Degraded Words. 



45 



" Christ was received of idiots, while he was rejected and persecuted 

 by the priests, doctors and rabbis." From this meaning, however, 

 the word speedily descended to the level of the lowest classes in 

 society ; then came to indicate dense and stupid ignorance, and 

 finally attached itself to persons absolutely void of understanding, 

 natural fools, innocent or simpletons, as Webster has it. One can 

 imagine the effect, in these days, of a minister's addressing his con- 

 gregation as composed in part of idiots ! 



The appellation caitiff,'vfh\c\i implies at present, and has done so 

 for a long time, the possession of certain highly uncommendable 

 traits of character, is traced by Johnson to the Italian cattivo, a 

 slave, " whence," says the doctor, " i^ came to signify a bad man, 

 with some implication of meanness," and he adds: "A slave and a 

 scoundrel are signified by the same words in many languages." 



The adjective vulgar, again, was once almost synonymous with 

 such innocent terms as general, public, and even national. A moh 

 was not much more than the common people, the crowd, having only 

 in recent times come to imply, adopting Worcester's expression, 

 "a crowd excited to some violent or unlaw^ful act," the select few 

 always recklessly imputing evil purposes to the many who they think 

 should rank below them. Base, mean and lewd were terms applied 

 of old to the mass of the population, as distinguished from the gentry 

 or clergy, and indicated nothing worse than this. Spenser writes, in 

 the Faerie Queene : 



" But virtuous women wisely understand 

 That they were born to base humility. 

 Unless the Heavens them lift to lawful sovereignty." 

 In one of Latimer's sermons, we read : " It might please the king to 

 accept into his favor a mean man, of simple degree and birth, not 

 born to any possessions." As for lewd, it seems to be only a varia- 

 tion of lay, a lewd fellow being etymologically merely a layman. 

 So Chaucer, in the Canterbury Tales: 



" For if a priest be foul, on whom we trust, 

 No wonder is a lewid man to rust." 

 But the rich and the learned have been tempted so often to despise 

 and slander the poor and the ignorant, these adjectives have been 

 coupled so commonly with injurious aspersions, that we now insult 

 a man, however humble his station in life, if we call him base, mean 

 or lewd. 



A process of degradation, not dissimilar from the foregoing in its 

 operation, has been effected within comparatively recent times also 

 on the noun beast and its derivatives, it seeming to have been found 



