertook td re- fute, was plainly traceable to a confusion occasioned by the name. Crystal, as they supposed, was ice or snow which had undergone such a process of indura- tion, as wholly and forever to have lost its fluidity ; * and Pliny, backing up one error 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 was early transferred to that dia- phanous 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 sub- stance ; and this mistake it took ages to correct. Natural history abounds in legends. In the word • Augustine : Quid est crystallum ? Nix est glacie durata per mul- tos 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 «aid to be " cold as crystal never to be thawed again. " 172 ON THE HISTORY IN WORDS. ' 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 hot for the Greek and Latin zoologists a specie 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.* ' Cockatrice ' embod- ies a somewhat similar fable ; the fable however in this case being invented to account for the name.f 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, who have spoken a Semitic language ; there are Semitic races who 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 * This error lasted into modern times ; thus Fuller {A Pisgah Sight of Palestine, vol. i. p. 195 ) : " Leopards and mules are properly no creatures." f See Wright, Tke Bible Word Book, s. v. GOTHIC, CLASSICAL, ROMANTIC. I7», 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 seeined worthy of their admiration,* 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 depreciation 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 oppos- ing schools of literature and art, contain an absurd antithesis ; and either say nothing at all, or say some- thing erroneous. " Revival of learning" is a phrasu * 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.' 174 ON THE HISTORY IN WORDS. only partially true when applied to that mighty in- tellectual movement in Western Europe which marked the close of the fifteenth century and the be- ginning 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, if any will insist on this, 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 an- tique pagan spirit, and pagan forms as the utterance of this, into Christian art was a ' renaissance ' or new birth of it at all. But inaccuracy of naming may draw after it more serious mischief in regions more important. No- where 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 in- ert, but constantly exercise an immense reactive in- fluence on those who employ them, even as they spread around them an atmosphere, which those who often use, or often hear them used, unconsciously in- hale. 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 bet- ter 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 STUDY OF NAMES. 175 ' 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 some- times prove, consent to call the great religious move- ment of Europe in the sixteenth century the ' Re- formation.' Such in our esteem it was, and in the deepest, truest sense of the word ; 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 con- sent to call it by this name, is surprising. Let me urge on you here the importance of seek- ing in every case to acquaint yourselves with the cir- cumstances 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 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 scorn, the bitterness, the falsehood, the calumny, out of which very frequently these names were first imposed. Whatever of these 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 signifi- cance of the thing ; always something, often much, may be learned from it. Learn, then, about each one of these names which you meet in your studies, whether it was one which men gave to themselves ; or one imposed on them by others, and which they 176 ON THE HISTORY IN WORDS. never recognized ; or one which being 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 ' called themselves such ; the name was of their own devising, and de- clared 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 ac- cepted by those to whom they were attached ; while ' Whig ' and ' Tory ' were nicknames originally of bitterest scorn and party hate, given by two. political bodies in England to one another,* the Whig being properly a sour Scottish Covenanter, the Tory an Irish bog-trotting freebooter ; while yet these nick- names in tract of time so lost and let go what was offensive in them, that in the end they were adopted by the very parties themselves. The German ' Lu- therans ' were originally so called by their antag-- onists.f In the same way ' Methodists ' was a title not first taken by the followers of Wesley, but fas- tened on them by others, while yet they have been subsequently willing, though I suppose with a certain reserve, to accept and to be known by it. ' Momi- ers' or 'Mummers,' a name in itself of far greater offence, has obtained in Switzerland something of the same recognition. Exactly in the same way ' Capu- chin ' was at first a jesting nickname, given by the * In North's Examen, p. 321, is a very lively, though not a very im- partial, account of the rise of these names. f Dr. Eck, one of the earliest who wrote against the Reformation, first called the Reformed ' LutheranL ' PREMIER, GNOSTIC. 1/7 3oys in the streets to that branch of the Franciscans vhich afterwards accepted it as their proper designa- ion. It was provoked by the peaked and pointed lood (capuccio) which they wore. The story of the 'Gueux ' of Holland is more familiar than that I need nore than allude to it. A ' Premier ' or ' Prime Minister,' though unknown o the law of England, is at present one of the iiisti- utions of the country. The acknowledged leader- ;hip of one member in the Government is a fact of )nly gradual growth in our constitutional history, )ut one in which the nation has entirely acquiesced — - lor is there anything invidious now in the name. But in what spirit the Parliamentary Opposition, laving coined the term, applied it first to Sir Robert (Valpole, is plain from some words of his spoken in he House of Commons, Feb. II, 1742 : " having in- 'ested me with a kind of mock dignity, and styled ne a Prime Mittister, they [the Opposition] impute o me an unpardonable abuse of the chimerical .uthority which they only created and conferred." Now of these titles some undoubtedly, hke ' capu- hiii ' which I instanced just now, stand in no living onnection with those that bear them ; and such tames, though seldom without their instruction, yet ilainly are not so instructive as others in which the imermost heart of the thing named so utters itself, hat, having mastered the name, we have placed our- elves at the central point, from which best to master verything besides. It is thus with ' Gnostic ' and Gnosticism : ' in the prominence given to gnosis or nowledge, as opposed to faith, lies the key to the 8* 178 ON THK HISTORY IN WORDS. 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 the beginning. 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 par- ties, 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 take those which have arisen up in England. ' Puritans,' ' Fifth-Monarchy Men,' ' Seekers,' ' Lev- ellers,' ' Independents,' ' Friends,' ' Rationalists,' ' Latitudinarians,' 'Freethinkers,' these titles, with many more, have each its significance ; and wojild you understand what any of these schools and par* HISTORY OF COMMERCE IN WORDS. 1 79 ies intended, you must first understand what they vere called. From this you must start ; even as you nust bring back to this whatever further knowledge ^ou may acquire ; putting your later gains, if possi- )le, in subordination to the name ; at all events in :onnection and relation with it. You will often be able to glean knowledge from he names of things, if not as important as all this, ^et interesting in its way. What a record of inven- ions, how much the history of commerce is preserved n 'names. Thus the ' magnet ' has its name from Vlagnesia, a district of Thessaly ; this same, or else mother in Asia Minor of the same name, yielding he medicinal earth so called. The ' baldachin ' or baudekin ' is from Baldacco, the Italian form of he medieval name of Babylon, from which city the lostly silk which furnished this canopy originally :ame. The ' bayonet ' suggests, though it is possi- )ly here in error, that it was first made at Bayonne — he ' bilbo,' a finely tempered Spanish blade, at Jilboa— the ' carronade ' at the Carron Ironworks in Scotland — ' worsted ' that it was spun at a village so ailed (in the neighborhood of Norwich) — ' sarsnet ' hat it is a Saracen manufacture — ' cambric ' that it eached us from Cambray — ' crape ' from Cyprus the earlier form of the word is ' cypres ') — ' copper ' hat it too drew its name from the same island, so ichly furnished with mines of this metal — 'diaper' hat it came from Ypres — ' fustian ' from Fostat, a uburb of Cairo — ' frieze ' from Friesland — ' silk ' or sericus ' from the land of the Seres or Chinese — damask ' from Damascus (the ' damson ' also is the l8o ON THE HISTORY IN WORDS. ' damascene ' or Damascus plum) — ' arras ' from Arras—' shalloon ' from Chalons—' jane ' from Genoa — ' dimity ' from Damietta— ' 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 ' big- gen,' a plain cap often mentioned by our early writers, was first worn by the Beguines, communi- ties of pietist women in the middle ages. The ' dal- matic ' was a garment whose fashion was borrowed, or supposed to be borrowed, from Dalmatia. Eng- land 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, that is, Calcutta, and ' musHn ' from Moussul, a city in Asiatic Turkey. ' Cordwain' or ' cordovan ' is from Cordova — ' delf ' from Delft — • ' indigo ' (indicum) from India — ' gamboge ' from Gambodia — ' agate ' from a Sicilian river. Achates^ — the ' turquoise ' is from Turkey — the ' chalcedony ' or onyx from Chalcedon — 'jet ' from the river Gages, in Lycia, where this black stone is found.* ' Rhu- barb ' is a corruption of Rhabarbarum, the root from the savage banks of the Rha or Volga — 'jalap' is from Jalapa, a town in Mexico — ' tobacco ' from the island Tobago — ' macassar ' oil from a small Malay kingdom so named in the Eastern Archipelago — ■ ' parchment ' from Pergamum — ' majolica ' from Ma- jorca — ' faience ' from a town of the same name, the ♦In Holland's Pliny the Greek form 'gagates'is still retained, though he calls it more commonly ' jeat ' or 'geat.' ORIGIN OF NAMES. l8 Italian Faenza. The ' bezant,' so often named inou early literature, is a coin of Byzantium ; the ' guinea was originally coined (in 1663) of gold brought fror the African coast so called ; the pound or penn; ' sterling ' was a certain weight of bullion according to the standard of the Easterlings, or Eastern merch ants from the Hanse Towns on the Baltic. ' Ermine is, or is taken to be, the spoil of the Armenian rat the ' spaniel ' is from Spain, or perhaps from His paniola ; the ' barb ' is a steed from Barbary ; th ' tarantula ' a poisonous spider, common in the neigh borhood of Tarentum. ' Sherry,' or ' sherris,' a Shakespeare wrote it, is sent us from Xeres ; an( ' port ' from Oporto. The ' pheasant ' reached u from the banks of the Phasis ; the ' bantam ' from ; Dutch settlement in Java so called ; the ' cherry was brought by Lucullus from Cerasus, a city ii Pontus ; the ' peach ' (persica, declares itself a Per sian fruit ; ' currants ' are mostly shipped at Corinth the ■ quince ' has undergone so many changes in it progress through Italian and French to us, that i hardly retains any trace of Cydon (malum Cydoni um), a town of Crete, from which it derives its name ' Solecisms,' though they hardly have a right to ; place here, are from Soloe, an Athenian colony ii Cilicia, whose members soon forgot the Attic refine ment of speech, and became notorious for the ungram matical Greek which they talked. And as things thus keep record in the names whicl they bear of the quarters from which they reachec us, so also will they often do of the persons who, a: authors, inventors, or discoverers, or in some othe: 1 82 ON THE HISTORY IN WORDS. - way, stood in near connection with them. A collec- tion in any language of all the names of persons which have since become names of things — from nomina appellativa 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 connection 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, on the authority of Spenser and Shelley, may find allowance with us. The demi-god Atlas figures with a world upon his shoulders in the title-page, so at least I am told, of the first edition of Mercator's great work on geogra- phy ; and has in this way lent to our map-books their name. Gordius, the Phrygian king who tied that famous ' gordian ' knot which Alexander cut, will supply a natural transition from mythical to histori- cal. Mausolus, a king of Caria, has left us ' mauso- leum,' Academus ' academy,' Epicurus ' epicure,' Philip of Macedon a 'philippic,' being such a dis- course as Demosthenes once launched against the enemy of Greece, and Cicero ' cicerone.' Mithri- dates, who had made himself poison-proof, gave us the now forgotten word ' mithridate ' (Dryden) for antidote ; as from Hippocrates we derived ' hipocras,' or ' ypocras,' often occurring in our early poets, be- PROPER NAMES BECOME WORDS. 183 ing a wine supposed to be mingled after the great physician's receipt. Gentius, a king of lUyria, gave his name to the plant ' gentian,' having been, it is said, the first to discover its virtues.* A grammar used to be called a ' donat ' or ' donet ' (Chaucer), from Donatus, a Roman grammarian of the fourth century, whose grammar held its place in the schools during a large part of the middle ages ; just as in Switzerland and Germany now every guide-book is called a ' Badeker. ' The beggar Lazarus, perhaps an historical person, has given us ' lazar ' and ' laza- retto ; ' Veronica and the legend connected with her name, a ' vernicle*' being a napkin with the Saviour's face impressed upon it. Our ' pantaloons ' are from S. Pantaleone ; he was the patron saint of the Vene- tians, who therefore very commonly received Panta- leon as their Christian name ; it was from them trans- ferred to a garment which they much affected. Simon Magus gave us ' simony ; ' which, however, is not a precise reproduction of his sin as recorded in Scrip- ture ; ' dunce,' as we have seen, is derived from Duns Scotus ; while there is a legend that the ' knot ' or sandpiper is named from Canute or Knute, with whom this bird was a special favorite. To come to more modern times, and not pausing at Ben Jonson's ' chaucerisms,' Bishop Hall's ' scoganisms,' from Sco- gan, 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 ; ' *_ Pliny, H. N. xxv. 34. 