ON THE 
 STUDY OF WORDS 
 
 
The English Library. 
 
 UNIFORM WITH THIS VOLUME. 
 
 How to Read English Literature: Chaucer to Milton. By 
 
 LAURIE MAGNUS, M.A. 
 How to Read English Literature: Dryden to Meredith. By 
 
 LAURIE MAGNUS, M.A. 
 
 Introductions to the Poets. By F. W. RAWNSLEY, M.A., con- 
 taining brief biographies, history of the principal works 
 
 and selected examples. 
 Documents Illustrating Elizabethan Poetry (Sidney's, Putten- 
 
 ham's, and Webbe's Treatises). Edited with modernized 
 
 spelling, by LAURIE MAGNUS, M.A. 
 First English Translations cf the Great Foreign Classics. A 
 
 supplement to Text Books of English Literature, arranged 
 
 in dictionary form. By W. J. HARRIS. 
 The Principles and Practice of Punctuation. By T. F. HUS- 
 BAND, M.A. 
 On the Study of Words. By Archbishop R. C. TRENCH. Edited, 
 
 with Additions, Emendations, and Index, by Dr. A. 
 
 SMYTHE PALMER. 
 English, Past and Present By Archbishop R. C. TRENCH. 
 
 Edited, with Additions, Emendations, and Index, by 
 
 Dr. A. SMYTHE PALMER. 
 Proverbs and their Lessons. By Archbishop R. C. TRENCH. 
 
 With Notes, Bibliography, and Index, by Dr. A. SMYTHE 
 
 PALMER. 
 Select Glossary of English Words : used formerly hi senses 
 
 different from their present. By Archbishop TRENCH. 
 
 Edited by Dr. A. SMYTHE PALMER. 
 Curios from a Word-Collector's Cabinet. By Dr. A. SMYTHS 
 
 PALMER. 
 
 The Folk and their Word-Lore : an Essay on Popular Etymolo- 
 gies. By Dr. A. SMYTHE PALMER. 
 Our Debt to Antiquity. By Prof. ZIELINSKI, University of 
 
 St. Petersburg. A Series of Lectures on the Importance 
 
 of Classical Study in Schools. 
 
ON THE 
 STUDY OF WORDS 
 
 BY 
 
 RICHARD CHENEVIX TRENCH, D.D 
 
 EDITED WITH EMENDATIONS BY 
 
 A. SMYTHE PALMER, D.D 
 
 Author of " Folk- Etymology" " Tht Folk and Thtir 
 Word-Lore" etc 
 
 LONDON 
 
 GEORGE ROUTLEDGE & SONS LIMITED 
 NEW YORK : E. P. DUTTON & CO 
 
First published in THE ENGLISH LIBRARY, at 2$. 6d. t 
 Jan. 1905. 
 
 Reprinted, at 2s. 6d. and is. 6d. t Nov. 1909. 
 Nov. 1910. 
 
 .-. /w. 1913. 
 
 "Language is the armoury of the human 
 mind, and at once contains the trophies of its 
 past, and the weapons of its future, conquests." 
 
EDITOR'S PREFACE 
 
 THE copyright of the tenth edition of Archbishop 
 Trench's Study of Words having expired 
 through lapse of time, it seemed to the publishers 
 that a new and revised edition, at a popular 
 price, of what is now become an English classic, 
 would prove a boon to the large and ever-growing 
 circle of readers who take an intelligent interest in 
 the growth and history of their mother tongue. 
 
 When we look back to the time now more 
 than half a century ago when these chapters 
 were first delivered as lectures to the students of 
 the Winchester Training College, we can perceive 
 what a ' path-making ' piece of work he then 
 achieved. The popular treatises then current 
 on English etymology were Home Tooke's 
 Divisions of Pur ley and Charles Richardson's 
 Study of Language. In the English dictionary 
 of the latter English lexicography had reached its 
 high-water mark ; wherein indeed might be found 
 a well-plenished storehouse of quotations piled 
 together somewhat at random, but its etymo- 
 logical part a mere undigested rechauffe of all the 
 old unscientific guess-work of Verstegan, Minsheu, 
 Skinner, Junius, et hoc genus omn*. The author 
 
 3960 
 
vi Editor's Preface 
 
 thus laboured under the disadvantage of writing 
 on linguistic subjects at a time when the science 
 of language had hardly as yet gained a footing in 
 this country. Nevertheless, such were his scholarly 
 instincts and soundness of judgment that he 
 seldom goes far wrong, and we rather marvel that 
 there is so little in his admirable lectures that 
 needs correction. All that seemed required in this 
 way has been added in the notes and placed 
 within square brackets to distinguish it from the 
 original annotations. No alterations have been 
 made in the text. It might seem presumptuous 
 for one who is proud to call the great Archbishop 
 his master, and was first imbued with a taste for 
 such studies by reading the very book which 
 he now ventures to edit, that he should take it on 
 himself to revise the conclusions of so eminent a 
 scholar. It must be remembered, however, that 
 etymological discovery has made immense strides 
 during the last few decades, and that the author 
 of The Study of Words has himself largely helped 
 to supply the means for such revision and emen- 
 dation by having initiated that great Lexicon 
 Totius Anglicitatis, The New English Dictionary, 
 the ground-plan of which was outlined by his 
 hand. That monumental work, so ably carried 
 into effect by Dr. Murray, Mr. Bradley and their 
 assistants, must ever remain the ultimate court 
 of appeal when any points of English philology 
 are in question. 1 I have so used it, as I am 
 sure the Archbishop himself would have done ; for 
 though himself " the first scholar in Europe " (as a 
 
 1 In one instance, however, I have had the hardihood to dissent 
 from this high authority (see p. 53). 
 
Editor's Preface vii 
 
 contemporary pronounced him) he was ever learn- 
 ing to the end of his life, and ever correcting and 
 adding to his published works. I well remember 
 seeing an interleaved copy of the present work 
 lying open on his table, in which from time to 
 time he used to enter the results of his later ac- 
 quisitions and more mature judgments. None 
 could draw a lesson or enforce a moral from the 
 teaching of a word with such wisdom and insight 
 as the Archbishop. He is here altogether un- 
 rivalled. And apart from the value of his ety- 
 mologies, the all-pervading charm of his chaste 
 and dignified style, which could invest even com- 
 monplaces with a grace of its own, will prevent 
 his works ever being superseded as out-of-date. 
 In the judgment of the Editor, the present gener- 
 ation, if they desire to enter upon the most inter- 
 esting of all studies, the Study of Words, wherever 
 else they may complete it, cannot begin better 
 than by putting themselves under the guidance 
 of Archbishop Trench. 
 
 A. SMYTHE PALMER. 
 HERMON HILL, S. WOODFORD. 
 
AUTHOR'S 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 originally intended, and to whom they were 
 primarily addressed. I am conscious indeed, here 
 and there, of a certain departure from my first 
 intention, having been in part seduced to this by a 
 circumstance which I had not in the least contem- 
 plated when I obtained permission to deliver them, 
 by finding, namely, that I should have other hearers 
 besides the pupils of the Training School. Some 
 matter adapted for those rather than for these I 
 was thus led to introduce which afterwards I was 
 unwilling, in preparing for the press, to remove ; 
 on the contrary adding to it rather, in the hope of 
 obtaining thus a somewhat wider circle of readers 
 than I could have hoped, had I more rigidly re- 
 stricted myself in the choice of my materials. Yet 
 I should greatly regret to have admitted so much 
 of this as should deprive these lectures of their 
 fitness for those whose profit in writing and in 
 publishing I had mainly in view, namely, school- 
 masters and those preparing to be such. 
 
x Author's Preface to the First Edition 
 
 Had I known any book entering with any ful 
 ness, 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 sub- 
 ject is one to which it is beyond measure desirable 
 that their attention, who are teaching, or shall have 
 hereafter to teach, others should be directed ; so 
 that they shall learn to regard language as one of 
 the chiefest organs of their own education and that 
 of others. For I am persuaded that I have used 
 no exaggeration in saying, that for many a young 
 man " his first discovery that words are living 
 powers, has been like the dropping of scales from 
 his eyes, like the acquiring of another sense, or the 
 introduction into a new world," while yet all this 
 may be indefinitely deferred, may, indeed, never 
 find place at all, unless there is some one at hand 
 to help for him, and to hasten the process ; and he 
 who so does, will ever after be esteemed by him 
 as one of his very foremost benefactors. Whatever 
 may be 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 intellectual life has been his first acquain- 
 tance 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 
 
Author's Preface to the First Edition xi 
 
 he so often himself weighed words in the balances, 
 and so earnestly pressed upon all with whom his 
 voice went for anything, the profit which they 
 would find in so doing. Nor, with the certainty 
 that I am anticipating much in my little volume, 
 can I refrain from quoting some words which were 
 not present with me during its composition, al- 
 though I must have been familiar with them long 
 ago ; words which express excellently well why it 
 is that these studies profit so much, and which will 
 also explain the motives which induced me to add 
 my little contribution to their furtherance : 
 
 " A language will often be wiser, not merely 
 than the vulgar, but even than the wisest of those 
 who speak it. Being like amber in its efficacy to 
 circulate the electric spirit of truth, it is also like 
 amber in embalming and preserving the relics of 
 ancient wisdom, although one is not seldom puzzled 
 to decipher its contents. Sometimes it locks up 
 truths, which were once well known, but which, in 
 the course of ages, have passed out of sight and 
 been forgotten. In other cases it holds the germs 
 of truths, of which, though they were never plainly 
 discerned, the genius of its f ramers caught a glimpse 
 in a happy moment of divination. A meditative 
 man cannot refrain from wonder, when he digs down 
 to the deep thought lying at the root of many a 
 metaphorical term, employed for the designation of 
 spiritual things, even of those with regard to which 
 professing philosophers have blundered grossly ; 
 and often it would seem as though rays of truths, 
 which were still below the intellectual horizon, had 
 dawned upon the imagination as it was looking up 
 to k<eayen. Hence they who feel an inward call to 
 
xii Author's Preface to the First Edition 
 
 teach and enlighten their countrymen, should deem 
 it an important part of their duty to draw out the 
 stores of thought which are already latent in their 
 native language, to purify it from the corruptions 
 which Time brings upon all things, and from which 
 language has no exemption, and to endeavour to 
 give distinctness and precision to whatever in it is 
 confused, or obscure, or dimly seen " Guesses at 
 Truth, First Series, p. 295. 
 
ON 
 THE STUDY OF WORDS 
 
 INTRODUCTION 
 
 THERE are few who would not readily acknowledge 
 that mainly in worthy books are preserved and 
 hoarded the treasures of wisdom and knowledge 
 which the world has accumulated ; and that chiefly 
 by aid of 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 acknow- 
 ledge, nor yet in connected oral discourse, but 
 often also in words contemplated singly, there are 
 boundless stores of moral and historic truth, and 
 no less of passion and imagination, laid up that 
 from these, lessons of infinite worth may be de- 
 rived, if only our attention is roused to their 
 existence. I shall urge on you (though with teach- 
 ing 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 repay you far better than you can easily 
 believe. I am sure, at least, that for many a 
 young man his first discovery of the fact that 
 words are living powers, are the vesture, yea, even 
 the body, which thoughts weave for themselves, 
 has been like the dropping of scales from his eyes, 
 like the acquiring of another sense, or the intro- 
 duction into a new world ; he is never able to 
 S.w. x B 
 
2 Introduction 
 
 cease wondering at the moral marvels that sur- 
 round him on every side, and ever reveal them- 
 selves 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 ignor- 
 ance leads us to admire that which with fuller 
 insight w r e 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 mind, even as some 
 traveller passes unmoved over fields of fame, or 
 through cities of ancient renown unmoved, be- 
 cause utterly unconscious of the lofty deeds which 
 there have been wrought, of the great hearts which 
 spent themselves there. We, like him, wanting 
 the knowledge and insight which would have 
 served to kindle admiration in us, are oftentimes 
 deprived of this pure and elevating excitement of 
 the mind, and miss no less that manifold teaching 
 and instruction which ever lie about our path, and 
 nowhere more largely than in our daily words, if 
 
Introduction 3 
 
 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 en- 
 tering 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, origin, and distinction of words, 
 which is exactly that which I now propose to my- 
 self and to you. I remember a very learned scho- 
 lar, to whom we owe one of our best Greek lexicons, 
 a book which must have cost him years, speaking 
 in the preface to his great work with, a just disdain 
 of some, who complained of the irksome drudgery 
 of such toils as those which had engaged him so 
 long thus irksome, forsooth, because they only 
 had to do with words ; of them who claimed pity 
 for themselves, as though they had been so many 
 galley-slaves chained to the oar, or martyrs who 
 had offered themselves to the good of the literary 
 world. He declares that, for his part, the task of 
 classing, sorting, grouping, comparing, tracing the 
 derivation and usage of words, had been to him no 
 drudgery, but a delight and labour of love. 
 
 And if this may be true in regard of a foreign 
 tongue, how much truer ought it to be in regard 
 
4 Introduction 
 
 of our own, of our ' mother tongue/ as we affec- 
 tionately call it. A great writer not very long de- 
 parted from us has borne witness at once to the 
 pleasantness and profit of this study. " In a lan- 
 guage/' he says, " like ours, where so many words 
 are derived from other languages, there are few 
 modes of instruction more useful or more amusing 
 than that of accustoming young people to seek for 
 the etymology or primary meaning of the words 
 they use. There are cases in which more know- 
 \ ledge of more value may be conveyed by the his- 
 tory of a word than by the history of a campaign." 
 And, implying the same truth, a popular Ameri- 
 can author has somewhere characterized language 
 as " fossil poetry." * He evidently means that just 
 as in some fossil, curious and beautiful shapes of 
 vegetable or animal life, the graceful fern or the 
 finely vertebrated lizard, such as now, it may be, 
 have been extinct for thousands of years, are per- 
 manently bound up with the stone, and rescued 
 from that perishing which would have otherwise 
 been theirs so in words are beautiful thoughts 
 and images, the imagination and the feeling of 
 past ages, of men long since in their graves, of 
 men whose very names have perished, 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 convictions of the moral common sense, as of 
 * [Emerson, Works (Routledge), p. 86.] 
 
Introduction 5 
 
 the imagination or passion of men ; even as, so far 
 as that moral sense may be perverted, they will 
 bear witness and keep a record of that perversion. 
 On all these points I shall enter at full in after 
 lectures ; but I may give by anticipation a speci- 
 men 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 cus- 
 toms, traditions, and beliefs. Many a single word 
 also is itself a concentrated poem, having stores of 
 poetical thought and imagery laid up in it. Ex- 
 amine it, and it will be found to rest on some deep 
 analogy of things natural and things spiritual ; 
 bringing those to illustrate and to give an abiding 
 form and body to these. The image may have 
 grown trite and ordinary now ; perhaps through 
 the help of this very word may have become so 
 entirely the heritage of all, as to seem little better 
 than a commonplace ; yet not the less he who first 
 discerned the relation, and devised the new word 
 which should express it, or gave to an old, never 
 before but literally used, this new and figurative 
 sense, this man was in his degree a poet a maker, 
 that is, of things which were not before, which 
 would not have existed but for him, or for some 
 other gifted with equal powers. He who spake 
 first of a ' dilapidated ' fortune, what an image must 
 have risen up before his mind's eye of some falling 
 house or palace, stone detaching itself from stone, 
 till all had gradually sunk into desolation and ruin. 
 Or he who to that Greek word which signifies " that 
 
6 Introduction 
 
 which will endure to be held up to and judged by 
 the sunlight," gave first its ethical signification of 
 ' sincere/ ' truthful/ or as we sometimes say, ' trans- 
 parent/ 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, be- 
 fore one called them ' sierras ' or ' saws/ the name 
 by which now they are known, as Sierra Morena, 
 Sierra Nevada ; but that man coined his imagina- 
 tion into a word which will endure as long as the 
 everlasting hills which he named. 
 
 But it was said just now that words often con- 
 tain a witness for great moral truths God having 
 impressed such a seal of truth upon language, that 
 men are continually uttering deeper things than 
 they know, asserting mighty principles, it may be 
 asserting them against themselves, in words that 
 to them may seem nothing more than the current 
 coin of society. Thus to what grand moral pur- 
 poses Bishop Butler turns the word ' pastime ' ; 
 how solemn the testimony which he compels the 
 world, out of its own use of this word, to render 
 against itself obliging it to own that its amuse- 
 ments and pleasures do not really satisfy the mind 
 and fill it with the sense of an abiding and satisfy- 
 ing joy ; t they are only ' pastime ' ; they serve 
 
 , as if examined (Kpivw) in the light 
 of the sun, and so pure, sincere, like Ken's " conscience 
 as the noon-day clear."]. 
 
 f Sermon xiv. Upon the Love of God. Curiously 
 enough, Montaigne has, in his Essays, drawn the same 
 testimony out of the word : " This ordinary phrase of 
 Past-time, and passing away the time, represents the 
 custom of those wise sort of people, who think they cannot 
 have a better account of their lives, than to let them 
 
Introduction 7 
 
 only, as this word confesses, to pass away the time, 
 to prevent it from hanging, an intolerable burden, 
 on men's hands ; all which they can do at the best 
 is to prevent men from discovering and attending 
 to their own internal poverty and dissatisfaction 
 and want. He might have added that there is the 
 same acknowledgment in the word ' diversion,' 
 which means no more than that which diverts or 
 turns us aside from ourselves,* and in this way 
 helps us to forget ourselves for a little. And thus 
 it would appear that, even according to the world's 
 own confession, all which it proposes is not to 
 make us happy, but a little to prevent us from 
 remembering that we are unhappy, to pass away 
 our time, to divert us from ourselves. While on 
 the other hand we declare that the good which will 
 really fill our souls and satisfy them to the utter- 
 most, is not in us, but without us and above us, in 
 the words which we use to set forth any transcend- 
 ing delight. Take three or four of these words 
 ' transport/ * rapture/ ' ravishment/ ' ecstasy/ 
 
 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 con- 
 temptible 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 favour- 
 able circumstances that we commonly complain of our- 
 selves if it be troublesome to us or slide unprofitable 
 away." 
 
 * [' Diversion ' is rather a ' turning aside ' from 
 one's serious and more regular occupation to enjoy rest 
 and recreation, a suspension of work. Just as ' sport ' 
 for ' disport ' (old Fr. se desporter, Lat. dis-portare) is 
 a ' taking oneself off,' or withdrawing for a time from 
 one's customary labour for play or amusement.] 
 
8 Introduction 
 
 ' transport,' that which carries us, as ' rapture,' or 
 ' ravishment,' that which snatches us out of and 
 above ourselves ; and ' ecstasy ' is very nearly the 
 same, only drawn from the Greek. 
 
 And not less, where a perversion of the moral 
 sense has found place, words preserve oftentimes a 
 record of this perversion. We have a signal ex- 
 ample of this, even as it is a notable evidence of 
 the manner in which moral contagion, spreading 
 from heart and manners, invades the popular lan- 
 guage in the use, or rather misuse, of the word ' re- 
 ligion,' during all the ages of Papal domination in 
 Europe. Probably many of you are aware that in 
 those times 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 ' religious ' house did not 
 mean, nor does it now mean in the Church of Rome, 
 a Christian household, ordered in the fear of God, 
 but an house in which these persons were gathered 
 together according to the rule of some man, Bene- 
 dict, or Dominic, or some other. A ' religion ' 
 meant not a service of God, but an order of monk- 
 ery ; and taking the monastic vows was termed 
 going into a ' religion.' Now what an awful light 
 does this one word so used throw on the entire 
 state of mind and habits of thought in those ages ! 
 That then was ' religion,' and nothing else was 
 deserving of the name ! And ' religious ' was a 
 title which might not be given to parents and chil- 
 dren, husbands and wives, men and women ful- 
 filling faithfully and holily in the world the several 
 duties of their stations, but only to those who 
 
Introduction 9 
 
 had devised self -chosen service for themselves.* 
 In like manner that ' lewd/ which meant at one 
 time no more than ' lay/ or unlearned the ' lewd ' 
 people, the lay people should come to signify the 
 sinful, the vicious, is not a little worthy of note.f 
 How forcibly we are reminded here of that saying 
 of the Pharisees of old : " This people which know- 
 eth not the law is cursed " ; how much of their 
 spirit must have been at work before the word 
 could have acquired this secondary meaning ! 
 
 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 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 
 
 * A reviewer in Fraser's Magazine, December 1851 
 in the main a favourable, and always a kind one, doubts 
 whether I have not here pushed my assertion too far 
 So far from this being the case, it was not merely " th< 
 popular language," as I have expressed myself, whicl 
 this corruption had invaded, but a decree of the great 
 Fourth Lateran Council (A.D. 1215), forbidding the 
 further multiplication of monastic Orders, runs thus : 
 Ne nimia religionum diversitas gravem in Ecclesia Dei 
 confusionem inducat, firmiter prohibemus, ne quis de 
 cetero novam religionem inveniat, sed quicunque voluerit 
 ad religionem conver ti, unam deapprobatis assumat. 
 
 t [Lewd, O. Eng. Icewede (as if laic+ed, ' laicatus '), 
 has passed through the following transitions of mean- 
 ing : (i) lay, not clerical; (2) unclerkly, unlearned; (3) \ 
 ignorant, low, base ; (4) ill-conditioned, wicked ; (5) 
 lascivious.] 
 
io Introduction 
 
 were the ruling conquering people, honourably dis- 
 tinguished 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 dis- 
 tinction as well ; and a ' frank ' man was synonym- 
 ous not merely with a man of the conquering Ger- 
 man race, but was an epithet applied to any man 
 possessed of certain high moral qualities, which for 
 the most part appertained to, and were found only 
 in, men of that stock ; * and thus in men's daily 
 discourse, when they speak of a person as being 
 ' frank,' or when they use the words ' franchise,' 
 ' enfranchisement,' to express civil liberties and 
 immunities, their language here is the outgrowth, 
 the record, and the result of great historic changes, 
 bears testimony to facts of history, whereof it may 
 well happen that the speakers have never heard. 
 Let me suggest to you the word ' slave,' as one 
 which has undergone a process entirely analogous, 
 although in an opposite direction.! 
 
 * [But " frank " may very well come direct from old 
 Fr. franc, old Ger. franko, meaning free, from which the 
 Franks obtained their name.] 
 
 t See Gibbon's Decline and Fall, c. 55. [Gibbon under- 
 stood slave, a Slavonian, to be derived from slava, 
 glory, as if the glorious people. Many more recent 
 scholars take the name to be from slovo, a word, 
 as if it meant " the speakers," those who (in their own 
 estimation) can speak intelligibly in contrast to foreigners 
 who seem to them dumb or unintelligible ; e.g. Niemec, 
 " dumb " used for the Germans. Compare " barbarian " 
 and " Welsh "] 
 
Introduction 1 1 
 
 Having given by anticipation this handful of 
 examples in illustration of what in these lectures 
 I propose, I will, before proceeding further, make 
 a few observations on a subject, which, if we would 
 go at all to the root of the matter, we can scarcely 
 leave altogether untouched I mean the origin of 
 language ; in which however we will not entangle 
 ourselves deeper than we need. There are, or 
 rather there have been, two theories about this. 
 One, and that which rather has been than now is, 
 for few maintain it still, would put language on the 
 same level with the various arts and inventions with 
 which man has gradually adorned and enriched his 
 life. It would make him by degrees to have in- 
 vented it, just as he might have invented any of 
 these, for himself * and from rude imperfect begin- 
 nings, the inarticulate cries by which he expressed 
 his natural wants, the sounds by which he sought 
 to imitate the impression of natural objects upon 
 him, little by little to have arrived at that wondrous 
 organ of thought and feeling, which his language 
 is often to him now. 
 
 It might, I think, be sufficient to object to this 
 explanation, that language would then be an acci- 
 dent 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 no human art or invention, though it be 
 as simple and obvious as the preparing of food by 
 fire, but there are those who have fallen below its 
 exercise. But with language it is not so. There 
 have never yet been found human beings, not the 
 most degraded horde of South African bushmen, or 
 Papuan cannibals, who did not employ this means 
 
12 Introduction 
 
 of intercourse with one another. But the more 
 decisive objection to this view of the matter is, that 
 it hangs together with, and is indeed an essential 
 part of, that theory of society, which is contradicted 
 alike by every page of Genesis, and every notice of 
 our actual experience the 'ourang-outang' theory, 
 as it has been so happily termed that, I mean, 
 according to which the primitive condition of man 
 was the savage one, and the savage himself the 
 seed out of which in due time the civilized man was 
 unfolded ; whereas, in fact, so far from being this 
 living seed, he might more justly be considered as 
 a dead withered leaf, torn violently away from the 
 great trunk of humanity, and with no more power 
 to produce any thing nobler than himself out of 
 himself, than that dead withered leaf to unfold 
 itself into the oak of the forest. So far from being 
 the child with the latent capacities of manhood, he 
 is himself rather the man prematurely aged, and 
 decrepit, and outworn. 
 
 But the truer answer to the inquiry how lan- 
 guage arose, is this, that God gave man language, 
 just as He gave him reason,* and just because He 
 gave him reason (for what is man's word but his 
 reason coming forth, so that it may behold itself ?) 
 that He gave it to him, because he could not be 
 man, that is, a social being, without it.| Yet this 
 
 * [M. Miiller has conclusively shown that these two 
 endowments are essentially one, no reason without lan- 
 guage, no language apart from reason. See his Science of 
 Thought, passim.'] 
 
 | [Ludwig Noire has an able argument to show that 
 language is the voice of the community, " a product of 
 association and of the community of feeling which is 
 developed, intensified, and Dually carried to perfection 
 
Introduction 13 
 
 must not be taken to affirm that man started at 
 the first furnished with a fully-formed vocabulary 
 of words, and as it were with his first dictionary 
 and first grammar ready-made to his hands. He 
 did not thus begin the world with names but with 
 the power of naming : for man is not a mere speak- 
 ing machine ; God did not teach him words, as 
 one of us teaches a parrot, from without ; but 
 gave him a capacity, and then evoked the capacity 
 which He gave. Here, as in every thing else that 
 concerns the primitive constitution, the great ori- 
 ginal institutes, of humanity, our best and truest 
 lights are to be gotten from the study of the three 
 first chapters of Genesis ; and you will observe 
 that there it is not God who imposed the first 
 names on the creatures, but Adam Adam, how- 
 ever, 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 ac- 
 quisition, on man's part, of the power of embody- 
 ing 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 capacities with which he 
 
 by community of life." Max Mutter and the Philosophy 
 Q\ Language, p. 81 seq.] 
 
14 Introduction 
 
 was created : but one (and in this differing from 
 those which have produced in various people vari- 
 ous arts of life), which could not remain dormant in 
 him, for man could be only man through its exer- 
 cise ; 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 another arose before his 
 mind. It was not merely the possible, but the 
 necessary, emanation of the spirit with which he 
 had been endowed. Man makes his own language, 
 but he makes it as the bee makes its cells, as the 
 bird its nest. 
 
 How this latent power evolved itself first, how 
 this spontaneous generation of language came to 
 pass, is a mystery, even as every act of creation is 
 of necessity such ; and as a mystery all the deepest 
 inquirers into the subject are content to leave it. 
 Yet we may perhaps a little help ourselves to the 
 realizing of what the process was, and what it was 
 not, if we liken it to the growth of a tree springing 
 out of, and unfolding itself from, a root, and accord- 
 ing to a necessary law that root being the divine 
 capacity of language with which man was created, 
 that law being the law of highest reason with which 
 he was endowed : if we liken it to this rather than 
 to the rearing of an house, which a man should 
 slowly and painfully fashion for himself with dead 
 timbers combined after his own fancy and 
 caprice ; and which little by little improved in 
 shape, material, and size, being first but a log- 
 house, answering his barest needs, and only 
 after centuries of toil and pain growing for his 
 
Introduction 15 
 
 sons' sons into a stately palace for pleasure and 
 delight. 
 
 Were it otherwise, were the savage the primi- 
 tive man, we should then find savage tribes fur- 
 nished, scantily enough, it might be, with the 
 elements of speech, yet at the same time with 
 its fruitful beginnings, its vigorous and healthful 
 germs. But what does their language on close 
 inspection prove ? In every case what they are 
 themselves, the remnant and ruin of a better and 
 a nobler past. Fearful indeed is the impress of 
 degradation which is stamped on the language of 
 the savage, more fearful perhaps even than that 
 which is stamped upon his form. When wholly 
 letting go the truth, when long and greatly sin- 
 ning against light and conscience, a people has 
 thus gone the downward way, has been scattered 
 off by some violent revolution from that portion 
 of the world which is the seat of advance and pro- 
 gress, and driven to its remote isles and further 
 corners, then as one nobler thought, one spiritual 
 idea after another has perished from it, the words 
 also that expressed these have perished too. As 
 one habit of civilization has been let go after 
 another, the words which those habits demanded 
 have dropped as well, first out of use, and then out 
 of memory, and thus after a while have been wholly 
 lost.* 
 
 Moffat, in his Missionary Labours and Scenes 
 in South Africa, gives us a very remarkable ex- 
 
 * [The statements of this paragraph will, of course, 
 not be accepted by anthropologists and evolutionists, 
 with whose conclusions they are directly at variance, 
 See Tylor, Primitive Culture, jrd ed. i. 21 seq.] 
 
16 Introduction 
 
 ample of the disappearing of one of the most 
 significant words from the language of a tribe sink- 
 ing ever deeper in savagery ; and with the dis- 
 appearing of the word, of course, the disappearing 
 as well of the great spiritual fact and truth whereof 
 that word was at once the vehicle and the guardian. 
 The Bechuanas, a Caffre tribe, employed formerly 
 the word ' Morimo/ to designate " Him that is 
 above," or " Him that is in Heaven," and attached 
 to the word the notion of a supreme Divine Being. 
 This word, with the spiritual idea corresponding 
 to it, Moffat found to have vanished from the lan- 
 guage of the present generation, although here and 
 there he could meet with an old man, scarcely one 
 or two in a thousand, who remembered in his 
 youth to have heard speak of ' Morimo ' ; and this 
 word, once so deeply significant, only survived 
 now in the spells and charms of the so-called rain- 
 makers and sorcerers, who misused it to designate 
 a fabulous ghost, of whom they told the absurdest 
 and most contradictory things. 
 
 And as there is no such witness to the degrada- 
 tion of the savage as the brutal poverty of his 
 language, so is there nothing that so effectually 
 tends to keep him in the depths to which he has 
 fallen. You cannot impart to any man more than 
 the words which he understands either now con- 
 tain, or can be made, intelligibly to him, to contain. 
 Language is as truly on one side the limit and 
 restraint of thought, as on the other side that 
 which feeds and unfolds thought. Thus it is the 
 ever-repeated complaint of the missionary that the 
 very terms are well-nigh or wholly wanting in the 
 dialect of the savage whereby to impart to him 
 
Introduction 17 
 
 heavenly truths, or indeed even the nobler emo- 
 tions of the human heart. Dobrizhoffer, the Jesuit 
 missionary, in his curious History of the Abipones, 
 tells us that neither these nor the Guarinies, two 
 of the principal native tribes of Brazil, possessed 
 any word in the least corresponding to our ' thanks.' 
 But what wonder, if the feeling of gratitude was 
 entirely absent from their hearts, that they should 
 not have possessed the corresponding word in their 
 vocabularies ? Nay, how should they have had it 
 there ? And that in this absence lies the true 
 explanation is plain from a fact which the same 
 writer records, that, although inveterate askers, 
 they never showed the slightest sense of obliga- 
 tion or of gratitude, when they obtained what they 
 sought ; never saying more than, " This will be 
 useful to me," or, " This is what I wanted." Dr. 
 Krapf, after laborious researches in some widely 
 extended dialects of East Africa, has remarked in 
 them the same absence of any words expressing 
 the idea of gratitude.* 
 
 Nor is it only in what they have forfeited and 
 lost, but also in what they have retained or in- 
 vented, that these languages proclaim their degrada- 
 tion and debasement, and how deeply they and 
 those that speak them have fallen. 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 
 
 * [It must be remembered, however, that the hasty 
 conclusions of travellers and missionaries as to the ab- 
 sence of ethical words among primitive tribes have 
 often been corrected by a better acquaintance with their 
 language.] 
 
 S.W. C 
 
i8 Introduction 
 
 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 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 lan- 
 guage so richly and so fearfully provided with ex- 
 pressions for this extreme utterance of hate, he 
 also reports that any word for ' love ' is wanting in 
 it altogether. 
 
 Yet with all this, ever and anon in the midst 
 of this wreck and ruin, there is that in the lan- 
 guage of the savage, some subtle distinction, some 
 curious allusion to a perished civilization, now 
 utterly unintelligible to the speaker ; or some 
 other note, which proclaims his language to be the 
 remains of a dissipated inheritance, the rags and 
 remnants of a robe which was a royal one once. 
 The fragments of a broken sceptre are in his hand, 
 a sceptre wherewith once he held dominion (he, 
 that is, in his progenitors) over large kingdoms of 
 thought, which now have escaped wholly from his 
 sway. 
 
 But while it is thus with him, while this is the 
 downward course of all those that have chosen the 
 downward path, while with every impoverishing 
 and debasing of personal or national life there goes 
 hand in hand a corresponding impoverishment and 
 debasement of language, so on the contrary, where 
 
Introduction 19 
 
 there is advance and progress, where a divine idea 
 is in any measure realizing itself in a people, where 
 they are learning more accurately to define and 
 distinguish, more truly to know, where they are 
 ruling, as men ought to rule, over nature, and 
 making 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 na- 
 tion's heart, new facts coming within the sphere 
 of its knowledge, there will language be growing 
 and advancing too. It cannot lag behind ; for 
 man feels that nothing is properly his own, that he 
 has not secured any new thought, or entered upon 
 any new spiritual inheritance, till he has fixed it 
 in language, till he can contemplate it, not as him- 
 self, but as his word ; he is conscious that he must 
 express truth, if he is to preserve it, and still more 
 if he would propagate it among others. " Names," 
 as it has been excellently said, " are impressions of 
 sense, and as such take the strongest hold upon 
 the mind, and of all other impressions can be most 
 easily recalled and retained in view. They there- 
 fore serve to give a point of attachment to all the 
 more volatile objects of thought and feeling. Im- 
 pressions that when past might be dissipated for 
 ever, are by their connexion with language always 
 within reach. Thoughts, of themselves, are per- 
 petually 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." 
 And on the necessity of names for the propagation 
 of the truth it has been well observed : " Hardly 
 any original thoughts on mental or social subjects 
 ever make their way among mankind, or assume 
 
20 Introduction 
 
 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." 
 
 Nor does what has here been said of the man- 
 ner in which language enriches itself contradict 
 a prior assertion, that man starts with language 
 as God's perfect gift, which he only impairs and 
 forfeits by sloth and sin, according to the same 
 law which holds good in respect of each other of 
 the gifts of heaven. For it was not meant, as in- 
 deed 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, re- 
 lations of which they were not yet conscious ; but 
 that up to his needs (those needs including not 
 merely his animal wants, but all his higher spiri- 
 tual cravings), he would find utterance freely. 
 The great logical, or grammatical, framework of 
 language, (for grammar is the logic of speech, 
 even as logic is the grammar of reason), he would 
 possess, he knew not how ; and certainly not as 
 the final result of gradual acquisitions, and of re- 
 flexion setting these in order, and drawing general 
 rules from them ; but as that rather which alone 
 had made those acquisitions possible ; as that ac- 
 cording to which he unconsciously worked, filling 
 in this framework by degrees with these later ac- 
 quisitions of thought, feeling, and experience, as 
 one by one they arrayed themselves in the gar- 
 ment and vesture of words. 
 
 Here then is the explanation of the fact that 
 language should be thus instructive for us, that it 
 
Introduction 21 
 
 should yield us so much, when we come to analyse 
 and probe it ; and yield us the more, the more 
 deeply and accurately we do so. It is full of in- 
 struction, because it is the embodiment, the in- 
 carnation, if I may so speak, of the feelings and 
 thoughts and experiences of a nation, yea, often of 
 many nations, and of all which through long cen- 
 turies 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 im- 
 movable, but ever itself advancing with the pro- 
 gress of these. The mighty moral instincts which 
 have been working in the popular mind have found 
 therein their unconscious voice ; and the single 
 kinglier spirits that have looked deeper into the 
 heart of things have oftentimes gathered up all 
 they have seen into some one word, which they have 
 launched upon the world, and with which they 
 have enriched it for ever making in that new 
 word a new region of thought to be henceforward 
 in some sort the common heritage of all. Lan- 
 guage is the amber in which a thousand precious 
 and subtle thoughts have been safely embedded 
 and preserved. It has arrested ten thousand light- 
 ning flashes of genius, which, unless thus fixed 
 and arrested, might have been as bright, but 
 would have also been as quickly passing and as 
 perishing, as the lightning. " Words convey the 
 mental treasures of one period to the generations 
 that follow ; and laden with this, their precious 
 freight, they sail safely across gulfs of time in 
 which empires have suffered shipwreck, and the 
 languages of common life have sunk into obli- 
 
22 Introduction 
 
 vion." And for all these reasons far more and 
 mightier in every way is a language than any one 
 of the works which may have been composed in it. 
 For that work, great as it may be, is but the em- 
 bodying of the mind of a single man, this of a 
 nation. The Iliad is great, yet not so great in 
 strength or power or beauty as the Greek lan- 
 guage. Paradise Lost is a noble possession for a 
 people to have inherited, but the English tongue 
 is a nobler heritage yet. 
 
 And short as we may, and indeed must, stop 
 of apprehending all this, there is an obscure sense, 
 or instinct I might call it, in every one of us, of 
 at least some part of this truth. We all of us, 
 whether we have given a distinct account of the 
 matter to ourselves or no, believe that the words 
 which we use, some at least of them, stand in a 
 more or less real relation to the things which 
 they designate that they are not arbitrary signs, 
 amxed at random, for which any other might have 
 been substituted as well. 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 utterance of the innermost char- 
 acter and qualities of the things or persons that 
 bear them, speaking out in various other ways, 
 speaks out in none more clearly than in this 
 namely, in the amusement and interest which chil- 
 dren find in any striking agreement between a 
 name and the person who owns that name or, 
 which naturally lays hold on their attention far 
 more, in any striking contradiction between the 
 name and the name-bearer ; as, for instance, if 
 Mr. Strongitharm is a weakling, or Mr. Black an 
 
Introduction 23 
 
 albino ; the first striking from a sense of fitness, 
 the other 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 most earnest moments of 
 men's lives, of such agreements or disagreements as 
 these. Thus Shakespeare shows 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 " 
 
 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 a man is engaged in a controversy 
 or quarrel, and his name implies anything good, 
 an adversary will lay hold of the name, will seek 
 to bring out a real contradiction between the name 
 and its bearer, so that he shall appear as one pre- 
 senting himself under false colours, affecting a 
 merit, which is really strange to him. Examples 
 of this are innumerable. For instance, there was 
 one Vigilantius in the early Church his name 
 might be interpreted ' the Watchful/ He was 
 engaged in a controversy with Jerome, in regard 
 
24 Introduction 
 
 of certain vigils ; which he thought perilous to 
 Christian morality, but of which Jerome was a 
 very eager maintainer ; 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. 
 
 But this hostile use of names, this attempt to 
 place them and their owners in the most intimate 
 connexion, to make, so to speak, the man answer- 
 able for his name, we trace still more frequently 
 where the name does not thus need to be reversed ; 
 but may be made, as it now is, or with very slight- 
 est change, to contain a confession of the ignorance, 
 worthlessness, or futility of the bearer. If it im- 
 plies, or can be made to imply, anything bad, it 
 is instantly laid hold of, as expressing the very 
 truth about him. Pope Hildebrand, in one of 
 our Homilies, is styled " Brand of Hell," as setting 
 the world in a blaze ; Sanders, the foul-mouthed 
 libeller of Queen Elizabeth, is with more of justice 
 by old Fuller styled " Slanders rather." So, too, 
 there were two persons of considerable note in our 
 Civil Wars, the one named Vane, and the other 
 Sterry, and one of them, Sterry, was chaplain to 
 the other. Baxter, having occasion to mention 
 them in the memoirs of his life which he has left, 
 and liking neither, observes of this Vane and this 
 Sterry, that " vanity and sterility were never 
 more suitably joined together " ; and speaks in 
 another place of the " vanity of Vane, and the 
 sterility " (the charge as regards this last is a very 
 unjust one) " of Sterry." 
 
Introduction 25 
 
 Where, on the other hand, it is desired to do 
 a man honour, how gladly, in like manner, is his 
 name seized on, if it bears in it anything of an 
 honourable significance, or is capable of an honour- 
 able interpretation men finding in that name 
 a presage and prophecy, an indication and out- 
 speaking, of that which was actually in its bearer. 
 A multitude of examples, many of them beautiful 
 enough, might be brought together in this kind. 
 How often, for instance, and with what effect, the 
 name of Stephen, the protomartyr, that name 
 signifying ' the Crown/ was taken as a prophetic 
 intimation of the martyr-crown, which it should 
 be given to him, the first in that noble army, to 
 wear. Irenaeus means in Greek ' the Peaceable ' ; 
 and early Church writers love to remark how fitly 
 the great bishop of Lyons in the second century 
 bore this name, setting forward as he so eminently 
 did the peace of the Church, resolved as he was, 
 so far as in him lay, to preserve the unity of the 
 Spirit in the bond of peace. In like manner 
 Fuller, our own Church historian, who made so 
 many puns on others, has a pun made upon his 
 own name in some commendatory verses affixed 
 to one of his books : 
 
 Thy style is clear and white ; thy very name 
 Speaks pureness, and adds lustre to the frame.* 
 
 * A few more examples in a note. Antiochus Epi- 
 phanes, or ' the Illustrious,' is for the Jews, whom he 
 so madly attempted to hellenize, Antiochus Epimanes, or 
 " the Insane." Cicero, denouncing Verres, the infamous 
 praetor of Sicily, is too skilful a master of the passions 
 to allow his name to escape him. He was indeed ' Verres,' 
 for he swept the province ; he was a sweep-net for it 
 (everriculum in provincia) ; and then presently, recur- 
 ring to the name, and giving altogether another turn 
 
26 Introduction 
 
 These examples, curious as they are, I yet 
 adduce less for their own sake, than because they 
 contain an implicit witness for the wide-spread 
 faith of men in the significance of the words and 
 names which they employ. You will not, then, 
 find it a hard and laborious task to persuade your 
 pupils of this. They are prepared to accept, they 
 will be prompt to believe it. And great indeed 
 will be our gains, their gains and ours for teacher 
 and taught will for the most part enrich them- 
 selves together if, having these treasures of wis- 
 dom and knowledge lying round about us, so far 
 more precious than mines of Californian gold, we 
 determine that we will make what portion of them 
 we can our own, that we will ask the words which 
 we use to give an account of themselves, to say 
 
 to it, others, he says, might be partial to the " jus verri- 
 num," which might either mean verrine law, or boar 
 sauce, but not he. Tiberius Claudius Nero, charged by 
 the popular voice with being a drunkard, becomes Biberius 
 Caldius Mero. The controversies of the Church with 
 heretics yield only too abundant a supply, and that upon 
 both sides, of examples in this kind. The noble Athan- 
 asius is Satanasius for the Arians ; and some of St. 
 Cyprian's adversaries did not shrink from so foul a per- 
 version of his name as to call him KoTryuavfo, or " the 
 Dungy." But then, on the other hand, how often is Pelagius 
 declared by the Church Fathers to be a ' pelagus ' or 
 ocean of wickedness. It was in vain that the Manichaeans 
 changed their master's name from Manes to Manichaeus, 
 that so it might not so nearly resemble the word signifying 
 madness in the Greek (devitantes nomen insanise, Augus- 
 tine, De Hcer. 46) ; they did not thereby escape. Metro- 
 phanes, a Patriarch of Constantinople, being considered 
 by his fellow-countrymen to have betrayed the interests 
 of the Greek Church, his spiritual mother, in certain 
 negotiations with the Latin, instead of Metrophanes 
 acquired the title of Metrophonos, or " the Matricide." 
 It would be easy to increase this list. 
 
Introduction 27 
 
 whence they are, and whither they tend. Then 
 shall we often rub off the dust and rust from 
 what seemed to us but a common token, which 
 as such we had taken and given a thousand times ; 
 but which now we shall perceive to be a precious 
 coin, bearing the " image and superscription " of 
 the great King : then shall we often stand in sur- 
 prise and in something of shame, while we behold 
 the great spiritual realities which underlie our 
 common speech, the marvellous truths which we 
 have been witnessing for in our words, but, it 
 may be, witnessing against in our lives. And as 
 you will not find, for so I venture to promise, that 
 this study of words will be a dull one when you 
 undertake it yourselves, as little need you fear 
 that it will prove dull and unattractive, when you 
 seek to make your own gains herein the gains 
 also of those who may be hereafter committed to 
 your charge. Only try your pupils, and mark the 
 kindling of the eye, the lighting up of the coun- 
 tenance, the revival of the flagging attention, witt 
 which the humblest lecture upon words, and on 
 the words especially which they are daily using, 
 which are familiar to them in their play or at 
 their church, will be welcomed by them. There 
 is a sense of reality about children which makes 
 them rejoice to discover that there is also a reality 
 about words, that they are not merely arbitrary 
 signs, but living powers ; that, to reverse the words 
 of one of England's " false prophets," they may 
 be the fool's counters, but are the wise man's 
 money ; not, like the sands of the sea innumer- 
 able olisconnected atoms, but growing out of roots, 
 clustering in families, connecting and intertwining 
 
28 Introduction 
 
 themselves with all that men have been doing and 
 thinking and feeling from the beginning of the 
 world till now. 
 
 And it is of course our English tongue, out of 
 which mainly we should seek to draw some of the 
 hid treasures which it contains, from which we 
 should endeavour to remove the veil which custom 
 and familiarity have thrown over it. We cannot 
 employ ourselves better. There is nothing that 
 will more help than will this to form an English 
 heart in ourselves and in others. We could 
 scarcely have a single lesson on the growth of our 
 English tongue, we could scarcely follow up one 
 of its significant words, without having unawares 
 a lesson in English history as well, without not 
 merely falling on some curious fact illustrative of 
 our national life, but learning also how the great 
 heart which is beating at the centre of that life 
 was gradually shaped and moulded. We should 
 thus grow too in our feeling of connexion with the 
 past, of gratitude and reverence to it ; we should 
 estimate more truly, and therefore more highly, 
 what it has done for us, all that it has bequeathed 
 us, all that it has made ready to our hands. It 
 was something for the children of Israel, when 
 they came into Canaan, to enter upon wells which 
 they digged not and vineyards which they had 
 not planted, and houses which they had not built ; 
 but how much greater a boon, how much more 
 glorious a prerogative, for any one generation to 
 enter upon the inheritance of a language, which 
 other generations by their truth and toil have 
 made already a receptacle of choicest treasures, a 
 storehouse of so much unconscious wisdom, a fit 
 
Introduction 29 
 
 organ for expressing the subtlest distinctions, the 
 tenderest sentiments, the largest thoughts, and the 
 loftiest imaginations, which at any time the heart 
 of man can conceive. And that those who have 
 preceded us have gone far to accomplish this for 
 us, I shall rejoice if I am able in any degree to 
 make you feel in the lectures which will follow the 
 present. 
 
II 
 
 ON THE POETRY IN WORDS 
 
 I SAID in my last lecture, or rather I quoted 
 another who had said, for I would not even 
 seem to claim as my own so striking a phrase, that 
 language is fossil poetry. It is true that for us 
 very often this poetry which is bound up in words 
 has in great part or altogether disappeared.* We 
 fail to recognize it, partly from long familiarity 
 with it, partly, it may be, from never having had 
 our attention called to it. None have pointed it 
 out to us ; and thus it has come to pass that we 
 have been close to this wealth, and yet it has not 
 been ours. Margaret has not been for us ' the 
 Pearl,' nor Esther ' the Star,' nor Susanna ' the 
 Lily,' nor Stephen ' the Crown.' " In our ordinary 
 language," as Montaigne has well said, " there 
 are several excellent phrases and metaphors to be 
 met with, of which the beauty is withered by age. 
 and the colour is sullied by too common handling ; 
 but that takes nothing from the relish to an under- 
 standing man, neither does it derogate from the 
 glory of those ancient authors, who, 'tis likely, 
 first brought those words into that lustre." We 
 read in a well-known French comedy of one who 
 was surprised to discover that he had been talking 
 prose all his life without being aware of it. If 
 we knew all, we might be much more surprised 
 to find that we had been talking poetry, without 
 ever having so much as suspected that it was so. 
 For indeed poetry and passion seek to insinuate, 
 
 * [So Curtius, " We need the instinctive perception 
 of the poetry slumbering in language." Greek Ety- 
 mology, i. 126 (1875).] 
 
 30 
 
On the Poetry in Words 31 
 
 and do insinuate themselves everywhere in Ian- 
 gauge ; they preside continually at the giving of 
 names. I propose to devote this present lecture 
 to a few examples and illustrations, by which I 
 would make the truth of this which I have affirmed 
 appear. 
 
 " Iliads without a Homer/' some one has called, 
 with a little exaggeration, the beautiful but anony- 
 mous ballad poetry of Spain. One may be per- 
 mitted, perhaps, to push the exaggeration a little 
 further in the same direction, and to apply the 
 same language not merely to a ballad but to a 
 word. For poetry, which is passion and imagin- 
 ation embodying themselves in words, does not 
 necessarily demand a combination of words for 
 this ; of this passion and imagination a single 
 word may be the vehicle. As the sun can image 
 itself alike in a tiny dewdrop or in the mighty 
 Dcean, and can do it, though on a different scale, 
 is perfectly in the one as in the other, so the spirit 
 Df poetry can dwell in and glorify alike a word 
 and an Iliad. Nothing in language is too small, 
 as nothing is too great, for it to fill with its pre- 
 sence. Everywhere it can find, or, not finding, 
 can make, a shrine for itself, which afterwards it 
 can render translucent and transparent with its 
 own indwelling 'glory. On every side we are beset 
 with poetry. Popular language is full of it, of 
 words used in an imaginative sense, of things 
 called, and not merely in transient moments of 
 high passion, and in the transfer which at such 
 moments, finds place of the image to the thing 
 imaged, but permanently, by names having 
 immediate reference not to what they are, but 
 
32 On the Poetry in Words 
 
 to what they are like. Thus at Naples it is the 
 ordinary language to call the lesser storm-waves 
 ' pecore,' or sheep, the larger ' cavalloni,' or 
 big horses. Who that has watched the foaming 
 crests, the white manes, as it were, of the larger 
 billows, as they roll in measured order into the 
 bay, but will own not merely the fitness but the 
 grandeur, of this last image ? 
 
 Let me illustrate my meaning somewhat more 
 at length by the word ( tribulation/ We all know 
 in a general way that this word, which occurs not 
 seldom in Scripture, and in the Liturgy, means 
 affliction, sorrow, anguish ; but it is quite worth 
 our while to know how it means this, and to ques- 
 tion the word a little closer. It is derived from 
 the Latin ' tribulum,' which was the threshing 
 instrument or roller, whereby the Roman husband- 
 men separated the corn from the husks ; and 
 ' tribulatio ' in its primary significance was the act 
 of this separation. But some Latin writer of the 
 Christian Church appropriated the word and image 
 for the setting forth of a higher truth ; and 
 sorrow, distress, and adversity being the appointed 
 means for the separating in men of whatever in 
 them was light, trivial, and poor from the solid 
 and the true, their chaff from their wheat,* there- 
 fore he called these sorrows and trials ' tribula- 
 tions/ threshings, that is, of the inner spiritual 
 man, without which there could be no fitting him 
 for the heavenly garner. Now in proof of my 
 assertion that a single word is often a concentrated 
 
 * ' Triticum ' itself is probably connected with 
 1 tero,' ' tritus.' This is one of the few among Varro's 
 etymologies which has some probability in it. 
 
