important man in the kingdom. A chancellor was a clerk or even a door-keeper who sat in a place separated by bars or cancelli in the offices of the Roman Emperor's palace; now it is always the name of a high or even the highest dignitary. Peer was an equal (Latin, Par), and we still speak of being tried by our peers; but now, by the strange accidents of language, it means the few who are superior to the rest of the Queen's subjects in rank. Deacon, Bishop, Clerk, Queen, Captain, General, are all words which have undergone a like process of specialization. In such words as telegraph, rail, signal, station, and many words relating to new inventions, we may trace the progress of change in a lifetime. One effect of this process of specialization is very soon to create a difference between any two words which happen from some reason to be synonymous. Two or more words are said to be synonymous (from the Greek σúv, with, and ovoμa, name) when they have the same meaning, as in the case, perhaps, of teacher and instructor, similarity and resemblance, beginning and commencement, sameness and identity, hypothesis and supposition, intension and. comprehension. But the fact is that words commonly called synonymous are seldom perfectly so, and there are almost always shades of difference in meaning or use, which are explained in such works as Crabb's English Synonyms. A process called by Coleridge desynonymization, and by Herbert Spencer differentiation, is always going on, which tends to specialize one of a pair of synonymous words to one meaning and the other to another. Thus wave and billow originally meant exactly the same physical effect, but poets have now appropriated the word 'billow,' whereas wave is used chiefly in practical and scientific matters. Undulation is a third synonym, which will probably become the sole scientific term for a wave in course of time. Cab was originally a mere abbreviation of cabriolet, and therefore of similar meaning, but it is now specialized to mean almost exclusively a hackney cab. In America car is becoming restricted to the meaning of a railway car. It may be remarked that it is a logical defect in a language to possess a great number of synonymous terms, since we acquire the habit of using them indifferently without being sure that they are not subject to ambiguities and obscure differences of meaning. The English language is especially subject to the inconvenience of having a complete series of words derived from Greek or Latin roots nearly synonymous with other words of Saxon or French origin. The same statement may, in fact, be put into Saxon or classical English; and we often, as Whately has well remarked, seem to prove a statement by merely reproducing it in altered language. The rhetorical power of the language may be increased by the copiousness and variety of diction, but pitfalls are thus prepared for all kinds of fallacies. (See Lessons XX and XXI.) In addition to the effects of generalization and specialization, vast additions and changes are made in language by the process of analogous or metaphorical extension of the meaning of words. This change may be said, no doubt, to consist in generalization, since there must always be a resemblance between the new and old applications of the term. But the resemblance is often one of a most distant and obscure kind, such as we should call analogy rather than identity. All words used metaphorically, or as similitudes, are cases of this process of extension. The name metaphor is derived from the Greek words μerá, over, and þépew, to carry; and expresses apparently the transference of a word from its ordinary to a peculiar purpose. Thus the old similitude of a ruler to the pilot of the vessel gives rise to many metaphors, as in speaking of the Prime Minister being at the Helm of the State. The word governor, and all its derivatives, is, in fact, one result of this metaphor, being merely a corrupt form of gubernator, steersman. The words compass, polestar, ensign, anchor, and many others connected with navigation, are constantly used in a metaphorical manner. From the use of horses and hunting we derive another set of metaphors; as, in taking the reins of government, overturning the government, taking the bit between the teeth, the Government Whip, being heavily weighted, &c. No doubt it might be shewn that every other important occupation of life has furnished its corresponding stock of metaphors. It is easy to shew, however, that this process, besides going on consciously at the present day, must have acted throughout the history of language, and that we owe to it almost all, or probably all, the words expressive of refined mental or spiritual ideas. The very word spirit, now the most refined and immaterial of ideas, is but the Latin spiritus, a gentle breeze or breathing; and inspiration, esprit, or wit, and many other words, are due to this metaphor. It is truly curious, however, that almost all the words in different languages denoting mind or soul imply the same analogy to breath. Thus, soul is from the Gothic root denoting a strong wind or storm; the Latin words animus and anima are supposed to be connected with the Greek ἄνεμος, wind; ψυχή is certainly derived from xw, to blow; πveûμa, air or breath, is used in the New Testament for Spiritual Being; and our word ghost has been asserted to have a similar origin. Almost all the terms employed in mental philosophy or metaphysics, to denote actions or phenomena of mind, are ultimately derived from metaphors. Apprehension is the putting forward of the hand to take anything; comprehension is the taking of things together in a handful; extension is the spreading out; intention, the bending to; explication, the unfolding; application, the folding to; conception, the taking up together; relation, the carrying back; experience is the thoroughly going through a thing; difference is the carrying apart; deliberation, the weighing out; interruption, the breaking between; proposition, the placing before; intuition, the seeing into; and the list might be almost indefinitely extended. Our English name for reason, the understanding, obviously contains some physical metaphor which has not been fully explained; with the Latin intellect there is also a metaphor. Every sense gives rise to words of refined meaning; sapience, taste, insipidity, goût, are derived from the sense, of taste; sagacity, from the dog's extraordinary power of smell; but as the sense of sight is by far the most acute and intellectual, it gives rise to the larger part of language; clearness, lucidity, obscurity, haziness, perspicuity, and innumerable other expressions, are derived from this sense. It is truly astonishing to notice the power which language possesses by the processes of generalization, specialization, and metaphor, to create many words from one single root. Prof. Max Müller has given a remarkable instance of this in the case of the root spec, which means sight, and appears in the Aryan languages, as in the Sanscrit spas, the Greek σкéπтоμai, with transposition of consonants, in the Latin specio, and even in the English spy. The following is an incomplete list of the words developed from this one root; species, special, especial, specimen, spice, spicy, specious, speciality, specific, specialization, specie (gold, or silver), spectre, specification, spectacle, spectator, spectral, spectrum, speculum, specular, speculation. The same root also enters into composition with various prefixes; and we thus obtain a series of words, suspect, aspect, circumspect, expect, inspect, prospect, respect, retrospect, introspection, conspicuous, perspicuity, perspective; with each of which, again, a number of derivatives is connected. Thus, from suspect, we derive suspicion, suspicable, suspicious, suspiciously, suspiciousness. I have estimated that there are in all at least 246 words, employed at some period or other in the English language which undoubtedly come from the one root spec. J. S. Mill's Logic, Book IV. Chap. v. 'On the Natural LESSON VII. LEIBNITZ ON KNOWledge. IN treating of terms it is necessary that we should clearly understand what a perfect notion of the meaning of a term requires. When a name such as monarch, or civilization, or autonomy is used, it refers the mind to some thing or some idea, and we ought if possible to obtain a perfect knowledge of the thing or idea before we use the word. In what does this perfect knowledge consist? What are its necessary characters? This is a question which the celebrated mathematician and philosopher Leibnitz attempted to answer in a small treatise or tract first published in the year 1684. This tract has been the basis of what is given on the subject in several recent works on Logic, and a complete translation of the tract |