On Figurative Language. 99 
objects, yet by long use, lose that figurative 
power wholly, and come to be considered as 
simple or literal expressions.” 
These authors, however, do not seem to 
have been aware, that words, universally, 
except those originally appropriated to 
‘sensible objects, were sometime, and at 
some given point in the progress of language, 
figurative; that by common and exclusive 
application to certain objects, figurative words 
- become proper, and that they become again 
- liable to the same laws of figurative applica- 
tion to which words are liable in their origin- 
ally proper state. 
That this however is actually the case, may 
be further shewn by an appeal to the progress 
and state of those languages which are best 
known. We shall discover that a great pro- 
portion of every language consists of words, 
which, however they may be regarded now, 
were once metaphorical. Let us examine 
whatever author we please, in prose or verse, 
we shall not fail to be convinced of this fact. 
I shall here beg leave to introduce a few in- 
stances, merely by way of example. 
Spirit, signifying breath, or life, or spiritual 
existence, is only the word spiritus, wind, used - 
metaphorically. Its appropriation, however,, 
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