On the Poetry in Words 33 
 
 poem, a little grain of pure gold capable of being 
 beaten out into a broad extent of gold-leaf, I will 
 quote, in reference to this very word ' tribulation,' 
 a graceful composition by George Wither, an early 
 English poet, which you will at once perceive is all 
 wrapped up in this word, being from first to last 
 only the expanding of the image and thought 
 which this word has implicitly given ; these are 
 his lines 
 
 Till from the straw the flail the corn doth beat. 
 Until the chaff be purged from the wheat, 
 Yea, till the mill the grains in pieces tear, 
 The richness of the flour will scarce appear. 
 So, till men's persons great afflictions touch, 
 If worth be found, their worth is not so much, 
 Because, like wheat in straw, they have not yet 
 That value which in threshing they may get. 
 For till the bruising flails of God's corrections * 
 Have threshed out of us our vain affections ; 
 Till those corruptions which do misbecome us 
 Are by Thy sacred Spirit winnowed from us ; 
 Until from us the straw of worldly treasures, 
 Till all the dusty chaff of empty pleasures, 
 Yea, till His flail upon us He doth lay. 
 To thresh the husk of this our flesh away ; 
 And leave the soul uncovered ; nay, yet more. 
 Till God shall make our very spirit pour, 
 We shall not up to highest wealth aspire ; 
 But then we shall ; and that is my desire. 
 
 * [It may be noted that Fr. fteau, substantially the 
 same word as our ' flail,' both being from Lat. flagellum, 
 a scourge, is also used for a plague or judgment of God. 
 ' Trial ' is an exact parallel to ' tribulation,' its radical 
 meaning being that which separates the good grains from 
 the worthless chaff and straw by threshing and winnow- 
 ing, then sifting out the truth by examination or afflictive 
 dispensations, the word coming through Fr. trier from 
 Lat. tritare, to triturate, or thresh out. Thus Milton's 
 " tried in sharp tribulation " (P. Lost, xi. 63) is ety- 
 mologically exact. A try was once a sieve or rddle 
 See my Word-hunter's Note-book, p. 49.] 
 
 S.W. D 
 
34 On the Poetry in Words 
 
 This deeper religious use of the word * tribula- 
 tion ' was unknown to classical, that is to heathen, 
 antiquity, and belongs exclusively to the Christian 
 writers : and the fact that the same deepening and 
 elevating of the use of words recurs in a multi- 
 tude of other, and many of them far more signal, 
 instances, is one well deserving to be followed up. 
 Nothing, I am persuaded, would more strongly 
 bring before us what a new power Christianity 
 was in the world than to compare the meaning 
 which so many words possessed before its rise, 
 and the deeper meaning which they obtained, so 
 soon as they were assumed by it as the vehicles 
 of its life, the new thought and feeling enlarging, 
 purifying, and ennobling the very words which 
 they employed. This is a subject which I shall 
 have occasion to touch on more than once in these 
 lectures, but is itself well worthy of, as it would 
 afford ample material for, a volume. 
 
 Before leaving this part of my subject, and on 
 the suggestion of this word ' tribulation,' I will 
 }uote a word or two from Coleridge. They bear 
 Dn the matter we have in hand. He has said, " In 
 Drder to get the full sense of a word, we should 
 first present to our minds the visual image that 
 forms its primary meaning." What admirable 
 counsel is here. If we would but accustom our- 
 selves to the doing of this, what vast increases of 
 precision and force would all the language which 
 we speak, and which others speak to us, obtain ; 
 how often would that which is now obscure at 
 once become clear ; how distinct the limits and 
 boundaries of that which is often now confused 
 and confounded. It is difficult to measure the 
 
On the Poetry in Words 35 
 
 amount of food for the imagination, as well as 
 gains for the intellect, which the observing of this 
 single rule would afford us. Let me illustrate this 
 by one or two examples. We say of such a man 
 that he is ' desultory.' Do we attach any very 
 distinct meaning to the word ? Perhaps not. But 
 get at the image on which ' desultory ' rests ; take 
 the word to pieces ; learn that it is from de and 
 salto, ' to leap from one thing to another,' as a man 
 who in the ring, technically called a ' desultor,' 
 riding two or three horses at once, leaps from one 
 to the other, being never on the back of any one of 
 them long ; take, I say, the word thus to pieces, 
 and put it together again, and what a firm and 
 vigorous grasp will you have now of its meaning. 
 A ' desultory' man is one who jumps from one study 
 to another, and never continues for any time in one. 
 Again, you speak of a person as ' capricious,' 
 as being full of ' caprices ' ; but what exactly are 
 / caprices ? ' Caprice ' is from capra, ' a goat.' If 
 ever you have watched a goat, you will have 
 observed how sudden, how unexpected, how un- 
 accountable are the leaps and springs, now forward, 
 now sideward, in which it indulges. A ' caprice ' 
 then is a movement of the mind as unaccountable, 
 as little to be calculated on beforehand, as the 
 springs and bounds of a goat.* Is not the word so 
 
 * [The goat (Lat. caper] has originated many words 
 indicative of frolicsome or freakish activity, e.g., ' to 
 caper,' ' to capriole,' Fr. cabrioter, Welsh, gafrio (from 
 gafr.a. goat), It. ticchio, a freak or whim from O. St. Ger. 
 ziki, a kid (A. Sax. ticcen). When Boyle speaks of " the 
 capering of a kid" (1691), and De Quincey of the 
 ' capricious caprioling ' of the chamois (Works, xiii. 121), 
 they use the words with etymological accuracy.] 
 
36 On the Poetry in Words 
 
 understood a far more picturesque one than it was 
 before ? and is there not some real gain in the 
 vigour and vividness of impression which is in 
 this way obtained ? 
 
 The poetry which has been embodied in the 
 names of places, in those names which designate 
 the leading features of outward nature, promon- 
 tories, mountains, capes, and the like, is very 
 worthy of being elicited and evoked anew, latent 
 as it now has oftentimes become. Nowhere do we 
 so easily forget that names had once a peculiar 
 fitness, which was the occasion of their giving. 
 Colour sometimes has suggested the name, as in 
 the well-known instance of our own ' Albion/ " the 
 silver-coasted isle," as Tennyson so beautifully has 
 called it, which had this name from the white line 
 of cliffs which it presents to those approaching it 
 by the narrow seas. Oftener, perhaps, it is shape 
 which is incorporated in the name, as in ' Trin- 
 acria/ or ' the three-cornered land/ which was the 
 Greek name of Sicily. But more striking, as the 
 embodiment of a poetical feeling, is the modern 
 name of the great southern peninsula of Greece. 
 We are all aware that it is called the ' Morea ' ; 
 but we may not be so well aware from whence 
 that name is derived. It had long been the 
 fashion among ancient geographers to compare 
 the shape of this region to a platane leaf,* and a 
 glance at the map will show that the general out- 
 line of that leaf, with its sharply incised edges, 
 justified the comparison. This, however, had 
 
 * Strabo, viii. 2 ; Pliny, H. N. iv. 5 ; Agathemerus, 
 1. i. p. 1 5 : "Ex"" $t Bftoior <rx?7/* a <j>u 
 
On the Poetry in Words 37 
 
 remained merely as a comparison ; but at the 
 shifting and changing of names, which went with 
 the breaking up of the old Greek and Roman 
 civilization, the resemblance of this region to a 
 leaf, not now, however, a platane, but a mulberry 
 leaf, appeared so strong, that it exchanged its old 
 name of Peloponnesus for ' Morea,' which embodied 
 men's sense of this resemblance, morus being a 
 mulberry-tree in Latin, and popea in Greek. I 
 am aware that this etymology of ' Morea ' has 
 been called in question ; * but on no sufficient 
 grounds. Deducing as the objector does ' Morea ' 
 from a Slavonic word more, the seaf he finds 
 in this derivation a support for his favourite 
 notion that the modern population of Greece is 
 not descended from the ancient, but consists in 
 far the larger proportion of intrusive Slavonic 
 tribes. 
 
 In other ways also the names of places will 
 oftentimes embody some poetical aspect under 
 which now or at some former period men learned 
 to regard them. Oftentimes when discoverers 
 come upon a new land they will seize with a firm 
 grasp of the imagination the most striking feature 
 which it presents to their eyes, and permanently 
 embody this in a word. Thus the island of 
 Madeira is now, I believe, nearly bare of wood ; 
 but its sides were covered with forests at the time 
 when it was first discovered, and hence the name, 
 
 * By Fallmerayer, Gesch. der Halbinsel Morea, pp. 
 340 sqq. 
 
 t [Similarly Lord Strangford comparing its other 
 name, " the Apian,' i.e. the watery, " land." Letters 
 and Papers on Philolog. Subjacts, p. 171.] 
 
38 On the Poetry in Words 
 
 ' madeira ' in Portuguese having this meaning of 
 wood.* So too the first Spanish discoverers of 
 Florida gave to it this name from the rich carpet- 
 ing of flowers which, at the time when first their 
 eyes beheld it, everywhere covered the soil. 
 Surely Florida, as the name passes under our 
 eye, or from our lips, is something more than 
 it was before, when we may thus think of it as 
 the land of flowers, f We have heard some- 
 thing of Port Natal lately, probably we shall in 
 coming years hear still more. The name also 
 embodies an interesting fact, namely that this port 
 was first discovered on Christmas Day, the dies 
 natalis of our Lord. 
 
 Then again what poetry is there, as indeed 
 there ought to be, in the names of flowers. I 
 do not speak of those, the exquisite grace and 
 beauty of whose names is forced on us so that 
 we cannot miss it, such as ' meadow-sweet,' ' eye- 
 bright/ ' sun-dew,' ' forget-me-not/ ' Venus' look- 
 ing-glass,' ' queen-of-the-meadows,' ' love-in-idle- 
 ness,' ' Reine Marguerite,' and the like ; but take 
 ' daisy ' ; surely this charming little English 
 flower, which has stirred the peculiar affection of 
 English poets from Chaucer to Wordsworth, and 
 received the tribute of their sons, becomes more 
 charming when we know, as Chaucer long ago has 
 
 * [The Portuguese Ilha da Madeira, " Island of Timber " 
 (Lat. materia), is said to be a translation of the older 
 Italian name Isola do Legname, " the wooded island." 
 See I. Taylor, Names and their Histories, p. 182.] 
 
 f An Italian poet, Fazio degli Uberti, tells us that 
 Florence had its appellation from the same cause : 
 " Poiche era posta in un prato di fiori, 
 Le denno il nome bello, onde s' ingloria." 
 
On the Poetry in Words 39 
 
 told us, that ' daisy ' is day's eye, the eye of day ; 
 these are his words 
 
 That well by reason it men callen may 
 The daisie, or else the eye of day.* 
 
 For only consider how much is implied here. To 
 the sun in the heavens this name, eye of day, was 
 naturally first given ; and those who transferred 
 the title to our little field-flower meant no doubt 
 to liken its inner yellow disk or shield to the great 
 golden orb of the sun, and the white florets which 
 encircle this disk to the rays whkh the sun spreads 
 on all sides round him. What imagination was 
 here, to suggest a comparison such as this, bind- 
 ing together as this does the smallest and the 
 greatest ! what a travelling of the poet's eye, with 
 the power which is the privilege of that eye, from 
 earth to heaven, and from heaven to earth, and 
 uniting both ! 
 
 And then again what poetry is there often 
 in the names of birds and beasts and fishes, and 
 indeed of all the animated world around us ; how 
 skilfully are these names adapted to bring out 
 the most striking and characteristic features of 
 the object to which they are given. Thus when 
 the Romans became acquainted with the stately 
 giraffe, long concealed from them in the inner 
 wilds of Africa (which we learn from Pliny they 
 first did in the shows exhibited by Julius Caesar), 
 it was happily imagined to designate a creature 
 combining, though with infinitely more grace, 
 
 * [" The dayseye or elles the ye of day." Legend of 
 Good Women, Prol., 1. 184, ed. Skeat. But dages-ig* 
 as a name of the daisy already occurs in Anglo-Saxon.] 
 
40 On the Poetry in Words 
 
 yet something of the height and even the pro- 
 portions of the camel with the spotted skin of 
 the pard, by a name which should incorporate 
 both these in its most prominent features,* calling 
 it the ' camelopard.' Nor can we, I think, hesi- 
 tate to accept that account as the true one, which 
 describes the word as no artificial creation of the 
 scientific naturalist, but as bursting extempore 
 from the lips of the populace at the first moment 
 when the novel creature was presented to their 
 gaze. ' Cerf volant/ a name which the French 
 have so happily given to the horned scarabeus, 
 the same which we somew'-at less poetically call 
 the ' stag-beetle/ is another example of what may 
 be effected with the old materials, by merely bring- 
 ing them into new and happy combinations. 
 
 You know the appearance of the lizard, and 
 the star-like shape of the spots which are sown 
 over its back. Well, in Latin it is called ' stellio/ 
 from stella, a star ; just as in like manner the 
 basilisk was so called in Greek (the word means 
 ' little king ') because of the shape as of a kingly 
 crown which the spots on its head may be made by 
 the fancy to assume. Need I remind you of our 
 own ' goldfinch/ evidently so called from that 
 bright, patch of yellow on its wing ; our ' king- 
 fisher/ having its name from the royal beauty, the 
 kingly splendour of the plumage with which it is 
 adorned. The lady-bird or lady-cow is prettily 
 named, as indeed the whole legend about it is full 
 of grace and fancy ; but a common name which in 
 
 * Varro : " Quod erat figura ut camelus, maculis ut 
 panthera " ; and Horace (Ep. ii. 1. 195) : 
 
 " Diversum confusa genus panthera amelo." 
 
On the Poetry in Words 41 
 
 many of our country parts it bears, the ' golden 
 knop ' or ' knob/ is prettier still. 
 
 This word reminds me of the vast amount of 
 curious legendary lore which is everywhere bound 
 up in words, and which they, if duly solicited, will 
 yield back to us again. For example, the Greek 
 word ' halcyon,' which we have adopted without 
 change, has reference, and wraps up in itself an 
 allusion, to one of the most beautiful and signifi- 
 cant legends of heathen antiquity ; according to 
 which the sea preserved a perfect calmness for all 
 the period, the fourteen " halcyon days," during 
 which this bird was brooding over her nest.* The 
 poetry of the names survives, whether the name 
 suggested the legend, or the legend the name. 
 Take again the names of some of our precious 
 stones, as of the topaz, so called, as some said, 
 because men were only able to conjecture 
 (roTrd&Lv) the position of the cloud-concealed 
 island from which it was brought.f 
 
 Very curious is the determination which some 
 words, indeed many, seem to manifest, that their 
 poetry shall not die ; or, if it dies in one form, 
 that it shall revive in another. Thus if there is 
 danger that, transferred from one language to 
 another, they shall no longer speak to the imagina- 
 
 * [Pliny (Nat, Hist. x. 32) says of the halcyones or 
 
 kingfishers, " the time whiles they are broody is called 
 
 the Halycon daies, for during that season the sea is calme 
 
 and navigable " (Holland's trans., 1634, vol. i. p. 287.)] 
 
 f Pliny, H. N. xxxvii. 32. [The origin of the word 
 
 topaz ' remains a crux. Some have suggested Sansk. 
 
 tapas, heat, as if the glowing stone. Another suggestion 
 
 is a coalescence of rb irdf, as if " the golden stone " 
 
 or chrysolite, the Heb. pdz, meaning (i) gold, (2] the topaz. 
 
 A. S. P.* Folk-etymology, p. 589.] 
 
42 On the Poetry in Words 
 
 tion of men as they did of old, they will make to 
 themselves a new life, they will acquire a new soul 
 in the room of that which has ceased to quicken 
 and inform them any more. Let me make clear 
 what I mean by one or two examples. The Ger- 
 mans, knowing nothing of carbuncles, had 
 naturally no word of their own for them, and when 
 they first found it necessary to name them, as 
 naturally borrowed the Latin ' carbunculus/ which 
 originally had meant ' a little live coal/ to desig- 
 nate these precious stones of a fiery red colour. 
 But ' carbunculus/ though a real word, full of 
 poetry and life, for a Latin, would have been only 
 an arbitrary sign for as many as were ignorant 
 of that language. What then did they, or what, 
 rather, did the working genius of the language 
 do ? It adopted, but in adopting modified slightly 
 yet effectually, the word, changing it into ' Kar- 
 funkel/ thus retaining the outlines of the original, 
 yet at the same time, inasmuch as ' funkeln ' 
 signifies ' to sparkle/ reproducing now in an 
 entirely novel manner the image of the bright 
 sparkling of the stone, for every knower of the 
 German tongue.* 
 
 Take another illustration of this from another 
 quarter. The French ' rossignol/ a nightingale, 
 is undoubtedly the Latin ' lusciniola/ the diminu- 
 tive of ' luscinia/ with the alteration, which so 
 frequently finds place in the Romance languages, 
 of the commencing / into r. Whatever may be the 
 etymology of ' luscinia/ whether it be ' in lucis 
 
 * [For further instances of the popularization of foreign 
 words, or ' folk-etymology,' I may be permitted to 
 refer to The Folk and their Word Lore.] 
 
On the Poetry in Words 43 
 
 cano,' the singer in the groves, or ' lugens cano,' 
 the mourning singer, or ' in lucem cano,' the 
 singer until dawn, or as is most probable, ' luscus 
 cano,' the weak-eyed and therefore twilight singer, 
 with which our ' nightingale ' would most closely 
 correspond, it is plain that for Frenchmen in 
 general the word would no longer be suggestive 
 of any of these meanings, hardly even for French 
 scholars, after the serious transformations which 
 it had undergone ; while ye?, at the same time, in 
 the exquisitely musical ' rossignol,' and still more 
 perhaps in the Italian ' usignuolo,' there is an 
 evident intention and endeavour to express some- 
 thing of the music of the bird's song in the liquid 
 melody of the imitative name which it bears ; and 
 thus to put a new soul into the word, in lieu of 
 that other which it has let go. 
 
 I must add one example more of the dying out 
 of the old life in a word, and the birth of a new in 
 its stead. Every one who has visited Lucerne in 
 Switzerland must remember the rugged mountain 
 called ' Mont de Pilate ' or ' Pilate's mountain,' 
 which stands opposite to him ; and if he has 
 been among the few who climb it, will have been 
 shown by his guide the lake at its summit in which 
 Pontius Pilate in his despair drowned himself, with 
 an assurance that from this the mountain obtained 
 its name. Nothing of the kind. ' Mont de Pilate ' 
 was originally ' Mons Pileatus,' or ' the hatted hill ' ;* 
 the clouds, as one so often sees, gathering round 
 
 * |No proof, so far as I am aware, has been alleged 
 that the mountain ever was called ' Pileatus.' It is 
 a mere conjecture. See Taylor, Names and their His- 
 tories, p. 223.] 
 
44 On the Poetry in Words 
 
 its summit, and forming the shape and appearance 
 of a turban or hat. When in the Middle Ages 
 this true derivation was forgotten or misunder- 
 stood, the other was invented and imposed. An 
 instructive example this, let me observe by the 
 way, of that which we cannot doubt has happened 
 continually in far older legends, I mean that the 
 name has suggested the legend, and not the legend 
 supplied the name. 
 
 I have said that poetry and imagination seek 
 to penetrate everywhere ; and this is literally 
 true ; for even the hardest, austerest studies can- 
 not escape their influence ; they will put some- 
 thing of their own life into the dry bones of a 
 nomenclature which seems the remotest from 
 them, the most opposed to them. He who in pro- 
 sody called a metrical foot consisting of one long 
 syllable followed by two short (""") a ' dactyle ' 
 or a finger, with allusion to the long first joint of the 
 finger and the two shorter which follow, whoever 
 he may have been, and some one must have done 
 it the first, he must be allowed to have brought a 
 certain amount of imagination into a study so 
 alien to it as prosody very well might appear. 
 
 He did the same with law who invented the 
 Latin law-term ' stellionatus,' a word including 
 generally such legally punishable acts of swindling 
 or injurious fraud committed on the property of 
 another as were not specified in any more distinct 
 enactment. The word was drawn from a practice 
 attributed, I suppose without any foundation, to 
 the lizard, the ' stellio ' we spoke of just now, of 
 casting its winter skin, and then at once swallow- 
 ing it secretly, out of a malignant grudge lest any 
 
On the Poetry in Words 45 
 
 should profit by that which was accounted a sure 
 specific in certain diseases. It was then trans- 
 ferred to any malignant wrong done by one person 
 to another.* 
 
 In other regions it was only to be expected 
 that we should find poetry. Thus it is nothing 
 strange that architecture, which has been called 
 frozen music, and which is poetry embodied in 
 material forms, should have a language of its own, 
 not dry or hard, not of the mere intellect alone, 
 but one in the forming of which it is evident that 
 the imaginative faculties were at work. To take 
 only one example, this, however, from Gothic art, 
 which naturally yields the most remarkable what 
 exquisite poetry in the name of " the rose window," 
 or better still, ' the rose/ given to the rich circular 
 aperture of stained glass, with its leaf-like com- 
 partments, in either transept of the Gothic cathe- 
 dral. Here indeed we may note an exception from 
 that which usually finds place ; for usually art 
 borrows beauty from nature, and very faintly, if at 
 all, reflects back beauty upon her. In this present 
 instance, however, art is so beautiful, has reached 
 so glorious and perfect a development, that if the 
 associations which the rose supplies lend to that 
 window some hues of beauty and a glory which 
 otherwise it would not have, the latter abundantly 
 
 * JThat quaint divine, Thomas Adams (ab. 1620) 
 says : " Extortion and cozenage is proverbially called 
 crimen stellionatus, the sin of stellature. When the stellion 
 hath cast his skin he greedily devours it again ; which, 
 saith Theophrastus, he doth in envy, because he under- 
 stands that it is a noble remedy against the falling sick- 
 ness." (Works, 1861, i. 79). See also Topsell, Historic 
 of Serpents, 1608, p. 277.] 
 
46 On the Poetry in Words 
 
 repays the obligation ; and even the rose itself may 
 become lovelier still, associated with those shapes 
 of grace, those rich gorgeous tints, and all the 
 religious symbolism of that in art which has 
 borrowed and bears its name. After this it were 
 little to note the imagination, although that was 
 most real, which dictated the term ' flamboyant ' 
 to express the wavy flame-like outline, which, 
 at a particular period of art, the tracery in the 
 Gothic window assumed. 
 
 ' Godsacre ' or ' Godsfield,' which is the Ger- 
 man name for a burial-ground, and which once 
 was our own, though we unfortunately have nearly, 
 if not quite, let it go, what a hope full of immor- 
 tality does this little word proclaim ; how rich is 
 it in all the highest elements of poetry, and of 
 poetry in its noblest alliance, that is, in its alliance 
 with faith able as it is to cause all loathsome 
 images of decay and dissolution to disappear, not 
 denying them, but suspending, losing, taking them 
 up into the sublimer thought of the victory over 
 death, of a harvest of life which God shall one day 
 reap even there where now seems the very triumph- 
 ing place of death.* 
 
 Let us then acknowledge man a born poet. If 
 not every man always himself a ' maker/ yet ever- 
 more able to rejoice in what others have made, 
 adopting it freely, moving gladly in it as his own 
 most congenial element and sphere. For indeed as 
 man does not live by bread alone, so neither does he 
 seek in language merely the instrument which shall 
 
 * [Hardly less beautiful is the German fried-hof, 
 " enclosure of peace," as a name for the churchyard, 
 if this be indeed its meaning. See Kluge, s.v.] 
 
On the Poetry in Words 47 
 
 put him in such relations with his fellow-men as 
 shall enable him to buy and sell and get gain, or 
 otherwise make provision for the lower necessities 
 of his animal life ; but something rather which shall 
 stand in a real relation and correspondence to the 
 higher faculties of his being, shall feed, nourish, 
 and sustain these, shall stir him with images oi 
 beauty and suggestions of greatness. Neither here 
 nor anywhere else could he become the mere 
 utilitarian, even if he would. Despite his utmost 
 efforts, were he mad enough to employ them, he 
 could not succeed in exhausting his language of 
 the -(poetical element which is inherent in it, in 
 strip] ag it of blossom, flower, and fruit, and 
 leaving it nothing but a bare and naked stem. He 
 may fancy for a moment that he has succeeded in 
 doing this, but it will only need for him to become 
 a little better philologer, to go a little deeper into 
 the study of the words which he is using, and he 
 will discover that he is as remote from this con- 
 summation as ever. 
 
 For ourselves, let us desire nothing of the kind. 
 Our life is not otherwise so full of imagination and 
 poetry that we need give any diligence to empty it 
 of that which it possesses of these. It will always 
 have enough of dull and prosaic and commonplace 
 for us all. What profit can there be in seeking 
 to extend the region of these ? Profit there were 
 none, but on the contrary infinite loss. It is stag- 
 nant waters which corrupt themselves ; not those 
 on which the breath and the winds of heaven are 
 freely blowing. And words of passion and imagin- 
 ation are indeed what one has called them of old, 
 avejj,ot,, " winds of the soul," to keep it in 
 
48 On the Poetry in Words 
 
 healthful motion and agitation,* to lift it upward 
 and to drive it onward, to preserve it from that 
 unwholesome stagnation which constitutes the 
 fatal preparedness for so many other and worse 
 evils. 
 
 * fit is worth noting that the root idea underlying 
 the word ' soul ' (Goth, saiwala) seems to be that of 
 a troubled sea. See A. S. P., in The Guardian, 1902, 
 pp. 378, 4".] 
 
Ill 
 
 ON THE MORALITY IN WORDS 
 
 Is man of a divine birth and stock ? coming from 
 God, and, when he fulfils the law and intention 
 of his creation, returning to Him again ? We need 
 no more than his language to prove it. So much 
 is there in that which could never have existed on 
 any other supposition. How else could all those 
 words which testify of his relation to God, and of 
 his consciousness of this relation, and which 
 ground themselves thereon, have found their way 
 into this, the veritable transcript of his inner- 
 most life, the genuine utterance of the faith and 
 hope which is in him ? In no other way than 
 this could we explain that great and prepon- 
 derating weight thrown into the scale of good- 
 ness and truth, which, despite of all in the other 
 scale, we must thankfully acknowledge in every 
 language to be there. How else shall we account 
 for that sympathy with the right, that testimony 
 against the wrong, which, despite of all its aberra- 
 tions and perversions, is yet its prevailing ground- 
 tone ? 
 
 But has man fallen, and deeply fallen, from the 
 heights of his original creation ? We need no 
 more than his language to prove it. Like every- 
 thing else about him, it bears at once the stamp 
 of his greatness and of his degradation, of his 
 glory and of his shame. What dark and sombre 
 threads he must have woven into the tissue of 
 his life, before we could trace those threads of 
 an equal darkness which run through the tissue 
 of his language ! What facts of wickedness and 
 woe must have existed in the first, ere there could 
 
 s.w. 4 E 
 
50 On the Morality in Words 
 
 be such words to designate these as are found in 
 the last ! There have been always those who 
 have sought to make light of the hurts which 
 man has inflicted on himself, of the sickness with 
 which he is sick ; who would fain persuade them- 
 selves and others that moralists and divines, if 
 they have not quite invented, have yet enor- 
 mously exaggerated, these. But are these state- 
 ments found only in Scripture and in sermons ? 
 Are there not mournful corroborations of their 
 truth imprinted deeply upon every region of 
 man's natural and spiritual life, and on none 
 more deeply than on his language ? It needs 
 no more than to open a dictionary, and to cast 
 our eye thoughtfully down a few columns, and 
 we shall find abundant confirmation of this sadder 
 and sterner estimate of man's moral and spiritual 
 condition. How else shall we explain this long 
 catalogue of words, having all to do with sin, or 
 with sorrow, or with both ? How came they 
 there ? We may be quite sure that they were 
 not invented without being needed, that they 
 have each a correlative in the world of realities. 
 I open the first letter of the alphabet ; what means 
 this ' Ah,' this ' Alas,' these deep and long-drawn 
 sighs of humanity, which at once encounter us 
 there ? And then presently follow words such 
 as these, ' Affliction/ ' Agony,' ' Anguish/ ' As- 
 sassin/ ' Atheist/ ' Avarice/ and twenty more 
 words, you will observe, for the most part not 
 laid up in the recesses of the language, to be 
 drawn forth and used at rare opportunities, but 
 occupying many of them its foremost ranks. 
 And indeed, as regards abundance, it is a melan- 
 
On the Morality in Words 51 
 
 choly thing to observe how much richer is every 
 vocabulary in words that set forth sins, than in 
 those that set forth graces. When St. Paul 
 (Gal. v. 19-23) would put these against those, 
 " the works of the flesh " against " the fruit of 
 the Spirit," those are seventeen, these only nine ; 
 and where do we find in Scripture such lists of 
 graces as we do at 2 Tim. iii. 2, Rom. i. 29-31, 
 of their contraries ? 
 
 Nor can I help taking note, in the oversight 
 and muster from this point of view of the words 
 which constitute a language, of the manner in 
 which its utmost resources have been taxed that 
 so it may express the infinite varieties, now of 
 human suffering, now of human sin. Thus what 
 a fearful thing is it that any language should have 
 a word expressive of the pleasure which men feel 
 at the calamities of others ; for the existence of 
 the word bears testimony to the existence of the 
 thing. And yet in more than one such a word 
 is found.* Nor are there wanting, I suppose, in 
 any language, words which are the mournful re- 
 cord of the strange wickednesses which the genius 
 of man, so fertile in evil, has invented. What 
 whole processes of cruelty are sometimes wrapped 
 up in a single word ! Thus I hardly open an 
 Italian dictionary before I light upon the verb 
 ' abbacinare/ meaning to deprive of sight by 
 holding a red-hot metal basin close to the eyes. 
 
 * In the Greek, brixcupficaKta, in the German, ' Scha- 
 denfreude.' Cicero so strongly feels that such a word 
 is wanting, that he gives to ' malevolentia ' the same 
 significance, " voluptas ex malo alterius," though ft lies 
 not of necessity in the word. 
 
52 On the Morality in Words 
 
 And our dictionaries, while they tell us much, 
 yet will not tell us all. How shamefully rich is 
 the language of the vulgar everywhere in words 
 and phrases which are seldom allowed to find 
 their way into books, yet which live as a sinful 
 oral tradition on the lips of men, to set forth that 
 which is unholy and impure. And of these words, 
 as no less of those which have to do with the 
 kindred sins of revelling and excess, how many 
 set the evil forth with an evident sympathy and 
 approbation, as taking part with the sin against 
 Him who has forbidden it under pain of His 
 extremest displeasure. How much cleverness, 
 how much wit, yea, how much imagination must 
 have stood in the service of sin, before it could 
 possess a nomenclature so rich, so varied, and 
 often so heaven-defying as it has. 
 
 How many words men have dragged downward 
 with themselves and made partakers more or 
 less of their own fall. Having originally an 
 honourable significance, they have yet with the 
 deterioration and degeneration of those that 
 used them, or those about whom they were used, 
 deteriorated and degenerated too. What a 
 multitude of words originally harmless have 
 assumed an harmful as their secondary meaning ; 
 how many worthy have acquired an unworthy. 
 Thus ' knave ' meant once no more than lad 
 (nor does it now in German mean .more), ' villain ' 
 than peasant ; a ' boor ' was only a farmer, a 
 ' varlet ' was but a serving-man,* a ' menial/ 
 
 * [' Varlet ' is etymologically the same word as 
 valet,' and more remotely as ' vassal.'] 
 
On the Morality in Words 53 
 
 one of the ' many,' or household,* a ' churl ' 
 but a strong fellow, a ' minion ' a favourite ; 
 man is " God's dearest minion " (Sylvester). 
 1 Time-server ' was used two hundred years ago 
 quite as often for one in an honourable as in 
 a dishonourable sense, " serving the time." f 
 ' Conceits ' had once nothing conceited in them ; 
 ' officious ' had reference to offices of kindness 
 and not of busy meddling ; ' moody ' was that 
 which pertained to a man's mood, without any 
 gloom or sullenness implied. ' Demure ' con- 
 veyed no hint, as it does now, of an over-doing 
 of the outward demonstrations of modes ty.J 
 
 * [' Many,' i.e. Mid.-Eng. mainee, O. Fr. maisnie, a 
 family or household ; Low. Lat. mansionata, the contents 
 of a ' mansion ' or house.] 
 
 t See in proof Fuller's Holy State, b. 3, c. 19. 
 
 j [' Demure,' a word of difficult etymology, is sup- 
 posed by some to have originally meant well-mannered, 
 as if from Old Fr. (home) de murs, (a man) of manners 
 (Skeat). Murray thinks the last part of the word is 
 Old Fr. meur (=mur), ripe, mature (so Wedgwood), then 
 sober, grave, grounding this on Cotgrave (a late authority), 
 but he fails to account for the prefix de- (N. E. D.). The 
 objection to this, further, is that Old Fr. meur is not 
 found in this sense (Godefroy), and that it does not 
 agree with the earliest use of the word in English (1337), 
 w^here dimuuir is applied to the sea as calm, settled, as 
 opposed to rough. I would propose to connect it with 
 O. Fr. demeurer, demourer (It. dimorare, Lat. demorari), 
 Mid-Eng. demeore, to stay, pause, or linger, and so the 
 original meaning of the word would be holding back, 
 reserved or retiring, quiet, not forward. Compare 
 ' staid ' from ' stay.' It may be noticed that morose 
 (properly Lat. morosus, self-willed) was formerly often 
 associated with mora, morari, to delay, as if it meant 
 lingering or dwelling on bad thoughts, a partial approxi- 
 mation to ' demure.' Thus ' demure ' as describing 
 one who ' demurs ' (which is the same word in a verbal 
 form) to the gay and frivolous doings of the time, comes 
 to connote Pharisaic propriety.] 
 
54 On the Morality in Words 
 
 In ' crafty ' and ' cunning ' there was nothing 
 of crooked wisdom implied, but only knowledge 
 and skill ; ' craft/ indeed, still retains very often 
 its more honourable use, a man's ' craft ' being 
 his skill, and then the trade in which he is well 
 skilled. And think you that the Magdalen could 
 have ever given us ' maudlin ' * in its present 
 contemptuous application, if the tears of peni- 
 tential weeping had been held in due honour by 
 the world ? ' Tinsel,' from the French ' etincelle,' 
 meant once anything that sparkles or glistens ; 
 thus " cloth of tinsel " would be cloth inwrought 
 with silver and gold ; but the sad experience that 
 " all is not gold that glitters," that much which 
 shows fair and specious to the eye is yet worthless 
 in reality, has caused the world imperceptibly to 
 assume the meaning which it now has, and when 
 we speak of ' tinsel,' either literally or figuratively, 
 we always mean now that which has no reality 
 of sterling worth underlying the glittering and 
 specious shows which it makes. ' Tawdry,' a 
 word of curious derivation which I will not now 
 pause to go into, has run through exactly the 
 same course : it once conveyed no intimation of 
 mean finery, or shabby splendour, as now it does.f 
 ' Voluble ' was once an epithet of honour applied 
 to an orator, and meant exactly what ' fluent ' 
 
 * [For further strange developments of this word, see 
 my Folk and their Word-lore, p. in.] 
 
 | [The word was originally used of cheap necklaces 
 sold at the Fair of St. Awdry (or Aetheldrydh) at Ely, 
 with allusion to the legend of her being addicted in her 
 youth to this kind of finery. These were called ' Saint 
 Awdry laces,' and then (by coalescence) ' 't Awdry 
 laces.'] 
 
On the Morality in Words 55 
 
 means now ; ' plausible ' was once worthy of 
 applause.* 
 
 A like deterioration through use may be traced 
 in the word ' to resent.' It was not very long ago 
 that Barrow could speak of the good man as a 
 faithful ' resenter ' and requiter of benefits, of the 
 duty of testifying an affectionate ' resentment ' 
 of our obligations to God. But, alas ! the memory 
 of benefits fades and fails from us so much more 
 quickly than that of injuries ; that which we 
 afterwards remember and revolve in our minds 
 is so much more predominantly the wrongs, real 
 or imaginary, which men have done us, than the 
 favours they have bestowed on us, that ' to resent ' 
 in our modern English has come to be confined 
 entirely to that deep reflective displeasure which 
 men entertain against those that have done, or 
 whom they believe to have done, them a wrong. 
 And this leads us to inquire how it comes to pass 
 that we do not speak of the ' retaliation ' of 
 benefits as often as the ' retaliation ' of injuries ? 
 The word does but signify the again rendering as 
 much as we have received ; but this is so much 
 seldomer thought of in regard of benefits than of 
 wrongs, that the word, though not altogether 
 unused in this its worthier sense, has yet a strange 
 and somewhat unusual sound in our ears when 
 so employed. Were we to speak of a man ' re- 
 taliating ' kindnesses, I am not sure that every 
 one would understand us. 
 
 * Having in mind what ' Diruc means now m Lrerman, 
 one almost shrinks from observing that it was at one 
 time used of the Blessed Virgin Mary ; yt see Grimm's 
 Wfrterbuch, s.v. 
 
56 On the Morality in Words 
 
 Neither is it altogether satisfactory to take 
 note that ' animosity,' according to its derivation, 
 means no more than ' spiritedness ' ; that in the 
 first use of the word in the later Latin to which 
 it belongs, it was employed in this sense ; was 
 applied, for instance, to the spirit and fiery 
 courage of the horse ; nay, in English had once 
 this meaning ; but that now it is applied to only 
 one kind of vigour and activity, that namely 
 which is displayed in enmity and hate, and ex- 
 presses a spiritedness in these. Does not this 
 look too much as if these oftenest stirred men to 
 a lively and vigorous activity ? 
 
 And then what a mournful witness for the 
 hard and unrighteous judgments we habitually 
 form of one another lies in the word ' prejudice.' 
 The word of itself means plainly no more than 
 ' a judgment formed beforehand,' without affirm- 
 ing anything as to whether that judgment be 
 favourable or unfavourable to the person aboul 
 whom it is formed. Yet so predominantly do 
 we form harsh unfavourable judgments of others 
 before knowledge and experience, that a ' pre- 
 judice,' or judgment before knowledge and not 
 grounded on evidence, is almost always taken to 
 signify an unfavourable anticipation about one ; 
 and ' prejudicial ' has actually acquired a second- 
 ary meaning of anything which is mischievous 
 or injurious. 
 
 As these words are a testimony to the sin of 
 man, so there is a signal testimony to his infirmity, 
 to the limitation of human faculties and human 
 knowledge, in the word ' to retract.' To retract 
 means properly, as its derivation declares, no 
 
On the Morality in Words 57 
 
 more than to handle over again, to reconsider. 
 And yet, so certain are we to find in a subject 
 which we reconsider, or handle a second time, 
 that which was at the first rashly, inaccurately, 
 stated, that which needs therefore to be amended, 
 modified, withdrawn, that ' to retract ' could not 
 tarry long with its primary meaning of recon- 
 iidering ; and has come to signify, as we com- 
 nonly use it, ' to withdraw.' Thus the greatest 
 Father of the Latin Church, at the close of his life 
 wishing to amend whatever he might now perceive 
 in his various published works to have been in- 
 cautiously or incorrectly stated, gave to the book, 
 in which he carried out this* intention (for they 
 had then no such opportunities as second and 
 third editions afford now), this very name of 
 1 Retractations,' being literally ' rehandlings,' but 
 in fact, as any one turning to the work will 
 at once perceive, withdrawings of various state- 
 ments which he now considered to need thus to 
 be withdrawn.* What a seal does this word's 
 acquisition of such a secondary use as this set to 
 the proverb, Humanum est errare. 
 
 At the same time urging, as I have thus done, 
 this degeneration of words, I should greatly err, 
 if I failed to bring before you the fact that a 
 parallel process of purifying and ennobling has 
 also been going forward, especially through the 
 
 * [I fear this moralization of the word must be given 
 up as founded on a mistake. The Latin retractatio is 
 simply a ' drawing back ' or ' withdrawal ' of some- 
 thing previously advanced, the verb retractare (formed 
 from retractus, p. partc. of re-trahere, to draw back) 
 meaning to with-draw or revoke as well as to handle again.] 
 
58 On the Morality in Words 
 
 influences of a Divine faith working in the world ; 
 which, as it has turned men from evil to good, or 
 has lifted them from a lower earthly goodness to 
 an higher heavenly, so has it in like manner 
 elevated, purified, and ennobled a multitude of 
 the words which they employ, until these which 
 once expressed only an earthly good, express now 
 an heavenly. The Gospel of Christ, as it is the 
 redemption of man, so is it in a multitude of 
 instances the redemption of his word, freeing it 
 from the bondage of corruption, that it should 
 no longer be subject to vanity, nor stand any 
 more in the service of sin or of the world, but in 
 the service of God and of His truth. Thus in the 
 Greek language there is a word for ' humility ' ; * 
 but this humility meant for the Greek that is, 
 with very rarest exceptions meanness of spirit. 
 He who brought in the Christian grace of humility, 
 did in so doing rescue also the word which ex- 
 pressed it for nobler uses and to a far higher 
 dignity than hitherto it had attained. There 
 were ' angels ' before heaven had been opened, 
 but these only earthly messengers ; ' martyrs ' 
 also, or witnesses, but these not unto blood, nor 
 yet for God's highest truth ; ' apostles,' but sent 
 of men ; ' evangels,' but not of the kingdom of 
 heaven ; ' advocates,' but not " with the Father." 
 ' Paradise ' was a word common in slightly differ- 
 ent forms to almost all the nations of the East ; 
 but they meant by it only some royal park or 
 garden of delights ; till for the Jew it was exalted 
 to signify the wondrous abode of our first parents ; 
 and higher honours awaited it still, when on the 
 
On the Morality in Words 59 
 
 lips of the Lord, it signified the blissful waiting- 
 place of faithful departed souls (Luke xxiii. 43) ; * 
 yea, the heavenly blessedness itself (Rev. ii. 7). 
 Nor was the word ' regeneration ' unknown to the 
 Greeks : they could speak of the earth's ' re- 
 generation ' in the spring-time, of recollection 
 as the ' regeneration ' of knowledge ; the Jewish 
 historian could describe the return of his country- 
 men from the Babylonian captivity, and their 
 re-establishment under Cyrus in their own land, 
 as the ' regeneration ' of the Jewish state. But 
 still the word, on the lips either of Jew or Greek, 
 was removed very far from that honour reserved 
 for it in the Christian dispensation namely, that 
 it should be the bearer of one of the chiefest and 
 most blessed mysteries of the faith. And many 
 other words in like manner there are, " fetched 
 from the very dregs of paganism," as Sanderson 
 has said,t (he instances the Latin ' sacrament,' 
 the Greek ' mystery'), which words the Holy 
 Spirit has not refused to employ for the setting 
 forth of the great truths of our redemption. 
 Reversing in this the impious deed of Belshazzar, 
 who profaned the sacred vessels of God's house 
 to sinful and idolatrous uses (Dan. v. 2), that 
 blessed Spirit has often consecrated the very 
 idol-vessels of Babylon to the service of the 
 sanctuary. 
 
 Let us now proceed to contemplate some of 
 the attestations to God's truth, and then some 
 
 * [But Paradise was already so used by the Jewish 
 Rabbis.] 
 
 f Sermons, 1671, vol. ii. p. 124. 
 
6o On the Mofality in Words 
 
 of the playings into the hands of the devil's false- 
 hood, which lurk in words. 
 
 And first, the attestations to God's truth, the 
 fallings in of our words with his unchangeable 
 Word : for these, as the true uses of the word, 
 while the other are only its abuses, have a prior 
 claim to be considered. Some modern " false 
 prophets " who would gladly explain away all 
 such phenomena of the world around us as declare 
 man to be a sinful being and enduring the conse- 
 quences of sin, tell us that pain is only a sub- 
 ordinate kind of pleasure, or, at worst, that it is 
 a sort of needful hedge and guardian of pleasure. 
 But there is a deeper feeling in the universal 
 heart of man, bearing witness to something very 
 different from this shallow explanation of the 
 existence of pain in the present economy of the 
 world namely, that it is the correlative of sin, 
 that it is punishment ; and to this the word ' pain,' 
 which there can be no reasonable doubt is derived 
 from ' poena,' bears continual witness. Pain is 
 punishment ; so does the word itself, no less than 
 the conscience of every one that is suffering it, 
 declare. Just so, again, there are those who 
 will not hear of great pestilences being God's 
 scourges of men's sins ; who fain would find out 
 natural causes for them, and account for them 
 by the help of these. I remember it was thus 
 with too many in the time of our fearful visita- 
 tions from the cholera. They may do so, or 
 imagine that they do so ; yet every time they 
 use the word ' plague/ they implicitly own the 
 fact which they are endeavouring to deny ; for 
 ' plague ' means properly and according to its 
 
On the Morality in Words 61 
 
 derivation, ' blow,' or ' stroke ; ' * and was a 
 title given to these terrible diseases, because the 
 great universal conscience of men, which is never 
 at fault, believed and confessed that these were 
 ' strokes ' or ' blows ' inflicted by God on a guilty 
 and rebellious world. With reference to such 
 words so used we may truly say : Vox populi, vox 
 Dei a proverb which, shallowly interpreted, 
 may be made to contain a most mischievous 
 falsehood ; but interpreted in the sense wherein 
 no doubt it was spoken, holds a deepest truth. 
 We must only remember that this ' people ' is 
 not the populace either in high place or in low ; 
 and that this " voice of the people " is not any 
 momentary outcry, but the consenting testimony 
 of the good and wise, of those neither brutalized 
 by ignorance, nor corrupted by a false cultivation, 
 in all places and in all times. 
 
 Every one who admits the truth which lies in 
 this saying must, I think, acknowledge it as a 
 remarkable fact, that men should have agreed to 
 apply the word ' miser/ or miserable, to the man 
 eminently addicted to the vice of covetousness, 
 to him who loves his money with his whole heart 
 and soul. Here too the moral instinct lying 
 deep in all hearts has borne testimony to the 
 tormenting nature of this vice, to the gnawing 
 care with which even here it punishes him that 
 
 * [From Lat. pldga, a blow, Greek plege. It is inter- 
 esting to find an accident or visitation of providence 
 called a ' stroke of God ' in a document so ancient as 
 the Code of Khammurabi (about 2250 B.C.), " If in a 
 sheepfold a stroke of God has taken place " ( 266, ed. 
 Johns). So in Hebrew the verb for to plague (Gen. xii. 
 17, etc.), ndga, is properly to strike or smite.] 
 
62 On the Morality in Words 
 
 entertains it, to the enmity which there is between 
 it and all joy ; and the man who enslaves himself 
 to his money is proclaimed in our very language 
 to be a ' miser/ or a miserable man.* 
 
 Other words will also be found to bear testi- 
 mony to great moral truths. St. James has, I 
 doubt not, been often charged with exaggeration, 
 if not openly, yet in the hearts of men, perhaps 
 we have sometimes been tempted to charge him 
 with it ourselves, because he has said, " Who- 
 soever shall keep the whole law, and yet offend 
 in one point, he is guilty of all " (ii. 10). And 
 yet what says he different here from that which 
 we are all agreed to say, which the Romans said 
 long ago, they using ' integritas,' and we ' in- 
 tegrity/ to express the right moral condition for 
 a man ? For what was ' integritas ' before it 
 was assumed into ethical use ? It was entire- 
 ness ; the ' integrity ' of the body being, as Cicero 
 explains it, the full possession and the perfect 
 soundness of all the members of the body ; and 
 ethical ' integrity/ though of course if cannot be 
 predicated so absolutely of any sinful child of 
 Adam, is yet this same entireness or complete- 
 ness transferred to the region of the higher moral 
 life. It is exactly that condition which Herod 
 had not attained, who at the Baptist's bidding 
 " did many things gladly " (Mark vi. 20), but 
 did not put away his brother's wife ; and all 
 whose partial obedience therefore profited him 
 nothing ; he had dropped one link in the golden 
 
 * We here in fact say in a word what the Roman 
 moralist, when he wrote " Nulla avaritia sine poena est, 
 quamvis satis sit ipsa paenarum" took a sentence to say. 
 
On the Morality in Words 63 
 
 chain of obedience, and as a consequence the 
 whole chain fell to the ground. 
 
 It is certainly very noticeable, and many have 
 noticed it already, that the Greek word signifying 
 ' wickedness ' (Trovrjpia) comes of another signify- 
 ing ' labour ' (TTOI/O?). How well does this agree 
 with those passages in Scripture which describe 
 sinners as " wearying themselves to commit in- 
 iquity," as " labouring in the very fire." * " St. 
 Chrysostom's eloquence," as Bishop Sanderson 
 has observed on this very matter, " enlarges 
 itself and triumphs in this argument more fre- 
 quently than in almost any other ; and he clears 
 it often and beyond all exception, both by Scrip- 
 ture and reason, that the life of a wicked or worldly 
 man is a very drudgery infinitely more toilsome, 
 vexatious, and unpleasant than a godly life is." f 
 -< Take again the witness of words to a central 
 truth of our faith. A deep-lying connexion 
 acknowledged by the mind of man between sin 
 and expiation, a profound conviction that sin 
 was that which needed expiation and satisfaction, 
 and could not be forgiven without it, this con- 
 fession entwining itself in the very roots of men's 
 minds, and so incorporating itself in the very 
 words which they employed, all this has been 
 traced in the relations of the German word for 
 sin with another word signifying to expiate or 
 atone (' Siinde ' with ' siihnen '). Doubts were 
 
 * [Compare " A man of pleasure is a man of pains." 
 Young. So the root meaning of Heb. rdsha, to be wicked, 
 is to be agitated and disturbed. See Jos. Mede, Works, 
 i. 241.] 
 
 | Sermons , London, 1671, vol. ft. p, 244. 
 
64 On the Morality in Words 
 
 alterwards expressed as to whether the words 
 were thus etymologically related or no ; whether 
 the relation which had been traced between them 
 was not merely fanciful, and, as such, not to be 
 pressed into the service of the Truth, acceptable 
 as their witness would otherwise have been. The 
 scholar, however, in Germany who has the best 
 right to speak authoritatively on the matter, 
 after a full discussion of the subject, has come 
 back to this, that the relationship of ' Siinde ' 
 and ' siihnen/ though not quite so close as some 
 before him had assumed, is yet most real ; and 
 that the idea of that which needs expiation does 
 lie in the word sin, ' siihnen ' in ' Siinde,'* As 
 the great lines in which the human mind travels 
 are evermore the same, we must recognize as a 
 confirmation of this conclusion that in the Latin 
 ' piaculum ' is used for an enormous sin, which 
 as such demands expiation. 
 
 How deep an insight into the failings of the 
 human heart lies at the root of many words ; and, 
 if only we would attend to them, what valuable 
 warnings many contain against subtle tempta- 
 tions and sins ! Thus, all of us have probably 
 more or less felt the temptation of seeking to 
 please others by an unmanly assenting to their 
 view of some matter, even when our own inde- 
 pendent convictions would lead us to a different. 
 The existence of such a temptation, and the fact 
 that too many yield to it, are both declared in 
 the Latin word for a flatterer ' assentator ' 
 
 * Grimm, Theol. Stud. u. Krit. 1839, pp. 747 sqq. 
 jjGerman philologists now jtreat these words as dis- 
 tinct. See Kluge, s.vv.j 
 
On the Morality in Words 65 
 
 that is, ' an assenter ' ; one who has not courage 
 to say No, when a Yes is expected from him : and 
 quite independently of the Latin, the German 
 language, in its contemptuous and precisely 
 equivalent use of ' Jaherr,' a ' yea- Lord,' warns 
 us in like manner against all such unmanly com- 
 pliances. I may observe by the way that we 
 also once possessed the word ' assentation ' in 
 the sense of unworthy flattering lip-assent ; the 
 last example of it which Richardson gives is from 
 Bishop Hall : "It is a fearful presage of ruin 
 when the prophets conspire in assentation." The 
 word is quite worthy to be revived.* 
 
 Again, how well it is to have that spirit of 
 depreciation of others, that eagerness to find 
 spots and stains in the characters of the noblest 
 and the best, who would otherwise oppress and 
 rebuke us with a goodness and a greatness so far 
 surpassing ours met and checked by a word at 
 once so expressive, and so little pleasant to take 
 home to ourselves, as the French ' denigreur,' a 
 ' blackener.' This word also is now, I believe, 
 out of use ; which is a pity, while the race which 
 it designates is so far from being extinct. Full 
 too of instruction and warning is our present 
 employment of the word ' libertine.' It signified, 
 according to its earliest use in French and in 
 English, a speculative free-thinker in matters of 
 religion and in the theory of morals, or, it might 
 be, of government. But as by a sure process 
 free-thinking does and will end in free-acting, as 
 he who has cast off the one yoke will cast off 
 the other, so a ' libertine ' came in two or three 
 * [It is used by Southey and Isaac Taylor. See N.E.D.]\ 
 
 S.W. F 
 
66 On the Morality in Words 
 
 generations to signify a profligate, especially in 
 relation to women, a licentious and debauched 
 person. 
 
