462 CHANGES ALWAYS IN PROGRESS. CHAP. xxm. 



of the perishable materials on which they are written; so 

 that to question the theory of all known languages being 

 derivative on the ground that we can rarely trace a passage 

 from the ancient to the modern through all the dialects 

 which must have flourished one after the other in the inter 

 mediate ages, implies a want of reflection on the laws which 

 govern the recording as well as the obliterating processes. 



But another important question still remains to be con 

 sidered, namely, whether the trifling changes which can alone 

 be witnessed by a single generation, can possibly represent 

 the working of that machinery which, in the. course of many 

 centuries, has given rise to such mighty revolutions in the 

 forms of speech throughout the world. Every one may have 

 noticed in his own lifetime the stealing in of some slight 

 alterations of accent, pronunciation or spelling, or the intro 

 duction of some words borrowed from a foreign language to 

 express ideas of which no native term precisely conveyed the 

 import. He may also remember hearing for the first time 

 some cant terms or slang phrases, which have since forced 

 their way into common use, in spite of the efforts of the purist. 

 But he may still contend that, ' within the range of his 

 experience,' his language has continued unchanged, and he 

 may believe in its immutability in spite of minor variations. 

 The real question, however, at issue is, whether there are any 

 limits to this variability. He will find on further investi 

 gation, that new technical terms are coined almost daily in 

 various arts, sciences, professions, and trades, that new names 

 must be found for new inventions, that many of these acquire 

 a metaphorical sense, and then make their way into general 

 circulation, as f stereotyped,' for instance, which would have 

 been as meaningless to the men of the seventeenth century 

 as would the new terms and images derived from steamboat 

 and railway travelling to the men of the eighteenth. 



If the numerous words, idioms, and phrases, many of them 