1 84 ON THE HISTORY IN WORDS. ' patch,' a name of contempt, not unfrequent in Shakespeare, is said to have been the proper name of a favorite fool of Cardinal Wolsey's ; and Colonel Negus in Queen Anne's time to have first mixed the beverage which goes by his name. Lord Orrery was the first for whom an ' orrery ' was constructed ; and Lord Spencer first wore, or first brought into fashion, a ' spencer.' Dahl, a Swede, introduced the cultiva- tiofl 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 ; the ' ca- mellia' was introduced into Europe from Japan in 1 73 1 by Camel, a member of the Society of Jesus. ' Quassia ' derives its name from a negro sorcerer of Surinam, who in 1730 discovered its properties, and after whom it was called. A French Protestant refu- gee, Tabinet by name, first made ' tabinet ' in Dublin ; another Frenchman, the ebenist Boule, in the time of Lewis the Fourteenth, gave his name to ' buhl ' work ; while yet another, Goulard, a physician of Montpellier, gave his to the soothing lotion, not un- known in our nurseries. In ' tram-voa.A,' the second syllable of Ontram,' the name of the inventor, sur- vives. The ' tontine ' was conceived by Tonti, an Italian ; another Italian, Galvani, first noted the phe- nomena of animal electricity or ' galvanism ; ' while a third, Volta, gave a name to the ' voltaic ' battery. It was a Corsican engineer, named Martello, who sug- gested to Pitt the ' martello ' towers which stud some parts of our coast. ' Nicotine,' the poison recently drawn from tobacco, goes back for its title to Nicot, PROPER NAMES BECOME WORDS. 1 83 a physician, who first introduced the tobacco-plant to the general notice of Europe. Dolomieu, a French geologist, first called attention to a peculiar formation of rocks in Eastern Tyrol, called ' dolomites ' after him. ' Martinet,' ' macintosh,' ' doyly,' ' brougham,' ' to mesmerize,' ' to macadamize,' ' to burke,' are all names of persons or formed from persons, and then transferred to things, on the ground of some sort of connection between the one and the other.* I may add ' guillotine,' though Dr. Guillotin did not invent this instrument of death, even as it is a baseless * 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 great casuist of the Jesuits, whose convenient subterfuges 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 equivo- cate, and ' escobarderie ' of subterfuge or equivocation. A pale green color is in French called ' celadon ' from a personage of this name, of a feeble a-rti fade tenderness, who figures in Astree, a famous romance of the seventeenth century. An unpopular minister of finance, M. de Silhouette, unpopular because he sought to cut down unnecessary ex- penses in the State, lent his name to the slight and thus cheap black oulline portrait called a, 'silhouette' (Sismondi, Hist, des Franfaif, 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 fopryili\av to the Greek. The point of contact between the ' fiacre ' and S. Fiaci:e is well known. Hackney carriages, when first estab- lished in Paris, waited for their hiring in the court of an hotel which was adorned with an image of the Scottish saint. l86 ON THE HISTORY IN WORDS. 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, from whose names words which have passed into common speech have been derived. Thus from Homer we have ' mentor ' for a monitor ; ' stentori- an ' 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 ; ' * while the medieval romances about the siege of Troy as- cribe to Pandarus that shameful ministry out of which his name has passed into the words ' to pan- der ' and 'pandarism.' ' Rodomontade' is from Rodo- monte, a hero of Boiardo ; who yet does not bluster and boast, as the word founded on his name would seem to imply ; adopted by Ariosto, it was by him changed into Rodamonte ; ' thrasonical ' is from Thraso; the braggart of the Roman Comedy. Cer- vantes has given us ' quixotic ; ' Swift ' liliputian ;' to Moliere the French language owes ' tartuffe ' and • tartufferie. ' ' Reynard ' with us is a duplicate for fox, while in French ' renard ' has quite excluded the old ' volpils,' being originally no more than the prop- er name of the fox-hero, the vulpine Ulysses, in that famous beast-epic of the middle ages, Reineke Fuchs ; the immense popularity of which we gather from many evidences — from none more clearly than from this. ' Chanticleer ' is the name of the cock, and * See Col. Mure, Language and Literature of Ancient Greece, voL '■ P- 3SO- ERRORS IN NAMES. 1 87 ' Bruin ' of the bear in the same poem.* These have not made fortune to the same extent of actually put- ting out of use names which before existed, but still have become quite familiar to us all. Occasionally a name will embody and give per- manence to an error ; as when in ' America ' the dis- covery of the New World, which belonged to Colum- bus, is ascribed to another eminent discoverer, but one who had no title to this honor, even as he was entirely guiltless of any attempt to usurp it for him- self.f Our 'turkeys' are not from Turkey, as their name seems to say, and as was assumed by those who imposed that name, but from that new world where alone they are native. This error the French in another shape repeat, calUng it ' dinde,' originally ' poulet d'lnde,' or Indian fowl. There lies in ' gip- sy,' 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 wander- ers from a more distant East, an outcast tribe from Hindostan. ' Bohemians,' as they are called by the French, testifies to an error of a like character, to the fact that at their first apparition they were supposed • See Genin, Des Variations du Langage Frattfais^ p. 12. f Humboldl; has abundantly shown this (JCostnos, vol. ii. note 4S7). 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, i863, pp. 382-388. 1 88 ON THE HISTORY IN WORDS. 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 of a word will to us suggest a wrong explanation, against which in these studies it will need to be on our guard. Most of us have been tempted to put ' domus ' and ' dominus ' into a connection which they do not really possess. 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 ac- count of its jutting out into the sea in so remarkable a manner. At a much later period of their educa- tion, ' Aborigines,' being the proper name of an Ital- ian tribe, might very easily lead them astray.* The Gulf of Lyons we most of us put in connection with the city of the same name. We are certainly some- what surprised that a name should have been drawn from a city so remote and so far inland ; but accept this as a fact notwithstanding. There is indeed no connection whatever between the two. In old texts it is generally called sinus Gallicus ; but in the four- teenth century a few writers began to call it Sinus Leonis, the Gulf of the Lion, possibly from the fierce- ness of its winds and waves, but at any rate by a name having nothing to do with Lugdunum on the Rhone. The Oak, in Greek Spy?, plays no inconsider- able part in the ritual of the Druids ; it is hot there- fore wonderful if most students at one time in their * See Pauly, Encyclop. s. v. Lalium. FALSELY-ASSUMED DERIVATION. 189 lives have put the two in etymological connection. The Greeks, who with so characteristic a vanity as- sumed that the key to the meaning of words in all languages was to be found in their own, did so of course. So, too, there have not been wanting those who have traced in the name ' Jove ' a heathen remi- niscence of the awful name of Jehovah ; while yet, however specious this may seem, on closer scrutiny the words declare that they have no connection with one another, any more than have ' lapetus ' and ' Japheth,' or, I may add, ' God ' and ' good,' which yet by a praise-worthy moral instinct men can hardly refrain from putting into an etymological relation with each other. c J Sometimes a falsely-assumed derivation has re- acted upon and modified the spelling. Thus the name of the Celtic tribe whom we call the ' Picts ' would not have come down to us exactly in this form but for the notion which early got abroad, that they were so called from their custom of tattooing or paint- ing their bodies, that in fact ' Pict ' meant "the painted." This in itself is most unlikely. We can quite conceive the Romans giving -this name to the first barbarous people they encountered, who were in the habit of thus painting themselves. For a cus- tom like this, forcing itself on the eye, and impressing itself on the imagination, exactly supplies the motive which gives birth to a name. But after they had been long familiar with the tribes of southern Britain, among whom this painting or tattooing was equally in use, it is inconceivable that they should have ap' plied it to a northern tribe, with which they first came I90 ON THE HISTORY IN WORDS. in contact at a far later day. The name is more probably the original Celtic one, ' peichta,' or ' the fighters,' slightly modified to give it a Latin shape and sound in the mouths of the Romans. It may have been the same with ' hurricane. ' In the tearing up and hurrying away of the canes in the sugar plan- tations 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 ' cal- amus,' the stalk of the corn. In both cases the ety- mology is faulty ; ' hurricane, ' probably a Carib ■ word at the first, is only a transplanting into our tongue of the Spanish ' hurracan ' or the French ' ouragan.' 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,* 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 'lumineur' (luminatore), throws us back on a time when the illumination of manuscripts was a leading occupation of the painter. ' Thrall ' and ' thraldom ' descend to us from a period when it was the custom to thrill or drill the ear of a slave in token * See on this disputed point, and on the relation between the Latin • stipulatio ' and the old German custom not altogether dissimilar, J. Grimm, Deutsche Rechtsalterthiimer, pp. 121, sqq. RECORD OF CUSTOMS IN WORDS. 191 of servitude ; a custom in use among the Jews (Deut. XV. 17), and retained by our Anglo-Saxon forefathers who were wont thus to pierce at the church door the ears of their bond -servants. By 'lumber,' we are, or might be, taught 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.* 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 educa- tion 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 ex- press what now we do. As often as we term arith- metic the science of ' calculation,' we allude to that rudimental stage in the science of numbers, when pebbles (calculi) were used, as now among savage tribes they often are, to help the practice of count- ing ; the Greeks did the same in a word of theirs (yjrTj^i^eiv) ; while in another {-TrefiTrd^eiv) they kept record of a period when the Jive fingers were so em- ployed. ' Expend,' ' expense,' tell us that money was o'nce weighed out (Gen. xxxiii. 16), not counted out as now ; ' estimate ' and ' estimation ' that the first money which the Romans knew was of brass (ses, aestimatio) ; ' pecunia,' ' peculatus,' ' fee ' (vieh) keep * See my Select Glossary, s. v. Lumber. [92 ON THE HISTORY IN WORDS. ■ecord all of a time when cattle were the main circu- ating medium; 'rupee' in another quarter of the vorld does the same. ' In ' library' we preserve tlie act that books were written on the bark (liber) of xees ; in ' volume ' that they were rolls ; in ' book' tself that they were often beechen tablets ; in ' paper,' :hat the Egyptian papyrus, " the paper reeds by the jrooks," furnished at one time the chief material on vhich they were written. Names thus so often surviving things, we have no •ight to turn an etymology into an argument. There yas a notable attempt to do this in the controversy io earnestly carried on between the Greek and Latin Churches concerning the bread, whether it should be eavened or unleavened, that was used at the Table jf the Lord. Those of the Eastern Church constantly irged that the Greek word for bread (and in Greek ivas the authoritative record of the first institution of :his sacrament), imphed, according to its root, that .vhich was raised or lifted up ; not, therefore, to use 1 modern term, ' sad ' or set, or, in other words, un- eavejMrdTbread, but such rather as had undergone ;he process of fermentation. But even if the ety- nology on which they relied (a/jro? from aipoa, to raise) lad been as certain as it i's questionable, they could kaw no argument of the slightest worth from so re- note an etymology, and one which had so long fallen )ut of the consciousness of those who employed the vord. Theories too, which long since were utterly re- lounced, have yet left their traces behind them. Thus ' good humor,' ' bad humor,' ' humors,' and, MYTHOLOGY IN WORDS, 193 strangest contradiction of all, ' dry humor,' rest alto- gether on a now exploded, but a very old and largely accepted, theory of medicine ; according to which there were four principal moistures or ' humors ' in the natural body, on the due proportion and combi- nation of which the disposition alike of body and mind depended.* Our present use of ' temper ' has its origin in the same theory ; the due admixture, or right tempering, of these humors 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 humors. 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 in which once they ran. Other singular examples we have of the way in which the record of old errors, themselves dismissed long ago, may yet survive in language — being bound up in words which grew into use when those errors found credit, and which 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, Larvas, and Lemures of heathen Rome ; yet the deposit it has permanently left behind it in the English language is ' See the Prologue to Ben Jonson's Every Man out of his Humor, 9 194 ON THE HISTORY IN WORDS. not inconsiderable. ' Lubber,' ' dwarf,' ' oaf,' ' droll,' ' wight,' • puck,' • urchin,' ' hag,' ' night-mare,' ' gra- mary,' ' Old Nick,' ' changeling ' (wechselkind), sug- gest themselves, as all bequeathed to us by thit old Teutonic demonology. No one now puts any faith in astrology, counts 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 : * a gloomy severe person is said to be ' saturnine,' born, that is, under the planet Saturn, who makes those that own his influence, being 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 ac- counted to be. The same faith in the influence of the stars survives in 'disastrous,' 'ill-starred,' 'as- cendancy,' ' 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, f does the word 'quintessence' contain. Again, what curious legends belong to the • sardonic,'! or ' Sardinian,' laugh ; a laugh caused, as was supposed, by a plant growing in Sardinia, of * 'Jovial' in Shakespeare's time (see Cymbelitie, Act S, Sc 4) had not forgotten its connection with Jove. f See Paradise Lost, iii. 714-719. \ See an excellent history of this word in Rost and Palm's Giftek Lexicon f s. v. cra/jScivias. DETACHED ETYMOLOGIES. I95 which they who ate, died laughing ; to the ' barna- cle ' goose,* to the ' amethyst,' esteemed, as the word implies, a preventive or antidote of drunken- ness ; and to other words not a few, which are em- ployed by us still. A question presents itself here, one which is 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 qufestion 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 exist- ence. And thus our weekly newspapers commit no absurdity in calling themselves '_/i3«y-nals,' or ' diur- nals ; ' nor we when we name that a 'journey ' which occupied 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 Hazxi forty ; or of a population ' decim- ated ' by a plague, though a tenth of it has not per- ished. 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. In like manner the wax of our ' can- dles ' (' candela,' from ' candeo ') is not necessarily * For a full and most interesting study on this very curious legend, see Max Miiller's Lectures on Language^ vol. ii. pp. 533-551. 