 There is much too that we may learn from 
 looking a little closely at the word ' passion.' We 
 sometimes think of the ' passionate ' man as a 
 man of strong will, and of real, though ungoverned, 
 energy. But this word declares to us most 
 plainly the contrary ; for it, as a very solemn use 
 of it declares, means properly ' suffering ' ; and 
 a passionate man is not a man doing something, 
 but one suffering something to be done on him. 
 When then a man or child is " in a passion,' ' this 
 is no coming out in him of a strong will, of a real 
 energy, but rather the proof that for the time at 
 least he has no will, no energy; he is suffering, 
 not doing, suffering his anger, or what other 
 evil temper it may be, to lord over him without 
 control. Let no one then think of ' passion ' as 
 a sign of strength.* As reasonably might one 
 assume that it was a proof of a man being a strong 
 man that he was often well beaten ; such a fact 
 would be evidence that a strong man was putting 
 forth his strength on him, but of anything rather 
 than that he himself was strong. The same sense 
 of passion and feebleness going together, of the 
 first being born of the second, lies, as I may re- 
 
 * [" Strong passions mean weak will." Coventry 
 Patmore. " Some men are liable to passion in the 
 same way as others are to the epilepsy, or any sud- 
 den particular disorder." Butler, Sermon viii, " Upon 
 Resentment." "Excessive anger is attended with all 
 imaginable symptoms of weakness." Seeker, Works, 
 1825, iii. 61. Indeed, " all wickedness is weakness " 
 (Milton, Samson Agonistes, 1. 834), and the two words 
 are probably akin. Compare Prov. xvi. 32.] 
 
On the Morality in Words 67 
 
 mark by the way, in the twofold use of the Latin 
 word, ' impotens ' ; which, meaning first weak, 
 means then violent, and then often weak and 
 violent together. 
 
 Or meditate, I would ask you, on the use of 
 the word ' humanitas,' to signify the mental and 
 moral cultivation befitting a man ; and consider 
 how much herein is implied. We have happily 
 overlived in England the time when it was still 
 a question in debate among us, whether education 
 were a good thing for every living soul or not ; 
 the only question which can be said seriously to 
 divide Englishman now being, in what manner 
 that mental and moral training, which is society's 
 debt to each one of its members, may be most 
 effectually imparted to him. Were it not so, 
 were there any who still affirmed that it was good 
 for any man that he should be left with powers 
 not called out, and with faculties untrained, we 
 might appeal to this word ' humanitas,' and the 
 use to which the Roman put it, in proof that he 
 at least was not of this mind, even as now we may 
 not slight the striking witness to the truth which 
 this word contains. The Roman expressed by 
 ' humanitas ' the highest and most harmonious 
 culture of all the human faculties and powers. 
 Then, and then only, man was truly man, when 
 he received this ; in so far as he did not receive 
 this, his ' humanity ' was maimed and imperfect ; 
 he fell short of himself, of his ideal, of that which 
 he was created to be ; for so much was involved 
 in this employment of the word. I may just 
 observe that in what has just been said lies the 
 explanation of the term, ' the humanities,' which, 
 
68 On the Morality in Words 
 
 more in Scotland than here, is used to designate 
 those studies which are considered the most 
 specially adapted for training this the true hu- 
 manity in every man. 
 
 In our use of the word ' talents/ as when we 
 say " a man of talents " (not " of talent," for that 
 as we shall see presently, is nonsense,* though 
 " of a talent " would be allowable), there is a 
 clear recognition of the responsibilities which go 
 along with the possession of intellectual gifts and 
 endowments, whatsoever they may be. We derive 
 the word from the parable at Matthew xxv. 
 14, in which various talents, more and fewer, are 
 committed to the several servants by their lord, 
 that they may trade with them in his absence, 
 and give account of their employment at his 
 return. Men may choose to forget the ends for 
 which their ' talents ' were given them ; they may 
 count them merely something which they have 
 gotten ; f they may turn them to selfish ends ; 
 they may glorify themselves in them, instead of 
 glorifying the Giver ; they may practically deny 
 that they were given at all ; yet in this word, till 
 
 * [Mr. Fitzedward Hall, in opposition to Archbishop 
 Trench and Landor, defends the propriety of this usage, 
 and shows by a catena of writers from 1602, including 
 Steele, Hor. Walpole, Southey and Ruskin, that ' talent ' 
 has always been employed for mental ability (Modern 
 English, pp. 63-65). He contests the statement that 
 the word is traceable solely to the parable. In the older 
 English sense of inclination, like Ital. " talento an in- 
 clination of the minde, an earnest will, desire or ap- 
 petite " (Florio), it came direct from the Greek talanton, 
 a balance. (Compare, penchant and propensity}.] 
 
 t An , as the heathen did, not a dcfyn^a, as the 
 Christian does : see a remarkable passage in Bishop 
 Andrews' Sermons, vol. iii. p. 384. 
 
On the Morality in Words 69 
 
 they can rid their vocabulary of it, abides a con- 
 tinual memento that they were so given, or rather 
 lent, and that each man shall have to render an 
 account of their use. 
 
 Again, in the words ' oblige ' and ' obligation,' 
 as when we speak of " being obliged," or of 
 " having received an obligation" a moral truth 
 is asserted, this namely, that having received a 
 benefit or a favour at the hands of another, it 
 does not now lie in our free choice, but we morally 
 are bound, to show ourselves grateful for the same. 
 We cannot prove otherwise without denying not 
 merely a moral truth, but one incorporated in the 
 very language which we employ. Thus South, in 
 a sermon, Of the odious Sin of Ingratitude, has 
 well asked, " If the conferring of a kindness did 
 not bind the person upon whom it was conferred 
 to the returns of gratitude, why, in the universal 
 dialect of the world, are kindnesses still called 
 obligations ?" * 
 
 Once more the habit of calling a woman's 
 chastity her ' virtue ' is very significant. I will 
 not deny that it may in part be indicative of the 
 tendency, which we many times find traces of in 
 language, to narrow the whole circle of virtues to 
 some one upon which peculiar stress is laid ; but 
 still in the selecting of this peculiar one as the 
 ' virtue ' of woman, there speaks out a true sense 
 that this is indeed in her the citadel of the whole 
 moral being, f the overthrow of which is for her 
 
 * Sermons, London, 1737, vol. i. p. 407. 
 
 f [So in the Indian Epic Rama says of his wife, ' Neither 
 houses, nor vestments, nor enclosing walls are the screen 
 of a woman. Her own virtue alone protects her ' 
 
70 On the Morality in Words 
 
 the overthrow of all that it is the keystone ot 
 the arch, which being withdrawn, the whole 
 collapses and falls. 
 
 Let us a little consider the word ' kind.' We 
 speak of a ' kind ' person, and we speak of man- 
 ' kind,' and perhaps, if we think about the matter 
 at all, we seem to ourselves to be using quite 
 different words, or the same words in senses quite 
 unconnected. But they are connected, and that 
 by closest bonds ; a ' kind ' person is a ' kinned ' 
 person, one of kin ; one who acknowledges and 
 acts upon his kinship with other men, confesses 
 that he owes to them, as of one blood with himself, 
 the debt of love. And so mankind is mankinned.* 
 In the word is contained a declaration of the 
 relationship which exists between all the members 
 of the human family ; and seeing that this relation- 
 ship in a race now scattered so widely and divided 
 so far asunder can only be through a common head, 
 we do in fact every time that we use the word 
 
 (Monier- Williams), with which may be compared Milton's 
 eulogy of Chastity, " She that has that is clad in com- 
 plete steel" (Comus, 1. 421), and a similar sentiment in 
 W. Black's Daughter of Heth, chap. xiv. (p. 36, cheap 
 ed.)] 
 
 * Thus it is not a mere play upon words, but some- 
 thing much deeper, which Shakespeare puts into Hamlet's 
 mouth, when, speaking of his father's brother who had 
 married his mother, he characterizes him as " A little 
 more than kin, and less than kind." 
 
 [' Kind,' A. Sax. (ge-)cynde, is not actually derived 
 from kin (A. Sax. cynn), though nearly related to it. 
 The transitions of meaning have been (i) born, (2) native, 
 natural (so 'kindly'), (3) well-born (generosus), (4) 
 well-disposed, liberal, affectionate ; almost identical 
 with those of the cognate word, ' gentle.' Compare 
 also 'benign,' Lat. benignus for beni-genus (=bene- 
 genitus}, well-born.] 
 
On the Morality in Words 71 
 
 ' mankind/ declare our faith in the one common 
 descent of the whole race of man. And beautiful 
 before, how much more beautiful now do the 
 words ' kind ' and ' kindness ' appear, when we 
 apprehend the root out of which they grow ; that 
 they are the acknowledgment in loving deeds of 
 our kinship with our brethren ; and how profit- 
 able to keep in mind that a lively recognition of 
 the bonds of blood, whether of those closer ones 
 which unite us to that whom by best right we 
 term our family, or those wider ones which knit 
 us to the whole human family, that this is the 
 true source out of which all genuine love and 
 affection must spring ; for so much is affirmed in 
 our daily, hourly use of the word. 
 
 But it was observed just now that there are 
 also words which bear the slime on them of the 
 serpent's trail ; and the uses of words, which imply 
 moral perversity I say not upon their parts who 
 now employ them in the senses which they have 
 acquired, but on theirs from whom little by little 
 they received then: deflection, and were warped 
 from their original rectitude. Thus for instance 
 is it with the word ' prude,' signifying as now it 
 does a woman with an over-scrupulous affectation 
 of a modesty which she does not really feel, and 
 betraying the absence of the reality by this over- 
 preciseness and niceness about the shadow. This 
 use of the word must needs have been the result 
 of a great corruption of manners in them among 
 whom it grew up ; goodness must have gone 
 strangely out of fashion, before things could have 
 come to this. For ' prude,' which is a French 
 
72 On the Morality in Words 
 
 word, means virtuous or prudent ; ' prud'homme ' 
 being a man of courage and probity. But where 
 morals are greatly and generally relaxed, virtue 
 is often treated as hypocrisy ; and thus, in a dis- 
 solute age, and one disbelieving the existence of 
 any inward purity, ' prude ' came to designate 
 a sort of female Tartuffe, one who affected a 
 virtue, even as none were esteemed to do any- 
 thing more ; and in this use of it, which, having 
 once acquired, it continues to retain, abides an 
 evidence of the corrupt world's dislike to and 
 disbelief in the realities of goodness, its willing- 
 ness to treat them as mere hypocrisies and shows. 
 Again, why should the word ' simple ' be used 
 slightingly, and ' simpleton ' more slightingly 
 still. According to a derivation which I am not 
 prepared to give up, the ' simple ' is one " without 
 fold," (sine plica) ; * just what we may imagine 
 Nathanael to have been, and what our Lord 
 attributed as the highest honour to him, the 
 " Israelite without guile " ; and, indeed, what 
 higher honour could there be than to have nothing 
 double about us, to be without duplicities or 
 folds ? Even the world, that despises ' sim- 
 plicity/ does not profess to approve of ' duplicity/ 
 or double- foldedness. But inasmuch as we feel 
 that in a world like ours such a man will make 
 himself a prey, will prove no match for the fraud 
 and falsehood which he will everywhere encounter, 
 and as there is that in most men which, were they 
 
 * [Rather " one-fold," Lat. simplex (i.e. sim-plic-s, 
 " same-ply ") as opposed to du-plex, com-plex, multi-plex. 
 An interesting parallel is afforded by Scot, cB-fald (Old 
 Eng. an- f aid, " one-fold "), meaning simple, straight 
 forward.] 
 
On the Morality in Words 73 
 
 obliged to choose between deceiving and being 
 deceived, would make them choose the former, 
 it has come to pass that ' simple/ which in a 
 world of righteousness would be a word of highest 
 honour, implies here in this world of ours some- 
 thing of scorn for the person to whom it is applied. 
 And must it not be confessed to be a striking 
 fact that exactly in the same way a person of 
 deficient intellect is called an ' innocent,' inno- 
 cens, one that does not hurt ? so that this word 
 assumes that the first and chief use men make 
 of their intellectual powers will be to do hurt, 
 that where they are wise it will be to do evil. 
 What a witness does human language bear here 
 against human sin. 
 
 Nor are these isolated examples of the con- 
 temptuous application of words expressive of 
 goodness. They meet us on every side. Thus 
 ' silly/ written ' seely ' in our earlier English, is 
 beyond a doubt the German ' selig/ which means 
 ' blessed.' * We see the word in its transition 
 state in our early poets, with whom ' silly ' is 
 so often an affectionate epithet applied to sheep, 
 as expressive of their harmlessness and innocency. 
 With a still slighter departure from its original 
 meaning, an early English poet applies the word 
 to the Lord of Glory Himself, while yet an infant 
 
 * [A. Sax. s&lig, originally " timely," " opportune," 
 from s&l, a time. A similar shifting of meaning from 
 innocence or simplicity of character to foolishness is 
 seen in Ger. albern ; FT. benet (Cotgrave), Greek euethes ; 
 Welsh gwirion ; Ger. schlecht, Scottish sackless. Another 
 instance of the same depreciation of meaning is pre- 
 sented by " daft," which in the oldest English meant 
 becoming, gentle, mild. In A. Sax. Matt. xxi. 5, Zion's 
 King comes to her ge-dafte, i.e. meek (Skeat).] 
 
74 On the Morality in Words 
 
 of days, styling him " this harmless silly Babe." 
 But here the same process went forward as with 
 the words ' simple ' and ' innocent.' And the 
 same moral phenomenon repeats itself con- 
 tinually. For example : at the first promulga- 
 tion of the Christian faith, and while yet the name 
 of its Divine Founder was somewhat new and 
 strange to the ears of the heathen, they were 
 wont, some perhaps out of ignorance, but more 
 of intention, slightly to mispronounce this name, 
 as though it had not been ' Christus,' but ' Chres- 
 tus ' that word signifying in Greek ' benevolent/ 
 or ' benign.' That they who did this of intention 
 meant no honour hereby to the Lord of Life, but 
 the contrary, is certain ; and indeed the word, 
 like the ' silly,' ' innocent,' ' simple,' of which we 
 have already spoken, had already contracted a 
 slight tinge of contempt, or else there would have 
 been no inducement to fasten it on the Saviour. 
 What a strange shifting of the moral sense there 
 must have been, before it could have done so, 
 before men could have found in a name implying 
 benignity and goodness a nickname of scorn. 
 The French have their ' bonhommie ' with the 
 same undertone of contempt, the Greeks also a 
 well-known word.* It is to the honour of the 
 Latin, and is very characteristic of the best side 
 
 * A passage from Lady Shell's Life and Manners in 
 Persia, p. 247, is curious as showing us precisely the same 
 moral phenomenon reappearing in another quarter : 
 " They [the Persians] have odd names for describing the 
 moral qualities ; Sedakat means sincerity, honesty, can- 
 dour ; but when a man is said to be possessed of sedakat, 
 the meaning is that he is a credulous, contemptible sim- 
 pleton." 
 
On the Morality in Words 75 
 
 of Roman life, that ' simplex ' and ' simphcitas ' 
 never acquired this abusive signification. 
 
 Again, we all know how prone men are to 
 ascribe, to chance or fortune those good gifts and 
 blessings which indeed come directly from God 
 to build altars to fortune rather than to Him 
 who is the Author of every good thing. And 
 this faith of theirs, that their blessings, even 
 their highest, come to them by a blind chance, 
 they have incorporated in a word ; for ' happy ' 
 and ' happiness ' are of course connected with 
 and derived from ' hap,' which is chance. But 
 how unworthy is this word to express any true 
 felicity, of which the very essence is that it ex- 
 cludes hap or chance, that the world neither gave 
 nor can take it away.* It is indeed more ob- 
 jectionable than ' lucky ' and ' fortunate,' ob- 
 jectionable as also are these, inasmuch as by the 
 ' happy ' man we mean much more than by the 
 ' fortunate.' Very nobly has a great English 
 poet protested against the misuse of the latter 
 word, when of one who had lost indeed every- 
 thing beside, but, as he esteemed, had kept the 
 truth, he exclaims : 
 
 Call not the royal Swede unfortunate, 
 Who never did to fortune bend the knee. 
 
 There are other words which reveal a wrong 
 or insufficient 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 the present 
 
 * [See some good remarks on these contrasted words 
 in Horace Bushnell, The New Life, p. 148.] 
 
76 On the Morality in Words 
 
 users of the words may only have inherited it 
 from others, not helped to bring it about them- 
 selves. Thus when an employer of labour adver- 
 tises that he wants so many ' hands/ we must 
 needs feel that this language could never have 
 become current, a man could never have thus 
 shrunk into a ' hand ' in the eyes of his fellow- 
 man, unless this latter had in good part forgotten 
 that annexed to those hands which he would 
 purchase to toil for him were also heads and 
 hearts * a fact, by the way, of which, if he 
 persists in forgetting it, he may be reminded in 
 very unwelcome ways at the last. In Scripture 
 there is another pars pro toto not unfrequent, 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 con- 
 trast may suggest some profitable reflections to 
 us all.f 
 
 But another way in which the immorality of 
 words mainly displays itself, one too in which 
 perhaps they work their greatest mischief, is that 
 of giving honourable names to dishonourable 
 things, making sin plausible by dressing it out 
 sometimes even in the very colours of goodness, 
 or if not so, yet in such as go far to conceal its 
 own native deformity. " The tongue," as St. 
 James has declared, " is a world of iniquity " 
 (iii. 6) ; or as some interpreters affirm the words 
 
 * The use of ff^ara. for slaves in Greek (it occurs in 
 this sense, Rev. xviii. 13), rests on exactly the same 
 forgetfulness of the moral worth of every man. 
 
 f [But " souls " is used for slaves as articles of mer- 
 chandise, like " bodies " in the previous note, in Rev. 
 xviii. 13.] 
 
On the Morality in Words 77 
 
 ought rather to be translated, and they would be 
 then still more to our purpose, " the ornament of 
 iniquity,' 1 that which sets it out in fair and attrac- 
 tive colours : and those who understand the 
 original will at once perceive that such a meaning 
 may possibly lie in the words. I do not believe 
 that these last-named expositors are right, yet 
 certainly the connexion of the Greek word for 
 ' tongue ' with our ' gloze,' ' glossy,' with the 
 German ' gleissen,' to smooth over or polish,* 
 and with an obsolete Greek word as well, also 
 signifying ' to polish,' is not accidental, but real, 
 and may well suggest some searching thoughts 
 as to the uses whereunto we turn this ' best,' but, 
 as it may therefore prove also, 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, which makes 
 sin plausible, and shifts the divinely reared land- 
 marks 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 " (Isa. v. 20) a text on which South 
 
 * (1" To gloze," to palliate or flatter, properly to put 
 " glosses " or explanations on (Greek glossai), to interpret, 
 has no relation to gloss, superficial lustre, specious appear- 
 ance, or glossy (Prov. Swed. glossa, to shine), or Ger. 
 gl eisen, though these words have often been confused. 
 Folk- Etymology, 145.] 
 
78 On the Morality in Words 
 
 has written four of his grandest sermons, with 
 reference to this very matter, and bearing this 
 striking title, On the fatal Imposture and Force 
 of Words. How awful, yea, how fearful, is this 
 force and imposture of theirs, leading men cap- 
 tive at will. There is an atmosphere about them 
 which they (are evermore diffusing, an atmo- 
 sphere of life or of death, which we insensibly 
 inhale at each moral breath we draw.* " The 
 winds of the soul," they fill its sails, and are con- 
 tinually impelling it upon its course, heavenward 
 or to hell. 
 
 Thus how greatly different the light in which 
 we shall have learned to regard a sin, according 
 as we have been wont to designate it, and to hear 
 it designated, by a word which brings out its 
 loathsomeness and deformity ; or by one which 
 palliates these and conceals. These last are only 
 too frequent ; as when in Italy, during the period 
 that poisoning was rifest, nobody was said to be 
 poisoned ; it was only that the death of some was 
 ' assisted ' (aiutata.) Worse than these are words 
 which seek to turn the edge of the Divine threat- 
 enings against some sin by a jest ; as when in 
 France a subtle poison, by which impatient heirs 
 delivered themselves from those who stood be- 
 tween them and the inheritance which they 
 coveted, was called ' poudre de succession.' We 
 might suppose beforehand that such cloaks for 
 
 * Bacon's words have been often quoted, but they 
 will bear being quoted once more : " Credunt enim 
 homines rationem suam verbis imperare. Sed fit etiam 
 ut verba vim suam super intellectum retorqueant et 
 reflectant." 
 
On the Morality in Words 79 
 
 sin would be only to be met with among people 
 in an advanced state of artificial cultivation. But 
 it is not so. Captain Erskine, who visited not 
 many years since in an English man-of-war the 
 Feijee Islands, and who gives some extraordinary 
 details of the extent to which the practice of can- 
 nibalism was then carried on by their inhabitants, 
 pork and human flesh being the two staple articles 
 of food among them, tells us in his deeply-inter- 
 esting record of his voyage, that natural pig the 
 natives call ' short pig,' and man dressed and 
 prepared for food, ' long pig.' Now there was 
 doubtless an attempt to hide under this name, 
 to carry off with a jest, the revolting character 
 of the practice in which they indulged. For the 
 fact that they were themselves aware of this, 
 that their consciences did bear witness against 
 it, was attested by their uniform desire to conceal 
 all traces of the practice, so far as this was pos- 
 sible, from European eyes. 
 
 But worst perhaps of all are names which 
 throw a flimsy veil of sentiment over some sin. 
 What a source, for example, of mischief without 
 end in our country parishes is the one practice 
 of calling a child born out of wedlock a ' love- 
 child,' instead of a bastard. It would be hard 
 to estimate how much it has lowered the tone 
 and standard of morality among us ; or for how 
 many young women it may have helped to make 
 the downward way more sloping still. How 
 vigorously ought we to oppose ourselves to all 
 such immoralities of language ; which opposition 
 will yet never be easy or pleasant ; for many that 
 will endure to commit a sin, will profoundly 
 
8o On the Morality in Words 
 
 resent having that sin called by its right name ; * 
 like Nym in Shakespeare, whose stealing is not 
 stealing, but ' conveying/ " convey the wise it 
 call " ; like the electors in some of our profligate 
 boroughs, who receive, not bribes they would 
 be indignant if anything of the kind were said 
 but ' head-money ' for their votes. 
 
 Coarse as, according to our present usages of 
 language, may be esteemed the word by which 
 our plain-speaking Anglo-Saxon fathers were 
 wont to designate the unhappy women who make 
 a trade of selling their bodies to the lusts of men, 
 yet is there a profound moral sense in that word, 
 bringing prominently out, as it does, the true 
 vileness of their occupation, who for hire are 
 content to profane and lay waste the deepest 
 sanctities of their life.f Consider the truth which 
 
 * On the general subject of the reaction of a people's 
 language on that people's moral life, I will adduce some 
 words of Milton, who, as he did so much to enlarge, to 
 enrich, to purify our mother tongue, so also in the Latin 
 which he wielded so well has thus declared his mind : 
 " Neque enim qui sermo, purusne an corruptus, quaeve 
 loquendi proprietas quotidiana populo sit, parvi interesse 
 arbitrandum est, quae res Athenis non semel saluti fuit ; 
 immo vero, quod Platonis sententia est, immutato ves- 
 tiendi more habituque graves in Republica motus mutatio- 
 nesque portendi, equidem potius collabente in vitium 
 atque errorem loquendi usu occasum ejus urbis remque 
 humilem et obscuram subsequi crediderim : verba enim 
 partim inscita et putida, partim mendosa et perperam 
 prolata, quid si ignavos et oscitantes et ad servile quidvis 
 jam olim paratos incolarum animos haud levi indicio 
 declarant ? Contra nullum unquam audivimus im- 
 perium, nullam civitatem non mediocriter saltern flo 
 ruisse, quamdiu linguae sua gratia, suusque cultus con 
 stitit." Compare an interesting epistle (the ii4th) ol 
 Seneca. 
 
 t (jThe idea that (w)hore is derived from " hire " is a 
 
On the Morality in Words 8 1 
 
 is witnessed tor here, as compared with the false- 
 hood of many other titles by which they have 
 been known names which may themselves be 
 called " whited sepulchres," so fair are they 
 without, yet hiding so much foul within ; as, 
 for instance, that in the French language * 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, blackest 
 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 : ' f and 
 the same holds good of the English equivalent, 
 coarse as it is, for the Latin ' concilia trix.' In 
 this last word we have a notable example of the 
 putting of sweet for bitter, of the attempt to 
 present a disgraceful occupation on an amiable, 
 almost a sentimental side, rather than in its own 
 true deformity and ugliness. J 
 
 mistake. It is probably related to Lat. cara, dear, Ir. 
 caraim, I love (Kluge), like " leman " from leof-man, 
 a dear one. But the word was frequently brought into 
 connexion with the Mid.-Eng. hore, filth, unclean living. 
 See F oik-Etymology, 437-439-1 
 
 * [Fille-de-joie.] 
 
 f For a curious account of the first rise of this phrase 
 see Lemontey's Louis XIV, p. 43. 
 
 \ So conscious have men been of this tendency of 
 theirs to throw the mantle of an honourable word over 
 a dishonourable thing, or vice versd, of the temptation 
 to degrade an honourable thing, when they do not love 
 it, by a dishonourable appellation, that the Greek lan- 
 guage has a word significative of this very attempt, 
 viroKopifredai, itself a word with an interesting history ; 
 and its great moral teachers frequently occupy them- 
 selves in detecting this most frequent, yet perhaps prac- 
 tically most mischievous, among all the impostures of 
 
 S.W. G 
 
82 On the Morality in Words 
 
 Use and custom soon dim our eyes in such 
 matters as these ; or else we should be deeply 
 struck by a familiar instance of this falsehood in 
 names, which perhaps has never so much as 
 struck us at all I mean the profane appropriation 
 of ' eau de vie ' (water of life), a name borrowed 
 from some of the Saviour's most precious promises 
 (John iv. 14 ; Rev. xxii. 17), to a drink which the 
 untutored savage with a truer instinct has named 
 ' fire-water ' ; 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 here a blasphemous irony in the appropriation 
 of the language of heaven to that which, not in 
 its use, but too frequent abuse, is the instrument 
 of hell, that is almost without a parallel.* 
 
 If I wanted any further proof of this which I 
 
 words. Thus, when Thucydides (iii. 82) would paint 
 the fearful moral deterioration of Greece in the progress 
 of her great Civil War, he adduces this alteration of the 
 received value of words, this fitting of false names to 
 everything names of honour to the base, and of base- 
 ness to the honourable as one of its most striking signs ; 
 even as it again set forward the evil, of which it had been 
 first the result. 
 
 * [The spirit obtained by the distillation of wine appears 
 to have been called " life-giving water " with reference 
 to its medicinal properties. Raymond Lully, one of the 
 first to proclaim its supposed virtues, believed it to be 
 the universal medicine destined to renew the energies 
 of the human race. Indeed, among many peoples of 
 antiquity " the Tree of Life " (whether it be the palm, 
 vine, asclepias, etc.) seems to have obtained its name 
 from the intoxicating and exhilarating liquor (amritam, 
 soma, ambrosia, wine, etc.) which it yields. See Lenor 
 mant, Beginnings of History, 85 seq.] 
 
On the Morality in Words 83 
 
 have been urging, namely, the moral atmosphere 
 which words diffuse, I would ask you to observe 
 how the first thing which men will do, when en- 
 gaged in controversy with others, be it in the v 
 conflict of the tongue or the pen, or of weapons 
 sharper yet, if sharper there be, will be to assume 
 some honourable name to themselves, which, if 
 possible, begs 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 invidious or odious light. There 
 is a deep instinct in man, deeper perhaps than 
 they give any account of to themselves, which 
 tells them how far this will go ; that multitudes, 
 utterly unable to weigh the arguments of the 
 case, will yet be receptive of the influences which 
 these words continually, though almost imper- 
 ceptibly, diffuse. 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 effectual, the passions and pre- 
 judices of the many, on their side. Thus when 
 at the breaking out of our Civil Wars the Parlia- 
 mentary party styled themselves ' the Godly/ 
 and the Royalists ' the Malignants/ it is very 
 certain that, wherever they could procure entrance 
 for these words, the question upon whose side 
 the right lay was already decided. I do not cite 
 this example as at all implying that the Royalists 
 did not make exactly the same employment of 
 question-begging words, of words steeped quite 
 as deeply in the passion which animated them, 
 but only as a sufficient illustration of my mean- 
 ing. 
 
84 On the Morality in Words 
 
 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, regarding it as a moral 
 barometer, which indicates and permanently 
 marks the rise or fall of a nation's life. To study 
 a people's language will be to study them, and to 
 study them at best advantage ; there, where they 
 present themselves to us under fewest disguises, 
 most nearly as they are. Too many have had a 
 hand in it, and in bringing it to its present shape, 
 it is too entirely the collective work of the whole 
 nation, the result of the united contributions of 
 all, it obeys too immutable laws, to allow any suc- 
 cessful tampering with it, any making of it to 
 witness other than the actual facts of the case. 
 
 Thus the frivolity of an age or nation, its 
 mockery of itself, its inability to comprehend the 
 true dignity and meaning of life, the feebleness 
 of its moral indignation against evil, all this will 
 find an utterance in the use of solemn and earnest 
 words in senses comparatively trivial or even 
 ridiculous ' gehenna,' for instance, has in French 
 issued in ' gene,' meaning nothing more than a 
 slight and petty annoyance ; or in the squandering 
 of such words as should have been reserved for the 
 highest mysteries of the spiritual life, ' spirituel,' 
 for instance, itself, on slight and secular objects ; 
 in the employment almost in jest and play, it may 
 be in honour, or words implying the deepest moral 
 guilt as again the French ' perfide,' ' malice,' 
 ' malm ' ; while, on the contrary, the high senti- 
 ment, the scorn of everything mean or base of 
 another people or time, will as certainly in one 
 
On the Morality in Words 85 
 
 way or another stamp themselves on the words 
 which they employ ; and thus will it be with what- 
 ever good or evil they may own. 
 
 Often a people's use of some single word will 
 afford us a deeper insight into their real condition, 
 their habits of thought and feeling, than whole 
 volumes written expressly with the intention of 
 imparting this insight. Thus our word ' idiot ' is 
 abundantly characteristic, not indeed of English, 
 but of Greek life, from which we have derived it 
 and our use of it. The ISitoTijs, or ' idiot,' was 
 in its earliest sense the private man, as contradis- 
 tinguished from him who was clothed with some 
 office, and had a share in the management of public 
 affairs. In this its primary use it is occasionally 
 employed in English ; as by Jeremy Taylor, when 
 he says, " Humility is a duty in great ones as 
 well as in idiots." It came then to signify a rude, 
 ignorant, unskilled, intellectually unexercised per- 
 son, a boor ;* this derived or secondary sense 
 bearing witness, as has been most truly said, 
 to " the Greek notion of the indispensableness of 
 public life, even to the right development of the 
 intellect, "f a conviction which was entirely in- 
 woven in the Greek habit of thought, and lay at 
 the foundation of all schemes of mental culture. 
 Nor is it easy to see how it could have uttered 
 itself with greater clearness than it does in this 
 secondary use of the word ' idiot.' Our tertiary, 
 according to which the ' idiot ' is one deficient in 
 
 * jj" That which Scripture is to them that read, the 
 same doth picture perform unto idiots or the unlearned " 
 Homilies, 1623 (p. 180, ed. 1840).] 
 
 t Hare's Mission of the Comforter, p. 552. 
 
86 On the Morality in Words 
 
 intellect, not merely with its powers unexercised, 
 is but this secondary pushed a little further. 
 Again, the innermost distinctions between the 
 Greek mind 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 tem- 
 per of the Greek embodies itself in the first ; he 
 could desire nothing better or higher for himself, 
 nor wish it for his friend, than to have joy in his 
 life. But the Hebrew had a deeper longing within 
 him, and one which finds utterance in his ' Peace.'* 
 It is not hard to perceive why this latter people 
 should have been chosen as the first bearers of 
 that truth which indeed enables truly to rejoice, 
 but only through first bringing peace ; nor why 
 from them the word of life should first go forth. 
 It may be urged, indeed, that these were only 
 forms, and so in great measure they may have at 
 length become ; as in our ' good-bye ' 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 
 ever they had become such altogether. 
 
 So too the modifications of meaning which a 
 word has undergone, as it had been transplanted 
 from one soil to another, the way in which one 
 nation receiving a word from another, has yet 
 
 * [But shdldm, the Hebrew word for " peace " was 
 not strictly an ethical word, being frequently used for 
 physical well-being, prosperity, health or success. It 
 is the word, e.g., used for " the prosperity of the wicked " 
 (Ps. Ixxiii. 3), and when David asked Uriah " how the 
 war prospered " (2 Sam. xi. 7), the Hebrew has " the 
 peace of the war."] 
 
On the Morality in Words 87 
 
 brought into it some new force which was foreign 
 to it in the tongue from whence it was borrowed, 
 has deepened, or extenuated, or otherwise altered 
 its meaning all this may prove profoundly in- 
 structive, and may reveal to us, as perhaps nothing 
 else would, the most fundamental diversities exist- 
 ing between them. Observe, for instance, how 
 different is the word ' self-sufficient ' as used by us 
 and by the heathen nations of antiquity. The 
 Greek word exactly corresponding is a word of 
 honour, and 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 ; better this than no centre 
 at all. But the Gospel has taught us another 
 lesson, to find our sufficiency in God : and thus 
 ' self-sufficient,' which with the Greek was a word 
 in honourable use, is not so with us. ' Self-suffici- 
 ency/ is not a quality which any man desires now 
 to be attributed to him. We have a feeling about 
 the word, which causes it to carry its own condem- 
 nation with it ; and its different uses, for honour 
 once, for reproach now, do in fact ground them- 
 selves on the central differences of heathenism 
 and Christianity. 
 
 Once more, we might safely conclude that a 
 nation would not be likely tamely to submit to 
 tyranny and wrong, which had made ' quarrel ' 
 out of ' querela.' The Latin word means pro- 
 perly ' complaint ' * and we have in ' querulous, 
 
 * [So in the Prayer-Book version of the Psalms, " Stand 
 
88 On the Morality in Words 
 
 this its proper meaning coming distinctly out. 
 Not so, however, in ' quarrel ' ; for Englishmen, 
 being wont not merely to complain, but to set 
 vigorously about righting and redressing them- 
 selves, their griefs being also grievances, out of 
 this word, which might have given them only 
 1 querulous ' and ' querulousness,' they have gotten 
 ' quarrel ' as well. 
 
 On the other hand, we cannot wonder that 
 Italy should have filled our Great Exhibition with 
 beautiful specimens of her skill in the arts, with 
 statues and sculptures of rare loveliness, but should 
 only rivet her chains the more closely by the weak 
 and ineffectual efforts which she makes to break 
 them, when she can degrade the word ' virtuoso,' 
 or ' the virtuous/ to signify one accomplished in 
 painting, music, and sculpture, such things as are 
 the ornamental fringe of a nation's life, but can 
 never be made, without loss of all manliness of 
 character, its main texture and woof not to say 
 that excellence in these fine arts has been in too 
 many cases divorced from all true virtue and 
 worth.* The opposite exaggeration of the ancient 
 Romans, who often made ' virtus ' to signify 
 warlike courage alone, as if for them all virtue 
 were included in this one, was at all events more 
 tolerable than this ; for there is a sense in which 
 a man's ' valour ' is his value, is the measure of his 
 worth ; for what virtue can exist without courage, 
 
 up to judge my quarrel " (xxxv. 23), i.e. complaint, and 
 Col. iii. 13.] 
 
 * Let me remind the reader that all this was written 
 long before the noble resurrection of Italy in the year 
 1859. 
 
On the Morality in Words 89 
 
 without manliness ?* Or what can we conclude, 
 when we find a word meaning ' sickly softness ' 
 (morbidezza) used as an expression of beauty ? 
 Have we not here too sure a witness for the decay 
 of moral strength and health, when these can not 
 merely be disconnected from beauty, but implied 
 to be in opposition to it ? How little, again, the 
 modern Italians live in the spirit of their ancient 
 worthies, or reverence the greatest among them, 
 we may argue from the fact that they have been con- 
 tent to take the name of one among their noblest, 
 and degrade it so far that every glib and loquacious 
 hireling who shows strangers about their picture- 
 galleries, palaces and ruins, is termed by them 
 a ' Cicerone/ or a Cicero ! f So too the French 
 use of the word ' honnetete,' as external civility, 
 marks a tendency to accept the shows and pleasant 
 courtesies of social life in the room of deeper moral 
 qualities. 
 
 Happily it is nearly impossible for us in Eng- 
 land to understand the mingled scorn, hatred, 
 fear, suspicion, contempt, which is associated with 
 the word ' sbirri ' in Italian. These ' sbirri ' are the 
 humble, but at the same time the acknowledged 
 ministers of justice ; while yet everything which is 
 mean and false and oppressive, which can make 
 
 * Plutarch (Coyiol. i) has noticed this : that the Latin 
 " virtus " had much more predominantly the sense of 
 the Greek dvdpeia than aper-t). 
 
 f [This probably takes too seriously what is merely 
 a humorous reference to the unnecessary eloquence of 
 the guide, who for the same reason seems to be called 
 a Maron by Coryat in his Crudities, 1611, with allusion 
 to Vergilius Maro. Addison has cicerone in his Essay on 
 Medals, i. 1726.] 
 
go On the Morality in Words 
 
 justice hateful, is implied in the name which they 
 bear. There is no surer sign of a bad oppressive 
 government, than when the titles of the adminis- 
 trators of law, titles which should be in themselves 
 so honourable, thus acquire a hateful undertone. 
 What a world of oppressions, of frauds, of wrongs, 
 must have found place, before the Greek word for 
 tax-gatherer or exciseman could have been steeped 
 in uttermost scorn, as it was ; while, on the other 
 hand, however unwelcome the visits of the one or 
 the interference of the other may be to us, yet 
 the sense of the entire fairness and justice with 
 which their dues are levied acquits these names 
 to us of the slightest sense of dishonour. ' Police- 
 man ' has no evil subaudition, but the contrary, 
 with us ; though in the last century, when our police 
 was otherwise administered than now, ' catchpole,' 
 in Wiclif's time quite an honourable word, had 
 acquired one.* So too, at the present day, if any 
 accidental profits accrue to the Crown, they are 
 levied so honourably, with such fairness and more 
 than fairness to the subject, that, were not the 
 thing already done, ' escheat ' would never now 
 yield ' cheat/ nor ' escheat our ' give ' cheater ' 
 and then ' cheat,' as, through the extortions and un- 
 righteousness of which these dues to the Crown 
 were formerly an excuse, they in fact have done. 
 It is still worse, as marking that a still holier 
 sanctuary than that of civil government has be- 
 come profane and odious in men's sight, when 
 words which express sacred functions and offices 
 become redolent of scorn. How thankful we may 
 
 * [He uses catchepollis, i Kings xix. 20, Deeds xvi. 35. 
 See my Folk and their Word-Lore, p. 136.1 
 
On the Morality in Words 91 
 
 be that in England we have no word equivalent to 
 the German ' Pfaffe,' which, the same as ' papa ' 
 and ' pope,' and meaning at first but a priest, yet 
 now carries with it the insinuation of almost every 
 unworthiness in the forms of servility and avarice 
 which can render the priest's office and person 
 base and contemptible. 
 
 How 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 dis- 
 tinguished from that of the other European nations, 
 that to it alone the word ' club ' belongs ; the 
 French and German languages having been alike 
 unable to grow a word of their own as its equiva- 
 lent, being obliged both to borrow from us its 
 designation. And no wonder ; for these voluntary 
 associations of men for the furthering of such social 
 or political ends as are near to the hearts of the 
 associates could have only had their rise under 
 such favourable circumstances as ours. In no 
 country where there was not extreme personal 
 freedom could they have sprung up ; and as little 
 in any where men did not know how to use this 
 freedom with moderation and self-restraint, could 
 they long have been endured. It was compara- 
 tively easy to adopt the word ; but the ill success 
 of the ' club ' itself everywhere save here where it is 
 native, has shown that it was not so easy to trans- 
 plant the thing. While we have lent this and other 
 
92 On the Morality in Words 
 
 words, mostly political, to the French and German, 
 it would not be less instructive, were this a suitable 
 opportunity, to trace our corresponding obliga- 
 tions to them. 
 
 And scarcely less significant than the presence 
 of a word in a language, will be occasionally its 
 entire absence. This too may read us sometimes 
 a not unimportant lesson. How curious, for in- 
 stance, 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 
 at first sight anticipate, that the character desig- 
 nated by the word was wanting, but rather that 
 the fault was so common, so universal with the 
 Greeks, that they failed to recognize it as a fault 
 at all.* 
 
 But it is time to bring this lecture to an end. 
 These illustrations, to which it would not be hard 
 to add many more, are ample enough to justify 
 what I have asserted of the existence of a moral 
 element in words ; they are enough to make us 
 feel about them, that they do not hold themselves 
 neutral in the great conflict between good and evil, 
 
 * De Or at. ii. 4. 7 : " Quern enim nos ineptum vocamus 
 is mihi videtur ab hoc nomen habere ductum, quod non 
 sit aptus. Idque in sermonis nostri consuetudine per- 
 late patet. Nam qui aut tempus quid postulet, non 
 videt, aut plura loquitur, aut se ostentat, aut eorum 
 quibuscum est, vel dignitatis vel commodi rationem 
 non habet, aut denique in aliquo gen ere aut inconcinnus 
 aut multus est, is ineptus esse dicitur. Hoc vitio cumu- 
 lata est eruditissima ilia Graecorum natio. Itaque quo- 
 vim hujus mali Graeci non vident, ne nomen quidem ei 
 vitio imposuerunt. Ut enim quaeras omnia, quomodo 
 Graici ineptum appellent, non invenies." 
 
On the Morality in Words 93 
 
 light and darkness, which is dividing the 
 world ; that they are not contented 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 chil- 
 dren of light, others children of this world, or even 
 of darkness ; they beat with the pulses of our life ; 
 they stir with our passions ; they receive from us 
 the impressions of our good and of our evil, which 
 again they are active further to propagate amongst 
 us. Must we not own then that there is a wondrous 
 and mysterious world, of which we may hitherto 
 have taken too little account, around us and about 
 us ? Is there not something very solemn and 
 very awful in having such an instrument as this 
 of language is, placed in our hands, which is so 
 mighty to wound or to heal, to kill or to make 
 alive ? and may there not be a deeper meaning 
 than hitherto we have attached to it, lying in 
 our Lord's declaration, " By thy words thou shalt 
 be justified, and by thy words thou shalt be con- 
 demned " ? 
 
IV 
 
 ON THE HISTORY IN WORDS 
 
 IT might at first sight appear as if language, apart, 
 that is, from literature and books, and where these 
 did not exist, would prove the frailest, the most 
 untrustworthy, of all the vehicles of knowledge, 
 and that most likely to betray its charge. So far, 
 however, from this being the fact, it is the great, 
 oftentimes the only, connecting link between the 
 present and the remotest past, an ark riding above 
 waterfloods that have swept away or submerged 
 every other landmark and memorial of ages and 
 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 more ancient monument and document than 
 any writing which employs it. These written 
 records, moreover, may have been falsified by 
 carelessness, by vanity, by fraud, by a multitude 
 of causes ; but it is never false, never deceives us, 
 if we know how to question it aright. 
 
 And this questioning of it will often lead to con- 
 clusions of extreme importance. Thus there 
 have been those who have denied on one ground 
 or another the accuracy of the Scripture statement 
 that the whole earth was peopled from a single 
 pair ; who have sought to prove that there must 
 have been many beginnings, many centres of 
 human population. In answer to these, the phy- 
 sical unity of the face of mankind has been tri- 
 umphantly shown by Dr. Prichard and others : 
 but all recent investigations plainly announce that 
 a yet stronger evidence, and a moral argument 
 
On Hit History in Words 95 
 
 more convincing still, for the unity of mankind 
 will ere long be forthcoming ; the proofs are daily 
 accumulating of a tendency in all languages, how- 
 ever widely they may differ now, to refer them- 
 selves to the common stock and single fountain 
 head. Of course we need not these proofs, who 
 believe the fact, because it is written ; yet can we 
 only rejoice at each new homage which Science pays 
 to revealed Truth, being sure that at the last she 
 will stand in her service altogether. 
 
 Such investigations as these, however, lie plainly 
 out of your sphere. Not so, however, those humbler 
 yet not less interesting inquiries, which by the aid 
 of any tolerable dictionary you may carry on into 
 the past history of your own land, as borne witness 
 to by the present language of its people, on which 
 language the marks and vestiges of great revolu- 
 tions are visibly and profoundly impressed, never 
 again to be obliterated from it. 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 the succes- 
 sive 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 composite language as the 
 English before us, we may carry on moral and 
 historical researches precisely analogous to his. 
 Here too are strata and deposits, not of gravel and 
 chalk, sandstone and limestone, but of Celtic, 
 Latin, Saxon, Danish, Norman, and then again 
 Latin and French words, with slighter intrusions 
 from other quarters : and any one with skill to 
 
96 On the History in Words 
 
 analyse the language might re-create for himself 
 the history of the people speaking that language, 
 might come to appreciate the divers elements out 
 of which that people was composed, in what pro- 
 portion these were mingled, and in what succession 
 they followed one upon the other. 
 
 Take, for example, the relation in which the 
 Saxon and Norman occupants of this land stood 
 to one another. I doubt not that an account of 
 this, in the main as accurate as it would be 
 certainly instructive, might be drawn from an 
 intelligent study of the contributions which they 
 have severally made to the English language, as 
 bequeathed to us jointly by them both. Suppos- 
 ing all other records to have perished, who might 
 still work out and almost reconstitute the history 
 by these aids ; even as now, when so many docu- 
 ments, so many institutions survive, this must 
 still be acccounted the most important, and that 
 of which the study will introduce us, as no other 
 can, into the innermost heart and life of great 
 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 Saxon 
 and the Norman 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 fusion of the two races, the two 
 languages also fused into a third ; or rather one 
 prevailed over the other, but only prevailed by 
 
On the History in Words 97 
 
 receiving a multitude of the words of that other 
 into its own bosom. At once there would exist 
 duplicates for many things. But as in popular 
 speech two words will not long exist side by side to 
 designate the same thing, it became a question 
 how the relative claims of the Saxon and Norman 
 word should adjust themselves, which should 
 remain, which should be dropped ; or, if not 
 dropped, should be transferred to some other 
 object, or express some other relation. It is not of 
 course meant that this was ever formally proposed, 
 or as something to be settled by agreement ; but 
 practically one was to be taken, one left. Which 
 was it that should maintain its ground ? Evidently, 
 where a word was often on the lips of one 
 race, its equivalent seldom on those of the other, 
 where it intimately cohered with the 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 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 turned 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 
 
 S.W. H 
 
98 On the History in Words 
 
 the Norman was the ruling race, from the noticeable 
 fact that all the words of dignity, state, honour, 
 and pre-eminence, with one remarkable exception, 
 (to be adduced presently,) descend to us from 
 them ' sovereign,' ' sceptre,' ' throne,' ' realm,' 
 ' royalty,' ' homage/ ' prince,' ' duke,' ' count,' 
 (' earl ' indeed is Scandinavian, though he must 
 borrow his ' countess ' from the Norman,) ' chan- 
 cellor,' ' 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 
 came in not upon a new title, not as overthrowing 
 a former dynasty, but claiming to be in the right- 
 ful 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 
 that has to do with the chase, with chivalry, with 
 personal adornment, is Norman throughout ; with 
 the broad basis of the language, and therefore of 
 the life, it is otherwise. The great features of 
 nature, sun, moon, and stars, earth, water, and 
 fire, all the prime social relations, father, mother, 
 husband, wife, son, daughter, these are Saxon. 
 ' Palace ' and ' castle ' may have come to us from 
 the Norman, but to the Saxon we owe far dearer 
 names, the ' house/ the ' roof/ the ' home/ the 
 ' hearth.' His ' board ' too, and often probably 
 it was no more, has a more hospitable sound than 
 the ' table ' of his lord. His sturdy arms turn the 
 
On the History in Words 99 
 
 soil ; he is the ' boor,' the ' hind/ the ' churl ' ; 
 or if his Norman master has a name for him, it is 
 one which on his lips becomes more and more a 
 title of opprobrium and contempt, the ' villain.' 
 The instruments used in cultivating the earth, the 
 flail, the plough, the sickle, the spade, are expressed 
 in his language ;* so too the main products of the 
 earth, as wheat, rye, oats, bere ; and no less the 
 names of domestic animals. Concerning these 
 last it is curious to observe (and it may be re- 
 membered that Wamba, the Saxon jester in Ivan- 
 hoe, plays the philologer here),f that the names of 
 almost all animals so long as they are alive, are 
 thus Saxon, but when dressed and prepared for 
 food become Norman a fact, indeed, which we 
 might have expected beforehand ; for the Saxon 
 hind had the charge and labour of tending and feed- 
 ing 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 
 
 * [The words here are not very happily chosen, ' flail ' 
 being from the Old Fr. fiael, Lat. flagellum ; and both 
 spade and sickle are ultimately of Latin origin (spatha 
 and secula), though found in the oldest English.] 
 
 | Wallis, in his Grammar, p. 20, had done so before. 
 [And similarly Fuller, " I know not whether his 
 observation, with the reason thereof, be worth the in- 
 sertion who first took notice that our cattle for food 
 are English when feeding in the field, but French when 
 fed on in a family. Whereof he assigned this reason, 
 that after the Norman Conquest the French so tyrannized 
 over the English tenants that they forced them to keep 
 and feed their cattle ; but the Monsieurs eat all their 
 good meat after it was slaughtered." Worthies of Eng- 
 land, 1662 (i. 134, ed. 1811).] 
 
ioo On the History in Words 
 
 ' swine ' and ' pork,' ' deer ' and ' venison/ ' fowl ' 
 and ' pullet.' ' Bacon,' the only flesh which 
 perhaps ever came within his reach, is the single 
 exception.* 
 
 Putting all this together, with much more of 
 the same kind, which might be produced, but has 
 only been indicated here, we should certainly 
 gather, that while there are manifest tokens, as 
 preserved in our language, of the Saxon having been 
 for a season an inferior and even an oppressed 
 race, the staple elements of Anglo-Saxon life, 
 however overlaid for a while, had still made good 
 their claim to be the solid groundwork of the after 
 nation as of the after language ; and to the justice 
 of this conclusion all other historic records, and 
 the present social condition of England, consent in 
 bearing testimony. 
 
 What I have here supposed might be done 
 in the way of reproducing the past history of 
 England, had all records of her earlier times, and 
 of the great social changes of those times, been 
 entirely swept away, this has been done for the 
 earlier history of Italy, of which the written 
 memorials have thus perished, by the great modern 
 historian of Rome. He draws most important 
 conclusions respecting the races which occupied the 
 Italian soil, and the relations in which they stood 
 to one another, from an analysis of the words 
 which in the Latin language are derived severally 
 from a Greek and from other sources. " It can- 
 
 * [Fuller more correctly, on the passage just cited, 
 gives ' bacon ' as the Frenih word correlative to the 
 English 'hog.' It is the Old Fr. bacon, Low Lat. 
 bacon-em, originally the cured ' back ' of the pig.] 
 
