NATURE OP ROOTS AND WORDS. 525 



" In the development of particular meanings, a great number of 

 external circumstances have a share ; in general, however, linguistic 

 USAGE {Sprachgehrauch) may be regarded as the combining cause of 

 the particular meaning attached to a word. Linguistic usage is the 

 habit of using a word in a particular sense." 



Both the significance and the form of a word are first changed by- 

 habit, then fixed by usage. These changes may, in fact, be defined 

 as differentiation hy the usage of the majority in a majority of cases of 

 application. The habit of using a word alone keeps it in existence ; 

 lose the habit, and you lose the word. 



These variations, however, must not be regarded as the result of 

 conscious change on the part of the language-makers, for all habit is 

 unconscious. Primitive language, the creature of unconscious habit, 

 is incapable of metaphorical application. When a word became the 

 arbitrary sign of an action, object or idea, its original meaning and 

 derivation was lost sight of, and ceased to be present to the mind of 

 the speaker. The meanings of words change in a regular succession 

 as determined by habit and usage, " the last link of the series having 

 no clear connection with the first."* We have seen that the Gr. damar, 

 " wife," is connected with damao, " to tame ;" yet the idea of taming 

 (or of binding, which is the root meaning) was of course never pi-esent 

 to a Greek when he used the word ; nor did he think of penthos, 

 *' grief," when he spoke of his pentheros, " father-in-law." So it is 

 only by a conscious efibrt of thought that we connect wedlock with 

 bolts and locks. Of course the fundamental idea contained in the 

 root was the reason of its original application in the particular sense ; 

 but once habitually used in this sense, consciousness ceased, and the 

 fundamental meaning was completely forgotten. 



Having determined then that primitive man often indicated the 

 same idea or object by different names, and widely different and 

 even contradictory ideas by the same name, let us inquire why and 

 how he as a general thing indicated similar objects by similar names. 

 This inquiry is, in fact, identical with the vexed question as to the 

 capacity of the primitive language-makers to form general ideas, and 

 with that of the priority of general or particular names. Prof. Max 

 Miiller is one of the chief upholders of the priority of general ideas, 

 and of pi'imitive man's capacity for forming them. His argument 

 may be best stated in his own language, as follows: " Man," he says,t 



* OjJ. cit., p. 58. 



t Lectures on Science of Language, Second. Series, p. 64. 



