Degraded Words. 



47 



of his eDtirely beloved son, Edward our Prince, that most angelic 

 imp." 



Now it may, be of course, that a part of the new turpitude which 

 has gradually attached itself to all these words — villain, boor, 

 churl, kern, pagan, savage, vagabond, harlot, barbarian, idiot, caitiff, 

 vulgar, mob, base, mean, lewd, beastly, blackguard, minion, brat, 

 imp, and others like them — is attributable to the actual discovery 

 of unexpected vices in the classes to whom they primarily referred; 

 but it seems more probable that the terms have become odious 

 chiefly because of their constant application to those unfortunates 

 whom their betters have though it proper to regard with some mea- 

 sure of systematic contempt. In either case, the changes in mean- 

 ing that the whole group have undergone, constitute certainly a 

 very striking instance of the power of degradation which man's bad 

 habits are constantly exerting upon the structure of the language 

 that he uses. 



m. 



But it must not be supposed, nevertheless, that all the despising, 

 all the calling of hard names, is to be attributed to the upper ten. 

 A moment's reflection will discover that the children, the learners, and 

 inferiors of various grades, have been active, on their part, in bring- 

 ing about a similar humiliation for the words by which they desig- 

 nate both the persons and the opinions of their rulers and instructors. 

 Here however, as in the preceding case, there has no doubt been 

 fault on both sides. Had the teachers of youth never assumed a 

 degree of knowledge beyond their actual attainments, the words 

 pedant and pedagogue^ both perfectly innocent in their etymology 

 and once inoffensive in their use, might never have come to convey 

 the implication of owlish self-conceit. Had the schoolmen of the 

 middle ages devoted a larger share of their attention to the acquisi- 

 tion of really useful and practical knowledge, and exercised their 

 wits less exclusively with " subtill quiddities," the name of their 

 great exemplar. Duns Scotus, might never have been corrupted, in 

 form and meaning, into our modern dunce. Had the expounders of 

 scientific discovery, and the preachers of religion, been invariably 

 careful to confine their inculcations wdthin the limits of certain truth, 

 and to allow to their disciples in some degree the exercise of un- 

 trammeled reason in weighing the doctrines they were expected to 

 accept, the term theory^ w^hich ought to denote a reasonable opinion 

 logically deduced from a suflicient number of established facts, might 



