179 



the word heroism^ and many other words, such as Ares,* Mara, and 

 Hercules, the gods of heroes ; Ar-viin-iua and Herr-mann, meaning 

 hero-m<iw ; perhaps the Latin Herus,\ and the German Herr. 



With regard to the word Truth, Home Tooke, in a well-known 

 passage, denies that there is any such thing as immutable truth. 

 •• Truth,'' he tells us, " is what a man troweth ; " and by means of this 

 etymology, he strives to prove that truth is variable, I — a thing to be 

 measured by every man's "trowing." As "equity" is, (as Selden 

 says,) •' a thing to be measured by the conscience of the Lord Chan- 

 cellor, and varying as that is narrower or wider ;" so truth is, accx>rding 

 to Home Tooke, a kind of sliding-scsde, — a thread of quicksilver, 

 moving up or down, according as the climate of the moral man chances 

 to be hot or cold. 



It is curious to see this etymology thus made the basis of an attempt 

 to revive one of the sophistical doctrines of Protagoras, against which 

 Plato so long and stoutly contended in the Theaetetus and other of his 

 dialogues, namely, that all things are in a perpetual flux, — that " tmth " 

 is ♦' becoming," not " being," and that therefore the individual man is 

 the standard of truth. 



The word '* ought," as is well known, is the participle of owe, and it 

 is not a Httle significant that in most languages, the idea which under- 

 lies the words expressing duty, is that of something outing. We find it 

 so in the Greek u<psKeia, in the Latin deheo,% the French devoir, and 



* Connected with " Ares " and " Mars," we have mar, mar-is, maritus, marriage, and 

 perhaps the English term "baron." Dr. Pritchard connects the Erse '^ fear" with vir and 

 Fijpojg. The Saxon " wara," found in the old name of Canterbury, Cant-wara-byrig, " the 

 city of Rentibh men," is also allied to " vir," from which some derive virgo, though this 

 is more probably from the verb vir-ere, t. e. " vir-(i)-go, puella viridis setatis." Most of 

 the compounds of the Greek d'ppriv and the Latin " vir," involve the idea of nobleness, as 

 well as that of strength and manliness. 



-f Herus is, according to some, connected with the Greek Kvpiog, and perhaps our 

 English word "sir," as well as the German " Herr," is formed from it It is more likelj, 

 however, that "sir" is a contraction of Senior, as Mr. Carlyle observes, "the universal 

 title of respect, from the Oriental Scheik, from the Sachem of the red Indians, down to 

 our English Sir, implies only that he whom we mean to honour is our senior." 



♦ He goes so far as to assert that " two men may contradict each other, and each speak 

 the truth." Supposing, however, his etymology to be correct, and that " truth " is, the thing 

 " trowed," or known, surely it is not what any individual man thinks, but what man in 

 general knows. The word truth, however, is, according to the best, philologists, connected 

 with the Sanscrit " druwa," certain ; and the element " tru" is the same as that found in the 

 words " trusl," "troth," and Mid. Lat. "/reuga," all of which imply confidence rather than 

 knowledge. Much of Home Tooke's sophistry here is caused by his playing with words, 

 and falling into the common error of using them in one sense in the premiss and another 

 in the conclusion. 



S Facciolati's derivation of debere from de alio habere, is simply absurd, like that of 

 " daisy " from Sdiu, given in the Greek lexicons. 



