An Introduction to a Biology 



and lastly the drug supposed to drive away the 

 malady. We speak of and even believe in a cough 

 cure. So different a meaning has " cure " come 

 to have from that with which it began, that we 

 could say " better use cure in the old sense than 

 rely upon cure in the new." 



A word, the meaning of which is very active 

 at the present time, is the verb to " locate." It is 

 used in one sense in Britain, and in another sense 

 in America, where its evolution has been more rapid ; 

 but there are signs that the American meaning of 

 the word is spreading eastwards across the Atlantic. 

 To locate, in the British sense, is a transitive verb 

 with a very well-defined, particular meaning ; it is 

 the name for a purely subjective process, which 

 takes place in the mind — namely, the finding out 

 of the position of something that Nature or man 

 is trying to conceal from you.^ By saying that 

 it is a subjective process I mean that, though its 

 immediate object is external to the mind (such as 

 a short circuit in an electrical system, or a malig- 

 nant growth in the body), the next process is within 

 the mind — namely, the thinking out of some plan 

 of action to be taken when the trouble has been 

 successfully located. In America, however, the idea 

 denoted by the word " to locate " has, first, become 

 generalised and enlarged to mean simply " to find." 

 I was asked last July in St. Louis if I had located 

 a satisfactory natatorium in the town. But the 

 meaning of the word has gone much further than 

 this ; it has broken right away from its original 



^ " A useful seaplane reconnaissance located several encampments and 

 two permanent batteries." — Scotsman, March, 1915, re Dardanelles: 



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