VARIATIONS IN MEANING OF TERMS. 415 



out manual labor, and in its moro elevated signification it has in every 

 age signified the conduct, character, habits, and outward appearance, in 

 whomsoever found, which, according to the ideas of that age, belonged 

 or were expected to belong to persons boru>and educated m a hijgh so- 

 cial position. ' 



It continually happens that of two wprds, whose dictionary mean- 

 ings are either the , same or very slightly diflcrent, one will be the 

 proper word to use in one set of circumstances, another in another, 

 without its being pqssible to show how the custom of so employing 

 them originally gi'cw up. The accident that one of the words was 

 used and not the other on a particular occasion or in a particular social 

 circle, will be sufficient to produce so strong an association between the 

 word and some speciality of circumstances,, that mankind abandon the 

 use of it in any other case, and the speciality becomes part of its sig- 

 nifica,tion. The tide of custom first drifts the word on the shore of a. 

 particular meaning, then retires and leaves it there. 



An instance in point is the remarkable change which, in the English 

 language at least has taken place in tlie signification of the word loyal- 

 ty. That word originally meant in English, as it still means in the 

 language from whence it came, fair, open dealing, and fidelity to en- 

 gagements : in that sense the quality it expressed was part of the ideal 

 chivalrous or knightly character. By what process, in England, the 

 term became restricted to the single case of fidelity to the throne, I am 

 not sufficiently versed in the history of courtly language to be able to 

 pronounce. ■ The interval between a loyal chevalier and a loyal subr 

 ject is certainly great. I can only suppose that the word was, at some 

 period, the favorite term at court to express fidelity to tho oath of al- 

 legiance, until at length those who wished to speak of any other, and 

 as it was probably considered, inferior sort of fidelity, either did not 

 venture to use so dignified a term, or found it convenient to employ 

 some other in order to avoid being misunderstood. 



§ 2. Cases are not unfrequent in which a circumstance, at first cas- 

 ually incorporated into the connotation of a word which originally had 

 no reference to it, in time wholly supersedes the original nieaning, and 

 becomes not merely a part of the connotation, but the whole of it. 

 This is exemplified in the word pagan, jmganus ; which originally, as 

 its etymology imports, was equivalent to villager ; the inhabitant of a 

 pagus, or village. At a particular era in the extension of Christianity 

 over the Roman empire, the adherents of tlic old religion, and the vil- 

 lagers or country people, were nearly the same body of individuals, 

 the inhabitants of the towns having been earliest convei'ted ; as in cmi 

 own day and at all times the greater activity of social intercoui-se ren- 

 ders them the earliest recipients of new opinions and modes, while pld 

 habits and prejudices linger longest amon^ the country people : not to 

 mention that the towns were more immediately und('r the direct influ- 

 ence of the government, which at that time had embraced Cln-istianity. 

 From this casual ccnncidcncc, the w(jrd jiaganus canied with it, and 

 began more and more steadily to suggest, the idea of a worshiper' of 

 the ancient divinities ; until at length it suggested that idea so fwrcibly, 

 that people who did not desire to suggest the idea avoided using the 

 word. But when paganus had come to connote heathenism, the very 

 unimportant circumstance, with reference to that fact, of the place of 



