ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING 165 



any analogy which words bear to each other, but such as should 

 diligently examine the analogy or relation betwixt words and 

 things, yet without any of that hermeneutical doctrine, or doc- 

 trine of interpretation, which is subservient to logic. It is cer- 

 tain that words are the traces or impressions of reason; and 

 impressions afford some indication of the body that made them. 

 I will, therefore, here give a small sketch of the thing. 



And first, we cannot approve that curious inquiry, which 

 Plato however did not contemn, about the imposition and origi- 

 nal etymology of names/ as supposing them not given arbitra- 

 rily at first,but rationally and scientifically derived and deduced. 

 This indeed is an elegant, and, as it were, a waxen subject, 

 which may handsomely be wrought and twisted; but be- 

 cause it seems to search the very bowels of antiquity, it has an 

 awful appearance, though attended with but little truth and ad- 

 vantage. But it would be a noble kind of a grammar, if any- 

 one, well versed in numerous languages, both the learned and 

 the vulgar, should treat of their various properties, and show 

 wherein each of them excelled and fell short ; for thus lan- 

 guages might be enriched by mutual commerce, and one beau- 

 tiful image of speech, or one grand model of language for justly 

 expressing the sense of the mind, formed, like the Venus of 

 Apelles, from the excellencies of several. And thus we should, 

 at the same time, have some considerable marks of the genius 

 and manners of people and nations from their respective lan- 

 guages. Cicero agreeably remarks, that the Greeks had no 

 word to express the Latin ineptum ; g " Because," says he, " the 

 fault it denotes was so familiar among them, that they could not 

 see it in themselves ; " a censure not unbecoming the Roman 

 gravity. And as the Greeks used so great a licentiousness in 

 compounding words, which the Romans so religiously ab- 

 stained from, it may hence be collected that the Greeks were 

 better fitted for arts, and the Romans for exploits; as variety 

 of arts makes compound words in a manner necessary, whilst 

 civil business, and the affairs of nations, require a greater sim- 

 plicity of expression. The Jews were so averse to these com- 

 positions, that they would rather strain a metaphor than intro- 

 duce them. Nay, they used so few words and so unmixed, 

 that we may plainly perceive from their language they were a 

 Nazarite people, and separate from other nations. It is also 

 worth observing, though it may seem a little ungrateful to mod- 