196 ON THE HISTORY IN WORDS. white ; our ' rubrics ' are such still, though seldom printed in red ink ; neither need our ' miniatures ' quit their name, though they are no longer painted with minium or carmine ; our ' surplice ' is not usu- ally worn over an under- garment of skins ; nor are ' haversacks ' sacks for the carrying of oats ; there are ' palaces ' which are not built on the Palatine Hill ; and ' nausea ' which is not j^«-sickness, I remember once asking a class of school-children, whether an announcement which during one very hard winter ap- peared in the papers, of a ' white dlackhird ' having been shot, was correct, or self-contradictory and ab- surd. The less thoughtful members of the class in- stantly pronounced against it; while after a little consideration, two or three made answer that it was perfectly correct, that, while no 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, 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 prud- ery, 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 ordi- NEEDLESS SCRUPLES ABOUT WORDS. I97 nary style — as though every time they spoke of Wednesday they were rendering homage to Woden, of Thursday to Thor, of Friday to Freya, and thus with the rest ;* or at all events recognizing their ex- istence. 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. |yBut when the Quakers raised their protest, the case was altogether different. The false gods whose names were bound tip in these words had ceased to be worshipped in England for about a thousand years ; the words had wholly disengaged themselves from their etymologies, which probably not one in a thousand was so much as aware of. 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 en- tangled them in some new embarrassment, would have required them still further to purge their vocab- ulary. '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 * 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 bescat- tered 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.'' igS ON THE lilSTORY IN WORDS. the power of the evil eye ; nor ' lunacy,' nor ' luna- tic,' for such as did not consider that the moon had anything to do with mental unsoundness ; nor ' pan- ic ' 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 honorable use in the New Testament expressing the function of an in- terpreter, 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 Freya, pertain to a long extinct mythology, but to one existing at the very time when he wrote in its strength. And how was it, as might have been fairly asked, that S. 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 honor which in tract of time they exchanged for dishonor, and the dishonor for honor — 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 greater, dignity than seemed destined for them at the begin-, ning, while others in a manner quite as notable have THE FORTUNES OF WORDS. 199 lost caste, have descended from their high estate to common and even ignoble uses. Titles of dignity and honor ha/ve naturally a peculiar liability to be some lifted up, and some cast down. Of words "which have risen in the world, the French ' marechal ' affords us an excellent example. ' Marechal,' 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 cUmbedby 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 Us place in one language, while at the same time it declines from it in another. Thus ' demoiselle' (domincella) 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. ' Pope ' is the highest ecclesiastical dignity in the Latin Church ; every par- ish priest is a ' pope ' in the Greek. * Queen '(= '•fwrj) has had a double fortune. In this way spelt it has more than kept the dignity with which it started, be- ing the title given to the lady of the kingdom ; while spelt as ' quean ' it is a designation not untinged with contempt. ' Squatter ' remains for us in England very much where it was ; in Australia it is now the name by which the landed aristocracy are willing to be known.* * Dilke, Greater Britain, vol. ii. p. 40. 200 ON THE HISTORY IN WORDS. After all which has thus been adduced, you will scarcely deny that we have a right to speak of a his- tory in words. Now suppose that the pieces of mon- ey which in the intercourse and traffic of daily life are passing through our hands, had each one something of its own which made it more or less worthy of note ; if on one was stamped some striking maxim, on an- other 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 heroic 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 se- rious 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 see that we come not in this matter under the condemnation of any such incurious dullness as that which I have imagined. BLACKBOARD EXERCISES. LECTURE IV. ON THE HISTORY IN WORDS. EXERCISE No. I. INTRODUCTION. I. Language a vehicle of knowledge. 1. A link between the past and present. 2. A reliable record. II. Language a proof of the unity of mankind. III. Language a record of history. IV. History can be recreated from language. Example — the Norman Conquest. EXERCISE No. n. TEACHINGS OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. I. Saxon and norman relations. 1. They existed side by side. 2. They were fused into a third. 3. Those words survived in each : '^^ Which were most used. {b.) Which laid the strongest hold on life. («r.) Which had no duplicates. II. Saxon and norman contributions. A. Norman. 1. Words of dignity and royalty. 2. " " luxury and the chase. 3. " " chivalry and adornment. 4. Names of meats prepared for the table. 9* 202 ON THE HISTORY IN WOKrDS. B. Saxon. 1. Great features of nature, 2. Social relations. 3. The language of labor. 4. Products of the soil. 5. Names of AV2«f animals. III. Deductions from the compositiom .of the Eng- lish TONGUE. 1. That the Saxon was the inferior race. 2. That it f uriiished the gVoundwork of our language. EXERCISE No. III. HISTORICAL RECREATIONS. I. Arabic words. I " Cypher." 2 " Algebra," 3 " Zero." 4 " Almanack." 5 " Zenith." 6 " Nadir." 7 " Azimuth." 8 " Alkali." 9 " Alcohol." 10 " Alchemy." II. " Alembic." 12 " Elixir." 13 " Magazine." 14 " Tariff." II. Origi CHI NS OF THE MONASTIC SYSTEM TN THE rRCH. GREEK I. "Monk." 2 " Monastery." 3- " Cenobite." 4- " Anchorite." 5- "Ascetic." 6 " Hermit." ;• " Archimandrite." BLACKBOARD EXERCISES. 2O3 III. The ASIATICS befork migration began. 1. They were pastoral, but not agricultural. 2. They had not the knowledge of working metals. 3. The common stock was not small. (a.) Intellectual. (*.) Moral. IV. Harvests of historic lore garnered in single WORDS. Examples — A. " Church." 1 . Originally Greek. 2. Passed from the Greek to the Goths on the Danube. 3. Thence to the German tribes. 4. And last to our Anglo-Saxon forefathers. B. ^^ Pagan." ^^ Paganism." 1. " Pagan" dwellers in villages. 2. " civilians, not soldiers. 3. " last to be Christianized. 4. " applied to all heatheiis. 5. " Heathen" has a similar history. Conclusions — I. The church first planted in cities. 3. Its first complete triumphs there, EXERCISE No. IV. HISTORY IN WORDS. I. "Sacrament." 1. In Roman law, a deposit or pledge. 2. A Roman military oath. 3. Any solemn oath whatsoever. 4. In the early Church any sacred rite. 5. Liiriited use in later times. («.) To the seven sacraments of the Church of Rome. (^.) To the two sacraments of the Protestant Church. 204 ON THE HISTORY IN WORDS. 1. Baptism, an oath. 2. The holy eucharist, a mystery. II. "Frank." 1. France the crusading nation. 2. Hence, the name given to all the warriors. III. "Miscreant." 1. Grew out of the crusades. 2. Meant at first simply " misbeliever." 3. A term of reproach. IV. "Samaritan" and "assassin." EXERCISE No. V. OONTRIBUTIONS OF THE CHURCH AND THE SCHOOLMEN. I. The church. A. "Cardinal." 1. An assumption of the Roman See. 2. The See the hinge of the Church. 3. The clergy " cardinales." B. " Legend." 1. Original meaning, 2. Later corruption. 3. Final use. IL THE SCHOOLMEN : " DUNCE." 1. Who were termed " schoolmen." 2. Why their works fell out of favor. 3. Who held to the old learning. 4. They were called " Dunsmen." 5. Hence, " duns," " dunsery," " dunce." 6. The new learning made these titles. EXERCISE No. VI. INJUSTICE AND ERRORS IN WORDS. L Injustice in " mammetry." II. The importance of giving right names. 1 . Influence of words on the world's history. 2. " " " " opinions. BLACKBOARD EXERCISES. 20$ III. Errors suggested by words. A. " Crystal." 1. Error occasioned by the name. 2. Confirmed by Pliny. 3. Dissipated by Sir Thomas Browne. 4. Explanation of the error. B. " Semitic " and " indo-european." C. "Leopard." 1 . Erroneously so called from the first, 2. Error propagated by the name. D. "Gothic." 1 . Name coined after the Goths had died out. 2. At first a name of contempt. 3. Scornfully applied to architecture. E. Miscellaneous. 1. " Classical." 2. "Romantic." 3. "Revivar of learning." 4. "Renaissance." 5. "Unitarian." 6. "Catholic." 7. "Reformation," EXERCISE No. VII. NAMES OP SECTS AND PARTIES. I. The rise of new names from external acci- dent. A. Selected. 1. "Gnostics." 2. " Cavaliers." B. Imposed and not accepted. 1. " Quaker." 2. "Puritan." 3. " Roundhead." C. Imposed and accepted. 1. " Whig and Tory." 2. " Lutheran." 206 ON THE HISTORY IN WORDS. 3. "Methodist." 4. " Momiers." 5. " Capuchin." 6. " Gueux." 7. "Premier." II. Instructive names. 1. " Gnostic " and " gnosticism." 2. " Orthodox" and " catholic."-" 3. " Puritans." 4. " Fjfth-monarchy men." 5. "Seekers." 6. " Levellers. 7. " Independents." 8. "Friends." 9. "Rationalists." 10. " Latitudinarians." 11. "Freethinkers." EXERCISE No. VIIJ, RECORDS IN NAMES. I. History of commerce in names. 1. " Magnet." 2. "Baldachin." 3. " Bayonet." 4. "Cambric." 5. " Crape," etc. II. Fashions in names. 1. "Cravat." 2. "Biggen." 3. " Dalmatic," etc. III. Record oe traffic in names. 1. " Calico." 2. " Muslin." 3. " Parchment." 4. " Indigo." 5. " Ermine," etc. BLACKBOARD EXERCISES. 20/ IVi Origins in names. 1. " Spaniel." 2. "Sherry." 3. " Pheasant." 4. "Currants." 5. "Solecisms." EXERCISE No. IX. WORDS MADE FROM PROPER NAMES. I. Mythical and classical antiquity. I. "Chimerical." 2. "Tantalize." 3. " Herculean." 4. " Mausoleum." 5. "Academy." 6. " Philippic." 7. " Cicerone," etc. II. Medieval times. I. "Badeker." 2. "Vernicle." 3. "Pantaloons." 4. " Dunce," etc. III. Modern times. I. " Chaucerisms. 2. " Pasquinade." 3. " Orrery." 4. "Tram-road." 5. " Galvanism." 6. "Nicotine." 7. " Macadamize," etc. IV. Popular characters in books A. Ancient. I. "Stentorian." 2. " Hector," etc. B. Medieval and modern. I. "Pander." 2. " Quixotic. 208 ON THE HISTORY IN WORDS. 3. " Liliputian." 4. " Reynard," etc. EXERCISE No. X. BLUNDERS IN WORDS. I. Names embodying an error. 1. "America.'' 2. "Turkeys." 3. " Poulet d'Inde." 4. " Gipsy." 5. "Bohemians." II. Errors suggested by the sound or spelling. 1. " Domus," and " Dominus." 2. "Jutland." 3. "Aborigines." 4. " Lyons." S- "Druid." 6. "Jove." 7. " lapetus" and " Japheth." 8. " God," and " good." III. Reaction of assumed derivation on spelling. 1. " Picts." 2. " Hurricane." 3. " Calamitas." EXERCISE No. XI. THE LEGACIES OF WORDS. I. Old customs in words. 1. " Stipulation." 2. " Curfew." 3. " Limner." 4. " Thraldom." 5. "Lumber." 6. " Signing our name " and " subscribe." 7. "Calculation." 8. " Expend" and " estimate." 9. " Pecunia," " peculatus," " fee," and " rupee." 10. " Library," " volume," " book," and " paper." BLACKBOARD EXERCISES. 209 II. Arguments founded on etymologies : " Sprot." III. Exploded theories in words. 1. " Humor" ■ good, bad, and dry. 2. " Temper." 3. " Distemper." IV. Old faiths in words. A. Mythology. 1. " Lubber." 2. "Dwarf." 3. "Oaf." 4. " Droll." 5. "Wight." 6. "Urchin." 7. "Hag." 8. " Night-mare." 9. " ChangeUng." 10. " Wicked." B. Astrology. 1. "Jovial" 2. " Saturnine." 3. " Mercurial." 4. " Disastrous." 5. " Ill-starred." 6. " Ascendency." C. Speculations : " Quintessence." V. Old legends. 1. "Sardonic." 2. "Amethyst." EXERCISE No. XII. THE PREROGATIVES OF WORDS. I. Independent existence of words. 1. " Journals." 2. " Quarantine." 3. " Decimated." 4. " Sarcophagus.'' 5. "Candles." 2IO ON THE HISTORY IN WORDS. 6. "Rubrics." 7. " Miniatures." 8. "Surplice." 9. " Haversack." 10. " Palaces." ti. " Nausea." 12. " White dhci-hird." 13. " New Forest." 14. " Neapolis." II. Quaker scruples about words. 1. Refusal to use heathen names. 2. Substitution of numerals for the days of the week. A. Needless. 1 . Because false worship had ceased, 2. The names were disengaged from their etymol- ogies. B. Inconsistent. 1. Because they use other words of similar origin. (a.) "Charm." (6.) "Bewitch." (c.) " Fascinate." (a.) "Enchant." (e.) "Lunatic." (/.) "Panic." (.?■.) " Auguries," etc. 2. Because such words are used iif th* Bible. (a.) " Interpreter." (i5.) "Phoebe." III. Varying fortunes of words. 1. " Marshals." 2. "Alderman." 3. " Demoiselle." 4- "Pope." 5- " Queen." 6. " Squatter.' IV. Intellectual and spiritual currency of words. QUESTIONS. LECTURE IV. On the History in Words. What is said of language as a vehicle of knowledge ? How does it connect the past and present ? How is it superior to monuments, etc. ? What view is held in reference to the settlement of the earth ? What great moral argument is anticipated from language ? What progress has been made in this direction already ? How are philology and geology compared ? What example is given ? How is history reconstructed ? How did the Saxon and Norman languages stand related at first? How were they united ? What words survived in each ? How were the claims of the contending words settled ? What words lead us to conclude that the Norman was the ruling race ? What remarkable exception was there ? What does it prove ? Which words were of Saxon birth ? Give five classes of examples. What is the inference from this comparison of words ? Mention some words of Arabic origin. What does language prove in reference to the origin of the monastic system ? 212 ON THE HISTORY IN WORDS. How do words stand related to the remote past ? What is said about the Indo-European race ? How do we reach it ? On what class of words are our conclusions to be based. How do you prove that the Asiatic races had entered on the pastoral stage ? What is proved by the absence of the names of metals ? What is the testimony of words in reference to the common stock ? What is said of single words ? Give the history of " church," " pagan," and " paganism," " heathen." What instructive notices do we glean from these latter words ? Give miscellaneous examples of history in single words. Give an account of " sacrament/' "Frank," " miscreant," " Samaritan," " assassin." What explanation is given of " cardinal " ? What is the history of " legend " ? What words were bequeathed by the schoolmen ? Give the history and fortunes of " dunce." What injustice is wrapped up in " Mahometry ? " What is said about the importance of names ? What of the influence of words on opinions ? What is illustrated by " crystal " ? What legend is bound up in ", leopard " ? " cockatrice " ? What is said of Eichhorn's " Semitic " ? " Indo-European " ? How is " Gothic " a misnomer ? What is said of " classical," " romantic," " revival of learn- ing," " renaissance " ? What is true of words for the chief objects and facts of our faith ? Illustrate this by the use of " Unitarians," " Catholics," " Reformation." What is urged in reference to the history of important bodies of men ? How should we investigate ? What is to be learned in reference to their names f QUESTIONS. 