THE MUTATIONS OF VERBAL SIGNIFICATION CONSIDERED.

THAT the significations of words as well as their external form, (their spelling and pronunciation,) are changed in the course of time, is abundantly manifest. Mr. Horne Tooke, indeed, asserts" Every word retains always one and the same meaning. Unnoticed abbreviation in construction and difference of position have caused the appearance of fluctuation, and have misled the grammarians of all languages both ancient and modern." This very explicit, unqualified, and determined statement, had long an irresistible but embarrassing effect upon the understanding of the author; and though free almost to a fault from reverence for authority in opinion, that of Horne Tooke could not be disregarded, as he was not a man that was apt to write unadvisedly or unsoundly; especially when not under the influence of the theory of a Northern Origin.

That a word generally retains one and the same meaning is certainly true; but that every word always retains one and the same meaning, is a proposition contrary to the most decisive evidence that can be obtained on such a subject. Indeed, it would be very unaccountable if all the grammarians of all languages both ancient and modern, had been misled by mere appearances to believe that words have secondary as well as primary meanings, if no such distinction really exist. But the question admits

of being easily settled by obvious and indisputable facts. Sycophant, for instance, originally meant an informer, (one who gave information against persons exporting figs, the exporting of which was forbidden by law at Athens,) now it means a flatterer: Heathen originally meant of or belonging to a nation (like Gentile from GENS): Pagan originally meant a villager; but both these terms have long meant an idolater or worshiper of false gods: Caesar, at one time, was a proper name, (and, perhaps, before that, meant having bushy hair,) but it has long meant, as in German, Kaiser, and in Russ, Czar, an emperor ; which word emperor, originally meant the commander or general of an army. A hundred such instances might be easily collected. The question here is about a fact; not the manner of accounting for it, or the process by which it was effected; which is, perhaps, after all, what Mr. Horne Tooke intended; so that we may have been all the while contending with a phantom-which, however, it is worth while to put down, if only to prevent in future such annoyance as the author once suffered when more in the dark concerning these inquiries..

The reasons of all such shiftings and changes of verbal signification are very obvious after a little inquiry and reflection. Indeed, they have already been virtually explained; and, therefore, to avoid repetition as much as possible, we shall only subjoin a few remarks.

As almost every expression (if there be any ex

ception) is elliptical; so with almost every word (if here, also, any exception exist) there are several ideas associated in the mind of those who employ it, besides the individual idea which it was intended and employed to indicate. The reason of this is too obvious to require any metaphysical abstrusity of theory or of explication. There is no such entity in either the natural or moral, physical or metaphysical world, as disconnected individuality. There is not any one single entity, be it an object of our senses, a sensation, an idea, a perception, a notion, (or whatever you may choose to call it,) which can exist alone or in absolute solitude and separation from company. [The fathomless speculations of theological metaphysics are wholly excluded from our present view.] However much, therefore, it may be intended as the sole or exclusive object of indication by any verbal sign or by any contrivance whatever, it is after all but one of a flock or group: it may be the first or largest of the flock; it may be the most prominent or most distinguished figure in the group; may occupy the fore-ground in the representation, but it is always accompanied by a number of other entities. Hence what is called the principle of mental association, or the association of ideas in the mind, so liberally philosophized since the days of that original and acute and profound thinker—that consistent reasoner-that masterly writer, but ill-requited author, the Philosopher of Malmsbury; for the poorest of those who have borrowed from him

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have liberally repaid the obligation by kicking at his reputation and even the simple-minded Mr. Locke only mentions his writings to say that they are justly exploded. Such is the timidity or ingratitude of the disciple-who is, in this, as in so many other respects, a perfect contrast to his great Master, the teacher and founder of that philosophy of which he was such an unworthy apostle. No one surely can sup-pose that the author is pledged to approve or defend all the opinions of Mr. Hobbes,-some of which are as opposite to his mental habitudes as can be reasonably wished; but even these he would have put down by the authority of reason-not by the violence of obloquy.

The fact above indicated, i. e. the complex or gregarious nature of ideas and thoughts, is the origin of many shiftings or mutations of verbal signification. Here a single illustration is better than a thousand sentences. Take an instance already adduced. Heathen primarily means of a nation; or, taken substantively, i. e. elliptically, one of a nation; and in the plural, (ETHNICOI, as it occurs in the New Testament,) the nations: but the nations of the earth were all considered by the Jews, idolaters or worshipers of false gods: the word for nations was so associated from the first with this idea, as to be process of time identified with and indicative of it only. This Jewish idiom (with many other Jewish notions and idioms) accompanied the Christians (who were, at first, nearly all Jews) from Judea

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into Europe, where it remains to the present day: and in the use of all such words as Heathen and Gentile, we, Christians and nations as we are, speak after the manner of the Jews. Take another instance of a similar nature and origin: Pagan primarily means a villager, a countryman; or, as we have it corrupted through the medium of French organs of speech, a peasant: but the peasants continued true to the venerable religion of their fathers; and worshiped Pavor and Pallor, and Pan and Priapus, in the good old way of their first faith and early associations, long after the citizens and burgesses of Rome and of the large towns (for in these, missionaries usually first erect the standard of conversion, or se→ cretly endeavour that the little leaven may leaven the whole lump of a large population) had apostatized from Heathenism to Christianity. Hence, the word for villager or peasant was associated in the minds of the Christians, (i. e. the town's-people,) with the idea of idolater or worshiper of false gods; and being thus associated, it was soon identified with and exclusively indicative of that idea, like the term heathen. A thousand such illustrations might be given of the same process, of a similar changing or shifting of verbal signification: so that Horne Tooke wrote more confidently than advisedly when he asserted, that every word retains always one and the same meaning. It is true, as he supposes, that abbreviation in construction and change of position, (though what he meant by change of position is not very ob