On the History in Words 101 
 
 not," he says, " be mere chance that. 'tlv. woids 
 for house, field, plough, ploughing, wine, oil, milk, 
 kine, swine, and others relating to tillage and 
 gentler ways of life, agree in Latin and in Greek, 
 while all objects appertaining to war or the chase 
 are designated by words utterly un-Grecian."* 
 From hence he draws the conclusion that this 
 un-Grecian population, which has bequeathed these 
 latter words, stood toward the Grecian very much 
 in the same relation which we have seen the Nor- 
 man, as declared by the consenting witness of 
 history and language, to have occupied in respect 
 of the Saxon. 
 
 Thus far our lesson has been derived from a 
 noting of the relative proportions in which the 
 words of one stock and of another are mingled in 
 a language, with the domains of human activity to 
 which these severally appertain. But this is not 
 all ; there are vast harvests of historic lore gar- 
 nered often in single words ; there are continually 
 great facts of history which they at once declare 
 and preserve ; facts which sometimes have sur- 
 vived nowhere else but in them. Thus consider 
 how much of history lies in the word ' Church. 
 There can, I think, be no reasonable doubt that 
 ' Church ' is originally from the Greek Kvpiatcrii 
 and signifies, " that which pertains to the Lord," 
 or " the house which is the Lord's." But here 
 a difficulty meets us. How explain the presence 
 
 * There is a far profounder evoking by aid of language 
 of a history quite beyond our ken in Mommsen's Romischt 
 Geschichte, b. i. c. 2 a book of deepest interest, and 
 which ought not to remain untranslated. [It was trans- 
 lated by Rev. W. P. Dickson in 1861.] 
 
102 Or ine fiisioty in Words 
 
 of a Gi'3t;k wo^d in the Vocabulary of our Anglo- 
 Saxon forefathers ? for that we derive the word 
 mediately from them, and not immediately from 
 the Greek, is certain. What contact, direct or 
 indirect, was there between the languages to 
 account for this ? The explanation is curious. 
 While the Anglo-Saxons and other tribes of the 
 Teutonic stock were almost universally converted 
 through contact with the Latin Church in the 
 western provinces of the Roman Empire, or by its 
 missionaries, yet it came to pass that before this, 
 some of the Goths on the lower Danube had been 
 brought to the knowledge of Christ by Greek 
 missionaries from Constantinople ; and this word 
 Kvpiaicr} or ' Church ' did, with certain others, 
 pass over from the Greek to the Gothic tongue ; 
 and these Goths, the first converted to the 
 Christian faith, the first therefore that had a 
 Christian vocabulary, lent the word in their turn 
 to the other German tribes, among others to our 
 Anglo-Saxon forefathers ; thus it has come round 
 by the Goths from Constantinople to us.* 
 
 * The passage most illustrative of the parentage of 
 the word is from Walafrid Strabo (about A.D. 840), who 
 writes thus : " Ab ipsis autern Graecis Kyrch a Kyrios, 
 et alia multa accepimus. Sicut doinus Dei Basilica, i.e. 
 Regia a Rege, sic etiam Kyrica, i.e. Dominica, a Domino, 
 nuncupatur. Si autem quaeritur, qua occasione ad nos 
 vestigia haec graecitatis advenerint, dicendum praecipue 
 a Gothis, qui et Getae, cum eo tempore, quo ad fidem 
 Christi perducti sunt, in Graecorum provinciis com- 
 morantes, nostrum, i.e. theotiscum sermonem habuerint." 
 Cf. Rudolf von Raumer, Einwirkung des Christenthums 
 auf die Althochdeutsche Sprache, p. 288. 
 
 [But, as a matter of fact, no derivative of Kuriake 
 (or better, Kuriakon, " the Lord's house "J, such as 
 Kyreika, or Kyrjakd, is found in Gothic, where the v, .d 
 
On the History in Words 103 
 
 Or again, examine the words ' pagan ' and 
 1 paganism,' and you will find that there is history 
 in them. Many of us, no doubt, are aware that 
 ' pagani,' derived from ' pagus,' a village, signifies 
 properly the dwellers in hamlets and villages, as 
 distinguished from the inhabitants of towns and 
 cities ; * and the word was so used, and without 
 any religious significance, in the earlier periods of 
 the Latin language. ' Pagani ' did indeed then not 
 unfrequently designate all civilians, as contradis- 
 tinguished from the military caste ; and this fact 
 may not have been without a certain influence, 
 when the idea of the faithful as soldiers of Christ 
 was strongly realized in the minds of men. But 
 how mainly was it that it came first to be em- 
 ployed as equivalent to ' heathen/ and applied to 
 those yet alien from the faith of Christ ? It was 
 thus. The Christian Church fixed itself first in 
 the seats and centres of intelligence, in the towns 
 and cities of the Roman Empire, and in them its 
 first triumphs were won ; while, long after these 
 had accepted the truth, heathen superstitions and 
 idolatries lingered on in the obscure hamlets and 
 villages of the country ; so that ' pagans,' or 
 villagers, came to be applied to all the remaining 
 votaries of the old and decaying superstitions, 
 
 for church is aikkl&sjd, derived from Greek ekkWsia. 
 The former Greek word was probably assimilated by 
 the West Germans of the fourth century. See a very 
 long, learned, and elaborate note by Dr. Murray in 
 N. E. D.]. 
 
 * [Orosins says, " Alieni a civitate Dei ex locorum 
 agrestium compitis et pagis ' pagani ' vocantur sive 
 gentiles " (Migne, xxxi. 3). Similarly Arab. Kdfir, an 
 infidel, is connected by some with Kafr (Kefr), a village 
 (Burton and Drake, Unexplored Sytia, i. 170).] 
 
104 On the History in Words 
 
 inasmuch as far the greater number of them were 
 of this class. The first document in which the word 
 appears in this its secondary sense is an edict of 
 the Emperor Valentinian, of date A.D. 368. The 
 word ' heathen ' acquired its meaning from exactly 
 the same fact, namely, that at the introduction of 
 Christianity into Germany, the wild dwellers on 
 the ' heaths ' longest resisted the truth. Here, 
 then, are two instructive notices for us first, the 
 historic fact that the Church of Christ did thus 
 plant itself first in the haunts of learning and 
 intelligence ; and then the more important moral 
 fact, that it shunned not discussion, that it feared 
 not to grapple with the wit and wisdom of this 
 world, or to expose its claims to the searching 
 examination of educated men ; but, on the con- 
 trary, had its claims first recognized by them, and 
 in the great cities of the world won first a com- 
 plete triumph over all the opposing powers.* 
 
 I quoted in my first lecture the words of one. 
 who, magnifying the advantage of following up 
 the history of words, observed that oftentimes 
 more would be learned from this than from the 
 history of a campaign. There are many words, 
 ' sophist,' ' barbarous/ ' clerk/ ' romance/ ' sacra- 
 ment/ ' benefice/ for example, on any of which we 
 might prove the truth of this assertion. Let us 
 take 'sacrament/ and see whether its history, 
 while it carries us far, yet will not carry us by 
 
 * There is a good note on " pagan " in Gibbon's Decline 
 and Fall, c. 21, at the end; and in Grimm's Deutsche 
 Mythol., p. 1198 ; and the history of the changes in the 
 word's use is traced in another interest in Mill's Logic, 
 vol. ii. p. 271. 
 
On the History in Words 105 
 
 ways full of instruction ; and this, while we con- 
 fine ourselves strictly to the word's history, not 
 needlessly mixing ourselves with discussions in 
 regard of the thing, or of its place and import- 
 ance in the Christian scheme. We shall find our- 
 selves first among the forms of Roman law, where 
 the ' sacramentum ' first appears as the deposit or 
 pledge, which in certain suits plaintiff and defend- 
 ant were alike obliged to make, and whereby 
 they engaged themselves to one another, the loser 
 of the suit forfeiting his pledge to sacred temple 
 uses, from which fact the name ' sacramentum/ or 
 thing consecrated, was first derived. The next 
 employment of the word would plant us amidst 
 the military affairs of Rome, ' sacramentum ' being 
 applied to the military oath with which the 
 Roman soldiers mutually engaged themselves at 
 their first enlisting never to desert their standards, 
 or turn their back upon the enemy, or abandon 
 their imperator this use of the word teaching us 
 the sacredness which the Romans attached to their 
 military engagements, and going far to explain to 
 us their victories. The word was then transferred 
 from this military oath to any solemn oath what- 
 soever. 
 
 This, which has hitherto been traced, we may 
 call the history of the word, anterior to the period 
 when it was assumed into Christian usage at all, 
 and these three stages it had already passed 
 through, before the Church claimed it for her 
 own, before indeed she had herself come into 
 existence. Her early writers, out of a sense of the 
 sacredness and solemnity of the oath among all 
 human transactions, first used the word to signify 
 
io6 On the History in Words 
 
 any sacred transaction whatsoever that had some 
 special solemnity or sanctity attached to it, and 
 especially any mystery where more was meant 
 than met the eye or the ear. Thus in the early 
 Church writers the Incarnation is a ' sacrament,' 
 the lifting up of the brazen serpent is a ' sacra- 
 ment/ the giving of the manna, and many things 
 more. This period of the world's history it is very 
 expedient that we be aware of, and acquainted 
 with it ; for thus all force is taken away from the 
 passages quoted by Romish controversialists in 
 proof of their seven sacraments. It is quite true 
 that the early Church writers did entitle marriage, 
 and supreme unction, and the others which they 
 have added, ' sacraments/ but then they called 
 ' sacraments/ or mysteries, many things more, 
 which even the theologians of Rome themselves 
 do not pretend to include in the ' sacraments ' pro- 
 perly so called ; so that the evidence here is un- 
 fortunately too good ; proving too much, it proves 
 nothing. But there is another stage in the word's 
 history, and that stage the one which concerns 
 us the most nearly of all, its limitation to the two 
 ' sacraments/ properly so called, of the Christian 
 Church. The remembrance of the use of ' sacra- 
 ment/ a use which had not passed away, to signify 
 the plighted troth of the Roman soldier to his im- 
 perator, was that, I think, which specially wrought 
 to the adaptation of the word to Baptism ; wherein 
 we also, with more than one allusion to this oath 
 of theirs, pledge ourselves " to fight manfully under 
 Christ's banner, and to continue his faithful 
 soldiers and servants to our life's end " ; while the 
 mysterious character of the Holy Eucharist was t 
 
On the History in Words 107 
 
 I believe, its especial point of fitness for having 
 this name of ' sacrament ' applied to it. 
 
 The word ' universitas ' belongs to the best 
 times of classical Latin ; but the use of it in our 
 modern sense of an university does not date farther 
 back than the beginning of the thirteenth century. 
 Its coming up at any time would have been 
 remarkable ; its coming up exactly at that time is 
 eminently so. It was a token of much and 
 chiefly of the sense which now possessed men of an 
 inner bond and connexion between all branches of 
 human learning and knowledge ; they mutually 
 completed one another ; they should not be taught 
 apart from, and without recognition of, each other. 
 There was such a thing as a studium universale, 
 an universitas litterarum. And that the first, as 
 well as the most famous, of these universities 
 should have been at Paris, the great seat of 
 theological learning, contains a signal evidence that 
 in theology was, and was felt to be, the connecting 
 link between them all. 
 
 I have already sought to find history embedded 
 in the word ' frank ' ; but I must bring for- 
 ward the Franks again, and ask you to consider 
 whether the well-known fact that in the East not 
 Frenchmen alone, but all Europeans, are so called, 
 does not require to be accounted for ? It can be 
 so, and this wide usage of the word is indeed a 
 deep foot-print of the past. This appellation dates 
 from the Crusades, and Michaud, the chief French 
 historian of these, with justice finds herein an 
 evidence that his countrymen took a decided lead, 
 as their gallantry well fitted them to do, in these 
 great romantic enterprises of the middle ages ; 
 
to8 On the History in Words 
 
 impressing themselves so strongly on the mind 
 and imagination of the East as the crusading nation 
 of Europe, that their name was extended to all 
 the warriors of Christendom. And considering 
 how large a proportion of the noblest Crusaders, 
 as of others most influential in bringing these 
 enterprises about, as Peter the Hermit, Pope Urban 
 the Second, St. Bernard, were French, it must be 
 allowed that the actual facts bear him out in his 
 assertion.* 
 
 To the Crusades also probably, and to the in- 
 tense hatred which they roused throughout Christ- 
 endom against the Mahometan infidels, we owe 
 ' miscreant/ in its present sense of one to whom 
 we would attribute the vilest principles and prac- 
 tices. The word meant at the first simply a 
 ' misbeliever,' and would have been applied as 
 freely, and with as little sense of injustice, to the 
 royal-hearted Saladin as to the most infamous 
 wretch that fought in his armies. By degrees, how- 
 ever, 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 would 
 apply it to any whom they regarded with feelings 
 of abhorrence resembling those which they enter 
 tained for an infidel ; just as ' Samaritan ' was 
 often employed by the Jews purely as a term of 
 reproach, and with no thought whether the person 
 on whom it was fastened was really sprung from 
 the mongrel people or not ; indeed where they ; 
 were quite sure that he was not. ' Assassin ' also, 
 the explanation of which we must be content to 
 
 * See Fullw's Holy War, b. i. c. 13. 
 
On the History in Words 109 
 
 leave, belongs probably to a romantic chapter in 
 the history of the Crusades.* 
 
 Various explanations of ' Cardinal ' have been 
 proposed ; it has been sought, that is, in various 
 ways to account for the appropriation of this name 
 to the parochial clergy of the city of Rome with 
 the subordinate bishops of that diocese. I believe 
 this application is an outgrowth, and itself a stand- 
 ing testimony, of the measureless assumptions of 
 the Roman See. -One of the favourite comparisons 
 by which that See was used to set out its relation 
 of superiority to all other Churches of Christen- 
 dom 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 ' car- 
 dinales,' as nearest to, and most closely connected 
 with, him who was thus the ' hinge ' or ' cardo.' 
 of all.f 
 
 There is a little word not in uncommon use 
 among us, an inquiry into the pedigree of which 
 will lay open to us an important page in the intel- 
 
 * Gibbon's Decline and Fall, c. 64. 
 
 [The Arabic hashshdshin, Moslem fanatics who intoxi- 
 cated themselves with hashish, or hemp. See Yule, 
 Marco Polo, i. 132 ; Conder, Syrian Stone-Lore, 420-423 ; 
 Spelman, Glossarium, s.v.] 
 
 f Thus a letter, professing to be of Pope Anacletus 
 the First in the first century, but really forged in the 
 ninth : " Apostolica Sedes cardo et caput omnium Eccle- 
 siarum a Domino est constituta ; et sicut cardine ostium 
 regitur. sic hujus S. Sedis auctoritate omnes Ecclesise 
 reguntur." And we have " cardinal " put in relation 
 with this " cardo " in a genuine letter of Pope Leo the 
 Ninth : " Clerici summae Sedis Cardinales dicuntur, 
 cardini utique illi quo caetera moventur, vicinius ad- 
 haerentes." 
 
no On the History in Words 
 
 lectual history of Europe. We may all know what 
 a ' dunce ' is, but we may not be as well acquainted 
 with the quarter from whence the word has been 
 derived. Certain theologians in the middle ages 
 were termed Schoolmen ; being so called because 
 they were formed in the cloister or cathedral 
 schools which Charlemagne and his immediate 
 successors had founded 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 tithe of 
 their wit ; who moreover little guess how many of 
 the most familiar words which they employ, or mis- 
 employ, have descended to them from these. ' Real, 1 
 ' virtual,' ' entity ' ' non-entity,' ' equivocation,' all 
 these, with many more unknown to classical Latin, 
 but which now have become almost necessities, 
 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 successive strata of society, 
 till now they have reached, some of them, to quite 
 the lowest. At the revival of learning, however, their 
 works fell out of favour : they were not written in 
 classical Latin : the form in which their specula- 
 tions were thrown was often unattractive ; it was 
 mainly in their authority that the Romish Church 
 found support for its perilled dogmas : on all which 
 accounts, it was considered a mark of intellectual 
 progress and advance to have broken with them 
 and altogether thrown off their yoke. Some, how- 
 ever, still clung to these Schoolmen, and to one 
 in particular, Duns Scotus, the great teacher of 
 the Franciscan Order ; and many times an adherent 
 of the old learning would seek to strengthen 
 
On the History in Words rn 
 
 his position by an appeal to its great doctor, 
 familiarly called Duns ; while the others would con- 
 temptuously rejoin, " Oh, you are a Dunsman," or 
 more briefly, " You are a Duns " 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 Hebrew ? " And thus 
 from that long extinct conflict between the old and 
 the new learning, that strife between the mediaeval 
 and the modern theology, we inherit the words 
 ' dunce ' and ' duncery.' Let us pause here for a 
 moment to confess that the lot of poor Duns was 
 certainly a hard one, who, whatever may have been 
 his merits as a teacher of Christian truth, was 
 certainly one of the keenest and most subtle- 
 wit ted of men. He, the " subtle Doctor " by pre- 
 eminence, for so his admirers called him, " the 
 wittiest of the school divines," as Hooker declares 
 him, could hardly have anticipated, and as little 
 as any man deserved, that his name should be 
 turned into a by-word expressive of stupidity 
 and obstinate dullness. 
 
 This, however, is only one example of the curious 
 fortune of words. We have another singular 
 example of the same, and of a parallel injustice, in 
 
 * [Similarly in Italian " Scotista, a follower of Scotus, 
 as we say a Dunce." Florio, New World of Words, 
 1611.] 
 
H2 On the History in Words 
 
 the way in which the word ' mammetry,' which is 
 a contraction of ' Mahometry,' is employed by our 
 early English writers. Mahometanism being the 
 most prominent form of false religion with which 
 Englishmen were acquainted, this word 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 false religions. Men did not 
 pause to remember that Mahometanism is the great 
 exception, its most characteristic feature and glory 
 being its protest against all idol-worship what- 
 soever ; which being so, the injustice was signal 
 in calling an idol ' a mammet ' or a Mahomet 
 and idolatry ' mammetry/* To pursue the fortunes 
 of the word a little further, another step caused 
 not religious images only, but dolls, to be called 
 ' mammets ' ; and when in Romeo and Juliet Capulet 
 contemptuously styles his daughter " a whining 
 mammet" the process is strange, yet every step of 
 it may be easily followed, whereby the name of 
 the Arabian false prophet is fastened on the fair 
 maiden of Verona. 
 
 Let me take occasion from this misnomer to 
 make one or two observations on the importance 
 
 * [Compare a passage 'in" Selden's Table-Talk (1689) : 
 " They call'd Images Mammets, and the Adoration of 
 Images Mammetry ; that is, Mahomet and Mahometry : 
 odious names, when all the world knows the Turks are 
 forbidden Images by their Religion" (p. 88, ed. Arber). 
 At the same time mammet, a puppet or doll, would be 
 likely as an independent formation from the infantile 
 utterance ' mammam,' as in Swiss mdmmi, a doll (cf. 
 Rom. and Jul. iii. 5,^185 ; i Hen. IV, ii. 3, 95). In the 
 form of mammet or mommet, a puppet or ' guy,' it is 
 in use in the dialects all over England.] 
 
On the History in Words 113 
 
 of giving right names. We have seen this already 
 in regions of our moral life ; but in other regions 
 also it nearly concerns us. Words exercising so 
 great an influence as they do, resuming the past, 
 moulding the future, how very important it needs 
 must be, that, in naming any significant fact or 
 tendency in the world's history, we should give it 
 its right name ; since 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 designations 
 which we employ. It is impossible to measure 
 the extent or depth of the impression which words 
 of this kind by the frequency of their repetition 
 may exert ; what a continual hindrance they may 
 cause to the right apprehension of the thing which 
 has thus been wrongly noted. 
 
 Out of a sense of this, an eminent German 
 scholar of the last century, who wrote a book On 
 the Influence of Opinions on Words, did not stop 
 here, nor make this the entire title of his book, but 
 completed its designation with another and further 
 clause and on the Influence of Words on Opinions ;* 
 the matter which fulfils the promise of this latter 
 half of the title of his work constituting, as may 
 easily be supposed, by far the most interesting 
 and original portion of its contents : for while the 
 assertion of the influence of opinions on words 
 sounds almost like a truism, or at least would be 
 called in question by none, this, on the contrary, 
 of words on opinions, would doubtless present itself 
 at first as a novelty to many. Yet it is, as I have 
 
 * Von der Einfluss der Meinungen in die Sprachc, und 
 der Sprache in die Meinungen, von J. D. Michaelis. Berlin, 
 1760. 
 
 S.W. I 
 
H4 O n Me History in Word* 
 
 said, 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 f on their calmly formed opinions, 
 constituting a very curious chapter in the history 
 of human knowledge and human ignorance. 
 
 Sometimes with no fault of theirs, for they did 
 not originally bind up any error, they will yet draw 
 some error in their train, of which error they will 
 afterwards prove the most effectual shield. Let 
 me instance the author to whom I have just 
 referred himself supplies the example the word 
 ' crystal/ The strange and erroneous notion cur- 
 rent among the natural philosophers of antiquity 
 and of modern times down to a rather late day, 
 concerning the origin of the thing, was plainly 
 traceable to a confusion occasioned by the name. 
 It was currently taught by them, that crystal was 
 ice which had undergone a peculiar process of 
 induration, so as totally and for ever to have lost 
 its fluidity ; and Pliny, backing up one error by 
 another, affirms that it is only found in countries of 
 extreme cold. Only two hundred years ago this 
 notion about the formation of crystal still sur- 
 vived ; for Sir Thomas Browne counts it worth his 
 while to bring it forward, indeed places it first and 
 foremost among the " Vulgar Errors " which he 
 seeks to dissipate. It is not hard to perceive how 
 the error arose ; the Greek word tcpvo-Ta\\o<;, 
 crystal, which at first had signified ice, was very 
 early transferred to that which bore so great a 
 resemblance to ice as does the^diaphanous quartz 
 to which alone we give the name of crystal ; and 
 
On the History in Words 115 
 
 then in a little while it was tacitly assumed, that 
 the two, having the same name, were in fact the 
 same substance, a belief which it took ages to 
 correct. 
 
 Take again the word ' leopard.' Here, indeed, 
 a piece of natural history erroneous from the first 
 is permanently bound up in the word, and the 
 error having first given birth to the name, was 
 afterwards itself maintained and propagated by it. 
 The leopard, as is well known, was not for the 
 Greek and Latin zoologists a species by itself, 
 but a mongrel birth of the male panther or pard, 
 and the lioness ; and in its name ' leopard ' or 
 ' lion-pard,' this its assumed double descent is 
 expressed.* The word ' cockatrice ' in like manner 
 embodies a fable.f 
 
 ' Gothic ' again is plainly a misnomer, and has 
 often I doubt not also been a misleader, when 
 applied to a style of architecture which belongs 
 not to one, but to all the Germanic tribes, and 
 which moreover did not come into existence till 
 many centuries after any people bearing the name 
 of Goths had ceased from the earth. It was not, 
 indeed, intended by those who first gave to this 
 style of architecture the title of Gothic, herein to 
 ascribe to the Goths the first invention of it, how- 
 ever the term seems now to bind up in itself such 
 
 * This error lasted into modern times ; thus Fuller 
 (A Pisqah Sight of Palestine, vol. i. p. 195) : " Leopards 
 and mules are properly no creatures." 
 
 t [Viz. the fable that this fabulous creature was hatched 
 by a cock from the egg of an alter or viper, which was 
 popularly evolved from the Old Eng. cocatryse, itself 
 derived through Old Fr. cocairis, caucatrix from a Latin 
 calcatriv. See N.E.D.] 
 
n6 On the History in Words 
 
 an error. ' Gothic/ applied to northern mediaeval 
 architecture, was at first a mere random name of 
 contempt the Goths, with the Vandals, being the 
 standing representatives of anything rude in man- 
 ners and barbarous in taste ; and thus those who 
 desired to throw scorn on this architecture in 
 comparison with the classical Italian, which alone 
 seemed to them worthy of admiration,* called it 
 ' Gothic,' which was merely for them equivalent to 
 barbarous. We, who have learned to admire this 
 Gothic, as the most wondrous and consummate 
 birth of human genius in this region of art, find 
 it hard to believe that this was a mere designation 
 of scorn at the first, and might be easily tempted 
 to conclude that there was here some indication of 
 the people among whom first it arose ; and many 
 no doubt are thus led astray. 
 
 ' Classical ' and ' romantic/ names given to 
 different schools of literature and art, contain an 
 absurd antithesis ; and either say nothing at all, or 
 say something erroneous. ' Revival of Learning ' 
 is a phrase only partially true when applied to the 
 intellectual movement in Western Europe at the 
 close of the fifteenth century. A revival there 
 might have been, and indeed there was, of Greek 
 learning at that time ; but there could not be then 
 affirmed a revival of Latin learning, inasmuch as 
 it had never been dead ; or, if it had, still had 
 
 * Indeed the name, as the designation of a style of 
 architecture, probably 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 barbarous, in Phillips' s 
 New World of Words, 1706, s.v. " Gothick." 
 
On the History in Words 117 
 
 revived very long before. ' Renaissance,' a word in 
 like manner applied in France to the new direction 
 which art took about the age of Francis the First, 
 is a question-begging word. There are very many 
 who would entirely deny that the bringing back of 
 antique pagan forms into Christian art was a ' new 
 birth ' of it at all. 
 
 But inaccuracy of naming may draw after it 
 more serious mischief in more important regions 
 of man's knowledge. Nowhere perhaps is accuracy 
 in this matter more vital than in words 
 having reference to, and designating, religious 
 truths ; for such words, as Coleridge has well 
 observed, are never inert, but constantly exercise 
 an immense reactive influence on those who em- 
 ploy them, even as they diffuse around them an 
 atmosphere, which those who often hear them used 
 unconsciously inhale. The so-called Unitarians, 
 when they claim by their name to be asserters of 
 the Unity of the Godhead, claim that which 
 belongs to us by quite as good a right as to them, 
 nay, by much better ; for belonging of fullest 
 right to us, it does not properly belong to them 
 at all. I should, therefore, without any intention 
 of offence, refuse the name to them ; just as in 
 like manner and upon similar grounds to call the 
 Romanists ' Catholic ' seems to me, and has always 
 seemed to many, a giving up of the whole question 
 at issue between them and us. For the same 
 reasons I can never understand how some of them 
 are content, even for convenience sake, to call the 
 great religious movement of Europe in the six- 
 teenth century the ' Reformation.' To us it is so, 
 in the deepest, truest sense of the word a reform- 
 
n8 On the History in Words 
 
 ing of things that were amiss in the Church. But 
 how they, who believe it to have been a disastrous, 
 and, on the part of those who brought it about, a 
 most guilty schism, can call it by this name, has 
 often surprised me. 
 
 Having dedicated this lecture to the history 
 which is in words, I can have no fitter opportunity 
 of urging upon you the importance of seeking in 
 every case to acquaint yourselves with the circum- 
 stances under which any body of men, that have 
 played an important part in history, especially 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 often this name was first imposed. 
 Whatever of this evil may have been at work in 
 them that coined, or gave currency to, the name, 
 the name itself can never without serious loss be 
 neglected by those who would truly understand 
 the moral significance of the thing ; there is always 
 something, often very much, to be learned from it. 
 Learn, then, in regard of each one of these names 
 which you may meet in your studies, whether it 
 was one which men gave to themselves ; or one 
 imposed on them by others, and which they never 
 recognized ; or one which being first imposed by 
 others, was yet in course of time admitted and 
 accepted by themselves. We have examples in all 
 these kinds. Thus the ' Gnostics ' called themselves 
 auch ; the name was of their own devising, and 
 
On the History in Words 119 
 
 one in which they boasted : in like manner the 
 ' Cavaliers ' of our Civil War. ' Quaker/ ' Puritan,' 
 ' Roundhead,' were all, on the contrary, names 
 devised by others, and never accepted by those to 
 whom they were attached ; while ' Whig ' and 
 ' Tory ' were nicknames originally of bitterest scorn 
 and party hate, given by two political bodies in 
 England to one another,* which, however, in course 
 of years lost what was offensive in them, until 
 they came to be accepted and employed by the 
 very parties themselves. The German ' Lutherans ' 
 were first so called by their antagonists.! The 
 same we may say of Methodists. This name was 
 certainly not first taken by the followers of WesJey, 
 but imposed on them by others, while yet they 
 have been subsequently willing to accept and to be 
 known by it. ' Capuchin ' was in like manner a 
 jesting name, first given by the boys in the streets 
 to that brand* of the Franciscans which afterwards 
 accepted the name as their proper designation. It 
 was provoked by the peaked and pointed hood 
 (capucho) which they wore. 
 
 Now of these titles, and of many more that 
 might be adduced, some undoubtedly, like the last, 
 had their rise in mere external accident, and stand 
 in no essential connexion with those that bear 
 them ; and these names, although seldom without 
 their instruction, yet plainly are not so instructive 
 as others, in which the innermost heart of a sys- 
 
 * In North's Examen, p. 321, is a very lively, though 
 not a very impartial, account of the rise of these names. 
 
 f Dr. Eck, one of the earliest who wrote against the 
 Reformation, it was who first called the followers of 
 Luther, Lutheran! 
 
120 On the History in Words 
 
 tern speaks out and reveals itself, so that, having 
 mastered the name, we have placed ourselves at 
 the central point, from which we shall best master 
 everything besides. Thus, for instance, is it with 
 1 Gnosticism ' and ' Gnostic ' ; in the prominence 
 given to gnosis, or knowledge, as opposed to faith, 
 lies the key to the whole system. And I may say 
 generally that almost all the sects and parties, 
 religious and political, which have risen up in times 
 past in England, 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. ' Puritans/ ' Fifth-Monarchy Men/ 
 ' Seekers/ ' Levellers/ ' Independents/ ' Friends ' 
 ' Rationalists/ ' Latitudinarians/ ' Freethinkers/ 
 these titles, with many more, have each its signi- 
 ficance ; and would you understand what the 
 men themselves meant, you must first understand 
 what they were called. From this must be your 
 point of starting, even as to this you must bring 
 back whatever further information you may gain ; 
 and, though I will not say that you must always 
 subordinate it to the name, yet must you ever put 
 it in relation and connexion with that. 
 
 You will often be able to glean knowledge from 
 the names of things, if not as important as that 
 I have just been speaking of, yet curious and in- 
 teresting. What a record of inventions is preserved 
 in the names which so many articles bear, of the 
 place from which they first came, or the person by 
 whom they were first invented. The ' magnet ' has 
 its name from Magnesia ; the * baldachin ' from 
 
On the History in Words 121 
 
 ' Baldacco,' the Italian name of Bagdad ; it being 
 from that city that the costly silk which composed 
 this canopy originally came. The ' bayonet ' tells 
 us that it was first made at Bayonne ' worsted ' 
 that it was first spun at a village of the same name 
 (in the neighbourhood of Norwich) ' sarsnet ' that 
 it is a Saracen manufacture ' cambrics ' that they 
 reached us from Cambray ' crape ' from Cyprus 
 (the earlier form of the word is ' cypres ') * 
 ' copper ' also that it drew its name from this same 
 island, so richly furnished with mines of this metal 
 ' diaper ' that it came from Ypres ' damask ' 
 from Damascus (the ' damson ' also is the ' dam- 
 ascene ' or Damascus plum) ' arras ' from Arras 
 ' dimity ' from Damietta f ' cordwain ' or ' cor- 
 dovan ' from Cordova ' currants ' from Corinth 
 ' delf ' from Delft ' indigo ' (indicum) from India 
 ' agates ' from a Sicilian river, Achates ' jalap ' 
 from Xalapa, a town in Mexico * parchment ' 
 from Pergamum the ' bezant/ so often named in 
 our early literature, from Byzantium, being a 
 Byzantine coin the ' guinea,' that it was originally 
 coined (in 1663) of gold brought from the African 
 
 * [On the contrary, cypres, cipres (" Cyprus black as 
 e'er was crow." Winter's Tale, iv. 3) is probably a 
 corrupt form of crypse, cryspe, or cripse, crispe, Old Fr. 
 crespe (now cr&pe], the crisp fabric, from Lat. crispus. 
 See P "oik-Etymology, 1882, p. 91 ; Skeat, Notes on Ety- 
 mology, 1901, p. 37.] 
 
 f [Dimity, originally spelt dimite, has allfhe appear- 
 ance of being derived from Pers. dimyatl, the fabric 
 manufactured at Dimyat, i.e. Damietta. It is probably, 
 however, from the late Latin dimitum, which is the Greek 
 cli-mtton, " two-thread " stuff, like tri-mita, " three- 
 thread," and samite from Lat. examitum, Greek hexa- 
 miton, " six-thread."] 
 
122 On the History in Words 
 
 coast so called ' camlet/ that it was woven, at 
 least in part, of camel's hair.* The fashion of the 
 cravat was borrowed from the Croats, or ' Crabats ' 
 as they used in the seventeenth century to be 
 called. The ' biggen,' a plain cap often mentioned 
 by our early writers, was first worn by the 
 Beguines, communities of pietist women in the 
 middle ages, and had its name from them. Such 
 has been the manufacturing progress of England 
 that we now send our calicoes and muslins to 
 India and the East ; yet the words give standing 
 witness that we once imported them from thence ; 
 for ' calico ' is from Calicut, and ' muslin ' from 
 Moussul, a city in Asiatic Turkey. ' Ermine ' is 
 the spoil of the Armenian rat ; ' Sherry ' or 
 ' Sherris,' as Shakespeare wrote it, is sent us from 
 Xeres ; the ' pheasant ' came to us from the banks 
 of the Phasis ; the ' cherry ' was brought by 
 Lucullus from Cerasus, a city in Pontus ; the 
 ' peach ' declares itself by its name to be a Persian 
 fruit ; ' spaniels ' are from Spain, f 
 
 It is true, indeed, that occasionally a name will 
 embody and give permanence to an error ; as when 
 in ' America ' the honour of discovering the New 
 World, which belonged to Columbus, has been 
 transferred to another eminent discoverer,! but one 
 who had no title to this praise, and who, as Hum- 
 
 * [This is doubtful. It is probably from the Arabic 
 Khamlat, a kind of plush (Yule, Skeat, and Murray.)] 
 f [O. Fr. espagneul=La.t. Hispaniolus.~] 
 J [Americo Vespucci, first so attributed in M. Walz- 
 muller, Cosmographies Introductio, 1508, fol. 15, verso 
 (Latin), where it is asked, "Who could justly object to 
 its being called after its discoverer Americo, either 
 Amerige, as if Americo's land, or America ? " See E. 
 J. Payne, History of the New World, vol. i. p. 192.] 
 
On the History in Words 123 
 
 boldt has lately abundantly shown, was entirely 
 guiltless of any attempt to usurp it for himself. 
 So too the ' turkey ' in our farm- yards seems to 
 claim Turkey for its home ; and the assumption 
 that it was from thence no doubt caused it to be 
 so called ; while, indeed, it was unknown in 
 Europe until introduced from the New World, 
 where alone it is indigenous. This error the French 
 in another shape repeat, calling it ' dinde/ origin- 
 ally ' poulet d'Inde,' or Indian fowl. In like 
 manner ' gypsies ' appears to imply that Egypt 
 was the country to which these wanderers origin- 
 ally belonged, and from which they had migrated 
 westward ; and certainly it was so believed in 
 many parts of Europe at their first appearance 
 in the beginning of the fifteenth century, and 
 hence this title.* It is now, however, clearly 
 made out, their language leaving no doubt of the 
 fact, that they are an outcast tribe which has 
 wandered hither from a more distant land, from 
 India itself. ' Bohemians/ the French appella- 
 tion of gypsies, involves an error similar to ours : 
 they were taken at first by the common people 
 in France to be the expelled Hussites of Bohemia, 
 and hence this name. In the German ' Zigeuner ' 
 there is no expression of the land from which they 
 were presumed to have come; but if this word 
 be ' Zieh-Gauner/ that is, * roaming thieves/ 
 it will indicate the evil repute in which from the 
 very beginning they were held.f 
 
 * [Hence also the Spanish Gitano, Mod. Greek Guptas. 
 See Lord Strangford, Letters and Papers, p. 59.] 
 
 t [It is more probably an altered form of the Spanish 
 Zingani, Zincali, It. Zingari, gipsies.] 
 
124 On the History in Words 
 
 And where words have not, as in these cases, 
 embodied an error, it will yet sometimes happen 
 that the sound or spelling of a word will to us 
 possibly suggest a wrong explanation, against which 
 in these studies it will need to be on our guard. I 
 dare say that there has been a stage in most boys' 
 geographical knowledge, when they have taken for 
 granted that Jutland was so called, not because it 
 was the land of the Jutes, but on account of its 
 jutting out into the sea in so remarkable a manner. 
 And there have not been wanting those who have 
 ventured to trace in the name of ' Jove ' a heathen 
 reminiscence of the awful name of Jehovah. I will 
 not enter into this here ; sufficient to say that, 
 however specious this at first sight may seem, yet 
 on closer examination of the two words, every 
 connexion between them disappears. 
 
 Sometimes the assumed derivation has reacted 
 upon and modified the spelling. Thus the name 
 of the Caledonian tribe whom we call the ' Picts ' 
 would probably have come down to us in a some- 
 what different form, but for the assumption which 
 early rose up, that they were so called from their 
 custom of staining or painting their bodies, that in 
 fact ' Picts ' meant ' the painted.'* This, as is now 
 
 * [It is now generally accepted that the ' Picts ' 
 were really the painted or tattooed men, Lat. Picti (Rhys, 
 Celtic Britain, 235 ; Lord Strangford, Letters and Papers, 
 162), perhaps translating their native name Cruithnig, 
 of the same meaning, Scoti and Britones being synony- 
 mous names (J. B. Johnston, Place Names of Scotland, 
 2nd ed. p. xxix. ; E. W. B. Nicholson, Keltic Researches ; 
 Archaolog. Rev. 1888, i. 50; Hehn, Cultivated Plants, 33). 
 Compare Pintos, the name of a Mexican tribe given by 
 the Spaniards (Tylor, Anahuac, 309!.] 
 
On the History in Words 125 
 
 acknowledged, is an exceedingly improbable sup- 
 position. It would be quite conceivable that the 
 Romans should have given this name to the first 
 barbarous tribe they encountered, who were in the 
 habit of painting themselves thus : such a custom, 
 forcing itself on the eye, and impressing itself on 
 the imagination, is exactly that which gives birth 
 to a name : but after they had been long familiar 
 with the tribes in southern Britain, to whom this 
 painting or tattooing was equally familiar, it is 
 quite inconceivable that they should have applied 
 it to one of the northern tribes in the island, with 
 which they first came in contact at a far later day. 
 The name is much more probably the original 
 Celtic one belonging to the tribe, slightly altered 
 in the mouths of the Romans.* It may have 
 been the same with ' hurricane ' ; for many have 
 imagined that this word, being used especially to 
 signify the West Indian tornado, must be derived 
 from the tearing up and hurrying away of the 
 canes in the sugar plantations, just in the same 
 way as the Latin ' calamitas ' has been drawn, but 
 erroneously, from ' calamus,' the stalk of the corn. 
 In both cases the etymology is faulty ; ' hurricane ' 
 is only a transplanting into our tongue of the 
 Spanish ' hurracan ' or the French ' ouragan.'f 
 It is a signal evidence of the conservative powers 
 
 * [The author is referring to the Celtic peicta, " fighters," 
 assumed to be the original of ' Picts ' (I. Taylor, Words 
 and Places, Si, 396 ; Verstegan, Restitution of Decayed 
 Intelligence, 1634, p. 114.)] 
 
 { [From Hurakan, which in the Maya dialect is the 
 name of the god of the storm or tornado, said to mean 
 ' the first (i.e. supreme) giant ' (hu rakan). See D. G. 
 Brinton, Essays of an Americanist, pp. 120-123.] 
 
126 On the History in Words 
 
 of language, that we may oftentimes trace in speech 
 the records of customs and states of society which 
 have now passed so entirely away as to survive no- 
 where else but in these words alone. For example, 
 a ' stipulation/ or agreement, is so called, as 
 many tell us, from ' stipula/ a straw, and with 
 reference to a Roman custom of breaking a straw 
 between them, when two persons would make a 
 mutual engagement with one another.* And we 
 all know how important a fact of English history 
 is laid up in ' curfew ' or ' couvre-feu.' The 
 ' limner,' or ' lumineur ' (luminatore), brings us 
 back to a period when the illumination of manu- 
 scripts was the leading occupation of the painter ; 
 so that from this work he derived his name. ' 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 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.f 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 
 
 * See on this disputed point, and on the relation be- 
 tween the Latin ' stipulatio ' and the old German custom 
 not altogether dissimilar, J. Grimm, Deutsche Rechts- 
 alterthumer, pp. 121 sqq. 
 
 f [Scientific etymology refuses to- see in ' thrall ' 
 any connexion with ' thrill. 1 It probably stands for 
 an original thra(g)l, meaning a ' runner,' and so a mes- 
 senger or servant, from a root trag, to run, seen in A. 
 Sax. thrcegian, Gk. rptxeiv, to run - Thus ' thrall ' is 
 almost formally identical with r/oox^X-os, the running bird 
 (Skeat).] 
 
On the History in Words 127 
 
 room where the pawnbroker stores his pledges. 
 Nor need I do more than remind you that in our 
 common phrase of " signing our name," we pre- 
 serve a record of a time when the first rudiments of 
 education, such as the power of writing, were the 
 portion of so few, but that it was not as now the 
 exception, but the custom, for 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. We more 
 accurately express what now we do, when we speak 
 of " subscribing the name." Then too, whenever 
 we term arithmetic the science of ' calculation/ we 
 in fact allude to -that rudimental period of the 
 science of numbers, when pebbles (calculi) were 
 used, as now among savages they often are, to 
 facilitate the practice of counting ; the Greeks did 
 the same in their word Tfrj^i&w : as in another 
 word of theirs (Tre/i/Trafetz/) record of a period was 
 kept when the five fingers were so employed. 
 ' Expend/ ' expense/ tell us that money was once 
 weighed out, and not counted out, as now (Gen. 
 xxxiii. 16). In ' library ' we preserve the fact that 
 books were once written on the bark (liber) of 
 trees ; as in ' paper/ of a somewhat later period, 
 when the Egyptian papyrus, " the paper reeds by 
 the brooks," furnished the chief material for 
 writing. 
 
 Theories too, which long since were utterly 
 renounced, have yet left their traces behind them. 
 Thus the words ' good humour/ ' bad humour/ 
 ' humours/ and, strangest contradiction of all, 
 ' dry humour/ rest altogether on a now exploded, 
 but a very old and widely extended, theory of 
 
128 On the History in Words 
 
 medicine ; according to which there were four 
 principal moistures or ' humours ' in the natural 
 body, on the due proportion and combination of 
 which the disposition alike of body and of mind 
 depended.* And ' temper/ as used by us now, 
 has its origin in the same theory ; the due ad- 
 mixture, or right ' tempering/ of these gave what 
 was called the happy temper, or mixture, which, 
 thus existing inwardly, manifested itself also out- 
 wardly. In the same manner ' distemper ' which 
 we still employ in the sense of sickness, was that 
 evil frame either of a man's body or of his mind 
 (for it was used alike of both), which had its rise 
 in an unsuitable mingling of these humours. In 
 these instances, as in many more, the great streams 
 of thought and feeling have changed their course, 
 and now flow in quite other channels from those 
 which once they filled, but have left these words 
 as lasting 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 that grew into use when 
 those errors found credit, and which, now that 
 those errors are dismissed, maintain still their 
 currency among us. The mythology, for example, 
 which our ancestors brought with them from 
 the forests in Germany is as much extinct for us 
 as are the Lares, Larvae, and Lemures of heathen 
 Rome ; yet the deposit it has permanently left in 
 
 * See the Prologue to Ben Jonson's Every Man out of 
 his Humout. [An ill-tempered person is called a 
 'humourist' in Tfo Spectator, 1711, iii. 258. 
 
On the History in Words 129 
 
 the language is not inconsiderable. ' Lubber,' 
 ' dwarf/ 'oaf,' 'droll,' 'wight,' 'urchin,' 'hag,' 
 'night-mare,' 'changeling' (wechselkind),' wicked,'* 
 suggest themselves here, as bequeathed to us 
 by that old Gothic demonology. No one now 
 believes in astrology, that the planet under which 
 a man may happen to be born will affect his 
 temperament, will make him for life of a dis- 
 position grave or gay, lively or severe. Yet we 
 seem to affirm as much in language, for we speak 
 of one 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,' as born under the planet 
 Saturn, who was considered to make those that 
 own his influence, and were born when he was 
 in the ascendant, grave and stern as himself : 
 another we call ' mercurial,' or light-hearted, 
 as those born under the planet Mercury were 
 accounted to be. The same faith in the influence 
 of the stars survives in ' disastrous,' ' ill-starred,' 
 ' ascendency,' ' lord of the ascendant,' and, 
 indeed, in ' influence ' itself. What curious 
 legends belong to the explanation of the ' sardonic,' 
 or ' Sardinian 'f laugh ; a laugh caused, as was 
 supposed, by a plant in Sardinia, which they who 
 ate, died laughing ; to the ' amethyst,' esteemed, 
 as the word implies, a preventive or antidote of 
 
 * [Old Eng. wikke, wicked, near akin to A. Sax. wicce, 
 a witch, as if (be-)witched, possessed by the powers of 
 evil.] 
 
 t See an excellent history of this word in Rost and 
 Palm's Greek Lexicon, s.v. <rap8di>ios, 
 
 S.W. K 
 
130 On the History in Words 
 
 drunkenness ; and to other words not a few 
 employed by us still. 
 
 But here a question presents itself, one which 
 is not, as at first it might seem, merely specula- 
 tive ; for it has before now become a veritable 
 case of conscience with some whether they ought 
 to use words which originally rested on, and so 
 seem still to affirm, some superstition or untruth. 
 This question has practically settled itself ; the 
 words will keep their ground : but further, they 
 have a perfect right to do so ; for no word need 
 be considered so to root itself in its etymology, and 
 to draw its sap and strength from thence, that it 
 cannot detach itself from this, and acquire the 
 rights of an independent existence. And thus our 
 weekly newspapers commit no absurdity in calling 
 themselves ' journals ' ; we involve ourselves in 
 no real contradiction, speaking of a * quarantine ' 
 of five, ten, or any number of days more or fewer 
 than forty ; the wax of our ' candles ' (' candela ' 
 from ' candeo ') is not necessarily white ; our 
 ' rubrics ' are rubrics still, though seldom printed 
 in red ink. I remember once asking a class of 
 school-children whether an announcement which 
 during one very hard winter appeared in the 
 papers, of a ' white blackbird ' having been shot, was 
 correctly worded, or self-contradictory and absurd. 
 The less thoughtful members of the class instantly 
 pronounced against it ; while after a little con- 
 sideration, two or three perceived and replied that it 
 was perfectly correct, that while no doubt the bird 
 had originally obtained this name from its black- 
 ness, yet was it now the name of a species, and one 
 so cleaving to it as not to be forfeited, even when 
 
On the History in Words 131 
 
 the blackness had quite disappeared. We do not 
 question the right of the ' New Forest ' still to be 
 so called, though it has now stood for nigh eight 
 hundred years ; nor of ' Naples ' to be the New 
 City (Neapolis) still, after an existence three or 
 four times as long. 
 
 It must, then, be esteemed a piece of ethical 
 prudery, and an ignorance of the laws which 
 languages obey, when the early Quakers refused to 
 employ the names commonly given to the days of 
 the week, and substituted for these, ' first day/ 
 ' second day,' and so on. This they did, as is 
 well known, on the ground that it became not 
 Christian men to give so much sanction to idolatry 
 as was involved in the ordinary style as though 
 every time they spoke of Wednesday they would 
 be doing some honour to Woden, of Thursday to 
 Thor, of Friday to Freya, and thus with the rest.* 
 Now it is quite intelligible that the early Chris- 
 tians, living in the midst of a still rampant heathen- 
 ism, should have objected, as we know they did, 
 to ' dies solis' or Sunday, to express the first 
 day of the week, their Lord's-Day. But when the 
 Quakers raised their protest, the case was alto- 
 
 * It is curious to find Fuller prophesying, a very few 
 years before it actually happened, that at some future 
 day such a protest as theirs might actually be raised 
 (Church History, b. ii. cent. 6) : ' Thus we see the whole 
 week bescattered with Saxon idols, whose pagan gods 
 were the godfathers of the days, and gave them their 
 names. This some zealot may behold as the object of 
 a necessary reformation, desiring to have the days of 
 the week new dipt, and called after other names. Though, 
 indeed, this supposed scandal will not offend the wise, 
 as beneath their notice ; and cannot offend the ignorant, 
 as above their knowledge.' 
 
132 On the History in Words 
 
 gether different. The false worship to which these 
 words belonged had ceased in England for about a 
 thousand years ; these words were wholly disen- 
 gaged from their etymologies, which they had left 
 altogether behind them ; which not one in a hun- 
 dred was even so much as aware of. Moreover, 
 had these precisions in speech been consistent, 
 they could not have stopped where they did ; every 
 new acquaintance with the derivation or primary 
 use of the words would have entangled them in new 
 embarrassment, would have required them still 
 further to purge their vocabulary. ' To charm,' 
 ' to bewitch/ ' to fascinate,' ' to enchant,' would 
 have been no longer lawful words for those who 
 had outlived the belief in magic, and in the power 
 of the evil eye ; nor ' lunacy,' nor ' lunatic,' for such 
 as did not consider that the moon had anything 
 to do with mental unsoundness ; nor ' panic,' fear, 
 for those who believed that the great Pan was 
 indeed dead ; nor ' auguries,' nor ' auspices,' for 
 those to whom divination was nothing ; 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 in the New Testament 
 there is a word in very honourable use, expressing 
 a function that might be exercised by the faith- 
 ful, that, namely, of an interpreter,* which word is 
 directly derived from and embodies the name of 
 Hermes, a heathen deity, and a deity who did not, 
 like Woden, Thor, and Freya, pertain to a long 
 extinct mythology, but to one existing at that very 
 
 * [Greek hermeneutes, whence is ' hermeneutics,' the 
 science of exegesis or interpretation.] 
 
On the History in Words 133 
 
 moment in its strength. And how was it, we may 
 ask, that Paul did not protest against a Christian 
 woman retaining the name of Phcebe (Rom. xvi. i), 
 a goddess of the same mythology ? 
 
 We have abundant right then to speak of a 
 history in words. Now suppose that the pieces 
 of money which in the ordinary intercourse of 
 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 another some important fact, 
 on a 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 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 vouch- 
 safing to them so much as one serious regard. Such 
 a currency there is, a currency intellectual and 
 spiritual of no meaner worth, and one with which 
 we have to transact so much of the higher business 
 of our lives. Let us see that we come not here 
 under the condemnation of any such incurious 
 dulness as that which I have imagined. 
 
ON THE RISE OF NEW WORDS 
 
 ONE of the most interesting branches of the study 
 which is occupying us now is the taking note of 
 the periods when great and significant words, or 
 it may be even such as can hardly claim these 
 epithets, have risen up and come into use, with the 
 circumstances attending their rise. The different 
 portions of my theme so run into one another^ 
 that this is a subject which I have, though un- 
 willingly, already anticipated in part ; yet is it 
 one so curious, and which may be made so instruc- 
 tive,that I purpose to dedicate a lecture exclusively 
 to it. Indeed, I am persuaded that a volume 
 might be written which would have few to rival 
 it in interest, that should do no more than indicate, 
 or, where advisable, quote the first writer or the 
 first document wherein new words, or old words 
 employed in a new sense such words, I mean, as 
 have afterwards played an important part in the 
 world's history have appeared. For the feeling 
 wherewith we watch the rise above the horizon of 
 these words, some of them to shine for ever as 
 luminaries in the moral and intellectual heaven 
 above us, can oftentimes be only likened to that 
 which the poet so grandly describes, of 
 
 some watcher of the skies, 
 When a new planet swims into his ken. 
 
