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"prune," a signification it stiU retains in the word •'am;>wmte," 

 properly " to cut round." 



Like our English "score," however, this word means not only to 

 ♦* cut," but to *' count." Thus computsire, computate is to count by 

 running up the '* scores," or " notches." Of this connexion between 

 counting and thinking, we have another example in the term " Ratio," 

 which means both " counting," and '* thinking," or *• reasoning." 



Now what do all these remarkable examples of the mode in which 

 the ideas of " dividing" and " seeing" are interfused, teach us, but that 

 the mental eye as well as the bodily, when it sees, must separate the 

 space before it into different parts, — that, as there can be no true sight 

 without division, so there can be no true knowledge without discri- 

 mination. 



As another instance of the manner in which the same ground truth 

 forms the substratum of terms expressing the same moral or mental 

 quality throughout many languages, I shall now consider for a few 

 minutes those pregnant words right and wrong, terms containing within 

 themselves inexhaustible mines of thought — terms, a realization of the 

 inmost meanings of which, cannot fail to impart to our moral conceptions 

 vividness and distinctiveness. 



First, however, I must state tliat liquids, especially the liquids 

 I and r, generally convey the idea of motion, and very often of motion 

 in an horizontal direction. Thus the root RI''^ or RE primarily signifies 

 flowing forward in a line. We have it in the terms for Rivers, f such as 

 river, nil, runneW, in the Spanish "no," J in the Latin "npa," the bank 

 running alongside of the river, — in the term rival, originally meaning a 

 person living by the bank of a river ; in the word '• denve," to trace as 

 a river to its source ; in the names of rivers such as Rhine, Rhone, 

 Endanus, Araxes, Eurotas ; in the Greek piut and the English •' rain." 

 All these however have the notion of moisture, as well as that of flowing, 

 just as we find the two ideas combined in the words luo, piwo, fZno, 

 belonging, I am inclined to suppose, to a cognate root, the interchange 

 between I and r being most common, as the modern Corunna was once 

 called Co^onna, and the Spanish for peruke is peZuca.§ 



♦We find the element "ri" in the Latin "rota," Ga;l. "roth," WeWi "rftod," and 

 Fr. "rone," all meaning " a wheel," in rAeda, roll, and many others. 



♦ The Persian word for a river is " rud " and the Aifghan "rod." Cump. Grk. Kpt\vr\. 



X Compare " Bio Janeiro," January River, "iZto de la Plata," Silver River, R. £ntre Rio«, 

 (or between the rivers,) Rialto, 4cc. 



% The liquids naturally glide into one another, as we may observe in the case or children who 

 often pronounce I for r. Compare th? French rossignole witli the I^atin /usciniula ; roar-is 

 with ma/e, g/i^o with creSio, pilgrim, and Span. "peAiriu," with peregrious, li/ium with 

 Xapiov, and the Span. " pa/a)>ra"- with the French " parole," peiigro and peril, oti/agro and 

 luiraculum, Sutpov and dole, men and mi/ieu. 

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