Language. 925 



iconoclasm, &c. Sess, a tax, is out of use, but we retain assess, to im- 

 pose a tax. We still retain tinder, meaning an inflammable substance, 

 while we have discarded the verb tind to kindle. We have cast aside 

 wis, to think, while retaining wise, wit, and wisdom. Wry, to twist, is 

 out of use, while wry ( the adjective ), twisted, we retain. We have 

 discarded won. a dwelling, and wone, to dwell, but have retained de- 

 rivations of wone, viz., wont, and wonted, meaning accustomed or used. 

 Since 1611, 388 words or senses of words used in the Bible have be- 

 come obsolete. This is about one out of every fifteen. Details like 

 the foregoing might be multiplied indefinitely. Their study shows how 

 words spring up under the influence of the various objects in the en- 

 vironment, in accordance with the manner in which they affect us, and 

 the ideas they produce in us; how, as gradual changes are produced in 

 our ideas by new experiences and impressions, their expressions in 

 words change correspondingly, new ideas requiring new words or new 

 applications of old ones. New words are obtained by importations from 

 other languages, or by modifying old words. Very rarely indeed, is a word 

 coined or invented, and when it is, it must necessarily be an imitation of 

 nature or of another word. Since man's dependence upon his envi- 

 ronment has alwa} T s been as it is now, it is reasonable to conclude that 

 the growth and modification of language has always proceeded as it is 

 now doing. The history of 300 years is enough to furnish us the prin- 

 ciples involved in that of all the past. 



Since language is the expression of ideas, its de\elopment has neces- 

 sarily proceeded in the same order as the development of ideas. The 

 first ideas must be of the simplest and most obvious, uncompared and 

 unclassified facts. After the internal sense organs have been stored 

 with these facts, further development of ideas throws these facts to- 

 gether, forming comparisons, generalizations, and classifications. Fol- 

 lowing this order, words first expressed single things, next they ex- 

 pressed qualities and motions, and lastly the relationships of things to 

 each other by their qualities. 



It has been shown that we cannot have any idea except of sensible 

 things, and that ideas which we have, or suppose we have, of super- 

 sensible things, have in reality been derived from sensible objects. Lan- 

 guage follows and illustrates this fact. All the words which we use to 

 express ideas of things which are beyond the immediate reach of our 

 senses, are words which originated with reference to tangible and visible 

 things. Thus, the word spirit comes from the Latin spirare, to draw 

 breath, and from the same source we get aspire, inspire, transpire, re- 

 spire, &c. From the root an, which in Sanskrit means to blow, comes 

 the Sanskrit anila, the Greek anemos, the Latin anima, wind ; the Latin 

 animus, mind ; English animate, animal, &c. The Sanskrit dhu means 



