THEORY OF LANGUAGE. 409 



observe is produced by the action of travelling, or is made for 

 promoting the convenience of this voluntary motion. The ma- 

 terials of which it is composed do not radically differ from 

 those which compose the parts in its immediate vicinity, and 

 the same sensations are communicated by the ultimate parti- 

 cles of each. But the characteristic mode of assemblage which 

 they exhibit, suggests the idea of the cause which has produ- 

 ced it, or the purpose to which it is subservient. Hence we 

 derive its name from the action of travelling or riding. This 

 is the origin of the word " road." It signifies a place which 

 has been " rode" upon. On the same principle, an uninhabi- 

 ted country is called a " desert," because it is " desert-um," a 

 place forsaken or avoided by men. A cultivated spot is called 

 a " field" or " felde," from the past participle of the verb 

 " fell," intimating that the trees which are supposed to have 

 once covered its surface are cut down. In short, the particular 

 interest which an association with the motions of mankind 

 gives to the assemblages which our words denote fully accounts 

 for the facts adduced by Mr Tooke in proof of the prevalence 

 of this mode of derivation among Nouns, and at the same time 

 illustrates the various positions which have been advanced in 

 the present paper. This law, while it throws light on some of 

 the operations of the human mind in imposing names on ex- 

 ternal objects, neither throws any dubiety on the existence of 

 an external world, nor prevents us from admitting that the 

 materials of which it is composed possess an importance in- 

 dependent both of human action and of human thought. 



While Mr Tooke has been blamed for leading his readers to the 

 species of scepticism now alluded to, it has also been his fate 

 to be accused of employing grammatical analysis in the sup- 

 port of a doctrine diametrically opposite, that of Materialism. 

 He has asserted that every word expresses an " object," by 



which 



