INTRODUCTION. XCIX 



concentrated upon each part. If we take 

 the commonest nouns which are continually 

 in use and ever in presence of their ob- 

 jects : — these have a signification which is 

 almost immoveable. Some such are : — ash, 

 bridge, child, death, eye, fire, God, house, 

 ice, king, life, man, need, oak, path, rain, 

 snoiv, tree, iveather. All these were to 

 our ancestoi's before the national parting 

 just what they are to us now, and they 

 continue to be the same to our outgone 

 colonists. But these form as it were an 

 inner circle which hugs the axle-tree of 

 motion. A little wide of these we come 

 upon words hardly less familiar but yet 

 more susceptible of sense-change. Thus, 

 beam is to us dead timber, while 93aum 

 is the living tree. This change took place 

 lonor after we were in the island, as our lists 

 abundantly testify. Now timber means 

 material of wood ; in Saxon it meant mate- 

 rial generally; in German the same word 

 3iinmer means a chamber. In England 

 farmer means an occupier, in America it 

 means a hired labourer. The adjective 

 foul means in English unclean or unfair ; 