213 Give examples of names selected ; of names devised by others, and not accepted ; of names applied by others, and subsequently received. What is said of " premier " ? Give examples of names which furnish a key to great sys- tems. What do we learn from " orthodox " and " catholic " ? Give other significant titles of parties. Mention some names which contain a record of inventions and commerce ; of fashions ; of traffic ; of the origins of pro- ducts. What have authors, inventors, and discoverers bequeathed us? Enumerate some names from mythical antiquity ; medieval times ; modern times. Give examples of names drawn from books ; of names em- bodying and giving permanence to error ; of sound or spelling suggesting error ; of falsely assumed derivation reacting on spelling. What evidence have we of the conservative powers of lan- guage ? What custom is suggested by "stipulation"? "curfew"? "limner"? "thrall"? "lumber"? "signing our name"? "calculation"? "expend"? "library"? "paper"? Give an example of an etymology used for an argument. Mention words containing traces of old and renounced the- ories ; deposits of old errors ; mythologies ; speculations ; and legends. What question is raised in reference to the original use of words ? Give examples of proper secondary meanings. What is said in reference to needless scruples about words ? What inconsistency would it lead to ? What argument is drawn from Scripture use of names ? What is said about the rise and fall of words ? What is true of titles of dignity ? Give examples. What is the conclusion of the lecture ? ADDITIONAL WORDS FOR ILLUSTRATION, LECTURE IV. On the History in Words. 1. Bumper. 2. Buncombe. 3. England. ^. Emolument. 5^ Eureka. 6. February. 7. Garble. 8. Gazette. 9. Indian. 10. Inoculation. 11. Know-nothing. 12. Laconic. 13. Letter. 14. Livery. 15. Loco-foco. 16. Lynch. 17. Lymphatic. 18. Manumit. 19. Merino. 20. Mesmerism, 21. Money. 22. Mormon. 23. Mortgage. 24. Municipal. 25. Ordeal. 26. Palladium. 27. Procrustean, 28. Recreant. 29. Rubicon. 30. Runic. 31. Salary, 32. Saunter. 33. Saxon. 34. Septuagint. 35. Stoic. 36. Tartar. 37. University. 38. Vaccination. 39. Worship. 40. Yankee, LECTURE V. ON THE RISE OF NEW WORDS. YOU will find it not less interesting than instruc- tive to take note of the times when great and significant words, when some too which can hardly claim to be so considered, have made their first appearance in the world, with the circumstances at- tending their birth ; and scarcely less interesting to note the new uses to which old words are put. A volume might be written, such as few would rival in interest, which should do no more than indicate the first occasion upon which new words, or old words employed in a new sense — being such as the world subsequently heard much of — had appeared ; with quotation, where advisable, of the passages in proof. A young English poet, too early lost, has very grandly described the emotion of " some watcher of the skies. When a new planet swims into his ken." Not very different from his will be our feeling, as we watch, at the moment of its rising above the horizon, some word destined, it may be, to take a place for ever among the luminaries in the moral and intellec- tual firmament above us. But a caution is necessary here. We must not 2l6 ON THE RISE OF NEW WORDS. take for certain in every case, or indeed in most cases, that the first rise of a word will have been identical in time with its first appearance within the range of our vision. Such identity will sometimes exist ; and we may watch the actual birth of some word and 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 hterature has come down to us, that, while the earliest appearance there of a word is still more 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, with- in 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 produce of some genera- tio aquivoca, the necessary result of exciting predis- posing 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 follow- ing : — ' Christian ' ; ^ ' Trinity ' ; '^ ' Catholic,' as ap- plied to the Church ; ' ' canonical,' as a distinctive ' Acts xi. 26. ' Tertullian, Adv. Prax. 3. 9 Ignatius, Ad. Smyr. 8. FIRST APPEARANCE OF WORDS. 21^ title of the received Scriptures ; * ' New Testament,' as describing the complex of the sacred books of the New Covenant ; " ' Gospels,' as applied to the four inspired records of the ministry of our Lord.^ We notice, too, with interest, the first coming up of ' monk ' and ' nun,' * marking as they do the begin- nings of the monastic system ; — of ' transubstantia- tion,' ' of ' limbo ' ® in its theological 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 in- structive 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 ' ; ' of ' India ' ; ^ of ' Europe ' ; ® of ' Macedonia' ; " of ' Greeks ' ; " of ' Origen, Ofip. vol. iii p. 36 (ed. De la Rue). ' TertulUan, Adv, Marc, iv. I; Adv. Prax, xv. 20. ' Justin Martyr, Apol. I. 66. * ' 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 nuUo vivere teste volunt. ' Hildebert, Bishop of Tours (f 11 34), is the first to use it (Serm. 93)- ' Thomas Aquinas first uses ' limbus ' in this sense. ' ^schylus, Prometheus Vintus, 412. 8 Id. Suppl. 282. ' Herodotus, iv. 36. '" Id. v. 17. " Aristotle, Meteor, i. 14. But his TpcuKoi 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. 10 2l8 ON THE RISE OF NEW WORDS. ' Germans ' and ' Germany ' ; ^ of ' Alemanni ' : ^ of ' Franks ' ; » of Prussia ' and ' Prussians ' ; * of Nor- mans ' ; ^ the earliest notice by any Greek author of " Rome"" the first use of ' Italy ' as comprehending the entire Hesperian peninsula,' of ' Asia Minor ' to designate Asia on this side Taurus.^ 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 desig- nation. So also, to confirm our assertion by exam- ples 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 ; * or ' Probably first in the Commentaries of Caesar ; see Grimm, Gesch. d. Deutschen Sprache, p. 773. ' Spartian, Caracalla, c. 9. ■ ' Vopiscus, Aurel. 7 ; about A. D. 240. * ' Pruzia ' and ' Pruzzi ' first appear in the Life of S. Adalbert, writ- ten by his fellow-laborer Gaudentius, between 997-1006. ' The Geographer of Ravenna. " Probably in Hellanicus, a contempcrrary of Herodotus. ' In the time of Augustus Caesar; see Niebuhr, History of Rome, Engl. Translation, vol. i. p. 12. « Orosius, I. 2. : in the fifth century of our era. * 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 tlie mild and CHRISTIANS AT ANTIOCH. 219 again when, and from -whom, the fabric of the exter- nal universe first received the title of ' cosmos,' or beautiful order ; * 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 enquire 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 S. Luke expressly tells us, " were called Christians first in Antioch " (Acts xi. 26). That we have here a notice which we should not willingly have missed all would acknowledge, even as nothing can be otherwise than curious which relates to the infancy of the Church. But this perhaps is all which some would perceive in it ; and yet, if we question this notice a Httle closer, how much it will be found to contain, how much it is waiting to yield up to us. What light it throws on the whole story of the apostolic Church to know bounteous Pisistratus was tyrant ' of Athen?, while a Christian the Second of Denmark, " the Nero of the North,'' would not in Greek eyes have been one. It was to their honor that they did not allow the course of the word to be arrested or turned ^side by occasional or par- tial exceptions in the manner of the exercise of this ill-gotten domin- ion ; but in the hateful secondary sense which ' tyrant ' with them ac- quired, and which we have adopted, 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. * 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. 220 ON THE RISE OF NEW WORDS. 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 honor. 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 those adversaries it was plainly the heathen, and not the 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.* 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 those to the seed of Abraham. It was there, and among the faithful there, that a conviction of the world-wide destination of the Gos- pel arose ; there it was first plainly seen as intended * Compare Tacitus (Annal. xv. 24) : Quos vulgui . . . Christianos appellabat. It is curious too that, although a Greek word and coined in a Greek city, the termination is Latin. Xpumavii is formed on the model of Romanus, Albanus, Pompeiaiius, and the like. CHRISTIANS, 221 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 ' Naza- renes,' — both names which indicated the Jewish cradle in whith 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 mis- sion and a destiny of its own. Nor will the thought- ful 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 * * Renan {Les ApStres, 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 oi une creation nouvelle re9oit son nom est solennelle ; car le nom est le signe djfinitif de 1' existence. C'est par le nom qu'un gtre individuel 222 ON THE RISE OF NEW WORDS. It is a small matter, yet not without its owii signifi- cance, that the invention of this name is laid by S. Luke, ■—for so, I think, we may confidently say, — to the credit of the Antiochenes. Now the idle, frivolous, and witty inhabitants of Antioch 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 nick- name 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 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 ou collectif devient lui-meme, et sort d'un autre. La formation dumot • Chretien ' marque ainsi la date precise oil I'Eglise de J6sus se separa du judai'sme. . . . Le christianisme est compUtement dfetachfe du sein de sa mhie; la vraie pens^e de Jfesus a triomplife de I'indficision de ses premiers disciples ; l'%lise de Jerusalem est d^passfee ; I'Arameen, la langue de Jfesus, est inconnue i une partie de son ecole ; le christian- isme parle Grec ; il est lancfe definitivement dans le grand tourbillon du monde grec et remain ; d'oii il ne sortira plus. NEW WORDS NECESSARY. 22J 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, which were remote from it hitherto ; for which therefore the adequate expression will naturally not be forthcoming at once, these new thoughts and feel- ings being larger and deeper than any with which 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 fight hand and on the left, forced new channels with a certain violence for themselves. This indeed 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, sensu- ous and finite ; but they did not suffice for the spirit- ual 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 befel, 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 224 ON THE RISE OF NEW WORDS. expansive enough, to hold it.* 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 be- tween the Creator and the creature was the most earnest and deepest conviction of their lives, 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 em- ployed it, had not the words corresponding, f 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 ? :|: These difficulties, which were felt the most strongly • Renan, speaking on this matter, says of the early Christians: La langue leur faisait d^faut. Le Grec et le Sfemitique les trahissaient egalement. De Ik cette ^norme violence que le Christianisme naissant fit au langage {Zes ApStres, p. 71). f npoiranraX^im):, KopSiayviimii. tWe preside at its birth in a passage "^af Josephus, Con Apiotu ii. i6. ' ■ SAVIOR. 225 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 dis- quisitions. The classical language of Greece" had a word for 'saviour,' which, though often degraded to unworthy uses, bestowed as a title of honor not merely on the false gods of heathendom, but some- times 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 cen- tral 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 to have continually on their lips : 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.'* ' Salvator ' would have been the natural word ; but the Uterary Latin of the best times, though it had ' salus ' and ' salvus,' had neither this, nor the verb ' salvare ' ; some, indeed, have * Hoc [ffaiT^p] quantum est ? ita magnum ut Latinfe uno verbo expiimi non possit. lO* 226 ON THE RISE OF NEW WORDS. thought that ' salvare ' had always existed in the com- mon speech. ' Servatdr' was instinctively felt to be insufficient, even as ' Preserver ' would for us fall very short of uttering all which ' Saviour ' does now. The i 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 higher sense. It was long be- fore 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 ' Salva- tor ' might not have been good Latin before the Saviour came, He by his coming had made it such ; for, as shadows wait upon substances, so words wait upon things.* Take another example. It seemed * Serm. 299. 6 : Christus Jesus, id est Christus Salvator : hoc est enim Latine Jesus. Nee quadrant grammatici quim sit Latinum, sed Christiani, qukm verum. Salus enim Latinum nomen est ; salvare et salvator non fuerunt haac Latina, antequam veniret Salvator : quando ad Latinos venit, et hsec 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,' ' compassio,' 'deltas' (Augustine, Civ. Dei, 7. I), 'glorifico,' ' incarnatio,' 'justifico,' 'justificatio,' 'longanimitas,' 'passio,' 'prjedestinatio,' 'refrigerium,' ' regeneratio,' ' resipiscentia,' ■revelatio,' ' sanctificatio,' ' soUloquium,' ' suflicientia,' 'superero- gatio,' ' tribulatio.' Many of these may seem barbarous to the Latin ENLARGEMENTS OF SPEECH. 22/ SO natural a thing, in the old heathen world, to ex- pose infants, if 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 was not worth while to find a name for it ; and thus it is nothing wonder- ful to learn that the word ' infariticidium ' was first born in the bosom of the Christian Church. Tertul- lian is the first in whose writings it appears. Yet it is not only when new truth, moral or spirit- ual, 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,* the transplantation of the same to Rome, the rise of the scholastic, and then of the mystic, the- ology in the middle ages, the discoveries of modern science and natural philosophy, these each and all have been accompanied with corresponding exten- sions 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 pecu- liar 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 daily use, and 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. * See Lobeck, Phrynichus, p. 350. 228 ON THE RISE OF NEW WORDS. 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 be for the most part born out of their bosom, a free spontaneous birth, seldom or never capable of being referred to one man more than another, because 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 parts, 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 the single man, as there of the nation, will oftentimes set its mark ; and many a single word will come forth, which will be the result of profound medi- tation, 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 unex- plored darkness beyond ; or which, summing up into itself all the acquisitions in a particular direction of the past, shall be as a mighty vantage ground from which to advance to new conquests in those realms of mind THE POET A MAKER. 