PROLEGOMENA. XV. 



By a careful attention to the etymology of 

 words their primitive signification may be traced, 

 and this is so true a criterion of their real force 

 and import, notwithstanding all the variations of 

 meaning wliich they have undergone in the 

 branches which spring out of them, that as a source 

 of knowledge of human understanding, they 

 show us the genealogy, as it were, and progress 

 of human ideas, free us from the numberless 

 deceptions imposed on the mind by the con- 

 trivance of language, and teach us to think and 

 reason correctly.* Language too, being the 

 mode of communicating knowledge, and tlie 

 distinctive attribute of man as being capable of 

 reasoning, it ought to form a great part of early 

 study. If the time that is lost in measuring the 

 feet of lyric poetry and other classical nugae, 

 were bestowed in acquiring a knowledge of the 

 spirit of language, our scholars would be better 

 fortified against the prejudices of which language 

 is made the vehicle. A vast deal of stress has 

 been laid on the power of Logic, and indeed 

 justly so ; for it is the means of sound argument: 

 but logic itself, which is an artificial arrangement 

 of the reasoning powers of man, must be tried 

 as to its correctness by Authority, or the criterion 



* To be verbose^ a very common fault, is to be overdone by 

 words, instead of being thoughtful, or thinkingful, i. e. full of 

 things. 