 Thus in respect of words religious and ecclesi- 
 astical very noteworthy, and in some sort epoch- 
 making, must be regarded the first appearance of 
 
 04 
 
On the Rise of New Words 135 
 
 such as these' Christian ; '* ' Trinity ; '* ' Catho- 
 lic/ as an epithet applied to the Church ; 3 ' canoni- 
 cal,' as a distinctive title of the received Scrip- 
 tures ; 4 ' New Testament/ as describing the com- 
 plex of the sacred books of the New Covenant ; 5 
 ' Gospels/ as applied to the four inspired records of 
 the life of our Lord. 6 Very curious too the first 
 coming up of ' monk ' and ' nun/ 7 marking as they 
 do the rise of the monastic system ; or again, of 
 ' transubstantiation/ 8 or of ' limbo " in its theo- 
 logical sense, marking as these do the consolidation 
 of errors which had long been floating in the Church. 
 So too it is most instructive to note the earliest 
 appearance of names historical and geographical, 
 as the first mention of ' India ' ; 10 of ' Europe ' j 11 
 the first emerging of the names ' German ' and 
 'Germany';" of the ' Alemanni ' ;* of the 
 ' Franks ' ; 14 the earliest notice of Rome in any 
 writer ; 16 the first use of ' Italy ' as the designation 
 of the entire Hesperian peninsula, a name which 
 
 1 Acts xi. 26. 
 
 2 Tertullian, Adv. Prax. c. 3. 
 
 3 Ignatius, Ad Smyr. c. 8. 
 
 * Origen, Opp. v. 3. p. 36 (ed. de la Rue). 
 
 5 Tertullian, Adv. Marc. 4. i ; Adv. Prax. 15, 20. 
 
 6 Justin Martyr, Apol. i. 66. 
 
 7 Nun (nonna) first appears in St. Jerome, Ad Eustoch. 
 Ep 22. 
 
 8 Hildebert, bishop of Tours, Serm. 93. He died in 
 1134- 
 
 Thomas Aquinas is the first that we know who uses 
 ' limbus ' in this sense. 
 
 > .Eschylus, Suppl. 282. " Herodotus, 4. 36. 
 
 12 They probably first occur in the Commentaries of 
 Caesar. 
 
 3 Spartian, Caracalla, c. 9. 
 14 Vopiscus, Aurel. c. 7 ; about A.D. 240. 
 u Probably in Hellanicus, a cotemporary of Herodotus. 
 
136 On the Rise of New Words 
 
 had been gradully creeping up for centuries from 
 its southern extremity j 1 when Asia on this side 
 Taurus was first called ' Asia Minor ' ;* the earliest 
 notice which we have of ' Normans ' under this 
 title ; 3 who first gave to the newly-discovered 
 continent in the west the name of ' America/ and 
 when ; * the period when this island exchanged its 
 earlier name of Britain for ' Anglia ' or ' England ; ' 
 or, again, when it resumed ' Great Britain ' as its 
 official designation. So too, to go back in the 
 world's history, and to take one or two examples 
 of a different character at what moment the 
 words ' tyrant ' and ' tyranny,' marking so dis- 
 tinct an epoch as they do in the political history of 
 Greece, first appeared ; ' 5 when, and from whom, 
 
 1 In the time of Augustus Caesar. 
 
 2 Orosius, i . 2 ; in the fifth century of our era. 
 
 3 In the Geographer of Ravenna. 
 
 * Alexander von Humboldt, who has studied the 
 question profoundly, ascribes its general reception to 
 its having been introduced into a popular and influential 
 work on geography, published in 1 507. [See above, p. 122, 
 note.J] 
 
 5 First in the writings of Archilochus, about 700 B.C. 
 I will just observe that ' tyrant ' with the Greeks had 
 a much deeper sense than it has in our modern use. The 
 difference between a ' king ' and a ' tyrant ' was far 
 more profoundly apprehended by them than by us. A 
 tyrant was not a bad king, who abused the advantages 
 of a rightful position to purposes of lust or cruelty or 
 other oppression ; but it was of the essence of the tyrant, 
 that he attained supreme dominion through a violation 
 of the laws and liberties of the state ; and such an one, 
 with whatever moderation he might afterwards exercise 
 his rule, would not the less retain the name. Thus the 
 mild and bounteous Pisistratus was, and was called, 
 ' tyrant ' of Athens, while a Christian the Second of 
 Denmark, ' the Nero of the North,' would not have 
 been esteemed such in their eyes. It was to the honour 
 of the Greeks that they did not allow the course of the 
 
On the Rise of New Words 137 
 
 the fabric of the external universe first received 
 the title of ' cosmos/ or ' beautiful order ' ; 1 with 
 many more of the same description. 
 
 Of these which I have just adduced let us take, 
 by way of sample, two, and try whether there is 
 not much to be gathered from them, and from at- 
 tending to the epoch and circumstances of their 
 rise. Our first example is a remarkable one, for 
 it shows us the Holy Spirit Himself counting a 
 name, and the rise of a name, of so much import- 
 ance as to make it matter of special record in the 
 Book of Life. " The disciples were called 
 Christians first in Antioch " (Acts xi. 26). This 
 might seem at first sight a notice curious and 
 interesting, as all must possess interest for us which 
 relates to the early days of the Church, but nothing 
 more. And yet in truth how much of history is 
 enfolded in this name ; what light it throws on the 
 early history of Christianity to know when and 
 where it was first imposed on the faithful ' im- 
 posed/ I say, for it is clearly a name which they 
 did not give to themselves, but received from their 
 adversaries, however afterwards they may have 
 
 word to be arrested or turned aside by any occasional 
 or partial exceptions in the manner of the after exercise 
 of this ill-gotten dominion, but in the hateful secondary 
 sense which the word even with them acquired, and 
 which is felt still more strongly by us, the moral con- 
 viction, justified by all experience, spake out, that what 
 was gotten by fraud and violence would only by the 
 same methods be retained ; that the ' tyrant,' in the 
 earlier Greek sense of the word, dogged as he would be 
 by suspicion, fear, and an evil conscience, must also 
 by a sure law become a ' tyrant ' in the later, which is 
 that in which alone we employ the word. 
 
 1 The word is ascribed, as is well known, to Pytha- 
 goras, born about B.C. 570. 
 
138 On the Rise of New Words 
 
 learned to accept it as a title of honour, and to 
 glory in it. For it is not said that they " called 
 themselves," but " were called " Christians first at 
 Antioch ; nor do we find the name anywhere in 
 Scripture except on the lips of those alien from, or 
 opposed to, the Gospel (Acts xxvi. 28 ; I Peter, iv. 
 16). And as it was a name imposed by adver- 
 saries, so among those adversaries it was plainly 
 the heathen, and not the Jews, that gave it ; since 
 the Jews would never have called the followers of 
 Jesus of Nazareth, ' Christians,' or ' those of Christ,' 
 seeing that the very point of their opposition to 
 Him was, that He was not the Christ, but a false 
 pretender to this name. 
 
 Starting then from this point, that ' Christians ' 
 was a name given to the early disciples by the 
 heathen, let us see what we may learn from it. 
 Now we know that Antioch was the head-quarters 
 of the earliest missions to the heathen, even as 
 Jersusalem was to those of the seed of Abraham. 
 It was there and among the faithful there that 
 the sense of the world-wide destination of the 
 Gospel arose ; there it was first plainly seen as 
 intended for all kindreds of the earth.* Hitherto 
 the faithful in Christ had been called by their 
 enemies, and indeed often were still called, ' Gali- 
 leans,' or ' Nazarenes,' both names which indi- 
 cated the Jewish cradle in which the Gospel had 
 been nursed, and that the world saw in it no more 
 than a Jewish sect. But the name ' Christians,' 
 
 * [Its catholicity was adumbrated by its structure, 
 ' Christianus,' being a Hebrew idea, the Messiah, clothed 
 in a Greek form, Christos, with a Latin termination 
 anus implying devotion to His cause or party.] 
 
On the Rise of New Words 139 
 
 or ' those of Christ,' imposed upon them now, 
 while it indicated that Christ and the confession 
 of His name was felt even by the world to be the 
 sum and centre of their religion, showed also that 
 the heathen had now come to comprehend, I do 
 not say what the Church would be but what it 
 claimed to be, no mere variety of Judaism, but 
 a society with a far wider mission ; it is clear that, 
 when this name was given, the Church, even in the 
 world's eyes, had chipped its Jewish shell. Nor 
 will the attentive reader fail to observe that the 
 imposing of this name on believers is by closest 
 juxtaposition connected in the sacred narrative, 
 and still more closely in the Greek than in the 
 English, with the first arrival of St. Paul at Antioch, 
 and his preaching there ; he being the especial 
 and appointed instrument for bringing the Church 
 into the recognition of this its destination for all 
 men. As so often happens with the rise of a new 
 name, the rise of this one marked a new epoch in 
 the Church's life, that it was entering upon a new 
 stage of its development. 
 
 It is a merely subordinate matter, but yet I 
 may just observe how remarkably what we know 
 from other quarters confirms the accuracy of this 
 account which lays the invention of this name to 
 the credit of the Antiochenes. The idle and witty 
 inhabitants of Antioch were famous in all antiquity 
 for the invention of nicknames ; it was a manu- 
 facture in which they particularly excelled. And 
 thus it was exactly the place, where beforehand 
 we might have expected that such a name, being 
 a nickname or little better in the mouths of those 
 that devised it, should have first sprung up. 
 
140 On the Rise of New Words 
 
 Our other example shall be ' Anglia ' or ' Eng- 
 land.' When and under what circumstances did 
 this island exchange for this its earlier name of 
 Britain, which it had borne for more than a thou- 
 sand years ? There seems no sufficient reason for 
 calling in question, though some have so done, 
 the statement of the old chronicler that it received 
 this new name of Anglia from Egbert, king of 
 Wessex, who with the sanction of his Parliament 
 or Witanegemot, holden A.D. 800 in this very city 
 of Winchester, determined that the name ' Britain ' 
 should give place to ' England.'* It may be that 
 the change was not effected by any such formal 
 act as this, yet the accuracy of the old historian, so 
 far at least as his date is concerned, receives strong 
 confirmation from the circumstance that ' Anglia,' 
 which is nowhere to be traced in any documents 
 anterior to this period, does immediately after 
 begin to appear. 
 
 What lessons for the student of English history 
 are here, in the knowledge of this one fact, if he 
 will but seek to look at it all round, and consider 
 it in a thoughtful spirit. I have said that the rise 
 of a new name marks often a new epoch in history ; 
 certainly it was so in the instance before us. 
 In the first place, as it is the just law of names, 
 that a people should give a name to the land which 
 they possess, not receive one from it, as the Franks 
 make Gaul to be France, do not suffer themselves 
 to become Gauls, so, as regards our own land, it is 
 plain from the coming up of this name that 
 there must have been now a sense in men's minds 
 
 * [Standing for ' Engla-land,' land of the Engles or 
 Angles.] 
 
On the Rise of New Words 141 
 
 that its transformation from a land of Britons to 
 a land of Angles was at length completely accom- 
 plished, and might therefore justly claim to find 
 its recognition in a word. That the Normans 
 never made a ' Norman-land ' out of England, as 
 they had out of Neustria, and as the Angles had 
 made an ' Angle-land ' out of Britain, that they 
 never so supplanted the population, or dissolved 
 the social frame-work, of the Angles, as these 
 had done of the Britons, is evident from the fact 
 that there went along with their conquest of the 
 land no such substitution of a new name for the 
 old, no such obliteration of the old by the new, as 
 on that prior occupation of the soil had found 
 place. And then further, how significant a fact, 
 that the invading German tribes, which had 
 hitherto been content to call themselves according 
 to the different provinces or districts which they 
 occupied, should have now felt that they needed, 
 and out of that need should have given birth to, 
 a name common to and including the whole land. 
 Was there not here a sign that the sense of unity, 
 of all making up one corporate body, one nation, 
 was emerging out of the confusion of the preceding 
 period of the Heptarchy ? We know from other 
 sources that Egbert was the first who united the 
 different kingdoms of the Heptarchy under his 
 single sceptre ; the first in whom the nation was 
 knit together into one. How instructive to find a 
 name which should be the symbol of unity, coming 
 to the birth at this very moment. In respect too of 
 the relations between themselves of the two most 
 important tribes which had settled in this island, 
 the Angles and the Saxons (the Jutes were too few 
 
142 On the Rise of New Words 
 
 to contend for the honour), it is assuredly a weighty 
 fact that it was the Angles alone, from whom, 
 though numerically inferior, the new appellation 
 was derived. Doubtless, a moral or political pre- 
 dominance of this tribe, probably a political 
 founded on a moral, asserted itself in this fact. We 
 are the less inclined to attribute it to accident from 
 the circumstance that in the phrase ' Anglo- 
 Saxons/ (Angli-Saxones), a term which is no modern 
 invention of convenience, as is sometimes errone- 
 ously asserted, but is of earlier use even than 
 Anglia, the Angles have again the precedence, and 
 the Saxons only follow.* 
 
 It will be seen, I think, by these two examples 
 that new words will repay any attention which we 
 may bestow upon them, and upon the conditions 
 under which they emerge. Let us proceed to 
 consider the causes which give them birth, the 
 periods when a language is most fruitful in them, 
 the regions of society from which they usually 
 proceed, with some other interesting phenomena 
 about them. 
 
 That cause which more than any other creates 
 the necessity for these additions to the vocabulary 
 of a language, and evokes the words which shall 
 supply this necessity, when it is felt, is beyond a 
 question this namely, that in the appointments of 
 highest Wisdom there are certain cardinal epochs 
 in the world's history, in which, far more than at 
 other times, new moral and spiritual forces begin 
 to work, and to stir society to its central depths. 
 When it is thus with a people, they make claims 
 
 * [iSee Freeman, Norman Conquest, vol.i., Appendix, A.] 
 
On the. Rise of New Words 143 
 
 upon their language which were never made upon 
 it before. It is required to utter truths, to ex- 
 press ideas, which were strange to it in the time 
 of its first moulding and shaping, and for which, 
 therefore, the terms sufficient will naturally not be 
 found in it 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. But when the bed of a river is suddenly 
 required to deliver a far greater volume of waters 
 than till now has been its wont, it is nothing strange 
 if it should surmount its banks, break forth on the 
 right hand and on the left, or even force new 
 channels with something of violence for itself. The 
 most illustrious example of this whereof I speak, 
 is, of course, the coming in of Christianity, or, in- 
 cluding the anterior dispensation, of revealed 
 religion, into the ancient heathen world, with the 
 consequent necessity under which the great novel 
 truths which were then proclaimed to mankind 
 lay, of clothing themselves in the language of 
 men, and first in the languages of Greece and 
 Rome languages which in their previous form 
 might have sufficed, and did suffice, for heathenism, 
 sensuous and finite as it was, but not for the 
 spiritual and infinite of the new dispensation. How 
 often had the new thoughts to weave a new gar- 
 ment for themselves, inasmuch as that which they 
 found ready made was too narrow to wrap them- 
 selves withal ; the new wine to find new vessels for 
 itself, that both might be preserved, the old vessels 
 being neither sufficiently strong nor expansive to 
 hold it. 
 Thus, not to speak of mere technical matters 
 
144 On the Rise of New Words 
 
 which would claim their utterance, how could the 
 Greek language have had 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 men began to employ Greek, and that as the 
 sole utterance and voice of all that was in them, 
 men to whom this distinction and contrast was the 
 most earnest and the deepest conviction of their 
 lives, the words ' idolatry,' ' idolater,' of necessity 
 appeared.* The heathen did not claim for their 
 deities to be ' searchers of hearts,' did not disclaim 
 for them the being 'accepters of persons'; such 
 attributes of power and righteousness entered not 
 into their minds as pertaining to the objects of 
 their worship. The Greek language therefore, 
 so long as they only employed it, had not the words 
 corresponding. It indeed could not have had, as 
 the Jewish Hellenistic Greek could not have been 
 without them. In like manner, where else but in 
 the bosom of the same Jewish Greek could the 
 word ' theocracy ' have been born ? f 
 
 These difficulties, which would be felt the most 
 strongly when the thought and feeling which had 
 been at home in the Hebrew, the original language 
 of inspiration, were to be translated into Greek, 
 
 * [It may be noted in passing that this word, if it had 
 its rights, ought to be, as it once was, idolo-latry , idolo- 
 later. Similar compressions are ' hippotarnus ' and 
 ' physnomy ' (in Topsell), ' ignomy ' (Shakspere), ' surgeon, 
 ' barn,' ' tract,' ' England,' for ' hippopotamus,' ' phy- 
 siognomy,' ' ignominy,' ' sirurgeon,' ' barern,' ' tractate,' 
 ' Englaland,' and ' tempory,' sometimes heard for 
 ' temporary.'] 
 
 | We preside at its birth in a passage of Josephus, 
 Con. Apion. 2. 16. 
 
On the Rise of New Words 145 
 
 would also reappear, though naturally not to the 
 same extent, when that which had gradually 
 woven for itself in the Greek an adequate attire, 
 again demanded to find garments in the Latin, 
 wherein it might be suitably arrayed. A single 
 example of the difficulty, and the way it was ulti- 
 mately overcome, will illustrate this better than 
 long disquisitions. There was in the Greek a word 
 for ' saviour, 1 which, although it had often been 
 degraded to unworthy uses, having been applied 
 not merely to heathen deities, but bestowed as a 
 title of honour on men, and on such sometimes as 
 were rather ' destroyers ' than ' saviours ' of their 
 fellows, was yet in itself sufficient to set forth that 
 central office and dignity of Christ the word being 
 like some profaned temple, which did not need to 
 be rebuilt, but only to be consecrated anew. With 
 the Latin it was otherwise ; the language seemed 
 to be without a word of such frequent recurrence 
 and essential use to Christianity : indeed Cicero, 
 than whom none could know better the capabilities 
 of his own tongue, distinctly declared that it 
 possessed no single word corresponding to the 
 Greek ' saviour.'* ' Salvator ' would have been 
 the natural word ; but the classical Latin, though 
 it had ' salus ' and ' salvus,' had neither this, nor 
 the verb ' salvare ' ; I say the classical, for some 
 believe that ' salvare ' had always existed in the 
 common speech. ' Servator ' was instinctively felt 
 to be insufficient, even as in English ' Preserver ' 
 would fall very short of uttering all for us which 
 ' Saviour ' does now ; the seeking of the strayed, 
 
 " Hoc OWTTJ/)] quantum est ? ita magnum ut Latind 
 uno verbo exprimi non possit." 
 
 S.W. L 
 
146 On the Rise of New Words 
 
 the recovering of the lost, the healing of the sick, 
 all this would be very feebly and faintly insinu- 
 ated in ' Preserver/ God ' preserveth man and 
 beast/ but He is the ' Saviour ' of his own, in a far 
 more inward and far tenderer sense. For some 
 time the Latin Christian writers were in consider- 
 able perplexity how they should render the Greek 
 word, employing ' sospitator,' and other terms 
 more unsatisfactory still, as, for instance, the 
 1 salutificator ' of Tertullian. The strong good 
 sense of Augustine, however, finally disposed of the 
 difficulty. He made no scruple about employing 
 ' Salvator ' ; observing well, and with a true insight 
 into the law of the growth of words, that ' Salvator ' 
 might not have been, and indeed was not, good 
 Latin before the Saviour^ame ; but when He came, 
 He made it to be such ; for as shadows attend sub- 
 stances, so words follow upon things.* 
 
 These are, as I said, the most illustrious examples 
 of the coming in of a new world of thoughts 
 and feelings into the bosom of humanity, whereby 
 has been necessitated a correspondng creation in 
 the world of words, their outward representatives. 
 
 * Serin. 299. 6 : " Christus Jesus, id est Christus Sal- 
 vator : hoc est enim Latin e Jesus. Nee quaerant gram- 
 matici quam sit Latinum, sed Christiani, quam verum. 
 Salus enim Latinum nomen est : salvare et salvator non 
 fuerunt haec Latina, antequam veniret Salvator : quando 
 ad Latinos venit, et haec Latina fecit." Cf. De Trin. 
 i3. 10 : " Quod verbum ^salvator] Latina lingua antea 
 non habebat, sed habere poterat ; sicut potuit quando 
 voluit." Other words which we owe to Christian Latin, 
 not to speak of ' incarnatio,' and such purely technical 
 terms as this, are ' deitas ' (Augustine, Civ. Dei, 7. i), 
 ' resipiscentia,' ' passio,' ' compassio/ ' longanimitas,' 
 ' tribulatio,' ' soliloquiurn.' 
 
On the Rise of New Words 147 
 
 And the same necessity has repeated itself con- 
 tinually since ; each new reception of the Word of 
 life by another people must needs bring over again 
 the same effects with more or less striking features. 
 It is true we are not so favourably placed for 
 tracing these effects as in the cases of the two 
 classical languages of antiquity : yet our mission- 
 aries, to whom the study of language is in many 
 respects so greatly indebted, have incidentally 
 told us much on this subject, and, were their 
 attention particularly directed to it, might doubt- 
 less tell us much more. 
 
 But it is not only when new truth directly from 
 God has thus to fit itself to the lips of men, that 
 such enlargements of speech follow ; but in each 
 further unfolding of these seminal truths implanted 
 in man's heart at the first, in each new enlarge- 
 ment of his sphere of knowledge, outward or in- 
 ward, lie the same necessities involved. The 
 beginnings and progressive advances of moral 
 philosophy in Greece, the transplanting of the 
 same to Rome, the rise of the scholastic, and then 
 of the mystic, theology in the middle ages, the dis- 
 coveries of modern science and natural philosophy, 
 all these have been accompanied by correspond- 
 ing extensions in the limits of language. Of the 
 words to which each of these has in turn given 
 birth, many, it is true, have never passed beyond 
 their own peculiar sphere, having remained tech- 
 nical, scientific, or purely theological to the last ; 
 but many also have passed over from the labora- 
 tory, the school, and the pulpit, into daily life, and 
 have, with the ideas which they incorporate, 
 become the common heritage of all. For however 
 
148 On the Rise of New Words 
 
 hard and repulsive a front any study or science 
 may seem to present to the great body of those 
 who are as laymen to it, there is yet inevitably 
 such a detrition as this going forward in the case 
 of each, and it would not be a little interesting 
 for one who was furnished with the knowledge 
 sufficient, to trace it in all. 
 
 Where the movement is a great popular one, 
 stirring the heart and mind of a people to its very 
 depths, such as the first reception of the Christian 
 faith, 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 move- 
 ment is not so, is more strictly theological, or finds 
 place in those regions of science and philosophy, 
 where, as first pioneers and discoverers, only a few 
 can bear their parts, there the additions and 
 extensions will lack something of the freedom, the 
 unconscious boldness, which marked the others. 
 Their character will be more artificial, less spontan- 
 eous, 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 shall be the result of profound medita- 
 tion, or of intuitive genius, or of both in happiest 
 combination many a word, which shall as a torch 
 illuminate vast regions comparatively obscure be- 
 fore, and, it may be, cast its rays far into the yet 
 unexplored darkness beyond ; or which, summing 
 up into itself all the acquisitions in a particular 
 direction of the past, shall be as a mighty vantage 
 ground from which to advance to new conquests in 
 
On the Rise of New Words 149 
 
 the realms of mind or of nature, not as yet sub- 
 dued to the intellect of man. 
 
 ' Cosmopolite ' is a word often used now shallowly, 
 or even mischievously, enough ; and he who asserts 
 himself to be such often means nothing more than 
 that he is not a patriot, that he has no love to his 
 native country. Yet still we might boldly affirm 
 that whoever before the preaching of the Gospel 
 brought first the two words which compose this 
 word into combination was no common man. And 
 we should not be wrong in this ; for it was no other 
 than Diogenes the Cynic, several of whose sayings 
 are as notable as any in antiquity. Being de- 
 manded of what city or country he was, Diogenes 
 answered that he was a ' cosmopolite ' ; in this 
 word, which he thus launched upon the world, 
 widening the range of men's thoughts, bringing 
 in not merely a word new to Greek ears, but a 
 thought which, however commonplace to us, 
 was most novel and startling at the time when it 
 was uttered first. In saying this, I would by no 
 means affirm that contempt for his citizenship in 
 its narrower sense may not have mingled with this 
 his challenge for himself of a wider citizenship and 
 one that embraced the entire world. 
 
 As occupying something of a middle place be- 
 tween those more deliberate word-makers, and the 
 people 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 crea- 
 tive energy with which he is endowed, " the high- 
 
 * [An interesting parallel to Greek poietes, the maker, 
 is A. Sax. scdp, a poet, " a maker," from scapan, to create, 
 make, or shape.] 
 
150 On the Rise of New Words 
 
 flying liberty of conceit proper to the poet," will in 
 all probability manifest itself in this region as in 
 others. Extending the domain of thought and 
 feeling, he will scarcely fail to extend that also of 
 language, which does not willingly lag behind. 
 And the loftier his moods, the more of this maker 
 he will be. The passion of such times, the all- 
 fusing imagination, will at once suggest and justify 
 audacities in speech, upon which in calmer moods he 
 would not venture, or, if he ventured, would fail 
 to carry others with him : for only the fluent metal 
 runs easily into novel shapes and moulds. It is 
 not merely that the old and familiar will often 
 become new in his hands ; that he will give the 
 stamp of allowance, as to him it will be free to 
 do, to words, should he count them worthy, which 
 hitherto have lived only on the lips of the multi- 
 tude, or been confined to some single dialect and 
 province ; but he will enrich his native tongue with 
 words unknown and non-existent before non-ex- 
 istent, that is, save in their elements ; for in the 
 historic period of a language it is not permitted to 
 any man to bring new roots into it, but only to 
 work on already given 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. This will often find place for the supply- 
 ing of discovered deficiencies in a language. The 
 manner in which men most often become aware of 
 such deficiencies, is through the comparison of their 
 own language with another and a richer ; a compa- 
 rison which is forced upon them, so that they can- 
 not put it by, when it becomes necessary for them 
 
On the Rise of New Words 151 
 
 to express in their own tongue that which has al- 
 ready found utterance in another, and so has, at 
 any rate, shown that it is utterable in human 
 speech. Without such a comparison the existence 
 of the want would probably have seldom dawned 
 even on the most thoughtful. For language is 
 to so great an extent the condition and limit of 
 thought, men are so little accustomed, indeed so 
 little able, to meditate on things, except through 
 the intervention, and by the machinery, of words, 
 that nothing short of this would bring them to a 
 sense of the actual existence of any such wants. 
 And it is, I may observe, one of the advantages of 
 acquaintance with another language besides our 
 own, and of the institution which will follow, if we 
 have learned that other to any purpose, of these 
 comparisons, that we thus come to be aware that 
 names are not, and least of all the names which 
 any single language possesses, co-extensive with 
 things (and by ' things ' I mean subjects as well as 
 objects of thought, whatever one can think about), 
 that a multitude of things exist which, though cap- 
 able of being resumed in a word, are yet without 
 one, unnamed and unregistered ; so that, vast as is 
 the world of names, the world of realities is even 
 vaster still. Such discoveries the Romans made, 
 when they attempted to transplant the moral philo- 
 sophy of Greece to an Italian soil ; they found that 
 many of its words had no equivalents in their own 
 tongue ; which equivalents therefore they pro- 
 ceeded with more or less success to devise for them- 
 selves, appealing, with this view, to the latent ca- 
 pacities of their own tongue. For example, the 
 Greek schools had a word, and one playing no un- 
 
152 On the Rise of New Words 
 
 important part in some of their philosophical sys- 
 tems, to express ' apathy,' or the absence of all 
 passion and pain. As it was absolutely necessary 
 to possess a corresponding word, Cicero invented 
 ' indolentia,' as that " if I may so speak " with 
 which he paves the way to his first introduction of 
 it, manifestly declares.* 
 
 Sometimes, indeed, such a skilful mint-master 
 of words, such a subtle watcher and weigher of 
 their forces t as was Cicero, will note, even without 
 this comparison with other languages, an omission 
 in his own, which thereupon he will endeavour to 
 supply. Thus was it with him in regard of ' invi- 
 dentia/ While there existed in the Latin two ad- 
 jectives which, though sometimes confusedly used 
 had yet each its peculiar meaning, ' invidus,' one 
 who is envious, ' invidiosus/ one who excites envy 
 in others, there was only one substantive, ' in- 
 vidia,' the correlative of them both ; with the dis- 
 advantage therefore of being employed now in an 
 active, now in a passive sense, now for the envy 
 which men feel, and now for that which they excite. 
 The word he saw was made to do double duty, and 
 that under a seeming unity there lurked a real 
 dualism, from which manifold confusions might 
 follow. He therefore devised ' invidentia/ to ex- 
 press the active envy, or the envying, no doubt 
 desiring that ' invidia ' should be restrained to the 
 passive, the being envied. To all appearance the 
 
 * Fin. 2. 4; and for ' qualitas ' see A cad. i, 6. 
 f " Ille verborum vigilantissimus appensor ac mensor," 
 as Augustine happily terms him. 
 I Thus the monkish line : 
 
 " Invidiosus ego, non invidus esse laboro." 
 
On the Rise of New Words 153 
 
 word came to supply a real want ; yet he did not 
 succeed in giving it currency ; indeed does not 
 seem himself to have much cared to employ it 
 again.* 
 
 We see by this example that not every word, 
 which even a great master of language proposes, 
 finds acceptance.f Provided some live, he must 
 be contented that others should fall to the ground, 
 and die. Nor is this the only one which Cicero 
 unsuccessfully proposed. His ' indolentia,' which 
 I mentioned just now, hardly passed beyond him- 
 self ;J his ' vitiositas,' ' indigentia,' and ' mulier- 
 ositas,' || not at all. ' Beatitas ' too and ' beati- 
 tudo,' If both of his coining, but which he owns to 
 have something strange and uncouth about them, 
 can hardly be said to have found more than the 
 faintest echo in the classical literature of Rome : 
 ' beatitude' indeed obtained a home, as it deserved 
 to do, in the Christian Church, but the other made 
 no way whatsoever. I do not suppose that Cole- 
 ridge's * esemplastic,' with which he was himself 
 so much pleased, will find any considerable favour 
 with others ; while the words of Jeremy Taylor, 
 
 * Tusc. 3. 9, 4. 8 ; cf. Doderlein, Synon. vol. iii. p. 68. 
 
 f Quintilian's advice to those who come after is 
 excellent here (i. 6, 42) : " Etiamsi potest nihil peccare, 
 qui utitur iis verbis quae summi auctores tradiderunt, 
 multum tamen refert non solum quid dixerint, sed etiam 
 quid persuaserint." 
 
 I Indeed we find Seneca a little later seeming quite 
 to have forgotten, or not to have known that Cicero 
 had ever made any such suggestion ; for without taking 
 any notice of it, he proposes " impatientia " as an ade- 
 quate rendering of chrdtfeia, acknowledging indeed the 
 inconvenience that the word was already used in exactly 
 the opposite sense (Ep. 9). 
 
 Tusc. 4. 15. U Tusc. 4. ii. ^ Nat. Deor. i. 34. 
 
154 O n the Rise of New Words 
 
 of such Latinists as Sir Thomas Browne, and of 
 others, that were born only to die, are multitudin- 
 ous as the leaves of autumn. Still, even the word 
 which fails is often, though not always, an honour- 
 able testimony to the scholarship, the accuracy of 
 thought, the imagination of its proposer ; and Ben 
 Jonson is overhard on ' neologhts,' 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 alluded just now to comprehensive words, which 
 should singly be effectual to say that which hither- 
 to it had taken many words to say, in which an 
 higher term has been reached than before had 
 been found. It is difficult to estimate too highly 
 the value of such words for the facilitating of 
 mental processes, and indeed for the making pos- 
 sible of many, which would have been nearly or 
 quite impracticable without them ; and those who 
 have invented such words, or have succeeded in 
 putting them into circulation, may be esteemed as 
 benefactors of a high order to knowledge. In the 
 ordinary traffic of life, unless our dealings were on 
 the smallest scale, we should willingly have about 
 us our money in the shape rather of silver than of 
 copper ; and if our transactions were at all exten- 
 sive, rather in gold than in silver ; while, if we 
 were setting forth upon a long and arduous journey, 
 we should be best pleased to turn even our gold 
 coin itself into bills of exchange or circular notes ; 
 in fact, into the highest denomination of money 
 which it was capable of assuming. How many 
 
On the Rise of New Words 155 
 
 words with which we are now perfectly familiar 
 are for us what bills of exchange or circular notes 
 are for the traveller and the merchant. As in one 
 of these last, innumerable pence, a multitude of 
 shillings, not a few pounds are gathered up and 
 represented, so have we in some single word the 
 quintessence and final result of an infinite number 
 of anterior mental processes, ascending one above 
 the other, and all of which have been at length 
 summed up for us in that one. Or we may com- 
 pare that word to some great 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 individual name and 
 existence in that which at last at once represents 
 and is continent of them all. 
 
 Let us only consider all which must have gone 
 before, ere the word ' circle/ with its correspond- 
 ing idea, could have come into existence ; and then 
 imagine how it would be, if as often as in some 
 long and difficult mathematical problem we had to 
 refer to the figure so named, we were obliged to 
 introduce the entire definition of it, because no 
 single word stood for it, and not this only, but 
 the definition of each term employed in the defi- 
 nition ; how impossible, or nearly impossible it 
 would prove to carry the whole process in the mind, 
 or to take oversight of its steps. Imagine a few 
 more words struck out of the vocabulary of the 
 mathematical and if all mental activity in his 
 direction was not altogether arrested, yet would 
 it be as effectually restricted as commerce and ex- 
 change would be, if all transactions had to be car- 
 
156 On the Rise of New Words 
 
 ried on with iron or copper as the sole medium of 
 mercantile intercourse. It is not indeed to be sup- 
 posed that words of such primary, almost vital, 
 necessity for the science whereto they pertain as 
 that I have just referred to, still wait to be coined ; 
 but yet, wherever knowledge is progressive, words 
 are keeping pace with it, which with more or less 
 felicity resume in themselves very much of the 
 labours of the past, at once assist and abridge the 
 labours of the future ; being as tools which, them- 
 selves the result of the finest mechanical skill, do 
 at the same time render other and further triumphs 
 of art possible, such as would have been quite un- 
 attainable without them. 
 
 But it is not merely the widening of man's in- 
 tellectual horizon, which, as it brings new thoughts 
 within the range of their vision, constrains the 
 origination of corresponding words ; but when re- 
 gions of this outward world hitherto closed are laid 
 open to them, the various novel objects of interest 
 which these contain will demand to find their 
 names, and not merely to be catalogued in the 
 nomenclature of science, but in so far as they pre- 
 sent themselves to the popular eye will require a 
 popular name. Take an example of a word thus 
 popularly born, and such are for the most part the 
 most genuine which rise up in a language ; an ex- 
 ample also of the manner in which, at some periods 
 of its growth, everything turns to good, so that 
 mistakes and errors, misshaping, and it would seem 
 marring a word at its first formation, yet do not 
 hinder it from forming a worthy portion of the 
 after tongue. When the alligator, this ugly 
 crocodile of the new world, was first seen by the 
 
On the Rise of New Words 157 
 
 Spanish discoverers, they called it, with a true 
 insight into its species, 'el lagarto/ or ' the lizard,' 
 as being the largest of that lizard species to which 
 it belonged. In Sir W. Raleigh's Discovery of 
 Guiana, the word still retains this its Spanish 
 form. Sailing up the Orinoco, " We saw in it," he 
 says, " divers sorts of strange fishes of marvellous 
 bigness, but for lagartos it exceeded ; for there 
 were thousands of these ugly serpents, and the 
 people call it, for the abundance of them, the 
 river of lagartos, in their [the Spanish] language." 
 We can perfectly explain the shape which after- 
 wards the word assumed, by supposing that Eng- 
 lish sailors who brought home the word, and had 
 continually heard, but may probably have never 
 seen it written, blended, as has not unfrequently 
 happened, the Spanish article ' el ' with the name, 
 and thus from this annexation of the article it 
 acquired the shape in which we possess it now. In 
 Ben Jonson, who writes ' alligarta,'* we see the 
 word in the process of its transformation.! 
 
 * Bartholomew Fair, Act 2, Sc. i. 
 
 f ' Alcoran ' supplies another example of this curious 
 annexation of the article in English. Examples of this 
 annexation absorption or incorporation we might there 
 more strictly call it are numerous in French. ' Lierre,' 
 ivy, was once written, as by Ronsard, ' 1'hierre,' which 
 is no doubt correct, being the Latin ' hedera.' ' Lingot ' 
 comes no doubt from the English ' ingot,' having the 
 same signification, with only the article fused into the 
 word. [Scheler prefers to deduce it from Lat. lingua, 
 as if a tongue of metal.] In old French it was always 
 writter ' 1'endemain,' that is, 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. 
 On this subject see Genin's Recreations Philologiques, 
 vol. i. pp. 102-105. 
 
158 On the Rise of New Words 
 
 One of the most legitimate methods by which 
 a language may increase in wealth, especially in 
 the times when its generative energy is in good 
 part spent, as after a time will be the case with all, 
 is through the reviving of old words, not, that is 
 without discrimination, but of such as are worthy 
 to be revived ; which yet through carelessness, or 
 ill-placed fastidiousness, or a growing unacquaint- 
 ance on the part of a later generation with the 
 elder worthies of the language, or some other cause, 
 have been suffered to drop. These words, obsolete 
 or obsolescent, it will sometimes happen that some 
 writer instructed in the early literature of his native 
 language is not willing to let die, and himself 
 using or suggesting to the use of others, is successful 
 in again putting into circulation. And to the poet 
 more than any other it will be thus free to recall 
 and recover the forgotten treasures of his native 
 language. Yet if success is to attend his attempt, 
 or that of any other, the words to which it is thus 
 sought to impart a second life must scarcely be- 
 long to the hoar antiquities of the language, with 
 the dust of many centuries upon them, being not 
 merely out of use, but out of all memory as well. 
 A word which has not been employed since Chau- 
 cer is in a very different position from one that 
 has only dropped out of active service since Spen- 
 ser or Shakespeare, and which, being found in 
 their writings or in those of their great compeers, 
 has preserved for the circle of educated readers a 
 certain vitality. Thus, I should question the em- 
 ployment of such ' Chaucerisms,' to use Ben Jon- 
 son's phrase on this very subject, as have no point 
 of contact with our present English ; nor do I be- 
 
On the Rise of New Words 159 
 
 lieve it possible to give them currency again. But 
 the case is altogether different with words only re- 
 cently lost, or in some sense not lost at all such 
 for example, as ' leer/ ' lese,' ' debonair,' ' deft,'* 
 ' malapert,' ' moil,' ' phantast,' which I instance, 
 as every one of them to my mind worthy to have 
 continued. The case is different, because of these 
 some have never dropped out of use among our 
 humbler classes, so often the conservators of pre- 
 cious words and genuine idioms : thus you all pro- 
 bably know very well that ' leer' is with our rustic 
 population in the south a commoner word than 
 * empty ' ; ' to lese/ very much more in use with 
 them than ' to glean ' ; indeed this last is scarcely 
 known. Others, as ' deft,' ' debonair,' ' malapert/ 
 reach down, at least in literary use, to the middle 
 of the eighteenth century ; with, in the case of the 
 last, the further inconvenience entailed by its loss, 
 that we have been obliged to make ' pert,' which 
 remains, do double duty, that of ' malapert ' and 
 its own.f For as some word is plainly wanting, 
 not so strong as ' insolent/ we have been led to 
 employ ' pert ' exclusively in an unfavourable 
 sense, while yet it was free of old to use it also in a 
 good, even as among our southern poor it still re- 
 tains the meaning of ' sprightly ' or ' lively ' ; a 
 child recovering from illness, a cage-bird after 
 moulting, are said to look quite ' pert ' again, an 
 employment of the word justified by Shakespeare's 
 
 Awake the pert and nimble spirit of youth. 
 
 * [It seems curious to find a word now in such general 
 use as ' deft ' is, included among the obsolescent words 
 of forty years ago.] 
 
 | [' Pert ' seems to stand for pfrkt. See Skeat s.v.] 
 
ibo On the Rise of New Words 
 
 Other and less honourable causes than many of 
 those which I have sought hitherto to trace, give 
 birth to new words ; and it will sometimes happen 
 that the character and moral condition of an epoch 
 are only too plainly revealed by the new words 
 which have risen up in that period, upon which 
 sometimes they reflect back a very fearful light. 
 Thus a great Latin historian tells us of the Roman 
 emperor, Tiberius, one of those " inventors of evil 
 things " to whom St. Paul alludes (Rom. i. 30), 
 that he caused words, unknown before, to emerge 
 in the Latin tongue, for the setting out of wicked- 
 nesses, happily also previously unknown, which he 
 had invented. 
 
 The atrocious attempt of Louis the Fourteenth 
 to convert to Romanism the Protestants in his do- 
 minions by quartering dragoons upon them, with 
 all licence to misuse to the uttermost those who 
 would not apostatize from their faith, this " booted 
 mission " (mission bottle), as it was facetiously 
 called at the time, has bequeathed ' dragonnade ' 
 to the French language. I believe ' refugee ' had 
 at the same time its rise, and in the same event, 
 being first applied to those who escaped the tender 
 mercies of these missionaries. ' Convertisseur ' 
 also belongs to the same period. He was a factor 
 who undertook to convert the Protestants on a 
 large scale, and at so much a head. 
 
 ' Roue",' a word almost naturalized among us, 
 throws light upon a curious though shameful page 
 of history. It is a term applied, as we may be 
 aware, to a man of profligate character and con- 
 duct ; but properly and primarily means one 
 ' wheeled/ or broken on the wheel. Now the first 
 
On the Rise of New Words 161 
 
 person who gave it its secondary meaning, was the 
 profligate Duke of Orleans, Regent of France in the 
 interval between the reigns of Louis the Four- 
 teenth and Fifteenth. It was his miserable pride 
 to collect around him companions as worthless and 
 wicked as himself, and these he called his ' roues,' 
 inasmuch as there was not one of them that did not 
 deserve, as he was wont to boast, to be broken on 
 the wheel, that being then in France the punish- 
 ment for the worst malefactors.* When we have 
 learned the pedigree of the word, the man and the 
 age which gave it birth rise up before us, glorying 
 in their shame, and no longer caring to pay to virtue 
 even that outward hypocritical homage, which vice 
 not seldom yields. 
 
 The great French Revolution has made also its 
 contributions to the French language ; and these 
 contributions characteristic enough. We know 
 much of what it was, when we know that among 
 other words it gave birth to these, ' sansculotte/ 
 ' incivisme,' ' terrorisme,' ' noyade,' ' guillotine,' 
 ' lanterner.' Still later, the French conquests in 
 North Africa, and the pitiless methods by which 
 every attempt at resistance on the part of the free 
 tribes of the interior has been put down and pun- 
 ished, all this has left its mark upon the language ; 
 for it has added to it the word ' razzia,' to express 
 the sweeping and sudden destruction of a tribe, its 
 herds, its crops, and all that belongs to it a word 
 bearing on its front that it is not originally of 
 
 * [Saint Simon.] The ' rou6s ' 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. 
 S.W. M 
 
162 On the Rise of New Words 
 
 French formation, having rather an Italian phy- 
 siognomy, but being, I believe, the popular cor- 
 ruption of an Arabic word* one of which the 
 language therefore may be as little proud, as the 
 people of the thing which is indicated by it. 
 
 But it would ill become us to look only abroad 
 for examples of that whereof perhaps at least an 
 equal abundance may be found much nearer home, 
 and it must at once be acknowledged that there 
 are words also among ourselves, which preserve 
 a record of passages in our history in which we 
 have little reason to glory. Thus ' mob ' and 
 ' sham ' had their birth in one of the most dis- 
 graceful periods of English history, that between 
 the Restoration and the Revolution. The first of 
 these words originated in a certain club in Lon- 
 don in the latter end of the reign of Charles the 
 Second. " I may note," says a writer of the time, 
 " that the rabble first changed their title, and 
 were called the ' mob ' in the assemblies of this 
 [The Green Ribbon] Club.t 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." J Yet 
 
 * [Arab, ghaziya, a military raid (Stanford Dictionary 
 of Anglicized Words], but the form ghrazzu (Doughty, 
 Arabia Deserta, ii. 584) is also found. Devic states that 
 razia is the Algerian pronunciation of Arab, ghdzia (Sup- 
 plement to Littre, p. 58).] 
 
 f [About 1680. In the Memoirs of the Verney Family, 
 mobele occurs in 1679 (iv. 259), but mobb in 1688 (iv. 447). 
 The latter form also in Shadwell, Squire of Alsatia, 1688, 
 and Dryden, Don Sebastian (iii. 3), ab. 1690.] 
 
 J North's Examen [1740], p. 574. If we may trust 
 the origin of ' sham ' which he gives, p. 231, it is not 
 less disgraceful than the word itself. [North, in the pass- 
 age referred to, says that sham, for ' sham'd ' (ashamed). 
 
On the Rise of New Words 163 
 
 we find considerably later a writer in The Spec- 
 tator speaking 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 ' for the ' mobile ' vulgar, the mul- 
 titude swayed hither and thither by each gust of 
 passion or caprice, this, which The Spectator hardly 
 expected, while he confessed it possible, has actu- 
 ally 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, cannot be re- 
 garded as a crime in which the nation had a share, 
 or anything but the monstrous wickedness of one 
 or two, yet the word ' to burke/ drawn from the 
 name of a wretch who long pursued this hideous 
 traffic, t a word which has won its place in the lan- 
 guage, will be a lasting memorial 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. 
 
 Such are some of the sources of increase in the 
 wealth of a language, or, it may be, in that which 
 has no just title to be termed by this name. There 
 have been, from time to time, those who have so 
 
 was at first a by-word for a disguised harlot, and was 
 afterwards used by Dangerfield of a sham (i.e. fictitious 
 or counterfeit) plot.] 
 
 * [No. 135, 1711, Aug. 4.] 
 
 t [Burke was executed in 1829, Feb. i, when the mob 
 cried out to the hangman, " Burke him ! Burke him ! " 
 The year following th verb is used by Lamb.] 
 
164 On the Rise of New Words 
 
 little understood what a language and the laws of 
 a language are, that they have sought by decrees 
 of theirs to arrest its growth, pronouncing it to 
 have attained to the limits of its growth and de- 
 velopment, so that no one should henceforward 
 presume to make further additions to it. But a 
 language has a life, just as really as a man or as a 
 tree ; as a man, it must grow to its full stature, 
 being also submitted to his conditions of decay ; 
 as a forest tree will defy any feeble bands which 
 should attempt to control its expansion, so long as 
 the principle of growth is in it ; as a tree too will 
 continually, while it casts off some leaves, be put- 
 ting forth others. The attempt therefore has 
 utterly failed, even when made under the most 
 favourable conditions for success. For instance, the 
 French Academy, containing the great body of the 
 distinguished literary men of France, once sought 
 to exercise such a domination over their own lan- 
 guage, and if any could have succeeded, might have 
 hoped to do so. But the language recked of their 
 decrees as little as the advancing ocean did of those 
 of Canute. They were obliged to give way, and in 
 each successive edition of their Dictionary to throw 
 open its doors to words which had established them- 
 selves in the language, and would hold their ground, 
 comparatively indifferent whether they received the 
 Academy's seal of allowance or no. 
 
 Certainly those who make attempts of this kind 
 strangely forget that all the words in a language, 
 with the exception of its primitive roots, were at 
 one time or another novelties. We have so taken 
 for granted that those with which we have been 
 always familiar, whose right to form a part of it no 
 
On the Rise of New Words 165 
 
 one dreams of challenging or disputing, being per- 
 fectly naturalized now, have always formed part of 
 it, that we should, I believe, be somewhat startled 
 to discover of how very late introduction not a few 
 of them actually are ; what an amount of remon- 
 strance, and even resistance, some of them encoun- 
 tered at the first. To take two or three Latin 
 examples ; Cicero, in employing ' favor,' a word 
 in a little while after used by everybody, does it 
 with an apology, seems to feel that he is intro- 
 ducing 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 seek 
 out its adequate expression, that it is something of 
 a surprise to learn that no one spoke of a ' solilo- 
 quy ' before Augustine, the word having been 
 invented, as he distinctly informs us that it was, 
 by himself, f 
 
 When a word has proved an unquestionable 
 gain to the language, it is very interesting to pre- 
 side, so to speak, at its birth, to watch it as it first 
 comes forth, timid, and it may be as yet doubtful 
 of the reception it will meet with ; and the interest 
 is very much enhanced if it thus comes forth on 
 some memorable occasion, or from some memor- 
 able man. Both these interests meet in the word 
 ' essay.' If any one were asked what is the most 
 
 * On the new words in classical Latin see Quintilian 
 Inst. via. 3, 30-37. 
 t SoM. 2. 7. 
 
166 On the Rise of New Words 
 
 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 which bore that name ; for we certainly gather 
 from the following passage in the (intended) dedi- 
 cation of the volume to Prince Henry, that the 
 word ' essay ' was altogether a very recent one in 
 the English language, and in the use to which he 
 put it, perfectly novel : he says " To write just 
 treatises requireth leisure in the writer, and leisure 
 in the reader ; . . . which is the cause which hath 
 made me choose to write certain brief notes set 
 down rather significantly than curiously, which I 
 have called Essays. The word is late, but the 
 thing is ancient." * From these words, and others 
 which I have omitted in the quotation, we further 
 gather that, little as ' essays ' at the present day 
 can be considered a word of modesty, deprecating 
 too large expectations on the part of the reader, it 
 had, as ' sketches ' perhaps would have now, as 
 ' commentary ' had in the Latin, such an ethical 
 significance in this its earliest use. In this last 
 respect it resembled the ' philosopher ' of Pytha- 
 goras. Before his time the founders of systems 
 of philosophy had styled themselves, or been 
 willing to be styled by others, ' wise men.' This 
 appellation, * lover of wisdom,' so modest and so 
 beautiful, was of his devising, f 
 
 Let us remark, at the same time* that while 
 thus some words surprise us that they are so new, 
 others again that they are so old. Few, I should 
 
 * [The old pronunciation of the word was " an essay. "j 
 f Diogenes Laertius, pram. 12. 
 
On the Rise of New Words 167 
 
 imagine, are aware that the word ' rationalist,' and 
 this in a theological, and not merely a philosophi- 
 cal, 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. This, 
 however, is very far from being in either respect 
 the case. There was a sect of ' rationalists ' in the 
 time of the Commonwealth, who called themselves 
 such exactly on the same grounds as those who in 
 later times have challenged the name. Thus, one 
 writing the news from London among other things 
 mentions : * " There is a new sect sprung up 
 among them [the Presbyterians and Independents], 
 and these are the Rationalists, and what their rea- 
 son dictates them in Church or State stands for 
 good, until they be convinced with better ; " with 
 more to the same effect. The word ' Christology ' 
 a reviewer has lately characterized as a monstrous 
 importation from Germany. I should quite agree 
 with him that English theology does not need, and 
 can do excellently well without it ; yet it is not 
 this absolute novelty ; for in the Preface to the 
 works of that great divine of the seventeenth cen- 
 tury, 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." | 
 
 * With date, Oct. 14, 1646 ; in The Clarendon State 
 Papers, vol. ii. p. 40 of the Appendix. 
 
 t [1673-] Preface to Dr. Jackson's Works, vol. i. 
 p. xxvii. A work of Fleming's, published in 1700, bears 
 th titlt Christology 
 
168 On the Rise of New Words 
 
 In their power of taking up foreign or other- 
 wise new words into healthy circulation and mak- 
 ing them truly their own, languages are very 
 different as compared with one another, and the 
 same language is very different from itself at differ- 
 ent periods of its life. There are languages of 
 which the appetite and digestive power, the assimi- 
 lative energy, is at some periods almost unlimited. 
 Nothing is too hard for them ; they will shape and 
 mould to their own uses and habits almost what- 
 soever is offered to them. This, however, is in 
 their youth ; as age advances, this assimilative 
 power diminishes. Words are still adopted ; for 
 this process of adoption can never wholly cease : 
 but a chemical amalgamation of the new with the 
 old does not any longer find place ; or only in 
 some instances, and very partially even in them. 
 They lie often on the surface of the language ; 
 their sharp corners are not worn and rounded 
 off ; they remain foreign still in their aspect and 
 outline, and, having missed their opportunity of 
 becoming otherwise, will remain so to the end. 
 Those who adopt, as with an inward misgiving 
 about their own gift and power of stamping them 
 afresh, seem to 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 intro- 
 duced into our language. We shall find that those 
 of an earlier introduction have become English 
 through and through, while the later introduced, 
 
On the Rise of New Words 169 
 
 belonging to the same group, have been very far 
 from undergoing the same transforming 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 the English which has 
 descended to us from far ; the very shape in which 
 we have the word, one syllable for ' eleemosyna ' of 
 six, sufficiently testifying this ; " letters," as Home 
 Tooke observes, " like soldiers, being apt to desert 
 and drop off in a long march." I need not say 
 that the long and awkward ' eleemosynary ' is of 
 far more recent date. f Or sometimes this compa- 
 rison 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 early 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,' 'surgeon,' 'tansy,' 
 ' dittany,' ' daffodil,' J 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 physi- 
 ognomy native, that it would be difficult even to 
 suspect them to be of Greek descent as they all 
 
 * [' Bishoply ' occurs as late as 1642, and ' epis- 
 copal ' as early as 1485. N.E.D.] 
 
 f [The earliest quotations in the N.E.D. for ' elee- 
 mosynary ' are 1620-30.] 
 
