76 Rev. Mr Witiams on the Force of the prefix Ve or Ve 
Vesanus, parum sanus*, insane. There is no dispute, nor 
can any arise, concerning this word. 
Vescus and vesculus +, having little to eat, half-starved, not 
well grown. Had not there been two Latin words, both written 
at present vescus (of which vesculus is only the diminutive), ves- 
cus and vesculus might have been dismissed as briefly as vesanus. 
But as Geixivs has produced vescus as illustrative of his prin- 
ciple, that ve had an intensive as well as a privative force, we 
must examine his argument. After advancing the doctrine be- 
fore alluded to, he adds, “ for Lucretius calls the sea vescum 
(corrosive) in one sense; Luciirus uses vescum (nice or spare 
eating) in another sense {.” In this quotation A. Geiurvus has 
shown that ignorance of which every philological inquirer who 
does not examine into the sources of the language under exa- 
mination must often be convicted. sca must originally have 
had the digamma, as may be proved from its verb vescor, which 
has nothing intensive in its nature. “ Dii” (writes Privy) 
“ neque escis nec potionibus vescuntur.” It was consequently 
from its original and digammated form that the Lucretian adjec- 
* The different forms under which sanus presents itself are very extraordinary. 
Its oldest Greek form is the Homeric ess, which must have been a secondary form, 
as may be inferred from the Teutonic safé, verb save, which retains the digamma 
rejected by the Greek. wes is also ewes in Homer; and it is remarkable that this 
latter form, when used for mental saneness, kept its digammated sound, 2oQes. 
The Latins introduced a liquid before the v, as salvus, then dropped the digamma 
in the noun salus, from which, by substituting one liquid for another, they made a 
new adjective, sanus, and a new noun, sanitas. It is from the last adjective that 
the various forms of sain, sano, sound, gesund, sund, zond, in the French, Italian, 
English, German, Danish, and Dutch languages, have been derived. With salus 
and salvus are cognate hail, health, weal, wealth, with their innumerable offspring. 
+ Esca, from edo, supine esum. 
{ “ Aliter enim Lucretius vescwm salem dicit, ex edendi intentione : aliter 
Lucttius vescum appellat cum edendi fastidio.” 
