est, the most useful; and out of the endless number of general notions that suggest themselves to the observing and gathering mind, those only survive and receive definite phonetic expression which are absolutely requisite for carrying on the work of life. Many perceptions which naturally present themselves to our minds have never been gathered up into general notions, and accordingly they have not received a name. There is no general notion to comprehend all blue flowers or all red stones; no name that includes horses and dogs, but excludes oxen and sheep. The Greek language has never produced a word to express animal as opposed to man, and the word zoon, which, like animal, comprises all living creatures, is post-Homeric.1 Locke has called attention to the fact that in English there is a special word for killing a man, namely, murder, while there is none for killing a sheep; that there is a special designation for the murder of a father, namely, parricide, but none for the murder of a son 、or a neighbor. "Thus the mind," he writes, "in mixed modes, arbitrarily unites into complex ideas such as it finds convenient; whilst others that have altogether as much union in nature are left loose, and never combined into one idea because they have no need of one name." And again, "Colshire, drilling, filtration, cohobation, are words standing for certain complex ideas, which, being seldom in the minds. of any but the few whose particular employments do at every turn suggest them to their thoughts, those names of them are not generally understood but by smiths and chemists, who having framed the com1 Curtius, Grundzüge, i. 78. 2 Locke, In the Understanding, iii. 5, 6. plex ideas which these words stand for, and having given names to them or received them from others upon hearing of these names in communication, readily conceive those ideas in their minds; as by cohobation, all the simple ideas of distilling and the pouring the liquor distilled from anything back upon the remaining matter, and distilling it again. Thus we see that there are great varieties of simple ideas, as of tastes and smells, which have no names, and of modes many more, which either not having been generally enough observed, or else not being of any great use to be taken notice of in the affairs and concerns of men, they have not had names given to them, and so pass not for species." 1 Of course, when new combinations arise, and again and again assert their independence, they at last receive admittance into the commonwealth of ideas and the republic of words. This applies to ancient even more than to modern times -to the early ages of language more than to its present state. It was an event in the history of man when the ideas of father, mother, brother, sister, husband, wife were first conceived and first uttered. It was a new era when the numerals from one to ten had been framed, and when words like law, right, duty, virtue, generosity, love, had been added to the dictionary of man. It was a revelation - the greatest of all revelations when the conception of a Creator, a Ruler, a Father of man, when the name of God was for the first time uttered in this world. Such were the general notions that were wanted and that were coined into intellectual currency. Other 1 Locke, l. c. ii. 18, 7. notions started up, lived for a time, and disappeared again when no longer required. Others will still rise up, unless our intellectual life becomes stagnant, and will receive the baptism of language. Who has thought about the changes which are brought about apparently by the exertions of individuals, but for the accomplishment of which, nevertheless, individual exertions would seem to be totally unavailing, without feeling the want of a word, that is to say, in reality, of an idea, to comprehend the influence of individuals on the world at large and of the world at large on individuals, an idea that should explain the failure of a Huss in reforming the Church, and the success of a Luther, the defeat of a Pitt in carrying parliamentary reform, and the success of a Russell? How are we to express that historical process in which the individual seems to be a free agent and yet is the slave of the masses whom he wants to influence, in which the masses seem irresistible, and are yet swayed by the pen of an unknown writer? Or, to descend to smaller matters, how does a poet become popular? How does a new style of art or architecture prevail? How, again, does fashion change? how does what seemed absurd last year become recognized in this, and what is admired in this becomes ridiculous in the next season? Or take language itself. How is it that a new word, such as to shunt, or a new pronunciation, such as gold instead of goold, is sometimes accepted, while at other times the best words newly coined or newly revived by our best writers are completely ignored and fall dead? We want an idea that is to exclude caprice as well as necessity, that is to include individual exertion as well as general cooperation, an idea applicable neither to the unconscious building of bees nor to the conscious architecture of human beings, yet combining within itself both these operations, and raising them to a new and higher conception. You will guess both the idea and the word, if I add that it is likewise to explain the extinction of fossil kingdoms and the origin of new species, it is the idea of Natural Selection that was wanted, and being wanted it was found, and being found it was named. It is a new category a new engine of thought; and if naturalists are proud to affix their names to a new species which they discover, Mr. Darwin may be prouder, for his name will remain affixed to a new idea, a new genus of thought. There are languages which do not possess numerals beyond four. All beyond four is lumped together in the general idea of many. dialects, such as the Hawaian, in which There are black and blue and dark-green are not distinguished, nor bright yellow and white, nor brown and red. This arises from no obtuseness of sense, for the slightest variation of tint is immediately detected by the people, but from sluggishness of mind. In the same way the Hawaians are said to have but one term for love, friendship, gratitude, benevolence, esteem, &c., which they call indiscriminately aloha, though the same people distinguish in their dictionary between aneane, a gentle breeze, matani, wind, puhi, blowing or puffing with the mouth, and hano, blowing through the nose, asthma.2 It is the same in the lower classes The Polynesian, September 27, 1862. 2 Hale, Polynesian Lexicon, s. v. of our own country. People who would never use such words as quadruped, or mineral, or beverage, have different names for the tail of a fox, the tail of a dog, the tale of a hare.1 Castren, the highest authority on the languages, literature, and civilization of the Northern Turanian races, such as the Finns, Lapps, Tatars, and Mongolians, speaks of tribes which have no word for river, though they have names for the smallest rivulet; no word for finger, but names for the thumb, the ring-finger, &c.; no word for berry, but many names for cranberry, strawberry, blueberry; no word for tree, but names for birch, fir, ash, and other trees.2 He states in another place (p. 18) that in Finnish the word for thumb gradually assumed the meaning of finger, the word for waterberry (empetrum nigrum) the meaning of berry. But even these, the most special names, are really general terms, and express originally a general quality, nor is there any other way in which they could have been formed. It is difficult to place ourselves in the position of people with whom the framing of new ideas and new words was the chief occupation of their life. But suppose we had no word for dog; what could we do? If we, with a full-grown language at our command, became for the first time acquainted with a dog, we should probably discover some similarity between it and some other animal, and call it accordingly. We might call it a tame wolf, just as the inhabitants of Mallicolo, when they 1 Pott, Etymologische Forschungen, ii. 439. 2 Vorlesungen über Finnische Mythologie, p. 11. |