229 or of nature, not as yet subdued to the intellect of man. ' Cosmopolite ' has often now a shallow or even a mischievous use, and he who calls himself a ' cosmo- polite ' may only mean 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 ; for Diogenes the Cynic, whose sayings are among the most notable in anti- quity, 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 com- monplace 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 citizen- ship 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 re- markable 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 dis- tinctions were done away. As occupying somewhat of a middle place between those more deliberate word-makers and the multi- tude whose words rather grow 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 230 ON THE RISE OF NEW WORDS. of conceit proper to the poet," will not fail to mani- fest 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 only the metal which is fluent runs easily into novel shapes and moulds. It is not merely that the old and the familiar will often become new in his hands ; that he will give the stamp of allowance, as to him will be free to do, to words, should he count them worthy, which hith- erto 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 lan- guage 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 dis- covery 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— Hoi- ASSIMILATION AND DISSIMILATION. 23 1 land for instance did so for awhile, though she has" since changed her mind ; and it has been found con- venient 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 ' till in the treaty of peaca which followed the Crimean War the ' neutrali- zation ' of the Black Sea was made one of the stipu- lations. ' Secularization^,' in like manner, owes its birth to the long negotiations which preceded the Treaty of Westphalia. Whenever it was found 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 which has thus arisen of represent- ing oriental Words to the western world by means of an alphabet which is not theirs, with the manifold dis- cussions 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 dictiona- ries ; ' dissimilation ' has as yet scarcely found its way into them, but it speedily will. It will appear first, if it has not already appeared, in our books on language.* I express myself with this confidence, because ad- * Pott (Eij/m. Forsch. vol. ii. p. 65) has introduced it into German. 232 ON THE RISE OF NEW WORDS. varices in philology have rendered it a matter of necessity that we should possess a word to designate a certain process which words unconsciously un- dergo, 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^iance ' but ' a^iance,' not ' rtnowm,' as our ancestors did when ' renommee' was first naturalized, but ' renovfn '; we say too, though we do not write it, ' cupboard ' and not ' cu/board,' ' surtle ' and not ' suiJtle.' 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 ' cseruleus ' was once ' cse/u- leus,' from caelum ; ' meridies ' is for ' medidies,' or medius dies. In the same way the Italians prefer • veleno ' to ' veneno ' ; the Germans ' kartoflfel ' to ' tartiiffel,' the original name of the potato ; and we ■ cinnamow ' to ' cinnamow ' (the earlier form). So too in 'turtle' 'marble,' 'purple' we have shrunk from the double ' r' of ' turtur,' ' marmor,' ' pur- pura ' ; and this process of making unlike, requiring a term to express it, will create, has indeed already created, the word ' dissimilation,' which -will presently establish itself in far wider than its primary use.* * See Dwight, Modern Philology, 2cl Series, p. loo ; and Heyse, System der Sprachwissenschaft, g 139-141. DEFICIENCIES OF LANGUAGE. 233 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 ' (aoiSb';) sufficiently expressed the double function ; such a ' singer ' was Homer, and such Homer describes Dem- odocus, the bard of the Phaeacians ; that double func- tion, 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 labor one made the verses which another chanted, 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 inves- tigation 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 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, to the great detriment of both. The manner in which men be- come 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 234 ON THE RISE OF NEW WORDS. comparison through having undertaken to transfer treasures of that language into their own, they be- come conscious of much which it is worth while to utter in human speech, which is 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 pro- ceed to supply the deficiency. Hardly in any other way would the wants which are thus revealed make themselves felt even by the most thoughtful ; for lan- guage is to so large an extent the condition and limit of thought, men are so little accustomed, indeed so Ijttle able, to meditate on things, except through the intervention, and by the machinery, of words, that the absence of words from a language almost neces- sarily 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 which will follow, if we have learned those other to any purpose, of these comparisons, namely, that we thus become aware that names are not, and least of all the names in any one language, coextensive 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 re- sumed and connoted in a word, are yet without one, unnamed and unregistered ; and thus, vast as is the world of names, that the world of realities is even vastef still. Such discoveries the Romans made, when they sought to transplant the moral philosophy of Greece to an Italian soil. They found that many CICERO'S WORDS. 23 S of its terms had no equivalents with them : which equivalents therefore they proceeded to devise for themselves, appealing for this to the latent capabili- ties 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 ex- press '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, manifestly declares.* Sometimes, indeed, such a skilful mint-master of words, such a subtle watcher and weigher of their force + as was Cicero, will have noted even apart from this comparison with other languages, an omission in his own, which thereupon he will endeavor 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 ; | at the same time there was only one sub- stantive, ' 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 * Fin. iL 4 ; and for ' qualitas ' see Acad. L 6. f Ilia verborum vigilantissimus appensor ac mensor, as Augustine happily terms him. X Thus the monkish line : Invidiosus ego, non invidus esse laboro. 23S ON THE RISE OF NEW WORDS. duty, saw that 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 appearafice supplied a real want ; yet he did not succeed in giving it cur- rency; does not seem himself to have much cared to employ it again.* We see by this example that not every word which even a master of language proposes, finds accept- ance ; t for, as Dryden has said, "It is one thing to draw a bill and another to have it accepted. " Pro- vided some 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 'indolen- tia,' which I mentioned just now, hardly passed be- yond himself;^ his ' vitiositas,' § ' indigentia,' || and ' mulierositas,'*f not at all. ' Beatitas ' too and ' beati- * Tusc, iii. 9 ; iv. 8 ; cf. Doderlein, Synon. vol. iii. p. 68. f Quintilian's advice, based on this fact, is good (L 6, 42) : Etiamsi potest nihil peccare, qui utitur iis verbis quas summi auctores tradide- runt, multum tamen refert non soliim quid dixerint, sed etiam quid persuaserint. He himself, as he informs us, invented ' vocalitas ' to correspond with the Greek e40o.i//o {Instit. L S- 24). but I am not aware that he found any imitators. % 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 dTiflfio. 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). § Tusc. iv. 15. II Ibid. iv. 9. 21. Tf Ibid. iv. u. COMPREHENSIVE WORDS. 237 tudo.I * both of his coining, yet, as he owns himself, with something strange and uncouth about them, found almost no acceptance at all in the classical literature of Rome : ' beatitudo,' indeed, obtained a home, as it .deserved to do, in the Christian Church, but ' beatitas ' made no way whatsoever. Cole- ridge'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 Tay- lor, of such Latinists as Sir Thomas Browne and Henry More, words born only to die, are multitu- dinous as the leaves of autumn.t Still even the word which fails is often an honorable testimony to the scholarship, or the exactness of thought, or the imagination of its author ; and Ben Jbnson 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." | 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 immense. By the cutting short of lengthy explanations and tedious circuits of language, they facilitate mental processes, which would often be * Nat. Dear. i. 34. \ See my English Past and Present, 9th edit. p. 108 J Therefore the maxim : Moribus antiquis, pra;sentibus utere verbis. \ B38 ON THE RISE OF NEW WORDS. nearly or quite impossible without them ; and those ■who have invented or put these into circulation, are benefactors of a high order to knowledge. In the ordinary traffic of life, unless our deahngs 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 denomina- tion of money which it was capable of assuming. How many words with which we are now perfectly familiar are for us what the bill of exchange or circu- lar note is for the traveller and the merchant. As in one of these innumerable pence, a multitude of shil- ings, not a few pounds are gathered up and repre- sented, so have we in some single word the quint- essence 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 is continent of them all. Science is an immense gainer by words which thus say singly, what whole sentences would otherwise have scarcely said. Thus ' isothermal ' is quite a COMPREHENSIVE WORDS. 239 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. Bacon somewhere describes a certain candidate for the chair of S. Peter as being ' papable.' I do not mean that he invented the word ; but using it he declared that there met in him all the conditions, and they were many, which would admit the choice of the Conclave falling upon him. 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.' How much must have gone before, ere the word, with its corresponding idea, could have existed ; and then 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 240 ON THE RISE OF NEW WORDS. altogether arrested, yet would it be as effectually re- strained 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 nomen- clature as well. Words will keep pace with things, and with more or less felicity resuming in themselves the labors of the past, will at once assist and abridge the labors 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 possi- ble, such as would have been quite unattainable with- out them.* It is not merely the widening of men's intellectual horizon, which, bringing liew thoughts within the range of their vision, compels the origination of cor- responding words ; but as often as regions of this outward world hitherto closed are laid open, the novel objects of interest which these contain will de- mand to find their names, and not merely to be cata- logued in the nomenclature of science, but, so far as they present themselves to the popular eye, will re- quire 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, incorporat- ing the former, unchanged, or with slight modifica- * See Mill, System of Logic ^ iv. 6. 3. CHOICE OF NAMES. .241 tion, into the language. Thus we did with the pota- to, 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 call- ing different things by the same name disregarded. It was thus in German, ' kartoffel ' being only a cor- ruption, which found place in the last century, of ' tartuffel,' 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. Or again this same transfer may take place, but with some qualifying or distinguishing addition. This course the Italians took. They also 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 ' erdappel ' or earth- apple at 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, probably from the East, the name of ir 242 ON THE RISE OF NEW WORDS. • ananas ' or ' anana,' under which last form it is cele- brated by Thomson in his Seasons. 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 for- mation ; for it is not likeness, but identity, which ' pineapple ' implies ; and it gives some excuse to an error, which up to a very late day ran through all German-EngHsh 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 Debats, the Times of F'rance, made some uncomplimentary ob- servations ori the voracity of the English, who could wind up a Lord Mayor's dinner with fii'-cones for dessert. Sometimes the name adopted will be one drawn from an intermediate language, through which we first became acquainted with tlae 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 indeed sometimes ' el lagarto de las Indias,' the Indian lizard. In Sir Walter Raleigh's Discovery of Guiana the word still retains its Span- ish 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 DISHONORABLE WORDS. 243 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, ^nd had continually heard, but may have never seen it writ- ten, blended, as in similar instances has often hap- pened, the Spanish article ' el ' with the name. In Ben Jonson's ' alligarta,' we note the word in process of transformation.* Less honorable causes than some which I have mentioned, give birth to new words ; which will sometimes reflect back a very fearful hght on the moral condition of that epoch in which first they saw the light. Of the Roman emperor, Tiberius, one of » ' Alcoran ' supplies another example of this curious annexation of the article. Examples cf 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, ' I'hierre,' which is correct, being the Latin 'hedera.' ' Lin- got ' is our ' ingot,' but with fusion of the article ; in ' larigot ' and ' loricot ' the word and the article have in the same manner grown to- gether. In old French it was ' I'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 (Genin, Rkreations Philologiques, vol. i. pp. loz- 105) ; of the same variety is ' La Natolie,' which was written ' L' Ana- tolic ' once. An Irish scholar has observed that in taodern Irish ' an ' (=i'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. 244 ON THE RISE OF NEW WORDS. those, " inventors of evil things," of whom S. Paul speaks (Rom. i. 30), Tacitus informs us that he caused words, unknown before, to emerge in the Latin tongue, for the setting out of wickednesses, happily also previously unknown, which he had in- vented. It was the same frightful time which gave birth to ' delator,' alike to the thing and to the word. The atrocious attempt of Lewis the Fourteenth 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 re- fused to conform, this ' booted mission ' (mission bottee), 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 ' refugies ' or ' refugees ' who took refuge in some land less in- hospitable than their own, so to escape the tender mercies of these missionaries. ' Convertisseur ' be- longs 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 use of ' roue ' throws light upon another curious and shameful page of French history. The ' roue,' a man now of profligate character and con- duct, 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 the Fourteenth. It was his miserable pride to gather round him companions worse, if possible, and wickeder than himself. These, FRENCH CONTRIBUTIONS. 