524 NATURE OP ROOTS AND WORDS. 



Precisely similar results may be obtained from an examination of 

 the component parts of words, the formative affixes ; results which 

 may be arranged under similar categories, viz. : various affixes with 

 the same meaning, various meanings of the same affix, and various 

 forms of the same affix. Under the first head, we have the affixes -dom, 

 -hood or -head, -ric, Germ, -thum (Norse -do'mr), -heit, or -keit, -reich, 

 all identical, or nearly so, in meaning, when considered as affixes 

 merely, and without reference to their derivation ; as to the second, 

 the prefix dis-, for instance, cannot be said to have precisely the same 

 significance in dis-cover, dis-tend, dis-hearten, nor the suffix -dom in 

 wis-dom and king-dom ; and the series of Teutonic suffixes above 

 mentioned will furnish with abundant illustrations under the third 

 category. Thus -head and -hood are mere arbitrary variations of the 

 same suffix, which is in German -heit : we say child-hood, but God- 

 head ; the Eng. child-AoocZ coi-responds to Germ. kind-Aei^, and iTorse, 

 barn-cZomr / the Eng. wis-c^om to Germ. Weis-Aei^ (Weis-^Attm has a 

 different meaning); Eng. king-(iom=Germ. Kbnig-reicA; bishop-ric^ 

 lB>\%-thum ; and so on, ad infinitum. 



Such, then, is the material, the outward form of language, even as 

 spoken by the most highly civilized nations, and fixed, as far as 

 language can be fixed, by the diflfusion of the written and printed 

 word. The great characteristic of articulate speech, as we know and 

 use it, is infinite variability of meaning and of form, so that, on 

 the one hand, the same word may, in course of time, be at the 

 opposite poles of signification (e.g. ^t{ctwos=" bhie," or "black;" ca?^- 

 didus="' white ") ; and, on the other, words identical in meaning and 

 derivation are as fa.r apart as possible in form (e.g. Fr. larme, and Eng. 

 tear). The ruder and more uncultivated the language, the moi'e 

 fluctuating its forms and the meanings attached to them ; and most 

 fluctuatitig and unstable of all the speech of the primitive language- 

 makers. ■ 



How, then, is this infinite variability and fluctuation, this " confu- 

 sion of everything with everything else," as Geiger calls it, consistent 

 with our definition of language, as a means of intelligible communi- 

 cation between man and man % "What power was it that brought 

 order out of this chaos ? The answer has been hinted at already : 

 this agent is habit, or usage. The case cannot be better stated than 

 in the words of Geiger : * 



* Op. oit, p. 58. 



