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which the diffei-ent meanings have no 

 connection with one another, it conti- 

 nually happens that a word is used in 

 two or more senses derived from each 

 other, but yet radically distinct. So 

 long as a term is vague, that is, so long 

 as its connotation is not ascertained 

 and permanently fixed, it is constantly 

 liable to be applied by extension from 

 one thing to another, until it reaches 

 things which have little, or even no 

 resemblance to those which were first 

 designated by it. 



Suppose, says Dugald Stewart, in 

 his Philosophical Essays* " that the 

 letters A, B, C, D, E, denote a series 

 of objects ; that A possesses some one 

 quality in common with B ; B a qua- 

 lity in common with C ; C a quality 

 in common with D ; D a quality in 

 common with E ; while at the same 

 time no quality can be found which 

 belongs in common to any three ob- 

 jects in the series. Is it not conceiv- 

 able that the aflSnity between A and 

 B may produce a transference of the 

 name of the first to the second ; and 

 that, in consequence of the other 

 affinities which connect the remain- 

 ing objects together, the same name 

 may pass in succession from B to C, 

 from C to D, and from D to E ? In 

 this manner a common appellation 

 will arise between A and E, although 

 the two objects may, in their nature 

 and properties, be so widel}' distant 

 from each other, that no stretch of 

 imagination can conceive how the 

 thoughts were led from the former to 

 the latter. The transitions, never- 

 theless, may have been all so easy 

 and gradual, that, were they success- 

 fully detected by the fortunate inge- 

 nuity of a theorist, we should instantly 

 recognise, not only the verisimilitude, 

 but the truth of the conjecture ; in 

 the same way as we admit, with the 

 confidence of intuitive conviction, the 

 certainty of the well-known etymolo- 

 gical process which connects the Latin 

 preposition c or ex with the English 

 substantive stranger, the moment that 



* P. 217, 4to edition. 



tlie intermediate links of the chain 

 are submitted to our examination."* 



The applications which a word ac- 

 quires by this gradual extension of it 

 from one set of objects to another, 

 Stewart, adopting an expression from 

 Mi\ Payne Knight, calls its transitive 

 applications ; and after briefly illus- 

 trating such of them as are the re- 

 sult of local or casual associations, he 

 proceeds as follows : f — 



" But although by far the greater 

 part of the transitive or derivative 

 applications of words depend on casual 

 and unaccountable caprices of the 

 feelings or the fancy, there are certain 

 cases in which they open a very in- 

 teresting field of philosophical specu- 

 lation. Such are those in which an 

 analogous transference of the cor- 

 responding term may be remarked 

 universally, or very generally, in other 



' " E, ex, extra, extrancus, stranger, 

 stranger." 



Another etymological example some- 

 times cited is the derivation of the English 

 uncle from the Latin ants. It i.s scarcely 

 possible for two words to bear fewer out- 

 ward marks of relationshijj, yet there is but 

 one step between them — avus, avunculus, 

 uncle. So pilgrim, from ager : per agrum, 

 peragrimis, peregrinus, 'pMegrino, pilgrim. 



Professor Bain giv^s some apt examples 

 of these transitions of meaning. "The 

 word 'damp' primarily signified moist, 

 humid, wet. But the property is often 

 accompanied with the feeling of cold or 

 chillness, and hence the idea of cold is 

 strongly suggested by the word. This is 

 not all. Proceeding upon the superadded 

 meaning, we speak of damping a man's 

 ardour, a metaphor where the cooling is 

 the only circumstance concerned ; we go 

 on still further to designate the iron slide 

 that shuts off the draft of a stove, 'the 

 damper,' the primary meaning being now 

 entirely dropped. ' Dry,' in like manner, 

 through signifying the absence of moisture, 

 water, or liquidity, is applied to sulphuric 

 acid containing water, although not thei-eby 

 ceasing to be a moist, wet, or liquid sub- 

 stance." So in tlie phrases dry shen-y or 

 champagne. 



" ' Street,' originally a paved way, with 

 or without houses, has been extended to 

 roads lined with houses, whether paved or 

 unpaved. ' Impertinent ' signified at first 

 irrelevant, alien to the purpose in hand, 

 through which it has come to mean med- 

 dling, intrusive, unmannerly, insolent." 

 {Loqic, ii. 173, 174). 



t P. 226-227. 



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