245 as the Duke of S. Simon assures us, he was wont to call his ' roues ' ; every one of them abundantly deserving to be broken on the wheel— which was the punish- ment then reserved in France for the worst malefac- tors.* When we have learned the pedigree of the word, the man and the age rise up before us, glory- ing 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 : ' sansculotte,' ' incivisme,' ' terror- isme,' ' noyade,' ' guillotine,' 'lanterner.' 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 hefds, its crops, and all that belongs to it. The Communist insurrec- tion of 1 87 1 has bequeathed one contribution almost as ugly as itself, namely ' petroleuse,' to the lan- guage. But it would ill become us to look only abroad for examples in this kind, when perhaps an equal abund- ance might be found much nearer home. Words of * 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. 246 ON THE RISE OF NEW WORDS. 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 Revolution. " I may note," says one writing towards the end of the reign of Charles the Second, " 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." * 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 taken place. "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,' * 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 rae." COMIC WORDS. 247 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 a boasted civilization could give birth. Nor less must it be acknowledged that ' to ratten ' is not a pleasant acquisition which the language within the last few years has made. We must not count as new wofds properly so called, although they may delay us for a minute, those comic words, most often comic combinations formed at will, in which, 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 had no intention of fastening them permanently on the language. Thus Aristophanes coined fieXXoviKidco, to loiter like Nicias, with allusion to the delays with which this prudent commander sought to put off the disastrous Sicilian expedition, with other words not a few, fa- miliar to every scholar. The humor will sometimes consist in their enormous length,* sometimes in their mingled observance and transgression of the laws of the language, as in the SavcLQ>raTo<; of the Greek comic poet, the ' patruissimus ' and ' oculissimus,' comic superlatives of patruus and oculus, ' occisissi- mus ' of occisus ; ' dominissimus ' of dominus ; ' asin- issimo ' (Italian) of asino ; or in superlative piled on superlative, as in the ' ottimissimo ' of the same ; so As in the eLfupiirToKefiomjSyiaifrTpaTos of Eupolis • the inrep^ayopcu'o- KeKt9o\axat'on&\is of Aristophanes. 248 ON THE RISE OF NEW WORDS. 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,' ' ferri- creprinus' and the like ; will put together four or five lines consisting wholly of comic combinations thrown off for the occasion.* Of the same character is Chaucer's ' octogamy,' or eighth marriage ; Butler's ' cynarctomachy,' or battle of a dog and bear. Fuller, when he used ' to avunculize,' to follow in the steps of one's uncle, did not propose it as a lasting addition to the language ; Cowper his ' extraforan- eous ' and such like as little. 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 un- derstood 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 pro- nounced that it has attained to the limits of its growth, and must not henceforward presume to de- velop itself further. Even Bentley with all his vigor- ous 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."f But a language has a life, as • Persa, iv. 6, 20-23. f ^orks, vol. ii. p. 13. RESISTANCE TO NEW WORDS. 249 truly as a man, or as a tree. As a man, it must grow to its full stature ; unless indeed its life is pre- maturely 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>jt ; as a tree too it will continually, while it casts off some leaves, be putting forth others. And thus all such attempts have utterly failed, even when made under conditions the most favorable for success. The French Academy, numbering all or nearly all the most distinguished writers of France, once sought to exercise such a domination over thefr 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,' ' blagueur,' ' blaguer,' 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 favor 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 indif- ferent whether they received the Academy's seal of allowance or not.* * Nisard {Curiositls de PEtym. Franf.^. 195) has an article on 250 ON THE RISE OF NEW WORDS. A French scholar, who single-handed has given to the world a far better Dictionary than that upon which the Academy has bestowed the labor of more than two hundred years, shows a much juster appre- ciation 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 ' ; more- over it cannot be traced farther back than the year 1835 ; then first it appeared in a book, though it may have lived some while before on the lips of the people ; but already he has found room for it in the pages of his Dictionary ; so also for ' flaneur,' and for ' rococo,' with many more, having the same marks on them of a popular origin as have these. And with good right ; for though fashions may de- scend from the upper classes to the lower, words, such I mean as constitute' the most real additions to the wealth of a language, ascend from the lower to the higher ; and of these not a few, let the fastidious oppose or ignore them for awhile 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. If the world moves, language has no choice but to move with it.' these words, where with the epigrammatic neatness which so often marks French prose he says, Je regrette que I' Acadfemie repousse deson Dictionnaire les mots blague, blagueur, laissant gronder It sa porte ces fils effrontes du peuple, qui finiront par I'enfoncer. On the same mat- ter of the futility of struggling against popular usage in language Mon- taigne has said, " They that will fight custom with grammar are fools ; " Bnd, we may add, not less fools, as engaged in as hopeless a conflict, they that will fight it with dictionary. * One has well said, " The subject of language, the instrument, but LATE BIRTH OF NEW WORDS.' ' 25 1 Those who make attempts to close the door cjgainst 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 endeavor to enlarge it, had itself been gotten to- gether — namely by tliat 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 in- troduction 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 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 devel- opment induces a concurrent alteration or expansion in conversation and composition. New principles are generated, new authorities intro- duced; new terms for the purpose of explaining or concealing the con- duct 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 emo- tions 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 hus- band, and every alteration in circumstances, fortune or misfortune, health or sickness, prosperity or adversity, produces some correspond- ing change of speech or inflection of tone." 252 ON THE RISE OF NEW WORDS. ' favor,' a word in a little while after used by every- body, does it with an apology, evidently feels that he is introducing a questionable novelty ; ' 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.* ' 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 dis- tinctly informs us, by himself.t ^ '>^ When a word has proved an unquestionable gain, it is interesting to watch it as it first comes forth, timid, and doubtful of the reception it will meet with ; and the interest is much enhanced if it thus come forth on some memorable occasion, or from some memorable man. Both these interests meet in the word ' essay.' If it were demanded what is the most remarkable volume of essays which the world has seen, few, having sufficient oversight of the field of literature to be 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 wofd in the language, and in the use to which he put it, perfectly novel : he says — " To write just treatises requireth leisure in * On the new words in classical Latin, see Quintilian, Inst. viiL 3- 30-37- t ^o'il- 2. 7. PHILOSOPHER, RATIONALIST. 253 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 curi- ously, 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 expecta- tions 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 and so beautiful, was of his devising.* But while thus there are words which surprise us that they are so new, others surprise us that they are so old. Few, I should imagine, are aware that ' ra- tionalist,' 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 ' ration- alists ' 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 men- tions : " There is a new sect sprung up among them [the Presbyterians and Independents], and these are * Diogenes Laertius, Procem. § 12. 254 ON THE RISE OF NEW WORDS. the Rationalists, and what their reason dictates them in Church or State stands for good, until they be con- vinced with better ; " * with more to the same effect. ' Christology ' has been lately characterized as a mon- strous importation from Germany. I am quite of one mind with the remonstrant 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." + 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 * Clarendon State Papers, vol. ii. p. 40 of the Appendix. t Preface to Dr. Jackson's Works, vol. L p. xxvii. A work of Flem- ing's published in 1700, bears the title, Christology. NATURALIZATION OF WORDS. 2$$ 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. They 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 mis- giving 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 transform- ing process. Thus ' bishop,' a word as old as the introduction of Christianity into England, though not hiding its descent from ' episcopus,' is thoroughly English ; while ' episcopal,' which has supplanted ' bishoply,' is only a Latin word in an English dress. ' Alms,' too, is genuine English, and English which has descended to us from far ; the very shape in which we have the word, one syllable for ' elee- mosyna ' of six, sufficiently testifying this ; "letters/' as Home Tooke observes, " like soldiers, being apt to desert and drop off in a long march." The seven- syllabled and awkward * eleemosynary^ is of far more 2S6 ON THE RISE OF iTEW WORDS, 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 truly 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 ' kick- shaws ' anything about it now which would compel us at once to recognize in it the French ' quelques choses'* — ' French kickskose,' as with allusion to the quarter from which it came, and while the memory of that was yet fresh in men's mindsj 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 which is so often found in tracing their pedigree. When the causes vocum are sought, as they very fitly are, and out of much better than mere curiosity, for the causes 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 * " 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). FORGOTTEN DERIVATIONS. 25/ called, and interest about their etymology awakened, only after they had been long in popular use— foi that such should often give scope to idle guesses, should altogether refuse to give up their secret, is nothing strange— but they will not seldom perplex and baffle 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 is veiled in deepest obscurity. They emerge, they are in everybody's mouth ; but when it is enquired 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 passis 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,'* a word not nearly so old as himself. How much has been written about the origin of the German ' ketzer,' or heretic, which is still in debate, though there can scarcely be a doubt that we have the Cathari here ; while at the same time ' katze,' the devil under the shape of a cat, whom the heretics were reported in their secret assemblies to worship, * 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 Strafford's trial asked who that round- headed man was, meaning Mr. Pym, because he spake so strongly.". 258 ON THE RISE OF NEW WORDS. probably makes itself felt in the word. Hardly less has been disputed about the French ' cagot,' which however is pretty certainly ' canis,' or Provengal ' ca,' and ' Go/hicus,' this virtually excommunicated race being a real or supposed remnant among the Pyrenees of the refugee Gothic population of Spain. Is ' Lollard,' or ' LoUer ' as we read it in Chaucer, from ' lollen,' to chant? that is, does it mean the chanting 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,' which some have found in the name, these men being as fares among the wholesome wheat.* The origin of ' Huguenot,' as applied to the French Protestants, was already a matter of doubt and dis- cussion 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.t Had the 'Beguines' their name from a S. Begge, foundress of a religious corporation which" afterwards went by her name, or did their mendicant character express itself in this name which they bore ? Were the ' Waldenses ' so called from one Waldus, to whom these " Poor Men of Lyons," as they were at first called, owed their origin ? or should the word be more properly ' Vallenses,' the men of the Alpine valleys, the Dalesmen ? Of these alternatives the former appears to me as very certainly the right one ; but it is by no means so accepted by all. As little • Hahn, Ketzer im Mittelalter, vol. ii. p. 534. \ Mahn, Etymol. UiUersuch. p. 92. DERIVATIONS OF FAMILIAR TERMS. 259 can any one tell us with any certainty why the * Paulicians ' or the ' Paterines ' were severally named as they are ; or, to go a good deal further back, why the ' Essenes,' were so called.* From whence had Johannes Scotus, who anticipated so much of the pro- foundest thinking of latter ages, his title of ' Erigena,' and what did it mean ? t Or take some other Church matters. How perplexing are many of her most familiar terms and-terms the oftenest in her mouth, her ' Ember ' days ; her ' Collects ' ; | her ' Breviary ' ; her ' Whitsunday ' : "^ the derivation of ' Mass ' itself not being hfted above all question. || 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 enquiry began early. A father of the Greek Church, almost a contemporary of Constan. tine, can do no better than suggest that ' labarum ' is equivalent to ' laborum,' and that it was so called be- cause in that victorious standard was the end of * See Lightfoot, On the Colossians, p. 114 sqq. f Ueberweg, Gesch. d. Philosophic, vol. ii. p. 105. X See Freeman, Principles of Divine Service, vol. i. p. 145. § The medieval derivation vifas different from that which is generally current now, and has more to recommend it. Thus an early English poet : — " This day fF/Vsonday is cald, For wisdom and lait sevenfold Was goven to the apostles on this day ; For wise in alle thingis wer they ; To speke with-outen mannes lore Maner langage everi wher." J See Sci'damore, Notitia Eucharistica, p. 2. 