 J [From hydropisis, cynanche, hemikranion, cheirourgos, 
 athanasia, diktamnos, asphddilos.] 
 
170 On the Rise of New Words 
 
 are. Nor has ' kickshaws ' anything about it now 
 which would compel us at once to recognize in it 
 the French ' quelques choses ' ' French kickshose,' 
 as with allusion to the quarter from which it came, 
 and while the memory of that was yet fresh in 
 men's minds, it was often called by our early 
 writers. 
 
 One of the most striking facts about new words, 
 and a very signal testimony of their birth from the 
 bosom of the people, that is, where they are not 
 plainly from the schools, is the difficulty which is 
 so often found in tracing their pedigree. When 
 the causa vocum are sought, which they justly 
 are, and out of much more than mere curiosity, 
 for the causa rerum are very often contained in 
 them, they continually elude research ; and this, 
 not merely where attention has only been called 
 to the words, and interest about their etymology 
 excited, long after they had been in popular use, 
 and where thus they had left their origin, whatever 
 it may have been, very far behind them for that 
 the words of a remote antiquity should often puzzle 
 and perplex us, should give scope to idle guesses, or 
 altogether defy conjecture,* this is nothing strange 
 but even when it has been sought to investigate 
 their origin almost as soon as they have come into 
 existence. Their rise is mysterious ; like so many 
 other acts of becoming, it is veiled in deepest ob- 
 scurity. They appear^ they are in everybody's 
 mouth ; but yet, when it is inquired from whence 
 
 * [Such a word is ' conundrum/ which leaps into 
 existence, like a meteorite from some unknown planet, 
 first in the sixteenth century in Gabriel Harvey. It is 
 next noted in Ben Jonson, The Fox, 1605, T. j\ 
 
On the Rise of New Words 171 
 
 they are, nobody can tell. They are but of yester- 
 day, and yet with a marvellous rapidity they have 
 already forgotten the circumstances of their origin. 
 This is nowhere more striking than in the names 
 applied to political or religious parties, and above 
 all in the names of slight, of contempt, of scorn. 
 Thus Baxter tells us in his most instructive Nar- 
 rative of his Life and Times, that 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,' f 
 or heretic, which yet is still in debate ; hardly less 
 about the French ' cagot,' which however is pretty 
 certainly " cams Gofliicas," this virtually excom- 
 municated race being a real or supposed remnant 
 of the refugee Gothic population of Spain among 
 the Pyrenees 4 Is ' Lollard/ or ' Loller ' as we 
 have it in Chaucer, from ' lollen ' to chaunt ? that 
 is, does it mean the chaunting, or canting people ? 
 
 * "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 Stratford's trial asked 
 who that round-headed man was, meaning Mr. Pym, 
 because he spake so strongly " (p. 34). 
 
 f [By one of those strange revolutions of meaning so 
 often exhibited by words. Katharoi, the Greek name of 
 a Manichean sect, meaning " the Pure," has yielded 
 Ketzer in German (Dut. Ketter) in the sense of (i) a heretic, 
 (2) a depraved reprobate. See Kluge, s.v.] 
 
 I (j' Cagot,' so Diez and Scheler.] 
 
 6' Lollard ' is supposed to have meant originally 
 a mumbler of prayers and hymns, like Tennyson's Round- 
 head who " humm'd a surly hymn," being borrowed 
 from Dutch lollaerd, a mutterer or mumbler, and that 
 from lollen, to mutter, an imitative word from the in- 
 fantile loll, to speak (indistinctly), common to most 
 languages.] 
 
172 On the Rise of New Words 
 
 or had the Lollards their title from a principal per- 
 son among them of this name, who suffered at the 
 stake ? to say nothing of a proposed derivation 
 from ' lolium,' these men being regarded by their 
 adversaries as tares 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.* 
 Were the ' Waldenses ' so called from one Peter 
 Waldo, to whom these " Poor Men of Lyons," as 
 they were at first called, owed their origin ? or is 
 Waldenses for Vallenses, the men of the Alpine 
 valleys, the Dalesmen ? a question, the certain 
 determination of which would go far to settle the 
 most difficult and disputed points in the history of 
 these witnesses for scriptural truth. 
 
 One might anticipate that a name like ' Canada,' 
 given, and within fresh historic times, to a vast 
 territory, would be accounted for ; but it is not ; f 
 so too that the Anglo-Americans would be able to 
 explain how they got their word ' caucus,' which 
 plays so prominent a part in their elections, but 
 
 * It can hardly be other than a corruption of ' Eidg- 
 noten,' low German for ' Eidgenossen,' confederates ; 
 but this was not the explanation of some who must have 
 been grown men at the time of its first emerging. 
 OThis, though discredited by Skeat (Etym. Die*, s.v.) 
 and Scheler, is now accepted by MM. Hatzfeld and 
 Darmesteter, the mediating form being Eiguenots.] 
 
 f [' Canada ' is said to be the native, i.e. Iroquois, 
 word Kandta, a collection of huts or wigwams misin- 
 terpreted by the French settlers (Taylor, Names and 
 their' Histories, p. 82) ; or according to others, " my 
 dwelling," the explanatory remark of their Indian 
 guide (E. J. Payne, Hist, of the New World, ii. 237, 
 368).] 
 
On the Rise of New Words 173 
 
 they cannot.* ' Cannibal ' as a designation of 
 man-eating savages, came first into use with the 
 great discoveries in the western world of the 
 fifteenth and sixteenth centuries : no certain 
 explanation of it has yet been offered-! 
 
 These are but a handful of examples of the way 
 in which words forget the circumstances of their 
 birth. Now if we could believe in any merely arbi- 
 trary words, standing in connexion with nothing 
 but the mere lawless caprice of some inventor, the 
 impossibility of tracing their derivations would be 
 nothing strange. Indeed, it would be lost labour 
 to seek for the parentage of all words, when many 
 perhaps had none. But there is no such thing ; 
 there is no word which is not, as the Spanish gen- 
 tleman loves to call himself, an ' hidalgo,' the son 
 of something. All are the embodiment, more or 
 less successful, of a sensation, a thought, or a fact ; 
 or if of more fortuitous birth, still they attach 
 themselves somewhere to the already subsisting 
 world of words and things, and have their point of 
 
 * It is most probably a corruption of ' caulkers,' 
 being derived from an association of these at Boston, 
 who were especially active in preparing resistance to 
 England in the period immediately preceding the War 
 of Independence. The thing corresponds now very 
 nearly to the Latin ' sodalicium.' [Dr. Murray throws 
 doubt on the above account, and thinks ' caucus ' may 
 be from the Algonkin word cau-cau-au, that which ad- 
 vises or encourages (N.E.D.). Tt was in use in 1763.] 
 
 t Humboldt has certainly made it probable that 
 ' canibal ' (for it is spelt, and this is not unimportant, 
 with a single n in Hackluyt's Voyages and in all our early 
 English) is a Latin corruption of ' Caribales,' a form 
 under which Columbus designates the Caribs (propter 
 rabiem caninam anthropophagornm gentis) ; as in French, 
 ' appetit de chien.' [So N.E.D.] 
 
174 On the Rise of New Words 
 
 contact with it and departure from it, not always 
 discoverable, as we see, but yet always existing.* 
 And thus, when a word entirely refuses to give up 
 the secret of its origin, it can be regarded in no 
 other light but 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, this 
 impossibility oftentimes, of tracing the genealogy 
 even of words of a very recent formation, is, as I 
 observed, an evidence of the birth at least of these 
 out of the heart and from the lips of the people. 
 Had they had their rise first in books, then it would 
 be easily traced ; had it been from the schools of 
 the learned, these would not have failed to have 
 left a recognizable stamp and mark upon them. 
 
 There is, indeed, another way in which obscurity 
 may rest on a new word, or a word employed in a 
 new sense ; and while there may be no difficulty 
 at all in its etymology, yet in the application of 
 its etymology there may be the greatest possible 
 difficulty. It may bear unmistakably on its front 
 the word or words from which it is derived, while 
 yet we may be altogether at a loss in regard of the 
 original intention in which it was coined and fash- 
 ioned. For example, no one has called or could 
 call in question the derivation of ' apocryphal/ that 
 the word means hidden ; but when it is asked, why 
 has this epithet been given to certain books which 
 the Church either sets below the canonical Scrip- 
 
 * Some will remember here the old Greek dispute 
 whether words were 0<?<rei or 0i/o-. It is needless to say 
 that the last is the truth. 
 
On the Rise of New Words 175 
 
 tures or rejects altogether, then a long and doubt- 
 ful discussion begins. Were they so called because 
 their origin was hidden to the early Fathers of 
 the Church, and so reasonable suspicions of their 
 authenticity entertained ? * or was it because they 
 were mysteriously kept out of sight and hidden by 
 the heretical sects which boasted themselves in 
 their 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 closed the discussion. 
 
 Again, there can be no reasonable doubt that 
 ' Carnival ' is ' Caro, vale ' ; but there is much 
 whether these words in this combination mean, as 
 is commonly assumed, " Flesh, farewell," that is, 
 now that Lent, the season of abstinence, is begin- 
 ning, or " Flesh, be strong " a summons, that is, 
 to the Christian to gird up the loins of his mind 
 that he may sustain the rigours and austerities of 
 the coming time.t Again, there is no question that 
 
 * Augustine (De Civ. Dei, 15. 23) : " Apocrypha nun- 
 cupantnr eo quod eorum occulta origo non claruit 
 Patribus." Cf. Con. Faust, n. 2. [Dr. Murray decides 
 in favour of this explanation, of unknown authorship, 
 and so spurious, uncanonical, N.E.D.] 
 
 t [It is now established that vale is no part of the 
 word, as long supposed. Ital. carnevale (standing for 
 carnelevale) is from Med. Latin carnelevarium, from 
 carnem levare, to remove flesh, and so signifies il levar 
 del came, the putting away of flesh food on Shrove Tues- 
 day, and then the festivity indulged in at that season. 
 N.E.D.] 
 
176 On the Rise of New Words 
 
 ( tragedy ' is " the song of the goat " ; but why the 
 song of the goat, whether because a goat was the 
 prize for the best performers of that song in which 
 the germs of the future tragedy lay ; or because 
 the first actors were dressed like satyrs in goat- 
 skins ;* is a question which has stirred abundant 
 discussion, and will remain unsettled to the end. 
 ' Leonine ' verses have plainly to do with ' leo ' in 
 some shape or other ; but are they so called from 
 one Leo or Leolinus, who first composed hexa- 
 meters with this internal rhyme ? or because, as 
 the lion is king of beasts, so this, in the monkish 
 estimation, is the king of metres ? No one can 
 certainly say. 
 
 But we must conclude. I may have seemed 
 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. Perhaps it may have been so ; yet is it 
 in truth very difficult to say of any words, that 
 they do not touch us, that they do not reach us in 
 their influence, or in some way bear upon our 
 studies, and upon that which we shall hereafter 
 have to teach, or shall desire to learn. It were 
 rash to affirm that there are any conquests which 
 language makes that concern only a few, and may 
 be regarded indifferently by all others. For it is 
 here as with many inventions in the arts and 
 luxuries of life, which, being in the beginning the 
 exclusive privilege and possession of the wealthy, 
 
 * [Or, more probably, because the performer wore 
 a mask like a goat, a primitive custom in dances and 
 histrionic representations. See M. Haberlandt, Eth- 
 nology, 70-71 ; L. -Dyer, The Gods in Greece, 172.] 
 
On the Rise of New Words 177 
 
 the cultivated, the refined, do yet gradually de- 
 scend into lower strata of society, until at length 
 what were once the luxuries and elegancies of a 
 few, have become the decencies, well-nigh the 
 necessities, of all. Exactly in the same manner 
 there are words, once only on the lips of philoso- 
 phers or theologians, of the deeper thinkers of their 
 time, or of those interested in their speculations, 
 which yet step by step have come down, not de- 
 basing themselves in this act of becoming popular, 
 but training and elevating an ever-increasing 
 number to understand and embrace their meaning, 
 till at length they have become truly a part of the 
 nation's common stock, " household words," used 
 naturally and easily by all. 
 
 And I know not how I can better conclude this 
 lecture than by quoting some words which express 
 with a rare eloquence all which I have been labour- 
 ing to utter ; for this truth, which many indeed 
 have noticed, none that I am aware of have set 
 forth with at all the same fulness of illustration, 
 or with at all the same sense of its importance, 
 as the author of The Philosophy of the Inductive 
 Sciences, whose words now quoted are but one 
 out of many passages on the same theme : 
 " Language 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 imper- 
 ceptible in its operation ; and an element modify- 
 ing, by its qualities and changes, the growth and 
 complexion of the faculties which it feeds. In this 
 way the influence of preceding discoveries upon 
 
 s.w. N 
 
178 On the Rise of New Words 
 
 subsequent ones, of the past upon the present, is 
 most penetrating and universal, although most 
 subtle and difficult to trace. The most familiar 
 words and phrases are connected by imperceptible 
 ties with the reasonings and discoveries of former 
 men and distant times. Their knowledge is an 
 inseparable part of ours ; the present generation 
 inherits and uses the scientific wealth of all the past. 
 And this is the fortune, not only of the great and 
 rich in the intellectual world of those who have 
 the key to the ancient storehouses, and who have 
 accumulated treasures of their own, but the hum- 
 blest inquirer, while he puts his reasonings into 
 words, benefits by the labours of the greatest. 
 When he counts his little wealth, he finds he has 
 in his hands coins which bear the image and 
 superscription of ancient and modern intellectual 
 dynasties, and that in virtue of this possession 
 acquisitions are in his power, solid knowledge 
 within his reach, which none could ever have 
 attained to if it were not that the gold of truth 
 once dug out of the mine circulates more nd more 
 widely among mankind." 
 
VI. 
 
 ON THE DISTINCTION OF WORDS. 
 
 IT is to the subject of synonyms and their distinc- 
 tion, with the advantages which may be derived 
 from the study of these, that I propose to devote 
 the present lecture. But what, it may be asked, 
 do we mean, when, comparing certain words with 
 one another, we affirm of them that they are 
 synonyms ? We mean that they are words which, 
 with great and essential resemblances of meaning, 
 have at the same time small, subordinate, and 
 partial differences these differences being such as 
 either originally^ and on the ground of their 
 etymology, inhered in them ; or differences which 
 they have by usage acquired in the eyes of all ; 
 or such as, though nearly latent now, they are 
 capable of receiving at the hands of wise and dis- 
 creet masters of the tongue. Synonyms are words 
 of like significance in the main, but with a certain 
 unlikeness as well. 
 
 So soon as the term is denned thus, it will be 
 at once perceived by any acquainted with the 
 derivation, that strictly speaking, it is a misnomer, 
 and is given to these words with a certain inaccuracy 
 and impropriety ; since in strictness the terms 
 ' synonyms/ or ' synonymous/ applied to words, 
 would affirm of them that they covered not merely 
 almost the same extent of meaning, but altogether 
 and exactly the same, that they were in their 
 signification perfectly identical and coincident. 
 The terms, however, are not ordinarily so used ; 
 and plainly they are not so, when it is undertaken 
 to trace out the distinction between synonyms ; 
 for, without undertaking to deny that there may be 
 
 178 
 
i8o On the Distinction of Words 
 
 such absolutely coincident words, such perfect 
 synonyms, yet these could not be the object of any 
 such discrimination ; since, where there was no 
 real distinction, it would be lost labour and the 
 exercise of a perverse ingenuity to attempt to draw 
 one. 
 
 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, there is always 
 something more or something less, or something 
 different, in these and in those. And in respect of 
 all words save those which designate objects in 
 their nature absolutely incapable of a more or less, 
 or of any qualitative difference, I should be dis- 
 posed to consider the exceptions to this assertion 
 exceedingly rare. For what after all is a word, 
 but the enclosure of a certain district, larger or 
 smaller, from the great outfield of thought or fact, 
 and in this a bringing of it into human cultivation, 
 a redeeming of it for human uses ? But how 
 extremely unlikely it is that nations, drawing 
 altogether independently of one another these lines 
 of enclosure, should draw them in any cases 
 exactly in the same direction, neither narrower nor 
 wider ; how inevitable, on the contrary, that very 
 often they should not coincide and this, even 
 supposing no moral forces were at work to disturb 
 the falling of the lines. How vast and instructive 
 a field of comparison between languages does this 
 fact lay open to us ; while it is sufficient to drive a 
 translator with a high ideal of the task which he has 
 undertaken well-nigh to despair. 
 
 Synonyms then, as the word is generally un- 
 
On the Distinction of Words 181 
 
 derstood, and as I shall use it here, are words 
 with slight differences already existing between 
 them, or with the capabilities of such. Thev are 
 not on the one side words absolutely identical ; but 
 neither, we may add, on the other only very re- 
 motely related 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 impossible to make them clearer than 
 they already are, and it would be like holding a 
 candle to the sun to attempt it. They must be 
 words which are more or less liable to confusion, 
 but which yet ought not to be confounded ; words, 
 as one has said, " quae conjungi, non confundi, de- 
 bent " ; words in which there originally inhered a 
 difference, or between which, though once abso- 
 lutely identical, such has gradually grown up, and 
 so established itself in the use of the best writers, 
 and in the instinct of the best speakers of the 
 tongue, that it claims to be recognized and openly 
 admitted by all. 
 
 But here an interesting question presents itself 
 to us, which is this : How do languages come to 
 possess synonyms of this latter class, which are 
 differenced not by etymology or other deep-lying 
 and necessary distinction, but only by usage ? Now 
 if languages had been made by agreement, of course 
 no such words could exist ; for when one word had 
 been found which was the adequate representative 
 of a feeling or an object, no further one would have 
 been sought. But languages 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 
 
182 On the Distinction of Words 
 
 distinct, coalesce into one people, and cast their 
 contributions of language into a common stock. 
 Thus the French possesses many synonyms from 
 the langue d'Oc and langue d'Oil, each having con- 
 tributed its word for one and the same thing, as 
 ' atre ' and ' foyer/ both for hearth. Sometimes 
 two have the same word, but in forms sufficiently 
 different to cause that both remain, but as differ- 
 ent words ; thus in Latin, ' serpo ' and ' repo ' are 
 merely two slightly different appropriations of the 
 same Greek word, and of ' puteo ' and ' fceteo ' the 
 same may be said ;* just as in German, ' Odem ' and 
 ' Athem ' were originally only dialectic differences 
 of the same word. Or again, a conquering people 
 have fixed themselves in the midst of a conquered ; 
 they impose their dominion, but do not succeed in 
 imposing their language ; nay, being few in number, 
 they find themselves at last compelled to adopt 
 the language of the conquered ; or after a while 
 that which may be called a transaction, a compro- 
 mise between the two languages finds place. Thus 
 it was in England ; our modern English being in 
 the main such a compromise between the Anglo- 
 Saxon and the Norman-French. 
 
 These are causes of the existence of synonyms, 
 which reach far back into the history of a nation 
 and a language ; but other causes at a later period 
 are also at work. When a written literature 
 springs up, authors familiar with various foreign 
 tongues, import from one and another words which 
 are not absolutely required, which are oftentimes 
 rather luxuries than necessities. Sometimes 
 
 * fThe identification of the latter pair of words is 
 inadmissible. Curtius, i. 356.] 
 
On the Distinction of Words 183 
 
 having a very good 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 good and expressive ' succinum ' (from 
 ' succus ') for amber, some must import from the 
 Greek the ambiguous 'electrum.' But of these which 
 are thus proposed as candidates for admission, 
 some fail to obtain the rights of citizenship, and 
 after longer or shorter probation are rejected ; it 
 may be, never advance beyond their first proposer. 
 Enough, however, receive the stamp of popular 
 allowance to create embarrassment, for a while 
 until, that is, their relations with the already exist- 
 ing 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/ ' device,' ' finesse/ ' artifice/ and 
 ' stratagem/ and enumerate 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 bye, however, as a language becomes 
 itself an object off greater attention, at the same 
 time that society, advancing from a simpler to a 
 more complex state, has more things to designate, 
 more thoughts to utter, and more distinctions to 
 draw, it is felt a waste of resources to employ two 
 or more words for the signifying of one and the 
 same object. Men feel, and rightly, that with a 
 boundless world lying around them, and demanding 
 to be named, and which they only make their own 
 in the measure and to the extent that they do name 
 it, with infinite shades and varieties of thought and 
 * [Rather Dutch. Skeat.] 
 
184 On the Distinction of Words 
 
 feeling subsisting in their own minds, and claiming 
 to find utterance in words, it is a mere and wanton 
 extravagance to expend two or more signs on that 
 which could adequately be set forth by one an 
 extravagance in one part of their expenditure, 
 which will be almost sure to issue in, and to be 
 punished by, a corresponding scantness and strait- 
 ness in another. Some thought or feeling will 
 wholly want its adequate sign, because another has 
 two. Hereupon that which has been well called 
 the process of ' desynonymizing ' begins that is, 
 of gradually coming to discriminate in use between 
 words which have hitherto been accounted per- 
 fectly equivalent, and, as such, indifferently em- 
 ployed. It is a positive enriching of a language 
 when this process is at any point felt to be accom- 
 plished, when two or more words, which were once 
 promiscuously used, are felt to have had each its 
 own peculiar domain assigned to it, which it shall 
 not itself overstep^ upon which the others shall 
 not encroach. This may seem at first sight but as 
 the better regulation of old territory ; for all 
 practical purposes it is the acquisition of new. 
 
 It is not to be supposed that this desynonymizing 
 process is effected according to any pre-arranged 
 purpose or plan. The working genius of the lan- 
 guage accomplishes its own objects, causes these 
 synonymous words insensibly to fall off from one 
 another, and to acquire separate and peculiar 
 meanings. The most that any single writer can 
 do, save indeed in the terminology of science, is, 
 as has been observed, to assist an already existing 
 inclination, to bring to the consciousness of all 
 that which may already have been implicitly felt 
 
On the Distinction of Words 185 
 
 by many, and thus to hasten the process of this 
 disengagement, or, as it has been excellently ex- 
 pressed, " to regulate and ordinate the evident 
 nisus and tendency of the popular usage into a 
 severe definition " ; and establish on a firm basis 
 the distinction, so that it shall not be lost sight of 
 or brought into question again. This, for instance, 
 Wordsworth did in respect of the words, ' imagina- 
 tion ' and ' fancy.' Before he wrote, it was, I sup- 
 pose, obscurely felt by most that in ' imagination ' 
 there was more of the earnest, in ' fancy ' of the 
 play, of the spirit, that the first was a loftier 
 faculty and gift than the second ; yet for all this 
 the words were continually, and not without loss, 
 confounded. He first, in the Preface to his Lyrical 
 Ballads, rendered it impossible that any one, who 
 had read and mastered what he had written on 
 the two words, should remain unconscious any 
 longer of the essential difference existing between 
 them.* 
 
 * I had read a great many years ago, in De Quincey's 
 Letters to a Young Man whose Education has been Neglected, 
 a passage which I had still clearly in my mind while 
 writing this paragraph. I have now recovered this 
 passage, which, though it only says over again what is 
 said above, yet does this so much more forcibly and 
 fully, that I shall not hesitate to quote it, and the more 
 readily that these letters, in many respects so valuable, 
 have never been reprinted, but lie buried in the old 
 numbers of a magazine (The London Magazine, 1823), 
 like so many other of the ' disjecta membra ' of this 
 illustrious master of English prose : "All languages," 
 he says, " tend to clear themselves of synonyms, as 
 intellectual culture advances ; the superfluous words 
 being taken up and appropriated by new shades and 
 combinations of thought evolved in the progress of 
 society. And long before this appropriation is fixed 
 and petrified, as it were, into the acknowledged vocabu- 
 
1 86 On the Distinction of Words 
 
 Let me here remark how many other words in 
 English are still waiting for such a discrimination. 
 Thus how great an ethical gain would it be, how 
 much clearness would it bring into men's thoughts 
 and feelings, if the distinction which exists in Latin 
 between ' vindicta ' and ' ultio,' that the first is a 
 moral act, the just punishment of the sinner by his 
 God, of the criminal by the judge, the other an act 
 in which the self-gratification of one who counts 
 
 lary of the language, an insensible clinamen (to borrow 
 a Lucretian word) prepares the way for it. Thus, for 
 instance, before Mr. Wordsworth had unveiled the great 
 philosophic distinction between the powers of fancy and 
 imagination, the two words had begun to diverge from 
 each other, the first being used to express a faculty some- 
 what capricious and exempted from law, the other to 
 express a faculty more self-determined. When, there- 
 fore, it was at length perceived, that under an apparent 
 unity of meaning there lurked a real dualism, and for 
 philosophic purposes it was necessary that this dis- 
 tinction should have its appropriate expression, this 
 necessity was met half way by the clinamen which had 
 already affected the popular usage of the words." Com- 
 pare with this what Coleridge had before said (Biogr. 
 Lit. vol. i. p. 90). It is to Coleridge we owe the word 
 ' desynonymize,' against which indeed purists will 
 object that it is of hybrid formation, the prefix Latin, 
 the body of the word Greek ; and his own contributions 
 direct and indirect in this province are perhaps both 
 more in number and more important than those of any 
 English writer ; as, for instance, the disentanglement 
 of ' fanaticism ' and ' enthusiasm,' which we mainly 
 owe to him (Lit. Rem., vol. ii. p. 365); of 'keenness' 
 and ' subtlety ' (Table-Talk, p. 140), ' poetry ' and 
 ' poesy ' (Lit. Rem., vol. i. p. 219) ; and that on which 
 he himself laid so great a stress, ' reason ' and ' under- 
 standing.' (Since this note was written, De Quincey's 
 Works have been republished in a collected form in 
 America. He is also himself republishing them in Eng- 
 land ; but it is to be feared that it will be long before ha 
 reaches the Letters alluded to above.) [See his Works, 
 1863, vol. xiii. pp. 9-04.] 
 
On the Distinction of Words 187 
 
 himself injured or offended is sought, could in like 
 manner be fully established (it does vaguely exist), 
 between our ' vengeance ' and ' revenge ' ; so that 
 only ' vengeance ' ( with the verb ' avenge') should 
 be ascribed to God, and to men acting as the exe- 
 cutors of his righteous doom ; while all in which 
 their evil and sinful passions are the impulsive 
 motive should be exclusively termed ' revenge.' 
 As it now is, the moral disapprobation which 
 cleaves, and cleaves justly, to ' revenge,' is often- 
 times transferred almost unconsciously to ' ven- 
 geance ' ; while yet without vengeance it is im- 
 possible to conceive in an evil world any assertion 
 of righteousness, any moral government whatso- 
 ever. These distinctions which still wait to be 
 made we may fitly regard as so much reversionary 
 wealth in our mother tongue. 
 
 The two causes which I mentioned above, the 
 fact that English is in the main a compromise 
 between the languages spoken by the Anglo-Saxon 
 and the Norman, and the further circumstance 
 that it has received, welcomed, and found place for 
 many later additions, these causes have together 
 effected that we possess in English a great many 
 duplicates, not to speak of triplicates, or even 
 such a quintuplicate as that which I adduced 
 just now, where the Saxon, French, Italian, Latin, 
 and Greek had each given us a word. Let me 
 mention a few duplicate substantives, Anglo- 
 Saxon and Latin : thus we have ' shepherd ' and 
 ' pastor ' ; ' feeling ' and ' sentiment ' ; ' handbook ' 
 and ' manual ' ; ' ship ' and 'nave ' ; ' anger ' and 
 ' ire ' ; ' grief ' and ' dolour ' ; ' kingdom ' and 
 ' realm ' ; ' love ' and ' charity ' ; ' feather ' and 
 
i88 On the Distinction of Words 
 
 ' plume ' ; ' forerunner ' and ' precursor ' ; ' free- 
 dom ' and ' liberty ' ; ' murder ' and ' homicide ' ; 
 ' moons ' and ' lunes ' a word which has not been 
 met with in the singular. Sometimes, in theology 
 and science especially, we have gone both to the 
 Latin and to the Greek, and drawn the same word 
 from them both : thus ' deist ' and ' theist ' ; 
 ' numeration ' and ' arithmetic ' ; ' Revelation ' 
 and ' Apocalypse ' ; ' temporal ' and ' chronical ' ; 
 ' compassion ' and ' sympathy ' ; ' supposition ' 
 and ' hypothesis ' ; ' transparent ' and ' dia- 
 phanous ' ; ' digit ' and ' dactyle.' But to return 
 to the Anglo-Saxon and Latin, the main factors 
 of our tongue, besides duplicate substantives we 
 have duplicate verbs, such as ' to heal ' and ' to 
 cure ' ; ' to whiten ' and ' to blanch ' ; ' to soften ' 
 and ' to mollify ' ; ' to cloke ' and ' to palliate ' ; 
 with many more. Duplicate adjectives also are 
 numerous, as ' shady ' and ' umbrageous ' ; ' un- 
 readable ' and ' illegible ' ; ' unfriendly ' and ' inimi- 
 cal ';' almighty ' and ' omnipotent.' Occasionally 
 where only one substantive, an Anglo-Saxon, exists, 
 yet the adjectives are duplicate, and the English, 
 which has not adopted the Latin substantive, has 
 yet admitted the adjective ; thus ' burden ' has not 
 merely ' burdensome ' but also ' onerous/ while yet 
 ' onus ' has found no place with us ; ' priest ' has 
 ' priestly ' and ' sacerdotal ' ; ' king ' has ' kingly,' 
 ' regal,' which is purely Latin, and ' royal,' which 
 is Latin distilled through the Norman. ' Bodily ' 
 and ' corporal,' ' boyish ' and ' puerile,' ' bloody ' 
 and ' sanguine,' 'fearful' and 'timid,' 'manly ' 'and 
 ' virile,' ' womanly ' and ' feminine,' ' starry ' and 
 ' stellar,' ' yearly ' and ' annual,' ' wooden ' and 
 
On the Distinction of Words 189 
 
 1 ligneous,' may all be placed in the same list. Nor 
 are these more than a handful of words out of the 
 number which might be adduced, and I think you 
 would find both pleasure and profit in seeking to 
 add to these lists, and as far as you are able, to 
 make them gradually complete. 
 
 I will observe by the way, that I have only 
 adduced instances in which both the words have 
 continued to maintain their ground in our spoken 
 and written language to the present day. Other 
 cases are not few in which these duplicates once 
 existed, but in which the one word has in the end 
 proved fatal to and has extinguished the other. 
 Thus ' resurrection ' and ' againrising ' no doubt 
 existed co-temporaneously ; Wiclif uses them in- 
 differently ; we may say the same of ' judge ' and 
 ' doomsman,' ' adultery ' and ' spouse-breach,' 
 ' medicine ' and ' leechcraft,' and of many words 
 more. In each of these cases, however, instead 
 of dividing the intellectual domain between them, 
 which perhaps would not always have been easy, 
 the one word has definitely put the other out of 
 use ; the Latin word, as you will observe, has tri- 
 umphed over the Anglo-Saxon. I am not of those 
 who consider these triumphs of the Latin element 
 of our speech to be in every case a matter of regret ; 
 though I would not willingly have seen ' pavone,' 
 which Spenser would have introduced, for our much 
 older ' peacock ' ; or ' terremote,' which Gower 
 employs, for ' earthquake,' or other such Latinisms 
 as these. 
 
 But to return ; if we look closely at those other 
 words which have succeeded in maintaining side 
 by side their ground, we shall not fail to observe 
 
On the Distinction of Words 
 
 that in almost every instance they have asserted 
 for themselves separate spheres of meaning, that 
 although not in etymology, they have still in use 
 become more or less distinct. Thus we use ' shep- 
 herd ' almost always in its primary meaning,[keeper 
 of sheep ; while ' pastor ' is exclusively used in the 
 topical sense, one that feeds the flock of God ; at 
 the same time the language having only the one 
 adjective, ' pastoral/ that is of necessity common 
 to both. ' Love ' and ' charity ' are used in our 
 authorized version of Scripture promiscuously, 
 and out of the sense of their equivalence are made 
 to represent one and the same Greek work ; but 
 in modern use ' charity ' has come predominantly 
 to signify one particular manifestation of love, 
 the supply of the bodily needs of others, ' love ' 
 continuing to express the affection of the soul. 
 ' Ship ' remains in its literal meaning, while ' nave ' 
 has become a symbolic term used in sacred archi- 
 tecture alone. So with ' illegible ' and ' unread- 
 able/ the first is applied to the handwriting, the 
 second to the subject-matter written ; thus, a man 
 writes an ' illegible ' hand ; he has published an 
 ' unreadable ' book. So too it well becomes boys 
 to be ' boyish/ but not men to be ' puerile/ Or take 
 ' to blanch ' and ' to whiten ' : we have grown to 
 use the first in the sense of to withdraw colouring 
 matter : thus we ' blanch ' almonds or linen ; the 
 cheek is ' blanched ' with fear, that is, by the with- 
 drawing of the blood ; but we ' whiten ' a wall, not 
 by the withdrawing of some other colour, but by 
 the superinducing of white ; thus ' whited sepul- 
 chres.' ' To palliate ' is not now used, though it 
 once was, in the sense of wholly ' to cloke ' or 
 
On the Distinction of Words 191 
 
 cover over, as it might be, our sins, but in that of 
 extenuating ; ' to palliate ' our faults is not to hide 
 them altogether, but to seek to diminish their guilt 
 in part. 
 
 It might be urged that there was a certain pre- 
 paredness in these words to separate off in their 
 meaning from one another, inasmuch as they 
 originally belonged to different stocks ; nor would I 
 deny that this may have assisted ; but we find the 
 same process at work where original difference of 
 stock can have supplied no such assistance. ' As- 
 tronomy ' and ' astrology ' are both drawn from 
 the Greek, nor is there any reason beforehand why 
 the second should not be in as honourable use as 
 the first ; for it signifies the reason, as ' astronomy ' 
 the law, of the stars. But seeing there is a true 
 and a false science of the stars, both needing words 
 to utter them, it has come to pass that in our later 
 use, ' astrology ' designates always that pretended 
 science of imposture, which affecting to submit 
 the moral freedom of men to the influences of the 
 heavenly bodies, prognosticates future events from 
 the position of these, as contrasted with ' astro- 
 nomy,' that true science which investigates the 
 laws of the heavenly bodies in their relations to 
 one another and to the planet upon which we dwell. 
 
 As these are both from the Greek, so ' despair ' 
 and ' diffidence ' are both, though the second more 
 directly than the first, from the Latin. At a period 
 not very long past the difference between them 
 was hardly appreciable ; it certainly could not be 
 affirmed of one that it was very much stronger 
 than the other. If in one the absence of all hope, 
 in the other that of all faith, was implied. In 
 
192 On the Distinction of Words 
 
 proof I would only refer you to a book with which 
 I am sure every English schoolmaster will wish to 
 be familiar, I mean The Pilgrim's Progress, where 
 " Mistress Diffidence " is " Giant Despair's " wife, 
 and not a whit behind him in deady enmity 
 to the pilgrims ; even as Jeremy Taylor speaks of 
 the impenitent sinner's " diffidence in the hour of 
 death," meaning, as the context plainly shows, his 
 despair. But to what end two words for one and 
 the same thing ? And thus ' diffidence ' did not 
 retain that force of meaning which it had at the 
 first, but little by little assumed a more mitigated 
 sense (Hobbes speaks of " men's diffidence," that 
 is, distrust, " of one another ") till it has come in 
 our present English to signify a becoming distrust 
 of ourselves, an humble estimate of our own powers^ 
 with only a slight intimation in the word, as in the 
 later uses of ' verecundia,' that perhaps this dis- 
 trust is carried too far. 
 
 Again, ' interference ' and ' interposition ' are 
 both from the Latin ; and here too it lies not by any 
 anterior necessity in the several derivations of the 
 words, that they should have the different shades 
 of meaning which yet they have obtained among 
 us ; the Latin verbs which form their latter 
 halves being about as strong one as the other. 
 And yet in our practical use, ' interference ' is some- 
 thing offensive ; it is the pushing hi of himself be- 
 tween two parties on the part of a third, who was 
 not asked, and is not thanked for his pains, and 
 who, as the feeling of the word implies, had no 
 business there ;* while ' interposition ' is employed 
 
 * [Inter-ference is not, as might be supposed, a com- 
 pound of Lat. fero, like oon-ference, in-ference, etc., but 
 
On the Distinction of Words 193 
 
 to express the friendly peacemaking mediation of 
 one whom the act well became, and who, even if he 
 was not specially invited thereunto, is still thanked 
 for what he has done. How real an increase is it in 
 the wealth and capabilities of a language thus to 
 have discriminated such words as these ; and to be 
 able to express acts outwardly the same by different 
 words, as we would praise or blame them.* 
 
 Let us now take some words which are not thus 
 desynonymized by usage only, but which have an 
 inherent etymological distinction, one however, 
 which it might be easy to overlook, which so long 
 as we dwell on the surface of the word, we shall 
 overlook ; and let us see whether we shall not be 
 gainers by bringing out the distinction into clear 
 consciousness. Here are the words ' arrogant/ 
 * presumptuous,' and ' insolent ' : we often use them 
 
 of inter and ferio, I strike, and expresses the action of 
 a stickler who strikes in, or between, two fencers to part 
 them, and so intermeddles in the engagement. It may 
 be doubted whether ' interposition ' always implied 
 friendly intervention.] 
 
 * It must at the same time be acknowledged, that if 
 in the course of time distinctions are thus created, and 
 if this is the tendency of language, yet they are also 
 sometimes, though far less often, obliterated. Thus 
 the fine distinction between ' yea ' and ' yes,' ' nay ' 
 and ' no,' that once existed in English, has quite dis- 
 appeared. ' Yea ' and ' Nay,' in Wiclif's time, and 
 a good deal later, were the answers to questions framed 
 in the affirmative. " Will he come ? " To this it would 
 have been replied, ' Yea,' or ' Nay,' as the case might 
 be. But " Will he not come ? "to this the answer 
 would have been, ' Yes ' or ' No.' Sir Thomas More 
 finds fault with Tyndale, that in his translation of the 
 Bible he had not observed this distinction, which was 
 evidently therefore going out even then, that is in the 
 reign of Henry VIII, and shortly after it was quite for 
 gotten. 
 
 s.w. o 
 
194 O H tto Distinction of Words 
 
 promiscuously ; yet let us examine them a little 
 more closely, and ask ourselves, as soon as we have 
 succeeded in tracing the lines of demarcation be- 
 tween them, whether we are not now in possession 
 of three distinct thoughts, instead of a single con- 
 fused one. Thus, he is ' arrogant/ who claims the 
 observance and homage of others as his due (ad 
 rogo), does not wait for them to offer, but himself 
 demands it ; or who, having right to one sort of 
 observance, claims another to which he has no 
 right. Thus, it was ' arrogance ' in Nebuchad- 
 nezzar, when he required that all men should fall 
 down before the image which he had reared. He, 
 a man, was claiming for man's work the homage 
 which belonged only to God. But one is ' pre- 
 sumptuous' who takes things to himself before he has 
 acquired any title to them (prse sumo), the young 
 man who already takes the place of the old, the 
 learner who speaks as with the authority of the 
 teacher. By and bye all this may very justly be 
 his, but it is ' presumption ' to anticipate it now. 
 ' Insolent ' means properly no more than unusual ; 
 to act ' insolently ' is to act unusually. The 
 offensive sense which the word has acquired rests 
 upon the feeling that there is a certain well -under- 
 stood rule of society, a recognized standard of 
 moral behaviour, to which each of its members 
 should conform. The ' insolent ' man is one who 
 violates this rule, who breaks through this order, 
 acting in an unaccustomed manner.* The same 
 
 * [To carry on the historical illustrations, as suggested 
 above, it was ' presumption ' in Prince Henry to fore- 
 stall his father's death by putting on his crown (2 Hen. IV., 
 iv. 5) ; it was ' insolence ' in the cynic Diogenes when 
 he snarled at Alexander out of his tub.] 
 
On the Distinction of Words 195 
 
 sense of the orderly being also the moral, speaks 
 out in the word ' irregular ' ; a man of ' irregular,' 
 is for us a man of immoral, life ; and yet more 
 strongly in the Latin language, which has but one 
 word (mores) for customs and morals. 
 
 Or consider the following words : ' to hate,' ' to 
 loathe,' ' to detest,' and ' to abhor.' Each of them 
 rests on an image entirely distinct from the others ; 
 iwo, the first and second, being Anglo-Saxon, and 
 the others Latin. ' To hate ' is properly to be in- 
 flamed with passionate dislike, the word being con- 
 nected with ' heat,' ' hot ' ; just as we speak, using 
 the same figure, of persons being ' incensed ' with 
 anger, or of their anger ' kindling ' ; ' ira ' and ' uro ' 
 oeing perhaps in like manner related ;* and ' excan- 
 descentia ' at any rate resting on this same image. 
 1 To loathe ' is properly to feel nausea, the turning 
 of the stomach at that which excites first natural, 
 and then by transfer, moral disgust. ' To detest ' 
 is to bear witness against, not to be able to keep 
 silence in regard of something, to feel ourselves 
 obliged to lift up our voice and testimony against 
 it. ' To abhor ' is to shrink shuddering back, as 
 one would from an object of fear, an hissing ser- 
 pent rising in one's path. Thus our blessed Lord 
 '" hated ' to see His Father's house profaned, when, 
 the zeal of that house consuming Him, He drove 
 forth in anger the profaners from it ; He ' loathed ' 
 the lukewarmness of the Laodiceans, when He 
 
 * (iThe rapprochements suggested here must be aban- 
 doned. ' Hate ' has no connexion with ' heat,' but 
 rather with Ger. hatz, baiting, hetzen, to pursue with 
 hostile intent (Kluge). ' Ira ' and 'uro,' I bum, are also 
 quite unconnected.] 
 
196 On the Distinction of Words 
 
 threatened to spue them out of His mouth ; Kb 
 ' detested ' the hypocrisy of the Pharisees and 
 Scribes, when He proclaimed their sin, and uttered 
 those eight woes against them (Matt, xxiii.) ; 
 He ' abhorred ' the evil suggestions of Satan, when 
 He bade the Tempter to get behind Him, seeking 
 to put a distance between Himself and him. 
 
 Sometimes words have no right at all to be 
 considered synonyms, and yet are constantly used 
 one for the other ; having in fact more need than 
 synonyms themselves to be discriminated. Thus, 
 what confusion is often made between * genuine ' 
 and ' authentic.' How very commonly they are 
 incorrectly used. And yet the distinction is a very 
 plain one. A ' genuine ' work is one written by 
 the author whose name it bears ; an ' authentic ' 
 work is one which relates truthfully the matters 
 of which it treats. For example, the apocryphal 
 Gospel of St. Thomas is neither ' genuine ' nor 
 ' authentic/ It is not ' genuine,' for St. Thomas did 
 not write it ; it is not ' authentic,' for its contents 
 are mainly fables and lies. The history of the 
 Alexandrian War which goes under Caesar's name, 
 is not ' genuine,' for he did not write it ; it is 
 ' authentic,' being in the main a truthful record 
 of the events which it professes to relate. 
 Thiers' History of the French Empire, on the con- 
 trary, is ' genuine,' for he is certainly the author, 
 but very far from ' authentic ' ; while Thucydides' 
 History of the Peloponnesian War is ' authentic ' 
 and ' genuine ' both.* 
 
 You will observe that in most of the words 
 
 * [jThe usage is not so clearly defined as is here implied. 
 See N.E.D., s.v. Authentic,' A, 4 and 6.] 
 
On the Distinction of Words 197 
 
 which I have adduced, I have sought to refer their 
 usage to their etymologies, to follow the guidance 
 of these, and by the same aid to trace the lines of 
 demarcation which divide them. For I cannot but 
 think it an omission in a very instructive volume 
 upon synonyms which has lately been edited by 
 Archbishop Whately, and a partial diminution of 
 its usefulness, that in the valuation of words re- 
 ference is so seldom made to these, the writer 
 relying almost entirely on present usage, and the 
 tact and instinct of a cultivated mind, for the 
 appreciation of them aright. The accomplished 
 author (or authoress) of this book indeed justifies 
 this omission on the ground that a book of syno- 
 nyms has to do with the present relative value of 
 words, not with their roots and derivations ; and 
 further, that a reference to these brings in often 
 what is only a disturbing force in the process, 
 tending to confuse rather than to clear.* But 
 
 * Among the words of which the etymology, if we 
 were to suffer ourselves to be led by it, would place us 
 altogether on a wrong track as to its present meaning, 
 the writer adduces ' allegiance,' which by usage signifies 
 " the fidelity of the subject to his prince," while the 
 etymology would rather suggest " conformity to law." 
 But surely this derivation of it, as though it were ' ad 
 legem,' is an erroneous one. It is rather derived from 
 ' alligo,' as ' liege ' from ' ligo ' ; and thus is per- 
 fectly true to its etymology, signifying as it does the 
 obligation wherewith one is bound to his superior. Alger- 
 non Sidney, in his Discourse concerning Government, 
 c. iii. 36, falls into the same mistake ; for, replying to 
 some who maintained that submission was due to kings, 
 even though they should act in direct contradiction 
 to the fundamental laws of the kingdom, he observes 
 that the very word ' allegiance,' of which they made 
 so much, refuted them ; for this was plainly " such an 
 obedience as the law requires." , He would have done 
 
198 On /he Distinction of Words 
 
 while it is quite true that words may often ride 
 very slackly at anchor on their etymologies, may 
 be borne hither and thither by the shifting tides 
 and currents of usage, yet are they for the most 
 part still holden by them. Very few have broken 
 away and drifted from their moorings altogether. 
 A ' novelist,' or writer of new tales in the present 
 day is very different from a ' novelist ' or upholder 
 of new theories in politics and religion, of two 
 hundred years ago ; yet the idea of newness is com- 
 mon to them both. A ' naturalist ' was then a 
 denier of revealed truth, of any but natural 
 religion ; he is now an investigator, and often a 
 pious one, of nature and of her laws ; yet the word 
 has remained true to its etymology all the while. 
 A ' methodist ' was once a follower of a certain 
 ' method ' of philosophical induction, now of a 
 ' method ' in the fulfilment of religious duties ; 
 but in either case ' method,' or orderly progression, 
 is the soul of the word. Take other words which 
 have changed or modified their meaning 
 ' plantations/ for instance, which were once 
 colonies of men (and indeed we still ' plant ' a 
 colony), but are now nurseries of young trees, 
 and you will find the same to hold good. ' Ecstasy ' 
 was madness, it is delight, but in neither case has 
 it departed from its fundamental meaning, since 
 it is the nature alike of this and that to set men out 
 of and beside themselves. 
 
 better appealing, as indeed on one occasion he does, 
 to the word ' loyalty,' which, being derived from ' loi,' 
 expresses properly that fidelity which one owes according 
 to law, and does not necessarily include that attachment 
 to the royal person which happily we in England have 
 been able further to throw into th word. 
 
On the Distinction of Words 199 
 
 And even when the fact is not so obvious as in 
 these cases, the etymology of a word exercises an 
 unconscious influence upon its uses, oftentimes 
 makes itself felt when least expected, so that a 
 word, after seeming quite to have forgotten, will 
 after longest wanderings, return to it again. And 
 one of the arts of a great poet or prose writer, who 
 wishes to add emphasis to his style, to bring out 
 all the latent forces of his native tongue, will very 
 often consist in reconnecting a word by his use of 
 it with its original derivation, in not suffering it to 
 forget itself and its father's house, though it would. 
 How often and with what signal effect Milton does 
 this ; while yet how often the fact that he is doing 
 it passes even by scholars unobserved.* And even 
 if all this were not so, yet the past history of a 
 word, which history must needs start from its deri- 
 vation, how soon soever that may be left behind, 
 is surely a necessary element in its present valua- 
 tion. A man may be wholly different now from 
 what once he was, yet not the less to know his 
 antecedents is needful, before we can ever per- 
 fectly understand his present self ; and the same 
 holds good with a word. 
 
 There is often a moral value in the possession 
 of synonyms, enabling us, as they do, to say 
 
 * Bossuet supplies a good example of the same, who 
 in his panegyric of the great Conde expresses himself 
 thus : " On le vit Manner de ses regards etincelants ceux 
 qui echappaient a ses coups." Take itonner in its usual 
 secondary sense, and how feeble and pointless the whole ; 
 but doubtless the sacred orator brought it back to the 
 1 attonitus ' from which it and our ' astonish ' alike 
 proceed, and then how grand its employment ! [Not 
 quite correct, as our ' astonish ' or ' astony ' is from O. 
 Fr. fstoner, a Latin ex-tnnare.] 
 
200 On the Distinction of Words 
 
 exactly what we intend, without exaggeration or 
 the putting of more into our words than we feel in 
 our hearts, allowing us, as one has said, to be a1 
 once courteous and precise. Such moral advan- 
 tage there is, for example, in the choice which we 
 have between the words ' to felicitate ' and ' to 
 congratulate,' for the expressing of our sentiments 
 and wishes in regard of the good fortune that 
 happens to others. ' To felicitate ' another is to 
 wish him happiness, without affirming that his 
 happiness is also ours. Thus out of that general 
 goodwill with which we ought to regard all, we 
 might ' felicitate ' one almost a stranger to us ; 
 nay, more, I can honestly felicitate one on his 
 appointment to a post, or attainment of an honour, 
 even though I may not consider him the fittest 
 to have obtained it, though I should have been glad 
 if another had done so ; I can desire and hope, that 
 is, that it may bring all joy and happiness to him. 
 But I could not, without a violation of truth, 
 ' congratulate ' him, or that stranger whose pros- 
 perity awoke no lively delight in my heart ; for 
 when I ' congratulate ' a person (con gratulor), I 
 declare that I am sharer in his joy, that what has 
 rejoiced him has rejoiced also me. We have all, 
 I dare say, felt, even without having analysed 
 the distinction between the words, that ' congratu- 
 late ' is a far heartier word than ' felicitate/ and 
 one with which it much better becomes us to 
 welcome the good fortune of a friend ; and the 
 analysis, as you perceive, perfectly justifies the 
 feeling. ' Felicitations ' are little better than 
 compliments ; ' congratulations ' are the expres- 
 sion of a genuine sympathy and joy 
 
On the Distinction of Words 201 
 
 Let me illustrate the importance of synonymous 
 distinctions by another example, by the words, ' to 
 invent ' and ' to discover ' ; or ' invention ' and 
 ' discovery.' How slight may seem to us the dis- 
 tinction between them, even if we see any at all. 
 Yet try them a little closer, try them, which is the 
 true proof, by aid of examples, and you will per- 
 ceive that by no means can they be indifferently 
 used ; that, on the contrary, a great principle lies 
 at the root of their distinction. Thus we speak of 
 the ' invention ' of printing, of the ' discovery ' of 
 America. Shift these words, and speak, for instance, 
 of the ' invention ' of America ; you feel at once 
 how unsuitable the language is. And why ? Be- 
 cause Columbus did not make that to be which 
 before him had not been. America was there before 
 he revealed it to European eyes ; but that which 
 before was, he showed to be ; he withdrew the veil 
 which hitherto had concealed it ; he ' discovered ' 
 it. So too we speak of Newton ' discovering ' the 
 law of gravitation ; he drew aside the veil whereby 
 men's eyes were hindered from perceiving it, but 
 the law had existed from the beginning of the 
 world, and would have existed whether he or any 
 other man had traced it or no ; neither was it in 
 any way affected by the discovery of it which he 
 had made. But Gutenburg, or whoever else it 
 may have been to whom the honour belongs, ' in- 
 vented ' printing ; he made something to be which 
 hitherto was not. In like manner Harvey ' dis- 
 covered ' the circulation of the blood ; but Watt 
 ' invented ' the steam-engine ; and we speak, with 
 a true distinction, of the ' inventions ' of Art, the 
 ' discoveries ' of Science. In the very highest 
 
2O2 On the Distinction of Words 
 
 matters of all, it is deeply important that we be 
 aware of and observe the distinction.* In religion 
 there have been many ' discoveries/ but (in true 
 religion I mean) no ' inventions.' Many discoveries 
 but God in each case the discoverer ; He draws 
 away the veils, one veil after another, that have 
 hidden Him from men ; the discovery or revela- 
 tion is from Himself, for no man by searching has 
 found out God ; and therefore, wherever anything 
 offers itself as an ' invention ' in matters of religion, 
 it proclaims itself a lie, all self -devised worships, 
 all religions which man projects from his own 
 heart. Just that is known of God which He is 
 pleased to make known, and no more ; and men's 
 recognizing or refusing to recognize in no way 
 affects it. They may deny or may acknowledge 
 Him, but He continues the same. 
 
