VARIATIONS IN MEANING OP TERMS. 419 



and histly, it has been applied to a peculiar vegetable principle, which, 

 like starch, is insoluble in cold, but completely soluble in boiling water, 

 with which it forms a gelatinous solution. This indciinite meaning of 

 the word, fecula has created numerous mistakes in pharmaceutic chem- 

 istry ; Elaterium, for instance, is said to hcfecula, and, in the original 

 sense of the word, it is properly so called, inasmuch as it is procured 

 from a vegetable juice by spontaneous subsidence, but in the limited' 

 and modem acceptation of the term, it conveys an erroneous idea ; for 

 instead of the active principle of the juice residing in fccula, it is a 

 peculiar proximate principle, sui generis, to which I have ventured to 

 bestow the name of Elathi. For the same reason, much doubt and 

 obscurity involve the meaning of the word Extract, because it is ap- 

 plied gencrallij to any substance obtained by the evaporation of a vege- 

 table solution, and specijicall y to a peculiar })roximato principle, pos- 

 sessed of certain characters, by which it is distinguished from every 

 other elementary body." 



A generic term is always liable to become thus limited to a single 

 speciet;, or even individual, if people have occasion to think and speak 

 of that individual or species much oftener than of anything else which 

 is contained in the genus. Thus, by cattle, a stage coachman will 

 understand horses ; beasts, in the language of agriculturists, stands for 

 oxen ; and birds, with some sportsmen, for partridges only. The law 

 of language which operates in these trivial instances, is the very same 

 in conformity to which the terms Qeog, Deus, and God, were adopted 

 fi'om Polytheism by Christianity, to express the single object of its 

 own adoration, in lieu of the ancient and specially appropriated name 

 Jehovah. Almost all the terminology of the Christian Church is made 

 up of words originally used in a much more general acceptation : 

 JGccZes/a, Assembly ; Bishojy, Episcopus, Overseer ; Pr/e*^, Presbyter, 

 Elder; Deacon, Diaconus, Administrator; Sacrament, a vow of alle- 

 giance ; Evangelium, good tidings ; and some words, as Minister, are 

 still used both in the gdneral and in the limited sense. It would be 

 interesting to trace the progress by which author, in its most familiar 

 sense, came to signify a writer, and 7TOiT]T7]g, or Maker, a poet. 



Of the incorporation into the meaning of a term, of circumstances 

 accidentally connected with it at some j)articular period, as in the case 

 of Pagan, instances might easily be multiplied. Physician {(pvatKog, or 

 naturalist) became, in England at least, synonymous with a healer of 

 diseases, because until a comparatively late period medical practitioners 

 were the only naturalists. Clerc or Clericus, a scholar, came to signify 

 an ecclesiastic, because the clergy were for many centuries the only 

 scholars. 



Of all ideas, however, the most lialdc to cling by association to any- 

 thing with which they have ever been connected by proximity, are 

 those of our pleasures and pains, or of the things wliich we habitually 

 contemplate as sources of our pleasures or pains. The additional con- 

 notation, therefore, wluch a woi'd soonest and most readily takes on, 

 is that of agreeableness or painfulness, in their various kinds and de- 

 grees : of being a good or a bad thing; desirable or to be avoided; 

 an object of hati'ed, of dread, of contemjjt, admiration, hope, or love. 

 Accordingly there is hardly a single name, expressive of any moral or 

 social fact calculated to call forth strong aflections cither of a favorable 

 or of a hostile nature, which does not caiTy with it decidedly and irre- 