26o ON THE RISE OF NEW WORDS. labor and toil (finis laborum) ! • The 'ciborium' of the early Church is an equal perplexity ; t and ' chapel ' (capella) not less. All recent investigations have failed to dissipate the mystery of the ' Sangraal.' And not in these Church matters only, but every- where, we meet with the same oblivion of the origin of words. The Romans, one might beforehand have assumed, could have no doubt why they called them- selves 'Quirites,' but it is manifest that they had much doubt. They could give, 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. * Germans ' and ' Germany ' were names comparatively recent when Tacitus wrote; but he owns that he has nothing trustworthy, to say of their history ; % later enquirers have as little. § In the middle ages we do not fare better. The derivation of words which are the very key to the understanding of those ages, is very often itself wrapt in obscurity. About ' fief and 'feudal' how much has been disputed. ] ' Morganatic ' marriages are recognized by the public law of Germany, but the etymology of ' morganatic ' is unsettled still. The Gypsies in German are ' Zigeuner ' ; but when this is * Mahn, Etym. Untersueh. p. 65; cf, Kurtz, KirchengescUchtt. 3rd edit. p. 115. \ The word is first met in Chrysostom, who calls the silver models of the temple at Ephesus (Acts xix. 24) \t.utfk letP^pn. X Germania, 2. § See Pott, Etym. Forsch. vol. ii. pt. 2, pp. 860-872. ] See Stubbs, Constitutional Histary of England^ voL i. p. 251- JEOPARDIES OF WORDS. 26 1 resolved into ' zieh-gauner,' or roaming thieves, the explanation has about as much scientific value as the not less ingenious explanation of ' Saturnus ' as satur annis,* of ' severitas ' as saeva Veritas (Agustine) ; of ' cadaver ' as composed of the first syllables of caro data, vermihas. Littrd does not adduce with any confidence the explanation commonly offered to us of the ' Salic ' law, namely, that it was the law which prevailed on the banks of the Saal. And the modern world has-unsolved riddles innu- merable of the same kind. Why was ' Canada ' so called ? Is ' Hottentot ' an African word or a Dutch ; and which, if any, of the explanations of it should be preferred ? t Shall we accept Humboldt's derivation of ' cannibal,' and find both ' Carib ' and ' canis ' in it ? Whence did the ' Chouans,' the insurgent royal- ists of Brittany, obtain their name ? Questions such as these might be multiplied without end. But consider now one or two words which have noi lost the secret of their origin, and note how easily they might do this, and having once lost, how un- likely it is that any searching would ever recover it. 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 manufac- tured in America and sold under this name. But suppose a change should take place in the country from which this cloth was brought, and that little by t — — — — — ■ * Cicero, JVa/. Dear. ii. 25. f See Transactions 0/ the Philological Society.^ 1866, pp. 6-25. 262 ON THE RISE OF NEW WORDS. little it was forgotten that it ever had been imported from America, who would then divine the secret of the word ? Or, again, if the tradition of the etymol- ogy of ' paraffin ' were once let go, it would, I imag- ine, never again be recovered. No 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 sub- stance. So, too, the derivation of ' licorice,' once lost, would scarcely be recovered. It woul4, exist, at the best, but as one guess among many. - „ Those which I cite are but a handful of examples of the way in which words forget, or under predis- posing conditions might forget, the circumstances of their birth. Now if we could believe in any merely arbitrary words standing in connection 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 labor to seek for the parentage of all words, when many pro- bably 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 some- thing ; if indeed this explanation of ' hidalgo ' may stand. All are embodiments, more or less success- ful, of a sensation, a thought, or a fact ; or if of more fortuitous birth, still they attach themselves some- where to the already subsisting world of words and /things,* and have their point of contact with it and * J. Grimm, in an interesting review of a little vftlume dealing with what the Spaniards call ' Germania,' the French ' argot,' and we ' Thieves' Language,' finds in this language the most decisive evidence PARENTAGE OF WORDS. ^ 263 departure from it, not always discoverable, as we see, but yet always existing.* And thus, when a word entirely refuses to tell us anything about itself, it must be regarded as a riddle which no one has suc- ceeded 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 often- times an impossibility — of tracing the genealogy even of words of a very recent formation, is, as I observed, an evidence of 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. of this fact {Klein. Schrift. vol. iv. p. 165) : Der nothwendige Zusam- menhang aller Sprache mit Ueberlieferang zeigt sich auch hier ; kaum ein Wort dieser Gaunermundart scheint leer erfunden, und Menschen eines Gelichters, das sich sonst kein Gewissen aus Liigen macht, bescha- men manchen Sprachphilosophen, der von Erdichtung einer allgemeinen Sprache getraumet hat. Van Helmont indeed, a sort of modern Para- celsus, is said to have invented ' 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. * Some will remember here the old Greek dispute, whether words were imposed on thmgs fleVei or i))iiir«, by arbitrary arrangement or by nature. We may boldly say with Bacon, Vestigia certe rationis verba sunt, and decide in favor of nature. If only they knew their own his- tory, they could always explain, and in most cases justify, their exis- tence. See some excellent remarks on this subject by Renan, De FOrigine du Langage, pp. 146-149 ; and an admirable article on 'Slang' in the Times, Oct. 18, 1864. 2(54 ON THE RISE OF NEW WORDS, There is, indeed, another way in which obscurity may rest on a new word, or a word employed in a new sense ; so that, while it offers no difficulty at all in its etymology, it may for all this offer difficulties in the application of that etymology almost or quite impossible to solve. 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 ques- tion here, and 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 enquire why certain books which the Church either set below the canonical Scriptures, or rejected altogether, were called ' apo- cryphal,' then a long and doubtful discussion com- mences. Was it because their origin was hidden to the early Fathers of the Church, and thus reasonable suspicions of their authenticity entertained ? * or be- cause they were mysteriously kept out of sight and hidden by the heretical sects which boasted them- selves 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 ? — for all these explanations have been offered, and none with such superiority of proof on its side as to have deprived the others of all • Augustine (De Civ. Dei, 15. 23) : Apocrypha nuncupantur eo quod eoriun occulta origo iion claruit Patribus. Cf. Con. Faust. H. 2. TRAGEDY, LEONINE. 2bS 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.* You know what leonine verses are ; or, if you do not, it is very easy to explain. They are Latin hexameters into which an inner rhyme has forced its way. The following, for example, are ' leonine ' : Qui ^m^t Jlorem non pingit floris odor em : Si quis det mannos, ne quaere in dentibus annos. The word has plainly to do with ' leo ' in some shape or other ; but are these verses so called from one Leo or Leolinus, who first composed them ? or be- cause, as the lion is king of beasts, so this, in monk- ish estimation, was the king of metres ? or from some other cause which none have so much as guessed at ? t It is a mystery which none has solved. That fright- ful 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 ' pen- nalism,' we can scarcely disconnect from 'penna'f while yet this does not help us to any effectual scat- tering of the mystery which rests upon the term. The connexion of ' dictator ' with ' dicere," dictare,* is manifest ; not so the reason why the dictator ob- * See Bentley, Works, vol. i. p. 337. f See my Sacred Latin Poetry, 3d edih p. 32. t See my Gustavus Adolplms in Germany, p. 131. 12 266 ON THE RISE OF NEW WORDS. tained his name. 'Sycophant' and 'superstition' are words, one Greek and one Latin, of the same character. No one can doubt 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 regained.* 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 that which 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 hfe ; 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 train- ing and elevating an ever-increasing number to enter * For a good recapitulation of all which has been written on ' super- stitio,' see Pott, Etym. Forschungen, 2nd ed. vol. ii, p. 921. LANGUAGE THE NUTRIMENT OF TlibUGHT. 267 into their meaning, till at length they have become truly a part of the nation's common stock, " house- hold words," used easily and intelligently by all. I cannot better conclude this lecture than by quot- ing a passage, one among many, which expresses with a rare eloquence all I have been laboring 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 quaUties 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 intel- lectual world, of those who have the key to the ancient storehouses, and who have accumulated treasures of their own, but the humblest enquirer, while he puts his reasonings into words, benefits by 268 ON THE RISE OF NEW WORDS. the labors 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 pos- session 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." BLACKBOARD EXERCISES. LECTURE V. ON THE RISE OF NEW WORDS. EXERCISE No, I. APPEARANCE OF NEW WORDS. I. Interesting and instructive. II. Necessary caution. 1. Identity of first rise and first appearance. 2. Approximate time of appearance. 3. Local habitation. III. Religious and ecclesiastical words. 1. "Christian." 2. " Trinity." 3. "Catholic." 4. " Canonical." 5. " New Testament." 6. " Gospels." 7. "Monk" and "Nun." ^ 8. " Transubstantiation." 9. " Limbo." IV. Historical and geographical names. 1. "Asia." 2. " India." 3. " Europe." 270 ON THE RISE OF NEW WORDS. 4. " Macedonia." S.'" Greeks." 6. "Germans." 7. "Franks." 8. " Normans." 9. " Italy," etc. V. Political and Scientific. 1. " Tyrant." 2. " Cosmos." VI. Rise of " christian." 1. Main facts. 2. Subordinate facts. 3. Lessons. EXERCISE No. II, PHENOMENA OF NEW WORDS. I. Cause: New moral and spiritual forces. 1 . There are cardinal epochs in history. 2. They demand new words. 3. They expand old words. II. Typical period: The christian era. 1. Its great novel truths required new forms. 2. It aSected^firsi the Latin and Greek. III. Typical regions of society : Greece and rome. A. Greece. 1. " Idolatry" and " Idolater." 2. " Theocracy." 3. Word for " Saviour." B. Rome. 1. Classical Latin had no word for " Saviour." 2. " Servator " insufficient. 3. " Sospitator" and " Salutificator " employed. 4. " Salvator " employed by St. Augustine. 5. " Infanticidium." IV. Each new reception of the word of life is similar. BLACKBOARD EXERCISES. 27 1 EXERCISE No. III. MINTS IN WHICH WORDS ARE COINED. I. New thoughts demand new words. 1. Advance of moral philosophy in Greece. 2. Rise of the " scholastic " theology. 3. Rise of the " mystic " theology. 4. Discoveries of modern science. II. Great movements bring new words. 1. Popular. 2. Theological. 3. Scientific. III. Individuals coin new words. 1. " Cosmopolite " coined by Diogenes. 2. Words coined by poets. IV. New necessities create new words. 1. Discovery of gold. 2. Diplomacy. 3. Contact with the East. 4. Assimilation in language. 5. Change of functions : (a.) "Singer" and "poet." (b.) "Physician." EXERCISE No. IV. COINAGE OF WORDS. I. Wants detected by comparison. II. Wants supplied from other tongues. 1. "Apathy." 2. " Indolentia." III. Cicero as a mint-master. I. " Invidentia." IV. Unsuccessful coinages. 1. " Vitiositas." 2. " Indigentia." 3. " Mulierositas." 272 ON THE RISE OF NEW WORDS. 4. "Beatitas." 5. " Esemplastic." 6. Taylor's, Browne's, and More's words. EXERCISE No. V. COMPREHENSIVE WORDS. I. Facilitate mental processes. 1 . By saving words. 2. By making thought practicable. II. Serve as bills of exchange. 1. Analogy between coins and words. 2. Words like bills — much in little. (a.) " Isothermal." (*.) "Atavism." (c.) " Papable." (d.) " Antistrophic." {e.) " Circle." III. Abridge labor. IV. Make further triumphs possible. EXERCISE No. VI. CAUSES OF THE BIRTH OF WORDS. I. Novel objects demand new names. 1. Imported names : " Potato " and " batata." 2. Transferred names. (a.) " Kartoffel " and " tartiiffel." (b.) " Tartufo " and " bianco." (c.) " Apple of the earth." (.) Decreases with age. 2. Method of assimilation. (a.) Early words amalgamated. {b.) Later words lie on the surface. BLACKBOARD EXERCISES. 275 3. Comparisons. (a.) " Bishop" and "episcopal." (d.) " Alms "-and " eleemosynary." (c.) " Palsy " and " paralysis." 4. Naturalized words. (a.) "Dropsy." ib.) " Quinsy." {c.) "Megrim." (d.) "Surgeon." (e.) "Tansy." (/.) "Dittany." (g.) "Daflfodil." (h.) " Kickshaws." [i.) "Squirrel." (J-) "Rickets." 11. Popular origin of words. 1. Birth mysterious. 2. Origin soon obscured. {a.) "Roundhead." (b.) "Ketzer." ic.) "Cagot." (d.) " Lollard." («.) " Huguenot." (/.) "Beguines." ig.) " Waldenses." (k.) " Paulicians," etc. EXERCISE No. X. LOST DERIVATIONS. I. Scholastic: "Erigena." II. In church matters. 1. " 'Ember' days." 2. "Collects." 3. " Breviary." 4. " Whitsunday." 276 ON THE RISE OF NEW WORDS. s- " Mass." 6. " Labarum." 7- " Ciborium." III. 8. "Chapel." 9. "Sangraal." In national matters. I. 2. " Quirites." " Province." 3- " Germans." 4- " Fief" and " feudal" 5- 6. 7. " Morganatic." " Zigeuner." " Salic." IV. Modern riddles. I. " Canada." 2. " Hottentot." 3- " Cannibal." 4- " Chouans." EXERCISE No. XI. JEOPARDIES AND PECULIARITIES OF WORDS. I. Words which might easily lose the secret op their origin. 1. "Merkani." 2. " Paraffin." 3. " Licorice." II. Peculiarities of words. 1. Not arbitrary signs. 2. Embodiments of (a.) Sensation. (6.) Thought. {c.) Fact. 3. Attached to the already subsisting world. 4. Difficult genealogy proof of popular origin. 5. Their purpose and intention may be lost. BLACKBOARD EXERCISES. 2/7 (a.) "Apocryphal." {d.) "Tragedy." (<:.) " Leonine." (d.) "Pennalism." (e.) "Dictator." (/.) " Sycophant." {£■.) "Superstition." •■"? in. Conclusion of the lecture. . \ 1. " HousehoH words." 2. Language the nutriment of thought. QUESTIONS. lecture v. On the Rise of New Words. How is the rise of words made interesting and instructive? What might be written on this subject ? With what is the appearance of a new word compared ? What caution is necessary ? What is said of the identity of the first rise of a word and its appearance to us ? What can be said of other words ? What is true of modern words ? Give examples of the rise of religious and ecclesiastical words. Of words belonging to the monastic system. Also of words witnessing the consolidation of errors in the Church. Tell when each appeared. Mention some historical and geographical terms. When did they first appear ? What is said of " tyrant " and " tyranny" ? " Cosmos" ? Where was the.name " Christian " given ? By whom was it imposed ? What is in agreement with this view ? How do we know that the Jews did not give the name? What was Antioch ? What had the faithful been called hitherto ? What was evident from the name " Christians " ? QUESTIONS. 