 As involving in like manner a distinction which 
 cannot safely be lost sight of, how important the 
 difference, of which the existence is asserted by 
 our possession of the two words, ' to apprehend ' 
 and ' to comprehend,' with their substantives, 
 1 apprehension/ and ' comprehension.' For indeed 
 we ' apprehend ' many truths, which we do not 
 ' comprehend.' The great mysteries of our faith, 
 the doctrine for instance of the Holy Trinity, we 
 lay hold upon it (ad prehendo), we hang on it, our 
 souls live by it ; but we do not ' comprehend ' it, 
 
 * (jThe distinction here made seems to be modern. 
 The discovery of the Cross by the Empress Helena is 
 called in the Prayer-Book Calendar " The Invention 
 of the Cross," May 3rd (from in-venire, to come upon), 
 and in the Authorized Version of the Bible ' discover ' 
 often means to uncover, or make bare, e.g. " the voice 
 of the Lord discovereth the forests." Psalm xxix. 9.] 
 
On the Distinction of Words 203 
 
 that is, we do not take it all in ; for it is a neces- 
 sary attribute of God that He is incomprehensible ; 
 if He were not so, either He would not be God, or 
 the being that comprehended Him would be God 
 also. But it also belongs to the idea of God that 
 He may be ' apprehended,' though not ' compre- 
 hended,' by his reasonable creatures ; He has made 
 them to know Him, though not to know Him all, 
 to ' apprehend,' though not to ' comprehend ' Him. 
 We may transfer with profit the same distinction 
 to matters not quite so solemn. I read Gold- 
 smith's Traveller, or one of Gay's Fables, and I 
 feel that I ' comprehend ' it ; I do not believe, 
 that is, that there was anything in the poet's mind 
 or intention which I have not in the reading 
 reproduced in my own. But I read Hamlet, or King 
 Lear : here I ' apprehend ' much ; I have wondrous 
 glimpses of the poet's intention and aim ; but I do 
 not for an instant suppose that I have ' compre- 
 hended,' taken in, that is, all that was in his mind 
 in the writing ; or that his purpose does not stretch 
 in manifold directions far beyond the range of my 
 vision ; and I am sure there are few who would 
 not shrink from affirming, at least if they at all 
 realized the force of the words they were using, 
 that they ' comprehended ' Shakespeare ; however 
 much they may ' apprehend ' in him. 
 
 How often ' opposite ' and ' contrary ' are used 
 as if there was no difference between them, and yet 
 there is a most essential one, one which perhaps 
 we may best express by saying that ' opposites ' 
 complete, while ' contraries ' exclude one another. 
 Thus the most ' opposite ' moral or mental charac- 
 teristics may meet in one and the same person, 
 
204 On the Distinction of Words 
 
 while to say that the most ' contrary ' did so, would 
 be manifestly absurd ; for example, a soldier may 
 be at once pnident and bold, for these are oppo- 
 sites ; he could not be at once -prudent and rash, 
 for these are contraries. We may love and fear at 
 the same time and the same person ; we pray in 
 the Litany that we may love and fear God, the two 
 being opposites, and thus the complements of one 
 another ; but to pray that we might love and halt 
 would be as illogical as it would be impious, for 
 these are contraries, and could no more coexist 
 together than white and black, hot and cold, in 
 the same subject at the same time. Or to take 
 another illustration, sweet and sour are ' opposites/ 
 sweet and bitter are ' contraries.'* It will be seen 
 then that there is always a certain relation between 
 ' opposites ' ; they unfold themselves though in 
 different directions from the same root, as the 
 positive and negative forces of electricity, and in 
 their very opposition uphold and sustain one 
 another ; while ' contraries ' encounter one another 
 from quarters quite diverse, and one only subsists 
 in the exact degree that it puts out of working the 
 other. Surely this distinction cannot be an unim- 
 portant one either in the region of ethics or else- 
 where. 
 
 It will happen continually that rightly to dis- 
 tinguish between two words will throw great light 
 upon some controversy in which those words play a 
 principal part, nay, may virtually put an end to 
 that controversy altogether. Thus when Hobbes, 
 with a true instinct, would have laid deep the 
 
 * See Coleridge's Church and State, p. 18. 
 
On the Distinction of Words 205 
 
 foundations of atheism and despotism together, 
 resolving all right into might, and not merely 
 robbing men, if he could, of the power, but denying 
 to them the duty, of obeying God rather than man, 
 his sophisms could stand only so long as it was 
 not perceived that ' compulsion ' and ' obligation/ 
 with which he juggled, conveyed two ideas perfectly 
 distinct, indeed disparate, in kind. These sophisms 
 collapsed at once, so soon as it was perceived that 
 what pertained to one had been transferred to 
 the other by a mere confusion of terms and cun- 
 ning sleight of hand, the one being a physical 
 the other a moral necessity.* 
 
 There is indeed no such fruitful source of con- 
 fusion and mischief as this two words are tacitly 
 assumed as equivalent, and therefore exchange- 
 able, and then that which may be assumed, and 
 with truth, of one, is assumed also of the other, of 
 which it is not true. Thus, for instance, it often 
 is with ' instruction ' and ' education/ Cannot we 
 ' instruct ' a child, it is asked, cannot we teach 
 it geography, or arithmetic, or grammar, quite 
 independently of the Catechism, or even of the 
 Scriptures ? No doubt you may ; but can you 
 ' educate/ without bringing moral and spiritual 
 forces to bear upon the mind and affections of 
 the child ? And you must not be permitted to 
 transfer the admissions which we freely make in 
 regard of ' instruction/ as though they also held 
 good in respect of ' education.' For what is 
 
 * [Abp. Whately calls this " the thaumatrope fallacy," 
 when different things are presented to the mind in such 
 rapid succession that it becomes dazzled, and takes them 
 to be one Cicero's prcestigice verborum.] 
 
206 On the Distinction of Words 
 
 ( education '.?.., Is it a furnishing of a man from 
 without with knowledge and facts and infor- 
 mation ? or is it a drawing forth from within and 
 a training of the spirit, of the true humanity which 
 is latent within him ? Is the process of education 
 the filling of the child's mind, as a cistern is filled 
 with waters brought in buckets from some other 
 source, or the opening up of its own fountains ? 
 Now if we give any heed to the word ' education,' 
 and to the voice which speaks in the word, we 
 shall not long be in doubt. Education must educe, 
 being from ' educare,' which is but another form 
 of ' educere ' ; and that is ' to draw out,' and not to 
 ' put in.' ' To draw out ' what is in the child, the 
 immortal spirit which is there, this is the end of 
 education ; and so much the word declares. The 
 putting in is indeed most needful, that is, the child 
 must be instructed as well as educated, and the 
 word ' instruction ' just means furnishing ; but not 
 instructed instead of educated. He must first 
 have powers awakened in him, measures of spiritual 
 value given him ; and then he will know how 
 to deal with the facts of this outward world ; then 
 instruction in these will profit him ; but not with- 
 out the higher training, still less as a substitute 
 for it. 
 
 It has occasionally happened that the question 
 which out of two apparent synonyms should be 
 adopted in some important state-document has 
 been debated with no little earnestness and vigour ; 
 as at the Great English Revolution of 1688, when 
 the two Houses of Parliament were for a consider- 
 able time at issue whether it should be declared 
 of James the Second that he had ' abdicated,' or 
 
On the Distinction of Words 207 
 
 ' deserted,' the throne. This might seem at first 
 sight a mere strife about words, and yet, in reality, 
 serious constitutional questions were involved in 
 the selection of the one word or the other. The 
 Commons insisted on the word ' abdicated,' not as 
 wishing to imply that in any act of the late king 
 there had been an official renunciation of the 
 crown, which would have been manifestly untrue ; 
 but because ' abdicated ' to their minds alone ex- 
 pressed the fact that James had so borne himself 
 as virtually to have entirely renounced, disowned, 
 and relinquished the crown, to have irrecoverably 
 forfeited and separated himself from it, and from 
 any right to it for ever ; while ' deserted ' would 
 have seemed to leave room and an opening for a 
 return, which they were determined to declare for 
 ever excluded ; as, were it said of an husband that 
 he had ' deserted ' his wife, or of a soldier that he 
 had ' deserted ' his colours, this language would 
 imply not only that he might, but that he was 
 bound to return. Lord Somers' speech on the 
 occasion is a masterly specimen of synonymous 
 discrimination, and an example of the uses in 
 highest matters of state to which it may be turned.* 
 Let me press upon you in conclusion some few 
 of the many advantages to be derived from the 
 habit of distinguishing synonyms. These advan- 
 tages we might presume to be many, even though 
 we could not ourselves perceive them ; for how 
 
 * As little was it a mere strife about words when at 
 the restoration of our interrupted relations with Persia, 
 Lord Palmerston insisted that the Shah should address 
 the Queen of England not as ' Maleketh ' but as ' Padis- 
 chah,' refusing letters which had not this superscription. 
 
208 On the Distinction of Words 
 
 often do the great masters of style in every tongue, 
 perhaps none so often as Cicero, the greatest of 
 all,* pause to discriminate between the words they 
 are using ; how much care and labour, how much 
 subtlety of thought, they have counted well be- 
 stowed on the operation ; how much importance do 
 they avowedly attach to it ; not to say that their 
 works, even where they do not intend it, will be 
 a continual lesson in this respect: a great writer 
 merely in the accuracy with which he employs 
 words will always be exercising us in synonymous 
 discrimination. But the advantages of attending 
 to them need not be taken on trust ; they are 
 evident. How great a part of true wisdom it is to 
 be able to distinguish between things that differ, 
 things seemingly, but not really, alike this is re- 
 markably attested by our words ' discernment ' 
 and ' discretion ' ; which are now used as equiva- 
 
 * Thus he distinguishes between ' voluntas ' and 
 ' cupiditas' ; ' cautio' and ' metus ' (Tusc. 4. 6) ; 'gaud- 
 ium,' ' laetitia,' 'voluptas' (Tusc. 4. 6; Fin. 2. 4); 
 ' prudentia ' and ' sapientia ' (Off. I. 43); ' caritas ' 
 and 'amor' (De Part. Or. 25); 'ebrius' and 'ebriosus,' 
 ' iracundus ' and ' iratus,' ' anxietas ' and 'angor' (Tusc. 
 4. 12) ; ' vitium,' ' morbus,' ' aegrotatio ' (Tusc. 4. 13) ; 
 'labor' and 'dolor' (Tusc. 2. 15); 'furor' and ' in- 
 sania ' (Tusc. 3. 5).; ' malitia ' and ' vitiositas ' (Tusc. 
 4- IS)- Quintilian also often bestows attention on 
 synonyms, observing well (vi. 3. 17) : " Pluribus nomini- 
 bus in eadem re vulgo utimur ; quae tamen si diducas, 
 suam quandam propriam vim ostendent ; " he adduces 
 ' salsum,' ' urbanum,' ' facetum,' 6. 3. Among Church 
 writers Augustine is a frequent and successful dis- 
 criminator of words. Thus he separates off from one 
 another ' flagitium ' and ' facinus ' (De Doct. Christ. 
 3. 10) ; ' aemulatio ' and ' invidia ' (Expl. ad Gal. v. 
 20) ; ' arrha ' and ' pignus ' (Serm. 23. 8, 9) ; ' studiosus' 
 and ' curiosus ' (De Util. Cred. 9} ; ' sapientia ' and 
 'scientia' ; with many more. 
 
On the Distinction of Words 209 
 
 lent, the tirst to ' insight,' the second to ' pru- 
 dence ' ; while yet in their earlier usage, and 
 according to their etymology, being both from 
 ' discerno/ they signify the power of so seeing 
 things that in the seeing we distinguish and 
 separate them one from another. Such were 
 originally ' discernment ' and ' discretion/ and 
 such in great measure they are still. And in 
 words is a material ever at hand on which to train 
 the spirit to a skilfulness in this ; on which to 
 exercise its sagacity through the habit of distin- 
 guishing there where it would be so easy to con- 
 found. Nor is this habit of discrimination only 
 valuable as a part of our intellectual training ; but 
 what a positive increase is it of mental wealth 
 when we have learned to discern between things, 
 which really differ, but have been hitherto confused 
 in our minds ; and have made these distinctions 
 permanently our own in the only way by which 
 they can be made secure, that is, by assigning to 
 each its appropriate word and peculiar sign. 
 
 What an help moreover will it prove to the 
 writing of a good English style, if instead of hav- 
 ing many words before us, and choosing almost at 
 random and at haphazard from among them, we 
 at once know which, and which only, we ought in 
 the case before us to employ, which will be the 
 exact vesture of our thoughts. It is the first 
 characteristic of a well-dressed man that his 
 clothes fit him : they are not too small and 
 shrunken here, too large and loose there. Now 
 it is precisely such a prime characteristic of a good 
 style that the words fit close to the thoughts : they 
 will not be too big here, hanging like a giant's robe 
 
 S.w. P 
 
2io On the Distinction of Words 
 
 on the limbs of a dwarf ; nor too small there, as a 
 boy's garments into which the man has painfully 
 and ridiculously thrust hiwaself. You do not feel 
 in one place that the writer means more than he 
 has succeeded in saying ; in another that he has 
 said more than he means ; or in a third something 
 beside what his intention was : and all this, from 
 a lack of dexterity in employing the instrument 
 of language, of precision in knowing what words 
 would be the exactest correspondents and fittest 
 exponents of his thoughts. 
 
 And let us not suppose this power of exactly 
 saying what we mean, and neither more nor less 
 than we mean, to be merely an elegant mental 
 accomplishment. It is indeed this, and perhaps 
 there is no power so surely indicative of a high 
 and accurate training of the intellectual faculties. 
 But it is also much more than this : it has a moral 
 meaning as well. It is nearly allied to morality, 
 inasmuch as it is nearly connected with truthful- 
 ness. Every man who has himself in any degree 
 cared for the truth, and occupied himself in seek- 
 ing it, is more or less aware how much of the 
 falsehood in the world passes current under the 
 concealment of words, how many strifes and 
 controversies 
 
 Which feed the simple, and offend the wise, 
 
 find all or nearly all their fuel and their nourish- 
 ment in words carelessly or dishonestly employed. 
 And when a man has had any actual experience 
 of this fact, and has at all perceived how far this 
 mischief reaches, he is sometimes almost tempted 
 to say with Shakespeare's clown, " Words are 
 
On the Distinction of Words 211 
 
 grown so false, I am loth to prove reason with 
 them." He cannot, however, forego their em- 
 ployment ; not to say that he will presently per- 
 ceive that this falseness of theirs whereof he 
 accuses them, this cheating power of words, is 
 not of their proper use, but only of their abuse ; 
 he will see that, however they may have been 
 enlisted in the service of lies, they are yet of 
 themselves most true ; and that where the bane 
 is, there the antidote should be sought as well. 
 Ask then words what they mean, that you may 
 deliver yourselves, that you may help to deliver 
 others, from the tyranny of words, and from the 
 strife of ' word-warriors/ * Learn to distinguish 
 between them, for you have the authority of 
 Hooker, that " the mixture of those things by 
 speech, which by nature are divided, is the mother 
 of all error." And although I cannot promise 
 you that the study of synonyms, or the acquaint- 
 ance with derivations, or any other knowledge 
 but the very highest knowledge of all, will deliver 
 you from the temptation to misuse this or any 
 other gift of God a temptation which always 
 lies so near us yet I am sure that these studies 
 rightly pursued will do much in leading us to 
 stand in awe of this gift of words, and to tremble 
 at the thought of turning it to any other than 
 those worthy ends for which God has endowed 
 us with so divine a gift. 
 
 * [Referring to ' logomachies.' r Tim. vi 4.] 
 
VII 
 
 THE SCHOOLMASTER'S USE OF WORDS 
 
 I SHALL now attempt to apply, and to suggest 
 some ways in which you may apply, what has 
 been hitherto spoken to practical ends. I shall 
 invite you to consider how this study of words 
 and their meaning, which I have been pressing 
 upon you, may tell upon your own teaching here- 
 after ; for assuredly we ought never to disconnect 
 what we ourselves are learning from the hope and 
 expectation of being enabled by its aid to teach 
 others more effectually ; our studies, when we 
 do so, become instantly a selfish thing ; and in 
 the end as barren of profit to ourselves as we have 
 resolved to make them barren of profit to others. 
 Such a spirit and temper is implicitly rebuked 
 in a noble line of Chaucer, where, characterizing 
 a true scholar, he says of him, 
 
 And gladly would he learn, and gladly teach ; 
 
 and in the spirit of this line I trust that we shall 
 every one of us work and live. 
 
 But here allow me to address to you one or 
 two words of warning before we advance any 
 further. They are by no means unnecessary ; 
 for indeed etymology, or the science of the origin 
 of words, one of the studies to which I have been 
 inviting you, is a study which many who profess 
 an earnest devotion to it, have yet done all in 
 their power to bring into discredit, and to make 
 the laughing-stock of the frivolous and the vain. 
 A great scholar in Germany, I allude to Niebuhr. 
 has somewhere remarked on what he calls tb*. 
 unspeakable spirit of absurdity which seemed to 
 
The Schoolmaster's Use of Words 213 
 
 possess the ancients, whenever they meddled 
 with this subject ; but the charge might very well 
 be made to include others beside them. Certainly 
 their mantle has often fallen upon no unworthy 
 successors. 
 
 What is commoner than to find the investiga- 
 tor of words and their origin looking round about 
 him here and there, in all the languages, ancient 
 and modern, to which he may have access, till he 
 can fasten on some word, it matters little or 
 nothing to him in which of these, bearing more 
 or less resemblance to that which he wishes to 
 derive ? and he then considers his problem solved, 
 and that in this phantom hunt he has successfully 
 run down his prey. Even Dr. Johnson, with his 
 robust, strong, English common sense, too often 
 offends in this way. He has fallen into absur- 
 dities as bad, or almost as bad, as the worst which 
 I shall presently note. In many respects his 
 Dictionary will probably never be surpassed. 
 We shall never have better, more concise, more 
 accurate, more vigorous explanations of the 
 present meanings of words than he has furnished. 
 Whatever fault we may find with him, we must 
 cheerfully allow and recognize this. But even 
 those who admire his Dictionary the most, must 
 own that he was ill equipped by any previous 
 studies for tracing the past history of words ; 
 that in these he errs often and greatly ; as for 
 instance when he suggests that the name of the 
 peacock may be derived from the ' peak/ or tuft 
 of pointed feathers, on its head ! while other 
 derivations proposed by him and others are so 
 far absurder than this, that when Swift, in ridicule 
 
214 The Schoolmaster's Use of Words 
 
 of the whole band of philologists, suggests that 
 ' ostler ' is only a contraction of oat-stealer, and 
 ' breeches ' of bear-riches, it can scarcely be said 
 that these etymologies are more ridiculous than 
 many which have in sober earnest, and by men 
 of no inconsiderable reputation, been proposed. 
 
 Oftentimes in this scheme of random ety- 
 mology a word in one language is derived from 
 one in another, the proposer of the derivation 
 never once pausing to consider whether there 
 was any historic connexion, mediate or imme- 
 diate, between the two languages ; whether it 
 were thus so much as possible that the word 
 should have passed over from the one language 
 to the other ; or whether in fact the resemblance 
 was not merely superficial and illusory, so that 
 when stripped of their accidents they would be 
 found altogether diverse from one another. Take 
 a few specimens of this manner of dealing with 
 words ; and first from the earlier etymologists. 
 They are often hopelessly astray, and can only 
 lead as many as trust in them astray likewise. 
 
 Thus, what profit can there come of deriva- 
 tions such as Varro's, when he deduces ' pavo,' 
 the peacock, from ' pavor,' because of the fear 
 which the harsh shriek of the peacock awakens ; 
 or Pliny's, of ' panthera,' the panther, from'Trai'- 
 Qrjpiov, because the properties of all beasts meet 
 in this one ; * or the derivation of ' formica ' the 
 ant, that it means ' ferens micas,' the grain - 
 bearer ? As vain are some of the medieval 
 
 * [The Greek pan-ther (as if ' every beast ') is held 
 to be a grecized form of the Sanskrit pundarika-s (Benfey : 
 Pictet; Curtius, Greek Etymology, ii. 28).] 
 
The Schoolmaster's Use of Words 215 
 
 suggestions in like kind, as of ' apis,' a bee, from 
 a word of somewhat similar sound in Greek, sig 
 nifying ' without feet,' and this because bees are 
 born without feet, the etymology and the natural 
 history keeping excellent company together. 
 Or what shall we say of one who draws ' mors ' 
 from ' amarus,' because death is bitter ; or from 
 ' Mars,' because death triumphs in war ; * or 
 ' & morsu vetiti pomi,' because that forbidden 
 bite brought death into the world ? or of a modern 
 investigator of language, and one of high reputa- 
 tion in his time, who deduces ' girl ' from ' gar- 
 rula,' girls being commonly talkative ? 
 
 All experience indeed proves how perilous it is 
 to etymologize at random, and on the strength 
 of mere surface similarities of sound. I cannot 
 refuse to illustrate the absurdities into which this 
 may easily betray us by an amusing example. 
 A clergyman, who has himself told me the story, 
 had sought, and not unsuccessfully, to kindle in 
 his schoolmaster a passion for the study of de- 
 rivations. He was one day asked by this school- 
 master if he were aware of the derivation of 
 ' crypt.' He naturally replied in the affirma- 
 tive, that ' crypt ' came from a Greek word mean- 
 ing to conceal, and meant a covered place, itself 
 concealed, and where things intended to be con- 
 cealed were placed out of sight. The other 
 rejoined that he was quite aware the word was 
 commonly so explained, but he had no doubt 
 
 * [Mommsen does not hesitate to connect Mars (or 
 Maurs), the killing god, with Mors (History of Rome, 
 i. 175), and M. Miiller traces both to a common root, war 
 (Science of Language, ii. 357).] 
 
216 The Schoolmaster's Use of Words 
 
 erroneously ; that ' crypt,' as he had now con- 
 vinced himself, was in fact contracted from ' cry- 
 pit ' ; being indeed the pit where in days of Popish 
 tyranny those who were condemned to cruel 
 penances were plunged, and out of which their 
 cry was heard to come up therefore called the 
 ' cry-pit/ now contracted into ' crypt.' Let 
 me say, before quitting my tale, that I would far 
 sooner a schoolmaster had made a hundred mis- 
 takes of this kind than that he had been careless 
 and incurious in respect of that marvellous im- 
 plement of language, by aid of which he was to 
 instruct himself, and to instruct others. To 
 make mistakes as we are on the way to know- 
 ledge is far more honourable than to escape 
 making them through never having set out to 
 seek knowledge. 
 
 Yet of one thing let us be sure, namely, that 
 they will do little in etymology ; they will con- 
 tinually err and make others err, who do not lay 
 this down as a maxim to be kept constantly in 
 sight namely, that no amount of resemblance 
 between words in different languages is of itself 
 sufficient to prove their relationship, even as no 
 amount of apparent unlikeness in sound or present 
 form is sufficient to disprove consanguinity. 
 " Judge not according to appearance," must 
 everywhere here be the rule. One who in many 
 regions of human knowledge anticipated the 
 discoveries of later times, said well two centuries 
 ago, " Many etymologies are true which at the 
 first blush are not probable " ; * and he might 
 
 * Leibnitz (Opp. 5. 61) : " Saepe fit ut etymologise 
 verae sint, quae primo aspectu verisimiles non sunt." 
 
The Schoolmaster's Use of Words 217 
 
 have added, Many appear probable, which are 
 not true. Which things being so, it is our wisdom 
 on the one side to distrust superficial likenesses, 
 on the other not to be dismayed and deterred by 
 superficial differences and unlikenesses. I cannot 
 go into this matter, but I would just say, Have 
 no faith in books which etymologize on the 
 strength of sounds, and not on that of letters, and 
 of letters moreover dealt with according to fixed 
 and recognized laws of equivalence and per- 
 mutation. Never forget that great man's word, 
 that much, very much, in this region of study 
 is true which does not seem probable ; nor the 
 converse, perhaps still more important, that 
 much seems probable which is not true. The 
 beginning of all successful investigation here is 
 to have learned to despise phenomena, the deceit- 
 ful shows and appearances of things, and to be 
 determined to reach and to grapple with the 
 things themselves. It is the fable of Proteus 
 over again. He will take a thousand shapes 
 with which he will seek to elude and delude him 
 who is resolved to obtain from him the true 
 answer, which he is capable of yielding, but will 
 only yield on compulsion. The true investigator 
 is deceived by none of these. He still holds him 
 fast ; binds him in strong chains ; until he takes 
 his own and his true shape at the last ; and answers 
 as a true seer whatever question may be put to 
 him. Nor, let me take the opportunity of saying 
 by the way, will his gains be small who, having 
 learned here to distrust the obvious and the 
 plausible, carries out and applies in other regions 
 of study and of morals the lessons which he has 
 
218 The Schoolmaster's Use of Words 
 
 thus learned ; who determines to seek the ground 
 of things, and to plant his foot upon that ; to 
 believe that a lie may look very fair, and yet be 
 a lie for all that ; that the truth may show very 
 unattractive, very unlikely and paradoxical, and 
 yet be the very truth notwithstanding. 
 
 To return from a long, but not needless digres- 
 sion. You all here are made acquainted with a 
 good deal more than the first rudiments of the 
 Latin tongue. Every one who can at all appre- 
 ciate what your future task will be, must rejoice 
 that it is so. Indeed, it is hard to understand 
 how you could without this be fitted and accom- 
 plished for the work which you have before you. 
 For our language is not like the Greek and the 
 German, which, for all practical purposes, may 
 be considered rounded and complete in themselves ; 
 which contain all the resources for discovering the 
 origin and meaning of their words in their own 
 bosom, or so nearly so, that the few exceptions 
 need not be taken into account. In these lan- 
 guages it is conceivable that one might advance 
 very far in the knowledge of his own tongue, who 
 should remain ignorant of every other ; and that, 
 himself possessing this knowledge, he might be 
 able to impart it to others. In fact, the Greek, 
 who certainly understood his own language tho- 
 roughly, never did extend his knowledge beyond 
 it. But it is different with English. Would 
 we follow up its words, not to their remotest 
 sources, but only a step or two, it carries us at 
 once beyond itself and to a foreign soil, and 
 mainly to the Latin. This being the case, he who 
 has not some acquaintance with Latin can only 
 
The Schoolmaster's Use of Words 219 
 
 explain a vast number of words loosely and at 
 hazard ; he has some general sense or impression 
 of what they intend, of the ideas which they 
 represent, but nothing certain. He feels about 
 for their central meaning ; he does not grasp it 
 with confidence and precision. 
 
 And having these convictions in regard of the 
 advantage of following up words to their sources, 
 of ' deriving ' them, that is, of tracing each little 
 rill to the river from which it was first drawn, let 
 me here observe, as something not remote from 
 our subject, but, on the contrary, directly bearing 
 upon it, that I can conceive no method of so 
 effectually defacing and barbarizing our English 
 tongue, no scheme that would go so far to empty 
 it, practically at least and for us, of all the hoarded 
 wit, wisdom, imagination, and history, which it 
 contains, to cut the vital nerve which connects 
 its present with the past, as the introduction of 
 the scheme of phonetic spelling, which some have 
 lately been zealously advocating among us. I 
 need hardly tell you the principle of this is that 
 all words should be spelt according as they are 
 sounded, that the writing should be, in every case, 
 subordinated to the speaking.* The tacit assump- 
 tion that it ought so to be, which is everywhere 
 taken for granted, and not proved, is the per- 
 vading error running through the whole system. 
 There is no necessity whatever that it should ; 
 
 * I do not know whether the advocates of phonetic 
 spelling have urged the authority and practice of Augustus 
 as being in their favour. Suetonius, among other amusing 
 gossip about this Emperor, records of him : " Videtur 
 eorum sequi opinionem, qui perinde scribendum ac 
 loquamur, existiment " (Octavius c. 88). 
 
220 The Schoolmaster's Use of Words 
 
 every word, on the contrary, has two existences, 
 as a spoken word and a written ; and you have 
 no right to sacrifice one of these, or even to sub- 
 ordinate it wholly, to the other. A word exists, 
 as truly for the eye as for the ear, and in an highly 
 advanced state of society, where reading is almost 
 as universal as speaking, as much perhaps for the 
 first as for the last. That in the written word 
 moreover is the permanence and continuity of 
 language and of learning, and that the connexion 
 is most intimate of a true orthography with all 
 this, is affirmed in our words ' letters,' ' literature,' 
 ' unlettered,' even as in other languages by words 
 exactly corresponding to these.* 
 
 The gains consequent on the introduction of 
 such a change as is proposed would be insignifi- 
 cantly small, while the losses would be enor- 
 mously great. The gains would be the saving 
 of a certain amount of labour in the learning 
 to spell ; an amount of labour, however, ab- 
 surdly exaggerated by the promoters of the 
 scheme. But even these gains would not long 
 remain, seeing that pronunciation is itself con- 
 tinually altering ; custom is lord here for better 
 and for worse ; and a multitude of words are 
 now pronounced in a different manner from 
 that of an hundred years ago, so that, ere very 
 long, there would again be a chasm between 
 the spelling and pronunciation of words ; unless 
 indeed the former were to vary, as I do not see 
 well how it could consistently refuse to do, with 
 each variation of the latter, reproducing each 
 
 * As ypdwaTa, dypdp/jMTto, littera, belles-lettres. 
 
The Schoolmaster's Use of Words 221 
 
 one of its capricious or baibarous alterations ; 
 which thus, it must be remembered, would be 
 changes not in the pronunciation only, but in 
 the word itself, for the word would only exist as 
 a pronounced word, the written being a mere 
 shadow of this. When these had multiplied a 
 little, and they would indeed multiply exceed- 
 ingly, so soon as the barrier against them which 
 now exists was removed, what the language would 
 ere long become, it is not easy to guess. 
 
 This fact, however, though alone sufficient to 
 show how little the scheme of phonetic spelling 
 would remove even those inconveniences which 
 it proposes to remedy, is only the smallest objec- 
 tion to it. The far deeper and more serious one 
 is, that in innumerable instances it would ob- 
 literate altogether those clear marks of birth and 
 parentage, which, if not all, yet so many of our 
 words bear now upon their very fronts, or are 
 ready, upon a very slight interrogation, to declare 
 to us. Words have now an ancestry ; and the 
 ancestry of words, as of men, is often a very noble 
 part of them, making them capable of great 
 things, because those from whom they are de- 
 scended have done great things before them ; 
 but this would deface their 'scutcheon, and bring 
 them all to the same ignoble level. Words are 
 now a nation, grouped into tribes and families, 
 some smaller, some larger ; this change would 
 go far to reduce them to a promiscuous and bar- 
 barous horde. Now they are often translucent 
 with their inner thought, as an alabaster vase is 
 lighted up by a lamp placed within it ; in how 
 many cases would this inner light be then quenched. 
 
222 The Schoolmaster's Use of Words 
 
 They have now a body and a soul, and the soul 
 looking through the body ; oftentimes then nothing 
 but the body, not seldom nothing but the carcass, 
 of the word would remain. Both these objections 
 were urged long ago by Bacon, who characterizes 
 this so-called reformation, " that writing should 
 be consonant to speaking," as " a branch of un- 
 profitable subtlety " ; and especially urges that 
 thereby "the derivation of words, especially from 
 foreign languages, are utterly defaced and extin- 
 guished." 
 
 From the results of various approximations to 
 phonetic spelling, which at different times have 
 been made, and the losses which have thereon 
 ensued, we may guess what the loss would be 
 were the system fully carried out. Of those 
 sufficiently acquainted with Latin, it would be 
 curious to know how many have seen ' silva ' in 
 ' savage/ since it has been so written, and not 
 ' salvage,' as of old ? or have been reminded of 
 the hindrances to a civilized and human society 
 which the indomitable forest, more perhaps than 
 any other obstacle, presents. When ' fancy ' 
 was spelt ' phant'sy,' as by Sylvester in his trans- 
 lation of Du Bartas, and by the other scholarly 
 writers of the seventeenth century, no one could 
 then doubt of its connexion, or rather its original 
 identity, with ' phantasy,' as no Greek scholar 
 could miss its relation with ^avraala* Spell 
 ' analyse ' as I have sometimes seen it, and as 
 phonetically it ought to be, ' analize,' and the 
 
 * [But even the writer would hardly desire to see 
 4 frenzy ' and ' frantic ' brought back to phrenesy and 
 phrenetic.] 
 
The Schoolmaster's Use of Words 223 
 
 tap-root of the word is cut. What number of 
 readers will recognize in it then the image of dis- 
 solving and resolving aught into its elements and 
 use it with a more or less conscious reference to 
 this ? It may be urged that few do so even now 
 among those who employ the word. The more 
 need they should not be fewer ; for these few do 
 in fact retain the word in its place, prevent it from 
 gradually drifting out of that place ; they pre- 
 serve its vitality, and the propriety of its use, not 
 merely for themselves, but also for the others 
 that have not this knowledge. In phonetic spell- 
 ing is, in brief, the proposal that the educated 
 should of free choice place themselves in the con- 
 ditions and under the disadvantages of the ignorant 
 and uneducated, instead of seeking to elevate 
 these last to their own more favoured condition.* 
 Even now the relationships of words, so im- 
 
 * The same attempt to introduce phonography has 
 been several times made, once in the sixteenth century, 
 and again some twenty years ago, in France. Let us 
 see by one or two examples what would be the results 
 there. Here is the word ' temps ' ; from which the 
 phonographers eject the p as superfluous. What is the 
 consequence ? At once its visible connexion with the 
 Latin ' tempus,' with the Spanish ' tiempo,' with the 
 Italian ' tempo.' with its own ' temporel ' and ' tem- 
 poraire,' is broken, and for many effaced. Or again, 
 here are ' poids,' a weight, ' poix/ pitch, ' pois,' peas. 
 I do not suppose the Frenchman who spoke his own 
 language the best could mark in pronunciation the dis- 
 tinction between these ; and thus to the ear there may 
 be confusion between them, but to the eye there is none ; 
 not to say that the d in ' poic/s ' puts it for us at once 
 in relation with ' pomius,' the x in ' poi* ' with ' pi*,' 
 the s in ' pois ' with the low Latin ' pisum.' In each 
 case the letter which these reformers of orthography 
 would dismiss as useless, and worse than useless contains 
 the secret of, the word, 
 
224 The Schoolmaster's Use of Words 
 
 portant for our right understanding of them, arc 
 continually overlooked ; a very little matter 
 serving to conceal from us the family to which 
 they pertain. Thus, how many of our nouns 
 substantive and adjective are indeed unsuspected 
 participles, or are otherwise most closely con- 
 nected with verbs, with which notwithstanding, 
 until some one points out the fact to us, we prob- 
 ably never think of putting them in any relation. 
 And yet with how lively an interest shall we dis- 
 cover words to be of closest kin, which we had 
 never considered till now but as entire strangers 
 to one another ; what a real increase will it be 
 in our acquaintance with, and mastery of, Eng- 
 lish to become aware of such relationship. Thus 
 'heaven' is only the perfect of ' to heave,' and 
 is so called because it is ' heaved ' or ' heaven ' 
 up,* being properly the sky as it is raised aloft ; 
 while the ' earth ' is that which is ' eared ' or 
 ploughed ; f the ' smith ' has his name from the 
 sturdy blows that he ' smites ' upon the anvil ; J 
 ' wrong ' is the perfect participle of ' to wring,' 
 that which one has ' wrung ' or wrested from the 
 
 * (iThis is Verstegan's suggestion, which is now generally 
 rejected. The Old Eng. he fen, heofon is probably to be 
 connected with Goth, himins, meaning originally the 
 ' vault ' of the sky, or a ' covering,' or ' brightness ' 
 (Kluge and Lutz).] 
 
 t [Dr. Murray doubts if there is any relationship 
 between ' earth ' and ' ear ' to plough (N.E.D.), as 
 does Curtius also. But Kluge and M. Miiller think it 
 possible.] 
 
 I [This account of the word is no longer tenable. 
 ' Smith ' is not he that ' smiteth ' (nor yet he that 
 ' smootheth,' as once supposed), but a ' worker,' a 
 ' forger,' Gothic smi-tha (Icel. smidhr), from the root 
 smi, to work in metal (Kluge, s.v., Schmied).] 
 
The Schoolmaster'' s Use of Words 225 
 
 right ; just as in French ' tort,' from ' torqueo,' 
 is that which is twisted ; ' guilt ' of ' to guile ' or 
 ' beguile ' ; to find ' guilt ' in a man is to find that 
 he has been ' beguiled,' * that is, by the devil, 
 ' instigante diabolo,' as it is inserted in all indict- 
 ments for murder, the forms of which come down 
 to us from a time when men were not ashamed 
 of tracing evil to his inspiration. The ' brunt ' 
 of the battle is the ' heat ' of the battle, where it 
 ' burns ' the most fiercely.! ' Haft,' as of a 
 knife, is properly only the participle perfect of 
 ' to have,' that whereby you ' have ' or hold it.{ 
 Or take two or three nouns adjective ; ' strong ' 
 is the participle past of ' to string ; ' a ' strong ' 
 man means no more than one whose sinews are 
 firmly ' strung. ' The ' left ' hand, as distin- 
 guished from the right, is the hand which we 
 ' leave ' ; inasmuch as for twenty times we use 
 the right hand, we do not once employ it ; and it 
 
 * [It is now established that ' guilt ' has nothing to 
 do with ' guile.' It may be a derivative of A. Sax. 
 gildan, to pay (a penalty), like A. Sax. scyld, guilt, from 
 sculan, to owe. The ideas of debt and guilt are often 
 associated. Dr. Murray thinks its origin is unknown.] 
 
 t [Dr. Murray holds the origin of ' brunt ' to be un- 
 known, but the primitive meaning seems to have been 
 a sharp blow or shock (N.E.D.). Skeat admits the 
 connexion with ' burn.' But see a note on ' Bronte ' 
 in H. H. S. Croft, Ely of s Gouvernour, ii. 463.] 
 
 J [A. Sax. haft, ' that which is seized,' a handle ; 
 compare Icel. haftr (=Lat. captus), 'one seized,' a 
 prisoner (Skeat), also Lat. capulus, a handle or hilt (but 
 not ' hilt ' as if from ' hold.')] 
 
 [' Strong ' is not identical with ' strung,' though 
 no doubt akin to it. Its congeners Dut. and Ger. streng, 
 Icel. strangr, and perhaps Gk. (777x17765 (stranggos) point 
 to a radical meaning, tightly-twisted, tense, and so well- 
 knit, muscular.] 
 
 S.W. Q 
 
226 The Schoolmaster^ 's Use of Words 
 
 obtains its name from being ' left ' unused so 
 often.* 
 
 This exercise of putting words in their true 
 relation and connexion with one another might 
 be carried much further. We might take whole 
 groups of words, which seem to us at first sight 
 to acknowledge hardly any kinship, if indeed any, 
 with one another, and yet with no great difficulty 
 show that they had a common parentage and 
 descent. For instance, here are ' shire,' ' shore,' 
 ' share,' ' shears ' ; ' shred/ ' sherd ' ; they all are 
 derived from one Anglo-Saxon word, which signifies 
 to separate or divide, and still exists with us 
 in the shape of ' to sheer,' which made once the 
 three perfects, ' shore,' ' share,' ' shered.' ' Shire ' 
 is a district in England, as it is separated from 
 the rest ; a ' share ' is a portion of anything thus 
 divided off ; ' shears ' are instruments effecting 
 this process of separation ; the ' shore ' is the 
 place where the continuity of the land is inter- 
 rupted or separated by the sea ; a ' shred ' is 
 that which is ' shered ' or shorn from the main 
 piece; a 'sherd,' as a pot-' sherd ' (also 'pot- 
 share,' Spenser), that which is broken off and 
 thus divided from the vessel ; and these which I 
 have adduced by no means exhaust this group 
 or family of words, though it would take more 
 time than I can spare to put some other words 
 in relation with it. 
 
 * [The ' left ' hand is not etymologically, as suggested, 
 the one " left " unused, although that indeed is probably 
 its root meaning. It is the old Eng. left, lyft, Uf, which 
 means weak, worthless, and so unserviceable, cognate 
 with Frisian luf, the same. See N.E.D.l 
 
The Schoolmaster's Use of Words 227 
 
 But this analysing of groups of words for the 
 detecting of the bond of relationship between them, 
 and the one root out of which they all grow, is 
 a process which may require more etymological 
 knowledge than you possess, and more helps from 
 books than you can always expect to command. 
 There is another process, and one which may prove 
 no less useful to yourselves and to others, which 
 will lie more certainly within your reach. It will 
 often happen that you will meet in books, 
 sometimes in the same book, and perhaps in the 
 same page of this book, a word used in senses 
 so far apart from one another, that it will seem to 
 you at first sight almost absurd to assume as 
 possible that there can be any bond of connexion 
 between them. Now when you do thus fall in with 
 a word employed in these two or more senses 
 seemingly far removed from one another, accus- 
 tom yourselves to seek out the bond which there 
 certainly is between these its several uses. This 
 tracing of that which is common to and connects all 
 its meanings can of course only be done by getting 
 to its heart, to the seminal meaning, from which, 
 as from a fruitful seed, all the others unfold them- 
 selves ; to the first link in the chain, from which 
 every later one, in a direct line or a lateral, depends. 
 And we may proceed in this investigation, certain 
 that we shall find such, or at least that such there 
 is to be found. For this we may start with, as 
 being lifted above all doubt (and the non-recog- 
 nition of it is one great fault in Johnson's 
 Dictionary), that a word has originally but one 
 meaning, and that all the others, however widely 
 they may diverge from one another and seem 
 
228 The Schoolmaster's Use of Words 
 
 to recede from this one, may yet be affiliated upon 
 it, may be brought back to the one central mean- 
 ing, which grasps and knits them all together ; 
 just as the races of men, black, white, and red, 
 despite of all their present diversity and dispersion, 
 have a central point of unity in that one pair from 
 whom they all have descended. 
 
 Let me illustrate what I mean by two or three 
 familiar examples. Here is the word ' post ' ; how 
 various are the senses in which it is employed ; 
 ' post '-office ; ' post '-haste ; a ' post '-standing in 
 the ground ; a military ' post ' ; an official ' post ' ; 
 1 to post ' a ledger. Might one not at first presume 
 it impossible to bring all these uses of ' post ' to a 
 common centre ? Yet indeed when once on the 
 right track, nothing is easier : ' post ' is the Latin 
 ' positus,' that which is placed ; the piece of timber 
 is ' placed ' in the ground, and so a ' post ' ; a 
 military station is a 'post,' for a man is 'placed' 
 in it, and must not quit it without orders ; to 
 travel ' post,' is to have certain relays of horses 
 ' placed ' at intervals, that so no delay on the road 
 may occur ; the ' post '-office is that which avails 
 itself of this mode of communication ; to ' post ' 
 a ledger is to ' place ' or register its several items. 
 
 Or take the word ' stock ' ; in what an almost 
 infinite number of senses it is employed ; we have 
 live ' stock,' ' stock ' in trade, the village ' stocks,' 
 the ' stock ' of a gun, the ' stock '-dove, the 
 ' stocks ' on which ships are built, the ' stock ' 
 which goes round the neck, the family ' stock,' 
 the ' stocks,' or public funds, in which money is 
 invested, and other ' stocks ' very likely besides 
 these. What point in common can we find be- 
 
The Schoolmaster's Use of Words 229 
 
 tween them all ? This, that they are all derived 
 from, and were originally the past participle of 
 ' to stick,' which as it now makes ' stuck,' made 
 formerly ' stock ' ; and they cohere in the idea of 
 fixedness, which is common to every one. Thus, 
 the ' stock ' of a gun is that in which the barrel 
 is fixed ; the village ' stocks ' are those in which 
 the feet are fastened ; the ' stock ' in trade is the 
 fixed capital ; and so too, the ' stock ' on the farm, 
 although the fixed capital has there taken the 
 shape of horses and cattle ; in the ' stocks ' or 
 public funds, money sticks fast, inasmuch as those 
 who place it there cannot withdraw or demand the 
 capital, but receive only the interest ; the ' stock ' 
 of a tree is fast set in the ground ; and from this 
 use of the word it is transferred to a family ; the 
 ' stock ' or ' stirps ' is that from which it grows, and 
 out of which it unfolds itself. And here we may 
 bring in the ' stock '-dove, as being the ' stock ' or 
 stirps of the domestic kinds. I might group with 
 these, ' stake ' in both its spellings ; a ' stake ' in 
 the hedge is stuck and fixed there ; the ' stakes ' 
 which men wager against the issue of a race are 
 paid down, and thus fixed or deposited to answer 
 the event ; a beef-' steak ' is a piece of meat so 
 small that it can be stuck on the point of a fork ; 
 with much more of the same kind. 
 
 How often does the word ' quick ' in the Creed 
 perplex children ; and even after they have learned 
 that " the quick and the dead " mean the living 
 and the dead, they know it only on trust ; for they 
 fail to put this ' quick ' in any connexion with the 
 ' quick ' of their own vocabulary, the ' quick ' with 
 which one bids another to throw up the ball, or the 
 
230 The Schoolmaster's Use of Words 
 
 ' quick '-set hedge which runs round their father's 
 garden, or the ' quick ' parts for which some unwise 
 person has praised one of them at school : yet that 
 all these are one and the same ' quick ' it is of 
 course very easy to show. Life is the fundamental 
 idea of the word, and in this its primary sense it 
 is used in the Creed, " the quick and the dead " : 
 so too the ' quick '-set hedge is properly the living 
 fence as contrasted with that made of dead tim- 
 bers. But motion as it is at once of the essence, 
 so it is also one of the most obvious signs of life ; 
 as the absence of motion is of death, a ' still-born ' 
 child is a child born dead ; and thus ' quick ' in a 
 secondary sense was applied to all which was rapid 
 or prompt in its motions, whether bodily or men- 
 tal ; thus a ' quick ' runner, a boy of ' quick ' parts ; 
 and so too ' quick '-silver, and ' quick,' or fast- 
 shifting, sands.* The same sense of the connexion 
 between life and motion has given us our second- 
 ary use of ' animated ' and ' lively.' 
 
 Sometimes a slightly different spelling comes 
 in aid of an enormous divergence of meaning, to 
 disguise the fact of two words having originally 
 rested on one and the same etymology, and really 
 being so closely related to one another, that we 
 may say, in fact, they are one and the same word. 
 I would instance as a notable example of this, 
 ' canon ' with a single n, as the ' canon ' of Scrip- 
 ture, and ' cannon,' or heavy artillery. Can there, 
 it may well be asked, be any point in common 
 
 * [' Fast-shifting ' is beside the mark. " Sailors 
 say that the sand is 'all alive ' (= quick), when it is 
 soft and quick, and ready to suck in anything that lodges 
 upon it " J. Gilmore, Storm Warriors, p. 87.]. 
 
The Schoolmaster's Use of Words 231 
 
 between them ? can they be resolved ultimately 
 into the same word ? I believe they can. The 
 word ' canon ' with the single n, which is a Greek 
 word, means properly ' rule ' ; first, the measuring 
 rule or line of the carpenter ; and then figuratively 
 any measure or rule by which we try other things ; 
 and in its crowning use, the Holy Scriptures, as 
 being regulative of life and doctrine in the Church. 
 But the carpenter's rule was commonly a reed 
 (canna), that being selected on account of its 
 straightness ; you may remember in Scripture 
 mention once or twice being made of the measur- 
 ing ' reed ' (Rev. xxi. 15, 16) ; and from this reed 
 or ' canna,' the rule or line (the ' canon ') had its 
 name, or at any rate the words are most closely 
 allied. A reed, however, as we all know, besides 
 being straight is also hollow, and thus it came to 
 pass when the hollow engines of war, our 
 modern artillery, were invented, and were feeling 
 about for their appropriate name, none was nearer 
 at hand than this which the reed supplied, and 
 they were called ' cannon ' too.* 
 
 When it is thus said that we can always reduce 
 the different meanings in which a word is employed 
 to some one point from which they all immediately 
 or mediately proceed, that no word has primarily 
 more than one meaning, it must be remembered 
 that it is quite possible there may be two words 
 pronounced and even spelt exactly alike, which yet 
 
 * In confirmation of this view of the derivation of 
 ' cannon/ and in proof that it lay very near to the 
 imagination of men to liken them to reeds, we have the 
 application of ' Rohr ' in German, which, at first signify- 
 ing a cane or reed, has in like manner been applied to 
 the barrel of a gun. 
 
232 The Schoolmaster's Use of Words 
 
 are wholly different in their derivation and primary 
 usage ; and that of course between these, homo- 
 nyms they are called, no bond of union on the 
 score of this identity is to be sought ; neither does 
 this fact in the least invalidate the assertion. We 
 have in such cases, as Cobbett has expressed it 
 well, the same combination of letters, but not the 
 same word. Thus we have ' page/ one side of a 
 leaf, from ' pagina,' and ' page,' a youthful attend- 
 ant, from quite another word ;* ' league,' a treaty t 
 from ' ligare,' to bind, and ' league,' a measure of 
 distance, thought to be a word of Gallic origin ; 
 we have ' host,' an army, from ' hostis,' and ' host,' 
 in the Roman Catholic sacrifice of the mass, from 
 ' hostia ' ; ' ear ' (auris), and ' ear ' (ahre) ; so too 
 ' riddle,' a sieve, which is the Latin ' reticulum,' a 
 small net-work, and ' riddle,' an enigma, from a 
 German source ; f the ' Mosaic ' law, derived from 
 the name of the inspired lawgiver of Israel, ' mo- 
 saic,' as ' mosaic work,' which is ' opus musivum,' 
 work graceful, as connected with the Muses ; with 
 other words, such as ' date,' ' mint,' ' pupil,' ' ounce,' 
 ' dole,' ' bull,' ' quire,' ' plain,' ' grain,' not a few. 
 In all these the identity is merely on the surface 
 
 * |j' Page/ probably from Low Lat. pagius, a country 
 lad, a servant, from pagus, a village. Thus it is virtually 
 the same word as peasan-t from Lat. pagensis, a villager. 
 Diez, Kluge and Lutz suggest a connexion with Greek 
 paidion, a little boy.] 
 
 f [Both are really native English words. ' Riddle,' 
 sieve, is another form of ' ridder,' common in the 
 Southern dialects (cf. " As sib'd as sieve and ridder." 
 Ray, Proverbs, 1678, p. 288), A. Sax. hridder, from hridian, 
 to sift. ' Riddle,' enigma, is a mistaken singular of 
 " a riddles," Old Eng. redels, A. Sax. r&delse, something 
 to be ' read ' or interpreted.] 
 
