248 OPERATIONS SUBSIDIARY TO INDUCTION. 



mon with B ; B a quality in common with C ; C a 

 quality in common with D ; D a quality in common 

 with E ; while at the same time, no quality can be 

 'found which belongs in common to any three objects 

 in the series. Is it not conceivable, that the affinity 

 between A and B may produce a transference of the 

 name of the first to the second ; and that, in conse- 

 quence of the other affinities which connect the 

 remaining objects together, the same name may pass 

 in succession from B to C ; from C to D ; and from 

 D to E ? In this manner a common appellation will 

 arise between A and E, although the two objects may, 

 in their nature and properties, be so widely distant 

 from each other, that no stretch of imagination can 

 conceive how the thoughts were led from the former 

 to the latter. The transitions, nevertheless, may have 

 been all so easy and gradual, that, were they success- 

 fully detected by the fortunate ingenuity of a theorist, 

 we should instantly recognise, not only the verisimili- 

 tude, but the truth of the conjecture: in the same way 

 as we admit, with the confidence of intuitive convic- 

 tion, the certainty of the well-known etymological 

 process which connects the Latin preposition e or ex 

 with the English substantive stranger, the moment 

 that the intermediate links of the chain are submitted 

 to our examination*." 



The applications which a word acquires by this gra- 

 dual extension of it from one set of objects to another, 



* 4< E, ex, extra, extraneus, etranger, stranger." 

 Another etymological example sometimes cited is the derivation 

 of the English uncle from the Latin avus. It is scarcely possible 

 for two words to bear fewer outward marks of relationship, yet 

 there is but one step between them ; avus, avunculus, uncle. 



So pilgrim from ager: per agrum, peragrinus, peregrinus, pelle- 

 grino, pilgrim* 