279 With what is the rise of the name connected ? What did the rise of the name mark ? What was the reputation of the Antiochenes in reference to nicknames ? What is the principal cause of the birth of words ? What is the result of such epochs ? How is language compared to a river? What did spiritual truths demand of heathen tongues ? What was the result ? Illustrate with the word " idolatry." When did the word appear ? What is said of the heathen deities ? What is said of the word " theocracy " ? Where did these difficulties reappear ? Give an example of the difficulty and how it was overcome. What was the nature of the Greek word for "saviour"? With what compared ? What would have been the natural word in Latin ? What was the signification of "servator"? Why insuffi- cient ? What two other words were defective ? Who disposed of the difficulty ? By what argument ? What other words do we owe to the Christian Latin ? Give their meaning and derivation. What is said of infanticidium ? What does the unfolding of seminal truths require ? What movements are mentioned as demanding extensions of language ? What is true of some of the words to which these gave birth ? What of others ? What is the character of words born of a popular movement ? What where it is theological, scientific, or philosophical ? What exceptions to this rule ? The nature of the exceptions ? What would we naturally infer in reference to " cosmopo- lite " ? Who coined it ? Under what circumstances ? What does the word suggest ? Who is a word maker by right of his name ? Why does he 28o ON THE RISE OF NEW WORDS. coin words ? In what mood ? How does he deal with old words ? With new ? What is the effect of new necessities on language ? What is said of the discovery of gold ? Illustrate. What is said of diplomacy ? Give examples. How has contact with the East affected language ? What is said of " assimilation" and " dissimilation" ? Give examples of assimilation by change of letters ? What is the opposite process ? Mention some examples of the exchange of letters. Mention some Italian and German preferences. Define dissimilation. What is said of the words " singer " and " poet " ? " Phy- sician " ? How are wants detected in language ? How are they supplied ? What is the advantage of acquaintance with, other languages? What was found necessary in transplanting the Greek phi- losophy in Italy ? Give examples. What is said of the detection of the omission of words by in- dividuals ? Give an account of " invidentia." Why did Cicero coin it ? Who invented " vocalitas " ? What is true of the acceptance of words ? Mention some of Cicero's unsuccessful words. What is the history of "beatitude " ? " esemplastic " ? What other word coiners are mentioned ? What does Ben Jonson say about neologists ? Why are comprehensive words valuable ? How compared with mopey ? How likened to a river ? How is science bene- fited? Illustrate by " isothermal " ; "papable"; " antistro- phic " : " circle." What is true of the progress of nomenclature ? Words, how like tools ? What is said of novel objects of interest ? QUESTIONS. 281 Illustrate with " potato." How \yas it named in German? In Italy ? France ? What is said of two names existing side by side ? Illustrate with " pineapple" and "anana." Give the history of "alligator"; "alcoran"; "lierre"; " lingot" ; " lendemain " ; " La Pouille " ; " La Natolie," etc. What other causes produce words " Whjit does Tacitus tell us ? What gave birth to " delator " ? What words were bequeathed by the " booted mission" ? Give the history of " refugee " ; also, " convertisseur." Give an account of ""rouA" What words were contributed by the French Revolution ? :^y the French conquests in North Africa ? By the Commu- nist insurrection of 187 1 ? When did ' ' mob " have its birth ? Where first used ? What was foretold in the Spectator ? To what do we owe " to burke " and " to ratten " ? What is said of comic words and combinations ? For what are they invented ? What is their destiny ? What word was coined by Aristophanes ? In what does the humor of comic words sometimes consist ?v Give examples. What is said of Plautus ? Chaucer ? Butler ? Fuller ? Cow- per ? What has been tried by those who do not understand language? How is Bentley at fault ? What is the true character of language ? What did the French Academy attempt to do ? With what result ? What is said of " gamin " ? " Flineur " ? " Rococo " ? What is the law of language ? Give the substance of the note on this topic ? What is forgotten by those who resist new words ? What do we take for granted, and why ? How did Cicero employ " favor"? " Urbanus " ? Who first used " obsequium " ? 282 ON THE RISE OF NEW WORDS. What is said of " soliloquium " ? What is interesting in the reception of words ? Illustrate with the word " essay." How did it resemble " philosopher " ? How do words surprise us ? Illustrate with " rationalist " ; " Christology." What is said of the assimilation of words ? When are most words adopted ? What is true of later adoptions ? What of the form of adoption ? How is this illustrated by "bishop"? "Alms"? In words having two forms ? Of what descent are they ? Give the derivation of " kickshaws." What is true t)f the pedigree of words ? When is this true ? What is said of the rapid loss of the origin of words ? How illustrated by " Roundhead " ? " Ket- zer" ? " Cagot " ? " Lollard " ? " Huguenot " ? " Beguines " ? " Waldenses " ? By Church words ? By " labarum " ? " Ci- borium " ? " Chapel " ? " Sangraal " ? What is true of'the Roman words " Quirites " and " pro- vince " ? Of " Germans " and " Germany " ? What examples are furnished by the middle ages ? By the modern world ? Give examples of, words which might easily lose their origin. Under what circumstances would difficulty of tracihg deriva- tions not be strange ? How are words like the Spanish gentleman ? Of what are they the embodiment ? How must we regard unsolved word-problems ? What is difficult genealogy an evidence of ? Why ? What is said of hidden purpose and intention in words ? Illustrate with " apocryphal." What four different views are held concerning this word ? What is true of " tragedy " ? " Leonine " ? " Pennalism " ? "Dictator"? "Sycophant"? "Superstition"? What is affirmed of words and our relations to them ? What of popular household words ? Give the substance of the quotation from Whewell. ADDITIONAL WORDS FOR ILLUSTRATION. LECTURE V. On the Rise of New Words. 1. Anecdote. 2. Baccalaureate. 3. Calumet.-. 4. Czar. 5. Carnival. 6. Caucus. 7. Cockney. 8. Coincidence. 9. Coroner. 10. Farce. 11. Hammock. 12. Health. 13. Hegira. 14. Hocus-pocus. 15. Humbug. 16. Inaugurate. 17. Inculcate. 18. Infidel. 19. Iiisolen^e. 20. Namby-pamby. 21. News. 22. Nickname. 23. Nuisance. 24. Organum. 25. Oscillation. 26. Paraphernalia. 27. Plagiarism. "28. Platonic. 29. Polka. 30. Proxy. 31. Querulous. 32. Quiz. 33. Ravenous. 34. Reliable. 35. Rostrum. 36. Rust. 37. School. 38. Schooner. 39. Scrutiny. 40. Shammy. 41. Sharper. 42. Speculation. 43. Smock. 44. Squaw. 45. Starvation. 46. Taboo. 47. Treacle. 48. Utopia. 49. Wiseacre. 50. Zounds. 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 my present lecture has to do. 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 differ- ences — these differences being such as either originally and on the ground of their etymology, inhered in them ; or differences which they have by usage ac- quired ; 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 words of hke significance in the main, but with a certain unlikeness as well ; with very much in com- mon, but also with something private and particular, which they do not share with one another.* • 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,' Racket ' synonymum,' and Milton (in the plural) ' synonyma.' On the subject of this chapter see Marsh, Lectures on the English Language, New York, i860, p. 571, sqq. WORDS NEVER EXACTLY SYNONYMOUS. 285 So soon as the term 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 fulfil these conditions in respect of 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 ; cir- cles, so to speak, with the same centre and the same circumference. The terms, however, are not ordi- narily so used ; they evidently are not so by such as undertake to trace out the distinction between syno- nyms ; for, without venturing to deny that there may be such perfect synonyms, words, that is, with this absolute coincidence, yet these could not be the objects of any such discrimination ; since, where no real distinction exists, it would be lost labor and the exercise of a perverse ingenuity to attempt to draw one out. There are, indeed, those who affirm that words in one language are never exactly synonymous, 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 some- thing different, in one as compared witk the other, which hinders this complete identity. 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 dis- posed to consider other exceptions to this assertion 286 ON THE DISTINCTION OF WORDS. 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 ex- tends 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 of a certain dis- trict, larger or smaller, from the vast outfield of thought or fact, and in this a bringing of it into human cultivation, a rescuing of it for human uses ? But how extremely unlikely it is that nations, draw- ing quite independently of one another these lines of enclosure, should draw them in all or most cases ex- actly in the same direction, neither narrower nor wider ; how inevitable, on the contrary, that very often the lines should not coincide — and this, even supposing no moral forces at work to disturb the fall- ing 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 trans- lator 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 labor, no skill, no genius, no mastery of one lan- guage or oft 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 'Trans- DIFFICULTIES OF TRANSLATION. 28/ latorsj 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. How often in the translation of Holy Scripture from the language in which it was first delivered into some other which ofifers more words than one where- by some all-important word in the original record should 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 se- lected, it will be found that the treasure of God's thought has been committed to an earthen vessel, and one of which the 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 be permanently lowering or confusing the whole spir- itual life of a people, by choosing a meaner and let- ting 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. 288 ON THE DISTINCTION OF WORDS. 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 translators 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 subject is, or was lately, carried on ; but we can all feel how vital the question, how enormous the inter- ests at stake ; while, not less, having heard the alle- gations on the one side and on the other, we must own that there is only an alternative of difficulties here. To come nearer home. At the Reformation, when Latin was more or less the language of theology, how earnest a controversy raged round the word of the Greek Testament which we have rendered 'repent- ance ' ; whether ' poenitentia ' should be allowed to stand, hallowed by long usage as it was, or ' resipis- centia,' as many of the Reformers preferred, should be substituted in its room ; and how much there was which on either side might be urged. Not otherwise, at an earher date, ' Sermo ' and ' Verbum ' contended for the honor of rendering the ' Logos ' of St. John ; though here there can be no serious doubt on which side the advantage lay. But this of the relation of words in one language to words in another, and of all the questions which may SYNONYMS DESCRIBED. 289 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, I must leave this subject, and limit myself in this Lecture to a compar- ison between words, not in different languages, but in the same. Synonyms, then, as the term is generally under- stood, and as I shall proceed to use it, are words in the same language with slight differences either al- ready established between them, or potentially sub- sisting in them. They are not on the one side words absolutely identical, for such, as has been said al- ready, afford no room for discrimination, but neither on the other side 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 con- founded ; but who would think of so doing between scarlet and green ? or again between covetousness and avarice ; while it would be idle and superfluous to do the same for covetousness and pride. They must be words which are more or less liable to confu- sion, but which yet ought not to be confounded ; as one has said, " quse conjungi, non confundi, de- bent ;" in which there originally inhered a difference, or between which, though once absolutely identical, such has gradually grown up, and so established it- 13 290 ON THE DISTINCTION OF WORDS. self in the use of the best writers, and in the instinct of the best speakers of the tongue, that it claims to be openly acknowledged 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 ety- mology, nor by any other deep-lying cause, but only by usage? Now if languages had been made by agree- ment, 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 lan- -guages are the result of processes very different from, and far less formal and regular than, this. 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 com- mon stock. Thus the French possesses many syno^: nyms from the langue d'Oc and langue d' Oil, each having contributed its word for one and the same thing, as ' ^tre ' and ' foyer,' both for hearth. Some- times 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 dia- lectic variations of the same word ; ' puteo ' and ' foeteo ' are the same ; just as in German, ' odem ' and ' athem ' were only 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 languag(6 ; nay, being few in number, they find them- IMPORTATION OF SYNONYMS. 291 selves at last compelled to adopt the language of the conquered ; yet not so but that a certain compromise between the two languages find place. One carries the day, but on the condition that it shall admit as naturalized denizens a vast 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. There 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, how- ever, receive the stamp of popular allowance to create embarrassment for awhile, 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 ' trick,' ' de- vice,' ' finesse,' ' artifice,' and ' stratagem,' and re- 292 ON THE DISTINCTION OF WORDS. mind you of the various sources from which we have drawn them. Here ' trick ' is Saxon, ' devisa ' is Italian, 'finesse' is French, ' artificium ' is Latin, and ' 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 signifying 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 claim- ing to find utterance in words, it is a wanton extrava- gance to expend two or more signs on that which could adequately be set forth by one — an extrava- gance 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 will wholly want one ade- quate sign, because another has two.* Hereupon * We have a memorable example of this in the history of the great controversy of the Church with the Arians. In the first stages of this, the upholders of the Catholic faith used oiirla and im6