TERMINOLOGY AND NOMENCLATURE. 297 



should be thrown into the formation of the word itself; 

 the aids of derivation and analogy being made avail- 

 able to keep alive a consciousness of all that is signi- 

 fied by it. In this respect those languages have an 

 immense advantage which form their compounds and 

 derivatives from native roots, like the German,, and 

 not from those of a foreign or a dead language, as is so 

 much the case with English, French, and Italian: and 

 the best are those which form them according to fixed 

 analogies, corresponding to the relations between the 

 ideas to be expressed. All languages do this more or 

 less, but especially, among modern European languages, 

 the German : while even that is inferior to the Greek, 

 in which the relation between the meaning of a deri- 

 vative word and that of its primitive, is in general 

 clearly marked by its mode of formation; except in 

 the case of words compounded with prepositions, 

 which, it must be acknowledged, are often, in both 

 those languages, extremely anomalous. 



But all that can be done, by the mode of con- 

 structing words, to prevent them from degenerating 

 into sounds passing through the mind without any 

 distinct apprehension of what they signify, is far too 

 little for the necessity of the case. Words, however 

 well constructed originally, are always tending, like 

 coins, to have their inscription worn off by passing 

 from hand to hand; and the only possible mode of 

 reviving it is to be ever stamping it afresh, by living 

 in the habitual contemplation of the phenomena them- 

 selves, and not resting in our familiarity with the 

 words that express them. If any one, having pos- 

 sessed himself of the laws of phenomena as recorded 

 in words, whether delivered to him originally by others 

 or even found out by himself, is content from thence- 

 forth to live in the midst of these formulae, to think 



