486 OPEEATIONS SUBSIDIARY TO INDUCTION. 



from the juice of the wild cucumber. The word T^eci^^a, again, originally- 

 meant to imply any substance which was derived by spontaneous subsid- 

 ence from a liquid (from fcex, the grounds or settlement of any liquor) ; 

 afterward it was applied to Starch, which is deposited in this manner by- 

 agitating the flour of wheat in water; and, lastly, it has been applied to a 

 peculiar vegetable principle, which, like starch, is insoluble in cold, but com- 

 pletely soluble in boiling water, with which it forms a gelatinous solution. 

 This indefinite meaning of the word feciila has created numerous mistakes 

 in pharmaceutic chemistry ; Elaterium, for instance, is said to be fecula, 

 and, in the original sense of the word, it is properly so called, inasmuch as 

 it is procured from a vegetable juice by spontaneous subsidence, but in the 

 limited and modern acceptation of the term it conveys an erroneous idea; 

 for instead of -the active principle of the juice residing in fecula, it is a pe- 

 culiar proximate principle, siii generis, to which I have ventured to bestow 

 the name of Elatin. For the same reason, much doubt and obscurity in- 

 volve the meaning of the word Extract, because it is applied generally to 

 any substance obtained by the evaporation of a vegetable solution, and 

 specifically to a peculiar proximate principle, possessed of certain charac- 

 ters, by which it is distinguished from every other elementary body." 



A generic term is always liable to become thus limited to a single spe- 

 cies, or even individual, if people have occasion to think and speak of that 

 individual or species much oftener than of any thing else which is contain- 

 ed in the genus. Thus by cattle, a stage-coachman will understand horses; 

 beasts, in the language of agriculturists, stands for oxen ; and birds, with 

 some sportsmen, for partridges only. The law of language which operates 

 in these trivial instances is the very same in conformity to which the terms 

 Gfoe, Deus, and God, were adopted from Polytheism by Christianity, to ex- 

 press the single object of its own adoration. Almost all the terminology 

 of the Christian Church is made up of words originally used in a much 

 more general acceptation : Ecclesia, Assembly; i?/sAojt?,Episcopus, Overseer ; 

 i^reesi?, Presbyter, Elder; Deacon, Diaconus, Administrator; Sacrament, a 

 vow of allegiance ; Eoangelium, good tidings ; and some words, as Minister, 

 are still used both in the general and in the limited sense. It would be in- 

 teresting to trace the progress by which author came, in its most familiar 

 sense, to signify a writer, and Troi^rriQ, or maker, a poet. 



Of the incorporation into the meaning of a term, of circumstances acci- 

 dentally connected with it at some particular period, as in the case of Pa- 

 gan, instances might easily be multiplied. Physician {(pvmKog, or natural- 

 ist) became, in England, synonymous with a healer of diseases, because 

 until a comparatively late period medical practitioners were the only natu- 

 ralists. Clerc, or clericus, a scholar, came to signify an ecclesiastic, because 

 the clergy were for many centuries the only scholars. 



Of all ideas, however, the most liable to cling by association to any thing 

 with which they have ever been conijected by proximity, are those of our 

 pleasures and pains, or of the things which we habitually contemplate as 

 sources of our pleasures or pains. The additional connotation, therefore, 

 which a word soonest and most readily takes on, is that of agreeableness 

 or painf ulness, in their various kinds and degrees ; of being a good or bad 

 thing ; desirable or to be avoided ; an object of hatred, of dread, contempt, 

 admiration, hope, or love. Accordingly there is hardly a single name, ex- 

 pressive of any moral or social fact calculated to call forth strong affections 

 either of a favorable or of a hostile nature, which does not carry with it de- 

 cidedly and irresistibly a coimotation of those strong affections, or, at the 