The Schoolmaster's Use of Words 233 
 
 and in sound, and it would of course be lost labour 
 to seek for a point of contact between meanings 
 which have not any closer connexion really than 
 apparently with one another. 
 
 Let me suggest some further exercises in this 
 region of words, which I will venture to promise 
 that you will find profitable as ministering to the 
 activity of your own minds, as helping to call out 
 a like activity in those of others. Do not, I would 
 say then once more, suffer words to pass you by, 
 which at once provoke and promise to reward in- 
 quiry, by the readiness with which they will evi- 
 dently yield up the secret of their birth or of their 
 use, if duly interrogated by us. Many we must 
 all be content to leave, which will defy all efforts 
 to dissipate the mystery which hangs over them, 
 but many also announce that their explanations 
 cannot be very far to seek. I would instance such 
 a word as ' candidate.' At a contested election how 
 familiar are the ears of all with this word, nor 
 is it strange to us at other times. Now does it 
 not argue an incurious spirit to be content that 
 this word should thus be given and received by us 
 an hundred times, and we never to ask ourselves, 
 What does it mean ? why is one seeking to be 
 elected to a seat in Parliament, or otherwise offer- 
 ing himself to the choice of his fellows, called a 
 ' candidate ' ? If the word lay evidently beyond 
 our horizon, we might acquiesce in our ignorance 
 here, as in such infinite other matters ; but resting, 
 as on its face it does, upon the Latin ' candidus,' 
 it challenges inquiry, and a very little of this would 
 at once put us in possession of the Roman custom 
 out of which the word grew, and to which it alludes 
 
234 The Schoolmaster's Use of Words 
 
 namely, that such as intended to offer them- 
 selves to the suffrages of the people for any of 
 the great offices of the State, presented them- 
 selves beforehand to them in a white toga, being 
 called therefore ' candidati,' with other interesting 
 particulars. And as it so happens that in the act 
 of seeking information on one subject we obtain it 
 upon another, so will it probably be here ; for in 
 making yourselves fully aware of what this custom 
 was, you will hardly fail to learn the original 
 meaning of ' ambition,' and from whence we have 
 obtained the word. 
 
 Or again, any one who knows so much as that 
 ' verbum ' means a ' word,' might well be struck by 
 the fact, (and if he followed it up would be led far 
 into the relation of the parts of speech to one 
 another), that grammarians do not employ it, as 
 one might have expected, to signify any word 
 whatsoever, but restrict it to the verb alone ; 
 ' verbum ' is the verb. Surely here is matter for 
 thought. Why does the verb monopolize the 
 dignity of being ' the word ' ? what is there in it 
 which gives it the right so to do ? Is it because 
 the verb is the animating power, the vital principle 
 of every sentence, and that without which, under- 
 stood or uttered, no sentence can exist ? or is 
 there any other cause ? I leave this to your own 
 consideration. 
 
 Again, here is ' conscience,' a solemn word, if 
 there be such in the world. There is not one of 
 us whose Latin will not bring him so far as to tell 
 him that this is from ' con ' and ' scio.' But what 
 does that ' con ' intend ? ' Conscience ' is not 
 merely that whicl 1 1 know, but that which I know 
 
The Schoolmaster's Use of Words 235 
 
 with some other ; for this prefix cannot, as I think, 
 be esteemed superfluous, or taken to imply merely 
 that which I know with or to myself. That other 
 knower whom the word implies is God, who makes 
 his law and his presence felt and acknowledged in 
 the heart ; and the work of ' conscience ' is to bring 
 each of our acts as a lesser, to be tried and measured 
 by this law and this presence as a greater, our 
 thought? as the result of a comparison with this 
 standard " accusing or excusing one another."* 
 The word in fact grows out of and declares that 
 awful duplicity of our moral being which arises 
 from the presence of God in the soul. 
 
 Once more, you call certain books ' classics.' 
 You have indeed a double use of the word, for you 
 speak of Greek and Latin as the ' classical ' 
 languages, and the great writers in these as ' the 
 classics ' ; while at other times you hear of a 
 'classical' English style, or of English 'classics.' 
 Now ' classic ' is connected plainly, as we all per- 
 ceive, with ' classis.' What then does it mean 
 
 * Many ethical writers, as is well known, pass by the 
 ' con ' in their explanation of ' conscience,' finding 
 merely the expression of the certainty of the inner moral 
 conviction in the word ; for which view they may plead 
 the German ' Gewissen ' ; yet I cannot think but that 
 herein they err : " conscience," in the words of South, 
 " according to the very notation of it, importing a double 
 or joint knowledge ; to wit, one of a divine law or rule, 
 and the other of a man's own action ; and so is properly 
 the application of a general law to a particular instance 
 of practice " : and Vossius (De Theol. Gent. 3. 42) : "Est 
 enim conscientia syllogismus, cujus major est principium 
 practicum a conscientia suggesturn ; minor est bona 
 malave actio nostra ; conclusio autem actionem ad normam 
 istius principii collatam, aut probat, aut improbat ; ex 
 quo, pro conclusionis diversitate, vel tranquillitas animi 
 squitur, vel intranquillita* " 
 
236 The Schoolmaster's Use of Words 
 
 in itself, and how has it arrived at this double use ? 
 " The term is drawn from the political economy 
 of Rome. Such a man was rated as to his income 
 in the third class, such another in the fourth, and 
 so on ; but he who was in the highest was emphat- 
 ically said to be of the class, ' classicus ' a class 
 man, without adding the number, as in that case 
 superfluous ; while all others were infra classem. 
 Hence, by an obvious analogy, the best authors 
 were rated as ' classici,' or men of the highest class ; 
 just as in English we say ' men of rank ' absolutely, 
 for men who are in the highest ranks of the state." 
 The mental process by which this title, which 
 would apply rightly to the best authors in all 
 languages, came to be often confined to those only 
 in two, and those two to be claimed, to the seeming 
 exclusion of all others, as the classical languages, 
 is one of the most constantly recurring, and most 
 widely extended, making itself felt in all times and 
 in all regions of human life, and one to which I 
 would in passing just direct your attention, though 
 I cannot now do more. 
 
 But seek, I would further urge you, to attain 
 a consciousness of the multitude of words which 
 there are, that, however now used only in a 
 figurative sense, did yet originally rest on some 
 fact of the outward world, vividly presenting itself 
 to the imagination ; a fact which the word has 
 incorporated for ever, having become the inde- 
 structible vesture of a thought. If I may judge 
 from my own experience, there are few intelligent 
 boys in your schools who would not feel that they 
 had gotten something, when you had shown them 
 that to ' insult ' means properly to leap as on the 
 
The Schoolmaster's Use of Words 237 
 
 prostrate body of a foe ; ' to affront,' to strike him 
 on the face ; that ' to succour ' means by running 
 to place oneself under one that is falling, and thus 
 support and sustain him ; ' to relent,' (connected 
 with ' lentus,' not ' lenis,') to slacken the swift- 
 ness of one's pursuit ; * ' to reprehend,' to lay hold 
 of one with the intention of forcibly pulling him 
 back from the way of his error ; that ' to be ex- 
 amined ' means to be weighed. They would be 
 pleased to learn that a man is called ' supercilious,' 
 because haughtiness with contempt of others ex- 
 presses itself by the raising of the eyebrows or 
 ' supercilium ' ; that ' subtle ' (subtilis for sub- 
 texilis) is literally ' fine-spun ' ; that ' astonished ' 
 (attonitus) is properly thunderstruck ; that ' im- 
 becile,' which we use for weak, and now always 
 for weak in intellect, means strictly, (unless 
 indeed we must renounce this etymology,) leaning 
 upon a staff, (in bacillo,) as one aged or infirm 
 might do ; t that ' chaste ' is properly white, 
 1 castus ' being a participle of ' candeo,' as is now 
 generally allowed ; J that ' sincere ' may be, I will 
 not say that it is, without wax, (sine cera,) as the 
 best and finest honey should be ; that a ' com- 
 
 * " But nothing might relent his hasty flight." SPENSER. 
 
 t fLat. im-becillus, a difficult word, may be distantly 
 akin to bacillum and bac-ulu-m, a ' walking stick,' 
 Greek bak-tron, from the root bak (=ba, Sk. gd), to go, 
 and so mean " not able to go " or ' walk.'] 
 
 J {[Hardly so now. Curtius connects cas-tu-s (for 
 cad-tu-s) with Greek kath-aro-s, pure, Sansk. Cudh, but 
 separates it from candeo. Greek Etymology, i. '169.] 
 
 [Fran9ois de Sales being asked the meaning of the 
 word ' sincire,' " Cela rnesme, respondit-il, que le mot 
 sonne, c'est & dire, sans tire " (L'Esprit du Fr. De Sales, 
 ed. 1840, ii. 73. It has all the appearance of a ' folk- 
 etymology.'] 
 
238 The Schoolmaster's Use of Words 
 
 panion ' is one with whom we share our bread, 
 a messmate ; that a ' sarcasm ' is properly such a 
 lash inflicted by ' the scourge of the tongue ' as 
 brings away the flesh after it ; with much more in 
 the same kind. 
 
 ' Trivial,' again, is a word borrowed from the 
 life. Mark three or four persons standing idly at 
 the point where one street bisects at right angles 
 another, and discussing there the worthless gossip, 
 the idle nothings of the day ; there you have the 
 living explanation of ' trivial/ ' trivialities,' such 
 as no explanation which did not thus root itself in 
 the etymology would ever give you, or enable you 
 to give to others. For you have there the ' tres 
 viae/ the ' trivium ' ; and ' trivialities ' properly 
 mean such talk as is holden by those idle loiterers 
 that gather at these meetings of three roads.* And 
 ' rivals ' by curious steps has attained its present 
 signification. ' Rivals/ in the primary sense of 
 the word, are those who dwell on the banks of the 
 same river. But since, as all experience shows, 
 
 * I have allowed this explanation, which found place 
 in earlier editions of this book, to stand ; yet at the same 
 time feel many misgivings whether ' trivial ' is not 
 from ' trivium ' in another sense ; that is, from the 
 1 trivium,' or three preparatory disciplines grammar, 
 arithmetic, and geometry as contrasted with the four 
 more advanced, or ' quadrivium,' which together were 
 esteemed in the Middle Ages to constitute a complete 
 liberal education. Preparatory schools were called often 
 " trivial schools," as occupying themselves with the 
 ' trivium.' 
 
 [The first explanation is the better one. Compare 
 Italian " triviale, triviall, common, of small estimation, 
 used or taught in high-waies." Florio, 1611. So the 
 trivial name of a plant is its road-side, vulgar or popular 
 name, and a " trivial saying " formerly meant a popular 
 saw, like Greek paroimia, a wayside saying, a proverb.] 
 
The Schoolmaster's Use of Words 239 
 
 there is no such fruitful source of contention as a 
 water-right, these occupants of the opposite banks 
 would be often at strife with one another in regard 
 of the periods during which they severally had a 
 right to the use of the stream, turning it off into 
 their own fields before the time or leaving open 
 the sluices beyond the time, or in other ways 
 interfering, or being counted to interfere, with the 
 rights of their opposite neighbours. And thus 
 ' rivals,' which was at first applied only to those 
 dwellers on opposite banks of a river, came after- 
 wards to be used of any who were on any grounds 
 in more or less unfriendly competition with one 
 another.* 
 
 Or if your future pupils shall be your com- 
 panions in your walks, (as it always speaks well for 
 a teacher's influence that he is sought, not shunned, 
 by his pupils in play hours,) how much will there 
 be which you may profitably impart to them, sug- 
 gested by the names of common things which will 
 meet you there ; how much which you, if you 
 know, will love to tell, and they, I am sure, will 
 be well pleased to hear. Who would not care, for 
 instance, to learn names of our English birds ; 
 that the ' ospray,' one of our eagles, is properly the 
 ' ossifrage,' or bone-breaker, being named from its 
 strength and from the way in which it uses its 
 strength ; that the ' hawk,' if it be not the same 
 word with ' havoc,' (and it was called ' hafoc ' in 
 
 * [The contentions of rivales were regulated by a lex 
 rivalicia (Breal, Semantics, 127). Landor says, " Brooks 
 make even worse neighbours than octans do " (Works, 
 1876, v. QI). ' Esek ' or 'strife' was the name given 
 to a spring of water over which the herdsmen of Isaac 
 and of Gerar had a contention (Gen, xxvi. 20).] 
 
240 The Schoolmasters Use of Words 
 
 Anglo-Saxon,) has at least a common origin ; * its 
 very name announcing the ' havoc ' and destruction 
 which it makes among the smaller birds, just as in 
 the ' raven's ' name is expressed its greedy, or as 
 we say ' ravenous ' disposition ? f Or when they 
 are listening of an evening to the harsh shriekings 
 of the ' owl,' that the name of this dissonant 
 night-bird is in fact the past participle of ' to yell/ 
 (as in Latin, ' ulula,' the screech-owl, is from 
 ululare,') % and differs from ' howl ' in nothing 
 but its spelling, the diminutive ' howlet ' being in 
 fact as often spelt with an h as without it. Even 
 the little ' dabchick ' which so haunts our 
 waters here, diving and dipping when any one 
 approaches, it may be as well to know why it has 
 this name, that the first syllable would more 
 correctly be spelt with a p than a b, this ' dap ' being 
 the old perfect of ' to dip,' so that the name is no 
 idle unmeaning thing, but brings out the most 
 salient characteristics of the bird which bears it, 
 its swift diving and ' dipping ' under the water 
 at every apprehension of danger : just as in 
 
 * g' Hawk,' Old Eng. heafoc (properly ' the seizer,' 
 from the root haf, to seize, like ac-cip-itur and capus 
 from the root cap) is quite a distinct word from ' havoc." 
 Ang. Trench havok, old Fr. havot, the signal word for 
 pillage.] 
 
 f [The resemblance of ' raven ' to ' ravenous ' is 
 purely accidental, the one being the A. Sax. hr&fn, and 
 the other standing for ' ravinous,' derived from Fr. 
 ravener, Lat. rapinare, to plunder.] 
 
 J [This needs correction. ' Owl ' (A. Sax. ule) is not 
 the past partc. of ' yell,' but a word of imitative origin 
 like Ger. cule and uhu, Lat. ul-ul-a, the bird that cries 
 oo ! (Shakspere's to-whoo /) ; so Fr. hibou.] 
 
 [The older forms of the word are dap-chick, dop- 
 
 ick, and dip-chick.] 
 
The Schoolmaster's Use of Words 241 
 
 Latin a certain water-fowl is called ' mergus,' 
 from ' mergo/ On taking them into the corn-fields 
 you may point out how the ' cockle ' which springs 
 up only too luxuriantly in some of our Hampshire 
 furrows, acquires its name from that which often 
 it effectually does, namely from its ' choking ' or 
 strangling the good seed.* 
 
 By such teaching as this you may often im- 
 prove, and that without turning play-time into 
 lesson-time, the hours of relaxation and amuse- 
 ment. But I must not let that word ' relaxation/ 
 on which I have lighted as by chance, escape me. 
 It contains an important lesson for us all. How 
 can the bow be ' relaxed ' or slackened, (for this of 
 course is the image), which has not ever been 
 bent, whose string has never been drawn tight ? 
 Let us draw the bow of our mind tight by earnest 
 toil, and then we may look to have it from time to 
 time ' relaxed/ Having been attentive and 
 assiduous, then, but not otherwise, we may claim 
 ' relaxation ' and amusement. But ' attentive ' and 
 ' assiduous ' are themselves words which it is worth 
 our while to realize what they mean. He then is 
 ' assiduous/ who sits close to his work ; f he is 
 ' attentive/ who stretches out his neck that so he 
 may bring the organ of hearing nearer to the 
 speaker, and lose none of his words. And then 
 what a lesson the word ' diligence ' contains. How 
 
 * [The archbishop has been peculiarly unfortunate 
 on these pages. " Cockle," A. Sax. coccel, tares, cannot 
 be derived from " choke," Old Ens;, cheoke.} 
 
 t [Or as a careful nurse sits by the bedside of her patient. 
 
 A.ddison uses the word with happy propriety when he 
 
 describes a sitting hen as " assid-itous in her attendance " 
 
 on her eggs (Spectator, 1711, No. 120, p. 183, ed. Morley).] 
 
 S.W P 
 
242 The Schoolmaster's Use of Words 
 
 profitable it is for every one of us to be reminded, 
 as we are reminded when we make ourselves aware 
 of its derivation from ' diligo/ to love, that the 
 only secret of true industry in our work is love of 
 that work. And as there is a great truth wrapped 
 up in ' diligence/ what a lie, on the other hand, 
 lurks at the root of our present use of the word 
 1 indolence/ This is from ' in ' and ' doleo/ not 
 to grieve ; and ' indolence ' is thus a state in which 
 we have no grief or pain ; so that the word, em- 
 ployed as we now employ it, seems to affirm that 
 indulgence in sloth and ease is that which would 
 constitute for us the absence of all pain. Now it 
 may be quite true that ' pain ' and ' pains ' are 
 often nearly allied ; no one would wish to deny 
 this ; but yet these pains hand us over to true 
 pleasures ; while indolence is so far from yielding 
 what it is so forward to promise, and we with our 
 slothful self-indulgent hearts are so ready to ex- 
 pect, that Cowper spoke only truth, when, perhaps 
 purposing expressly to witness against the false- 
 hood of this word, he spoke of 
 
 Lives spent in indolence, and therefore sad, 
 
 not ' therefore glad,' as the word would promise. 
 
 Let me mention another method in which these 
 studies which I have been urging upon you, may 
 be turned to account in your future work. Doubt- 
 less you will ever seek to cherish in your scholars, 
 to keep lively in yourselves, that spirit and temper 
 which attach a special value and interest to all 
 relating to the land of our birth, that land which 
 the Providence of God has assigned as the sphere 
 of our life's work and of theirs. Our schools are 
 
The Schoolmaster's Use of Words 243 
 
 called ' national,' and if we would have them such 
 more than in name we must neglect nothing that 
 will assist us in fostering a national spirit in them. 
 I know not whether this is sufficiently considered 
 among us, yet certainly we cannot have Church 
 schools worthy the name, and least of all in Eng- 
 land, unless they are truly national as well. It is 
 the anti-national character of the Romish system, 
 though I do not in the least separate this from its 
 anti -scriptural, but rather regard the two as most 
 intimately cohering with one another, which mainly 
 revolts Englishmen ; as we have lately very plainly 
 seen ; and if their sense of this should ever grow 
 weak, their protest against that system would soon 
 lose nearly all of its energy and strength. Now 
 here, as everywhere else, knowledge must be the 
 food of love. Your pupils must know something 
 about England, if they are to love it ; they must 
 see some connexion of its past with its present, of 
 what it has been with what it now is, if they are to 
 feel that past as anything to them. 
 
 And as no impresses of the past upon the present 
 are so abiding, so none, when once attention has 
 been awakened to them, are so self-evident as those 
 which names preserve ; although, without this 
 calling of the attention to them, the most broad 
 and obvious of these foot-prints of time may very 
 probably continue to escape our observation to the 
 end of our lives. Leibnitz tells us, and one can 
 quite understand, the delight with which a great 
 German Emperor, Maximilian the First > dis- 
 covered that ' Habsburg/ the ancestral name of 
 his house, really had a meaning, one moreover full 
 of vigour and poetry. This he did, when he heard 
 
244 The Schoolmaster's Use of Words 
 
 it by accident on the lips of a Swiss peasant, no 
 longer cut short and thus disguised, but in its 
 original fulness, ' Habichtsburg,' or ' Hawk's- 
 Tower/ being no doubt the name of the castle 
 which was the cradle of his race. Of all the 
 thousands of Englishmen who are aware that the 
 Angles and Saxons established themselves in this 
 island, and that we are in the main descended 
 from them, it would be curious to know how 
 many have realized to themselves that this 
 ' England ' means ' Angle-land,' or that in the names 
 ' Essex/ ' Sussex,' and ' Middlesex/ we preserve 
 a record to this day of East Saxons, South Saxons, 
 and Middle Saxons, who occupied those several 
 portions of the land ; or that ' Norfolk ' and 
 ' Suffolk ' are two broad divisions of ' northern ' 
 and ' southern ' folk, into which the East Anglian 
 kingdom was divided. I cannot but believe that 
 these Angles and Saxons, about whom our pupils 
 may be reading, will be to them more like actual 
 men of flesh and blood, who indeed trod this same 
 soil which we are treading now, when we can thus 
 point to the traces surviving to the present day s 
 which they have left behind them, and which 
 England, as long as it is England, will retain. 
 
 And then as regards the Danes all of us who 
 are at all acquainted with the early history of our 
 land will be aware how much Danish blood there 
 is in the veins of Englishmen ; what large colonies 
 from Scandinavia, (for probably as many came 
 from Norway as from modern Denmark,) settled 
 in some parts of this island. If will be interesting 
 to show that the limits of this Danish settlement 
 and occupation may even now be confidently 
 
The Schoolmaster's Use of Words 245 
 
 traced by the frequent occurrence in all such dis- 
 tricts of the names of towns and villages ending in 
 ' bye,' which word signified in their language, 
 ' town,' as Netherby, Appleby, Derby. Thus, if you 
 examine closely a map of Lincolnshire, one of the 
 chief seats, as is well known, of Danish immigra- 
 tion, you will find that well-nigh a fourth part of 
 the towns and villages have this ending ; the whole 
 coast is indeed studded with them ; while here in 
 Hampshire it is utterly unknown.*. 
 
 Who that has seen London from one of its 
 bridges, with that magnificent forest of masts 
 stretching down the river, or that has only heard of 
 its commerce, but would learn with interest that 
 ' London,' according to the most probable etymo- 
 logy, is the name formed out of two Celtic words, 
 and means, " City of ships " ? f Such a prophecy 
 of the future greatness of the great commercial 
 capital of England and of the world lay from the 
 very first in the name which it bore ; not to say 
 that this name indicates that from earliest times, 
 before a Roman had set his foot upon the soil, the 
 wonderfully advantageous position of London for 
 commerce had been discovered and improved. 
 
 You are yourselves learning, or hereafter you 
 may be teaching others, the names and number 
 of the English counties or shires. What a dull 
 routine task for them and for you this maybe, task- 
 
 * [See G. S. Streatfield, Lincolnshire and the Danes 
 1884, where the whole subject is carefully discussed. 
 For names ending in ' by ' see pp. 13 seq.] 
 
 t [This account is rejected by I. Taylor, Names and 
 their Histories, 177. Another suggestion is that Lon-dur 
 meant " the marsh fort " (Sir H. Maxwell, Scot. Land- 
 Xames, p. 3).] 
 
246 The Schoolmaster's Use of Words 
 
 ing the memory,' but supplying no food for the 
 intellect, no points of attachment for any of its 
 higher powers to take hold of. And yet in these 
 two little words ' shire ' and ' county,' if you would 
 make them render up even a small part of their 
 treasure, what lessons of English history are con- 
 tained. One who knows the origin of these names, 
 and how we come to possess such a double nomen- 
 clature, looks far into the social condition of Eng- 
 land in that period when the rudimental germs of 
 all that has since made England glorious and great 
 were being laid, and by these words may excel- 
 lently show how the present links itself on with 
 the remotest past ; how of a land as of a person, 
 it may be truly said, " The child is father of the 
 man." ' Shire,' as I observed just now, is con- 
 nected with ' shear' ' share,' and is properly a 
 portion ' shered ' or ' shorn ' off. When a Saxon 
 king would create an earl, it did not lie in men's 
 thoughts, accustomed as then they were to deal 
 with realities, that such could be, as now it may, 
 a merely titular creation, or could exist without 
 territorial jurisdiction ; and a ' share ' or ' shire ' 
 was assigned him to govern, which also gave him 
 his title. But at the Conquest this Saxon officer 
 was displaced by a Norman, the ' earl ' by the 
 ' count,' this title of count/ borrowed from the 
 later Roman empire, meaning originally ' com- 
 panion,' (comes,) one who had the honour of 
 being closest companion to his leader ; and the 
 ' shire ' was now the ' county ' (comitatus), as 
 governed by this ' comes.' In that singular and 
 inexplicable fortune of words, which causes some to 
 disappear and die on.t onder the circumstances 
 
The Schoolmaster's Use of Words 247 
 
 apparently most favourable for life, others to hold 
 their ground when all seemed against them, 
 ' count ' has disappeared from the titles of English 
 nobility, while ' earl ' has recovered its place ; 
 although in evidence of the essential identity of 
 the two titles, or offices rather, the wife of the earl 
 is entitled a ' countess,' and in further memorial of 
 these great changes that so long ago came over our 
 land, the two names ' shire ' and ' county ' equally 
 survive as household, and in the main interchange- 
 able, words in our mouths. 
 
 Let us a little consider, in conclusion, how we 
 may usefully bring our etymologies and our other 
 notices of words to bear on the religious teaching 
 which we would impart in our schools. To do this 
 with much profit we must often deal with words as 
 the sovereign does with the gold and silver coin of 
 the realm. When this has been current long, and 
 by much use and often passing from man to man, 
 with perhaps occasional clipping in dishonest 
 hands, has quite lost the clear brightness, the well- 
 defined sharpness of outline, and a good part of the 
 weight and intrinsic value which it had when first 
 issued from the royal mint, it is the sovereign's 
 prerogative to recall it, and issue it anew, with 
 his image stamped on it afresh, bright and sharp, 
 weighty and full as at first. Now to a process such 
 as this the true mint-masters of language will often 
 submit the words which they use ; and something 
 of this kind we all of us may do. Where use and 
 custom have worn away the significance of words, 
 we too may recall and issue them afresh. And 
 this has been the case with how many ; for example, 
 
248 The Schoolmaster's Use of Words 
 
 with a word which will be often in your mouths 
 the ' lessons' of the day. What is ' lessons ' here 
 for most of us but a lazy synonym for the morning 
 and evening chapters appointed to be read in 
 church ? But realize the word ' lessons,' and what 
 the Church intended in calling these chapters by 
 this name ; namely, that they are to be the daily 
 instruction of her children.* Listen to them as 
 such ; address yourselves to their explanation in 
 the spirit of this word ; make your pupils regard 
 them in this light ; show them that, using this name 
 in regard of them, they affirm them to be such, to 
 be not in word only but in truth, daily ' lessons ' 
 for every one. 
 
 The ' Bible ' itself, with no irreverent use of 
 the word, it may yet be no more to us than the 
 sign by which we designate the written Word of 
 God. But if we ask ourselves what the word 
 means, and know that it means simply ' the Book,' 
 so that there was a time when ' bible ' in English 
 would be applied to any book, (in Chaucer it is so,) 
 then how much matter of thought and reflection is 
 
 * [It should be remembered, however, that ' lesson ' 
 originally and properly meant only a reading, being the 
 French lecon from Lat. lectio, a reading (whence lectionary, 
 a collection of readings), from which the secondary 
 meaning of an instruction was afterwards evolved. Sir 
 M. Monier-Williams makes the same confusion when he 
 says, " I sometimes wonder whether we rightly under- 
 stand the true meaning of the term ' LESSON ' applied 
 to each chapter of the Bible in the services of the Church 
 of England. ... I fear that top often we neglect to lay 
 to heart the lesson (Instruction) each chapter is in- 
 tended to convey." The Holy Bible and Sacred Books 
 of the East, p. 45. And so a correspondent of The 
 Guardian (June i, 1904, p. 930), " ' Lessons ' are very 
 often not lessons in any real sense of the word."] 
 
The Schoolmaster's Use of Words 249 
 
 here, and in this our present restriction of the word 
 to one book, to the exclusion of all others. So pre- 
 vailing, that is, has been the sense of Holy Scrip- 
 ture being the Book, the worthiest and best, that 
 one which explained all other books, standing up 
 in their midst, like Joseph's kingly sheaf, to 
 which all the other sheaves did obeisance that 
 this name of ' Bible ' or ' Book ' has come to be 
 restricted to it alone : just as ' Scripture ' means 
 no more than ' writing ' ; but this inspired Writing 
 has been felt to be so far above all other writings, 
 that this name also it has challenged as exclusively 
 its own. 
 
 You will present, I think, to your pupils the 
 Collects which they learn from Sunday to Sunday 
 under a more interesting aspect, when you have 
 taught them that they probably are so called 
 because they ' collect,' as into a focus, the teaching 
 of the Epistle and Gospel, gathering them up into 
 a single petition ;* and from this you may profitably 
 exercise them in tracing the bond of relation which 
 thus will be found ever to exist between the 
 Collect, and the Epistle and Gospel which follow 
 it. And I am sure there is much to be learned from 
 knowing that the ' surname,' as distinguished from 
 the Christian name, is the name over and above, 
 not the ' sire '-name, or name receive from the 
 father, but ' sur '-name (super nomen)f that while 
 there never was a time when every baptized man 
 had not a Christian name, inasmuch as his person- 
 
 * [The ecclesiastical collecta (or collectio) was a summing- 
 up of the subjects suggested by the rogatio or ' bidding,' 
 or in the capitula of the day. N.E.D.] 
 
 t [See further in A. S. P.. The Folk and their Word 
 lore, p. 183.] 
 
250 The Schoolmasters Use of Words 
 
 ality before God was recognized, yet the surname, 
 the name expressing a man's relation, not to the 
 kingdom of God, but to the worldly society in 
 which he lives, is only of a much later growth, an 
 addition to the other, as the word itself declares. 
 And what a lesson at once in the upgrowth of human 
 society, and in the contrast between it and the 
 heavenly society, might be appended to this ex- 
 planation. There was a period when only a few 
 had surnames, only a few, that is, had any signifi- 
 cance or importance in the order of things temporal ; 
 while the Christian name from the first was com- 
 mon to every man. Surely this may be brought 
 usefully to bear on your exposition of the first 
 words in the Catechism. 
 
 And then, further, in regard of the long Latin 
 words, which, with all our desire to use all plain- 
 ness of speech, we yet cannot do without, nor find 
 their adequate substitutes in the other parts of 
 our language, but which must remain the vehicles 
 of so much of the truth by which we live in 
 explaining these, make it, I would say, your rule 
 always to start, where you can, from the derivation, 
 and to return to that as often as you can. Thus 
 you have before you the word ' revelation.' How 
 great a matter, if you can attach some distinct 
 image to the word, and one to which your scholars, 
 as often as they hear the word, may mentally recur. 
 Nor is this impossible. God's revelation of Him- 
 self is the drawing back of the veil or curtain 
 which concealed Him from men ; not man finding 
 out God, but God declaring or discovering Him- 
 self to man ; all which lies plainly in the word. 
 Or you have the word ' absolution,' many will 
 
The Schoolmaster's Use of Words 251 
 
 know that it has something to do with the pardon 
 of sins ; but in how much more lively a way, to 
 say the least, will they know this, when they know 
 that * to absolve ' means ' to loosen from ' : God's 
 ' absolution ' of men is His releasing of them from 
 the bands of sin with which they were tied and 
 bound. Here every one will connect a distinct 
 image with the word, one that will always come 
 to his help when he would realize what its actual 
 meaning is. That which was done for Lazarus 
 naturally, the Lord saying in regard of him, " Loose 
 him, and let him go," the same is done spiritually for 
 us, when we receive the ' absolution ' of our sins. 
 Tell them that ' atonement ' means ' at-one- 
 ment ' the setting at one of those who were at 
 twain before, namely God and man, and they will 
 attach to the word a definite meaning, which per- 
 haps it no way else would have had for them ; 
 and from this you may muster the passages in 
 Scripture which describe the sinner's state as one 
 of separation, estrangement, alienation, from God, 
 the Christian's state as one in which he walks 
 together with God, because the two are agreed 
 and at one. Or you have the words ' to redeem,' 
 1 Redeemer,' ' redemption.' Do not lose your- 
 selves here in vague generalities, but fasten on the 
 central point of each of these words, that they 
 have reference to a ' buying,' and not merely a 
 buying, but a buying ' back ' ; and then put in 
 relation with the words so explained the whole 
 circle of Scriptures which rest on this image, all, 
 that is, which speak of sin as a slavery, of sinners 
 as servants and bondsmen of an alien lord, 
 Christ's blood as a ransom, of the condition of 
 
252 The Schoolmasters Use of Words 
 
 the Christian as that of one who has recovered his 
 liberty. 
 
 Many words more suggest themselves ; but only 
 one more I will bring forward ; and that one, 
 because we shall find in it a lesson more for our- 
 selves than for others, and it is with such an one I 
 would fain bring these lectures to a close. How 
 important, I would observe then, is the truth which 
 we express in the naming of our work in this 
 world our ' vocation/ or, which is the same finding 
 utterance in homelier Anglo-Saxon, our ' calling.' 
 What a calming, elevating, ennobling view of the 
 task which we find ourselves set in this world to 
 do, this word would give us, if we did but realize it 
 to the full. We did not come to our work by acci- 
 dent ; we did not choose it for ourselves ; but, under 
 much which may wear the appearance of accident 
 and self-choosing, came to it by God's leading and 
 appointment. What a help is this thought to 
 enable us to appreciate justly the dignity of our 
 work, though it were far humbler work, even in the 
 eyes of men, than that of any one of us present ! 
 What an assistance in calming unsettled thoughts 
 and desires, such as would make us wish to be 
 something else than that which we are ! What a 
 source of confidence, when we are tempted to lose 
 heart, and to doubt whether we shall be able to 
 carry through our work with any blessing or profit 
 to ourselves or to others ! It is our ' vocation/ 
 our ' calling ' ; and He who ' called ' us to it, will 
 fit us for it t and strengthen us in it. 
 
INDEX OF WORDS 
 
 
 PAGE 
 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Abbacinare . . 
 
 51 
 
 Bohemian 
 
 . . 123 
 
 Absolution . . 
 
 25 1 
 
 Bonhommie 
 
 . . 74 
 
 Affront 
 
 
 Boor 
 
 
 Albion 
 
 ' l^ 
 
 Brunt 
 
 . . 225 
 
 Allegiance . 
 
 . IQ7 
 
 Burke . 
 
 . . 163 
 
 Alligator 
 
 Jr/ 
 
 157 
 
 
 
 Alms . . . 
 
 . 169 
 
 Cagot . 
 
 . 171 
 
 Ambition 
 
 A vyv/ 
 
 234 
 
 Calamitas . 
 
 . . 125 
 
 America 
 
 . 122 
 
 Calculation 
 
 . . 127 
 
 Amethyst . . 
 
 1 2O 
 
 Calico . . 
 
 . .122 
 
 Analyse 
 
 i *y 
 . 222 
 
 Cambric . . 
 
 . I2O 
 
 Anglia 
 
 . 140 
 
 Camelopard 
 
 . . 40 
 
 Animosity 
 
 
 Camlet . . 
 
 . 122 
 
 
 
 Canada 
 
 . 172 
 
 Apocryphal 
 
 . 174 
 
 Candidate . 
 
 / 
 - 233 
 
 Arras .... 
 
 . 121 
 
 Candle . . . 
 
 130 
 
 Ascendency . . 
 
 . 129 
 
 Cannibal 
 
 173 
 
 Asia Minor 
 
 136 
 
 Cannon 
 
 . 230 
 
 Assassin 
 
 . 108 
 
 Canon 
 
 230 
 
 Assentation 
 
 65 
 
 Canonical . . 
 
 135 
 
 Assentator 
 
 . 64 
 
 Caprice 
 
 35 
 
 Assiduous 
 
 . 241 
 
 Capuchin . . 
 
 . . 119 
 
 Astonish 
 
 . 199 
 
 Carbunculus 
 
 . . 42 
 
 Athanasius 
 
 . 26 
 
 Cardinal 
 
 . . 109 
 
 Atonement . . 
 
 . 251 
 
 Carnival 
 
 i75 
 
 Attentive . . . 
 
 . 241 
 
 Castus . . 
 
 237 
 
 Authentic . . 
 
 . 196 
 
 Catchpole . . 
 
 , . 90 
 
 
 
 Catholic . . 
 
 135 
 
 Bacon 
 
 . 100 
 
 Caucus 
 
 
 Baldachin 
 
 . 120 
 
 Cerf volant . 
 
 . . 40 
 
 Basilisk 
 
 . 40 
 
 Chaste . . 
 
 237 
 
 Bayonet 
 
 . I2O 
 
 Cheat, cheater 
 
 . . 90 
 
 Beatitas, beatitude 
 
 153 
 
 Cherry . . 
 
 . 122 
 
 Bezant 
 
 . 121 
 
 Chrestus . . 
 
 . . 71 
 
 Bible .... 
 
 2x8 
 
 Christian . 
 
 
 Bigeren . 
 
 1 22 
 
 Christolotry 
 
 37 
 
 Bishop 
 
 . 109 
 
 Christus 
 
 . . 74 
 
 Blackbird . . 
 
 130 
 
 Church 
 
 . IOI 
 
 
 
 263 
 
 
Index of Words 
 
 PAGB 
 
 
 PAOB 
 
 Churl 53 
 
 Disastrous 
 
 T *%f\ 
 
 Cicerone .... 89 
 
 Discovery 
 
 201 
 
 Classical . , . .116 
 
 Discernment 
 
 209 
 
 Classics . . . .235 
 
 Discretion 
 
 209 
 
 Club 91 
 
 Distemper 
 
 128 
 
 Cockatrice . . .115 
 
 Dittany 
 
 169 
 
 Cockle .... 241 
 
 Diversion 
 
 
 Collect 249 
 
 Dragonnade 
 
 160 
 
 Companion . . .237 
 Conciliatrix . . .81 
 
 Dunce . . 
 
 no 
 
 
 
 Conscience . . . 234 
 Convertisseur . .160 
 
 Earth . 
 
 . 224 
 
 Eau de vie 
 
 . . 82 
 
 Convey 
 Cordwain 
 Cosmos 
 
 . . . 80 
 
 . 121 
 
 .137 
 
 Ecstasy 
 Educate . . 
 Electrum 
 
 . 198 
 . - 205 
 
 Count . 
 County 
 Crafty 
 Crape . 
 Cravat 
 
 . 246 
 ... 2 4 6 
 
 ... 54 
 
 . 121 
 . 122 
 
 Eleemosynary 
 England 
 Epiphanes 
 Episcopal . 
 Ermine 
 
 ! ! 169 
 . . 140 
 . . 25 
 . . 169 
 
 . 122 
 
 Crypt . 
 
 ... 215 
 
 Escheat 
 
 9O 
 
 Crystal 
 Curfew 
 Currant 
 Cyprian 
 
 . . . 114 
 . . . 126 
 . 121 
 ... 26 
 
 Esemplastic 
 Essay . 
 Etonner 
 Expend, expense 
 
 153 
 
 . . 166 
 . . 199 
 . . 127 
 
 Dabchick 
 
 . 240 
 
 
 
 Dactyle 
 Daft 
 
 . . . 44 
 73 
 
 Fancy . 
 Favor . 
 
 . 222 
 . . I6 S 
 
 Daisy 
 
 . . 38 
 
 Florida 
 
 . . 138 
 
 Damask 
 
 . 121 
 
 Fortunate 
 
 75 
 
 Damson 
 
 . 121 
 
 Frank 
 
 . 9, 107 
 
 Days of the week . 130 
 
 
 
 T)pft I Co 
 
 Gaunt . 
 
 2? 
 
 Delf 121 
 
 G6ne 
 
 84 
 
 Demure . 53 
 
 Germany . 
 
 - 135 
 
 D6nigreur . . 65 
 
 Gewissen . 
 
 235 
 
 T^ATi\7o tiriTi 2TO 
 
 Gloze . . 
 
 77 
 
 Desultory . . 35 
 
 Gnostic 
 
 . . 118 
 
 Desynonymize 184, 185 
 
 Godsacre . 
 
 . . 46 
 
 Diaper . . 121 
 
 Golden knop . 
 
 . . 41 
 
 Diffidence . .191 
 
 Gothic . . 
 
 . . US 
 
 Dilapidated . . 6 
 
 Guillotine 
 
 . . 161 
 
 Diligence . . 242 
 
 Guilt 
 
 . 225 
 
 Dimity . . . 121 
 
 Guinea 
 
 . 121 
 
 Dinde . , , 123 
 
 Gypsy . , 
 
 , . 123 
 
Index of Words 
 
 
 PAGB 
 
 
 PAGE 
 
 labsburg . . . 
 
 fa ft 
 
 243 
 
 22C 
 
 Karfunkel 
 Ketzer . 
 
 . . 42 
 
 . 171 
 
 [alcyon 
 
 . 41 
 
 Kickshaws 
 
 . . 170 
 
 Lands . . 
 
 
 Kind 
 
 
 [appiness 
 
 75 
 
 Kingfisher 
 
 . . 40 
 
 late . . . 
 
 19? 
 
 Knave 
 
 . . 52 
 
 lawk .... 
 
 . 240 
 
 
 
 leathen 
 
 . 104 
 
 Lady-bird 
 
 . . 40 
 
 r A 
 
 W A 
 
 Left 
 
 . 221; 
 
 leaven ... 
 lildebrand 
 
 24 
 
 League 
 
 . . 230 
 
 [onnetete . . 
 
 . 89 
 
 Lendemain 
 
 . 157 
 
 [uguenot 
 
 . 172 
 
 Leonine 
 
 . . 176 
 
 [umanitas 
 
 . 67 
 
 Leopard 
 
 . . 115 
 
 lumility 
 
 58 
 
 Lesson 
 
 . . 248 
 
 lumour, humorous 
 
 . 127 
 
 Letters . . 
 
 . 22O 
 
 
 
 Lewd . . . 
 
 
 
 
 125 
 
 Libertine 
 
 . . 6? 
 
 diot .... 
 
 85 
 
 Library 
 Lierre . . 
 
 . . 127 
 
 1 SS 
 
 dolatry 
 mbecile 
 mpatientia 
 mpotens . 
 
 . 144 
 237 
 153 
 . 67 
 
 Limbo . 
 Limner 
 Lingot . 
 Lollard . 
 
 . . 132 
 
 . . 126 
 . . 157 
 
 . 171 
 
 ncivisme . 
 ndigo .... 
 ndolence . 
 ndolentia . 
 neptus 
 nfluence . 
 nnocent 
 
 . 161 
 
 . 121 
 
 . 242 
 . 152 
 . 92 
 . I2 9 
 
 London 
 Long pig . . 
 Love-child 
 Loyalty 
 Lumber 
 Lunacy 
 Luscinia 
 
 . . 245 
 
 . . 79 
 . . 79 
 . . 197 
 . . 126 
 . . 132 
 . 42 
 
 nsult .... 
 
 
 
 
 nterfere 
 
 . 192 
 
 Lutheran . 
 
 . . 119 
 
 ntegrity . 
 nvention . 
 nvidentia . 
 nvidia 
 renaeus 
 
 . 62 
 . 202 
 152 
 . 152 
 . 25 
 
 Madeira . . 
 Magnet 
 Malapert 
 Malevolentia . 
 Mammet 
 
 37 
 
 . 120 
 159 
 . . 50 
 . 112 
 
 taly .... 
 
 US 
 
 Manes 
 
 . . 26 
 
 
 
 Manichaeus 
 
 . . 26 
 
 
 6<\ 
 
 Maudlin . . 
 
 . 54 
 
 
 
 Megrim . 
 
 . 169 
 
 ehovah 
 
 . 124 
 
 Mercurial . 
 
 y 
 
 . . 129 
 
 ournal 
 
 . 130 
 
 Mergus 
 
 . . 241 
 
 Sove .... 
 
 . 124 
 
 Methodist . . 
 
 119, 198 
 
 ovial .... 
 
 129 
 
 Metrophanes . 
 
 . . 26 
 
 utland 
 
 . 124 
 
 Minion 
 
 53 
 
256 
 
 Index of Words 
 
 
 PAGB 
 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Miscreant . 
 
 . 108 
 
 Phoebe . . . 
 
 
 Miser .... 
 
 62 
 
 Piaculum . 
 
 ! 62 
 
 Mob .... 
 
 162 
 
 Picts .... 
 
 . 124 
 
 Monk .... 
 
 U5 
 
 Plague .... 
 
 . 60 
 
 Mons Pileatus 
 
 43 
 
 Plantation 
 
 . 198 
 
 Morbidezza 
 
 . 89 
 
 Plausible . 
 
 55 
 
 Morea .... 
 
 36 
 
 Poids .... 
 
 . 223 
 
 Morimo 
 
 . 16 
 
 Pois .... 
 
 . 223 
 
 
 . 215 
 
 Poix .... 
 
 . 223 
 
 Mosaic .... 
 
 232 
 
 Post .... 
 
 228 
 
 Mulierositas 
 
 - 153 
 
 Prejudice, prejudicial 
 
 . 56 
 
 Muslin 
 
 . 122 
 
 Prude .... 
 
 7i 
 
 Natal .... 
 
 38 
 
 Quarantine 
 
 . 130 
 
 Naturalist . 
 
 . I 9 8 
 
 Quarrel . . . 
 
 87 
 
 Norman 
 
 136 
 
 Quick .... 
 
 . 229 
 
 Novelist 
 
 . 198 
 
 
 
 Noyade 
 
 . 161 
 
 Rapture 
 
 8 
 
 Nun .... 
 
 135 
 
 Rationalist 
 
 . 167 
 
 
 
 Raven 
 
 . 240 
 
 Oblige, obligation 
 
 . 69 
 
 Ravishment 
 
 8 
 
 Obsequium 
 
 . 165 
 
 Razzia . . . 
 
 . 161 
 
 Ospray .... 
 
 239 
 
 Redeemer 
 
 . 251 
 
 Owl .... 
 
 . 240 
 
 Reformation 
 
 . 117 
 
 
 
 Refugee 
 
 . 160 
 
 Pagan .... 
 
 . 103 
 
 Regeneration . 
 
 59 
 
 Page .... 
 Pain .... 
 
 . 232 
 . 60 
 
 Rejoice 
 Relaxation 
 
 . 86 
 
 . 241 
 
 Panic .... 
 
 . 132 
 
 Relent . . . 
 
 237 
 
 Panther . . . 
 
 . 214 
 
 Religion 
 
 8 
 
 Paper .... 
 
 . 127 
 
 Reprehend 
 
 237 
 
 Paradise 
 
 58 
 
 Resentment 
 
 55 
 
 Parchment 
 
 . 121 
 
 Retaliation 
 
 55 
 
 Passion 
 
 . 66 
 
 Retract 
 
 56 
 
 Pastime 
 
 . 6 
 
 Revelation 
 
 250 
 
 Pavo .... 
 
 . 214 
 
 Riddle . . . 
 
 . 232 
 
 
 . 189 
 
 Rivals . . . 
 
 . 238 
 
 Peace 
 
 . 86 
 
 Romantic . 
 
 . 116 
 
 Peach . . . 
 
 . 122 
 
 Rome .... 
 
 135 
 
 Peacock 
 
 . 214 
 
 Rose window . 
 
 45 
 
 Pelagius 
 
 . 26 
 
 Rossignol 
 
 . 42 
 
 Perfide . . . 
 
 . 8 4 
 
 Rou6 .... 
 
 1 60 
 
 Pert .... 
 
 159 
 
 Roundhead 
 
 I 7 I 
 
 Pfaffe .... 
 
 . 88 
 
 Rubric 
 
 . 130 
 
 Pheasant . . . 
 
 . 122 
 
 
 
 Philosopher 
 
 . 166 
 
 Sacrament . . 
 
 . 104 
 
Index of Wordi 
 
 257 
 
 p 
 Salvator .... 
 Sanders .... 
 Sarcasm .... 
 Sardonic .... 
 Sarsnet .... 
 Saturnine 
 Savage .... 
 Sbirri 
 
 1GB 
 
 145 
 4 
 38 
 129 
 118 
 129 
 
 222 
 8O 
 
 PAGE 
 
 SYNONYMS (continued) : 
 Arrogant, insolent, 
 presumptuous . 194 
 Astrology, astro- 
 nomy . . . .191 
 Authentic, genuine . 196 
 Charity, love . . 190 
 Cloke palliate . .190 
 
 Schadenfreude 
 Scripture .... 
 Self-sufficient . . 
 Selig .... 
 
 SI 
 
 249 
 
 87 
 
 1\ 
 
 Compulsion, obliga- 
 tion . . . .205 
 Congratulate, felici- 
 tate .... 200 
 
 Servator .... 
 Sham .... 
 
 145 
 162 
 
 122 
 
 Contrary, opposite . 204 
 Despair, diffidence . 191 
 Discover invent . 201 
 
 Shire 
 
 226 
 
 Education, instruc- 
 
 
 6 
 
 tion .... 205 
 
 Silly 
 
 73 
 
 Enthusiasm, fanati- 
 
 Simple .... 
 Sincere .... 
 Slave 
 
 72 
 
 37 
 10 
 
 cism . . . .186 
 Fancy, imagination 185 
 Illegible, unreadable 190 
 
 Smith 
 
 224 
 
 Interference, inter- 
 
 Sodalicium . . . 
 Soliloquium 
 Soul 
 Spaniel .... 
 Stellio .... 
 Stellionatus 
 Stephen .... 
 S terry 
 
 173 
 165 
 48 
 
 122 
 
 40 
 44 
 
 25 
 
 2"? 
 
 position . . .192 
 Nave, ship . . .190 
 Nay, no .... 193 
 Revenge, vengeance 187 
 Vindicta, ultio . .186 
 Yea, yes . . .193 
 
 Talent 68 
 
 Stipulation 
 
 T76 
 
 Tansy 169 
 
 Stock 
 
 228 
 
 Tawdry . . 54 
 
 Strong .... 
 Subtle 
 
 225 
 237 
 
 Temper . .128 
 Terremote . 1 89 
 
 Succinum .... 
 Suhnen .... 
 Sunde 
 Supercilious 
 Surname . 
 
 183 
 63 
 63 
 237 
 24.Q 
 
 Terrorism . . 159 
 Theocracy . .144 
 Thrall, thraldom . 126 
 Timeserver . .53 
 Tinsel 54 
 
 SYNONYMS * 
 
 
 Topaz 41 
 Tort 225 
 
 Abdicate desert 
 
 2O 7 
 
 Tory . H9 
 
 Abhor, detest, hate, 
 loath . 
 
 195 
 
 Tragedy . . . .176 
 Transubstantiation . 135 
 Trial 33 
 
 hend .... 
 S.W. 
 
 203 
 
 Tribulation . . .32 
 S 
 
Index of Words 
 
 
 PAGE 
 
 
 PAGB 
 
 Trinacria . . . 
 
 . 36 
 
 Verres . 
 
 
 Trinity 
 
 U5 
 
 Vigilantius 
 
 . . . 23 
 
 Triticum . . . 
 
 33 
 
 Villain 
 
 . . . 52 
 
 Trivial . . . . 
 
 238 
 
 Virtue . 
 
 60 
 
 Turkey 
 
 . 123 
 
 Virtuoso 
 
 . . . 88 
 
 Tyrant, tyranny . 
 
 . 136 
 
 Virtus 
 
 88 
 
 
 * * J V 
 
 Vocation . 
 
 . . . 252 
 
 Unitarian . 
 
 . 117 
 
 Voluble 
 
 ... 54 
 
 Universitas 
 Urbanus 
 Usignuolo . 
 
 . 107 
 . 165 
 43 
 
 Waldenses . 
 Whig . . 
 Whore 
 
 . . . 172 
 . . . 119 
 . . . 80 
 
 
 
 Wicked 
 
 . . . 129 
 
 Vallenses . . . 
 
 . 172 
 
 Worsted . 
 
 . 121 
 
 Vane 
 
 2 1 
 
 Wrong . 
 
 . 224 
 
 Varlet .... 
 
 . 52 
 
 
 
 Verb 
 
 . 34 
 
 Zigeuner 
 
 . 123 
 
 THB END 
 
 3uflr * Tanner, The Selwood Printing Works, Frome, and Londoa 
 
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