An Introduction to a Biology 



and lastly the drug supposed to drive away the 

 malady. We speak of and even believe in a cough 

 cure. So different a meaning has " cure " come 

 to have from that with which it began, that we 

 could say " better use cure in the old sense than 

 rely upon cure in the new." 



A word, the meaning of which is very active 

 at the present time, is the verb to " locate." It is 

 used in one sense in Britain, and in another sense 

 in America, where its evolution has been more rapid ; 

 but there are signs that the American meaning of 

 the word is spreading eastwards across the Atlantic. 

 To locate, in the British sense, is a transitive verb 

 with a very well-defined, particular meaning ; it is 

 the name for a purely subjective process, which 

 takes place in the mind namely, the finding out 

 of the position of something that Nature or man 

 is trying to conceal from you. 1 By saying that 

 it is a subjective process I mean that, though its 

 immediate object is external to the mind (such as 

 a short circuit in an electrical system, or a malig- 

 nant growth in the body), the next process is within 

 the mind namely, the thinking out of some plan 

 of action to be taken when the trouble has been 

 successfully located. In America, however, the idea 

 denoted by the word " to locate " has, first, become 

 generalised and enlarged to mean simply " to find." 

 I was asked last July in St. Louis if I had located 

 a satisfactory natatorium in the town. But the 

 meaning of the word has gone much further than 

 this ; it has broken right away from its original 



1 " A useful seaplane reconnaissance located several encampments and 

 two permanent batteries." Scotsman, March, 1915, re Dardanelles: , 



26 



