THE PRINCIPLE OF ECONOMY IN EVOLUTION. 333 



rise to them they imply the duck in all its characters and activi- 

 ties. It is for like reason that the various symbol values of a 

 vast number of terms in our own language have gradually 

 emerged from their original meaning as words descriptive of a 

 single quality of the thing named sheep from "bleater," its 

 original meaning; dawn from "shine/' pig from "grunter," or 

 " the maker of the su sound," mortality from " a wasting away," 

 mother from " fashioner," sky from " cover," mouse from " stealer," 

 ant from " swarmer," bird from " upstriver," father from " nour- 

 isher" or "protector," ground from "the trodden," foot from 

 " treader," woman from " bearer " (gune), " soft one " (mitZzer), or 

 "the suckler" (femina), night from "the blind" or "dangerous," 

 earth from " the dry " (terra), house from the " built," horse from 

 "the neigher," picture from "scratching," stars from "strewn," 

 fetters from " footers," fingers from " seizers " (Fanger), language 

 from " tongue," imply from " folding in," apprehend from " taking 

 hold of," develop from " unwrap." The gain of the process is ob- 

 viously this that the mind, instead of describing a single quality 

 by its name instead of having to deal with all the qualities sepa- 

 rately is enabled to include in a single concept all the characters 

 which the thing named is known to possess, and to bring such 

 concept into true relation with other concepts equally rich in the 

 number of qualities which they connote. That the economy thus 

 attained is no small one that it means enlargement and perfection 

 of end as well as saving of energy may be realized by remember- 

 ing the enormous increase which has taken place even in recent 

 years in the meaning of such simple terms, for example, as stone 

 and star. " Stone," to the uncultured man, is merely a hard sub- 

 stance of a particular color, size, shape, and weight ; to the geolo- 

 gist the concept " stone " has a rich content of both chemical and 

 physical characters, and demands for its thorough comprehension 

 a familiarity with the whole history of the planet. So to the 

 ignorant man " stars " are little more than 



Bpecks of tinsel fixed in heaven, 

 To light the midnights of his native town ; 



while to the educated, and above all to the scientific mind, the 

 concept is rich with thoughts of cosmic processes and solar evolu- 

 tion, and has a content of materials drawn from well-nigh every 

 department of knowledge. 



Economy in language (which throughout implies economy in 

 mental processes) is probably shown as much by that which 

 escapes as by that which attains to expression in speech. Words 

 are brought into use only to describe things, actions, and relations 

 that are of habitual or frequent occurrence. A vast number of 

 phenomena are left unnamed for the reason that they do not recur 



