THE PSYCHOLOGY OF LANGUAGE. 821 
fastidious literary circles of Rome every sound was pro- 
nounced with scrupulous care. In the camp the sounds that 
were the expression of refined feeling and thought were 
neglected, and gradually lost. In the mountain valleys, 
where the rustics gathered the word from the soldiers, 
further changes took place, owing to negligence or inability 
of ear or tongue, or because other sounds were more con- 
venient: to their organs of speech. These men had ample 
time for their conversation; they could afford to speak 
slowly. Speaking slowly, they found no difficulty in pro- 
nouncing a succession of harsh sounds; they were accus- 
tomed to take deep draughts of the bracing mountain air. 
And so the strange word assumed the garb of the hillmen’s 
speech. Sharp hiss was followed by deep ah, or by croaking 
guttural. The meaning changed also. The ideas of the 
mauntaineers were not quite those of their soldier guests, 
and the word these left behind had to serve the local idea 
that seemed most like what the original meaning was sup- 
posed to be. 
If the word was left behind in a flat country, its fate was 
different. On the plains the people could travel with ease 
from place to place; there was every facility for social and 
commercial intercourse; there was much to be spoken of 
when people came together; and the poor word had to 
change its sounds to suit its new surroundings. The harsh 
sounds, the sharp hiss, and the rough guttural had to give 
way to gentler sounds; where there is much speaking to be 
done, there is no time to spare for sounds that. are difficult 
to pronounce ; and, when business is to be done, reason must 
restrain feeling. The smooth sound expresses the assumed 
smoothness of temper. 
All these circumstances, and many more, leave their im- 
pression on the spoken word, and this impression is made 
permanent by the wonderful invention of writing. The 
word continues to change, but the written records of the 
nations preserve the memory of its form at the various 
stages of its journey. And by ‘studying these different 
forms we find in them the thoughts of the people who used 
the word. 
Literature is a branch of philology which is in one sense 
parallel to etymology. When literature arises, the original 
distinctions of sounds as expressions of particular feelings 
have become so much obscured by the interference of reason 
that the constituent parts of the words are no longer the 
immediate reflex forms of the feelings of the speaker. 
