neither more nor less than we mean, to be merely a graceful mental
accomplishment. It is indeed this, and perhaps there is no power so
surely indicative of a high and accurate training of the intellectual
faculties. But it is much more than this: it has a moral value as well.
It is nearly allied to morality, inasmuch as it is nearly connected
with truthfulness. Every man who has himself in any degree cared for
the truth, and occupied himself in seeking it, is more or less aware
how much of the falsehood in the world passes current under the
concealment of words, how many strifes and controversies,
'Which feed the simple, and offend the wise,'
find all or nearly all the fuel that maintains them in words carelessly
or dishonestly employed. And when a man has had any actual experience
of this, and at all perceived how far this mischief reaches, he is
sometimes almost tempted to say with Shakespeare, 'Out, idle words,
servants to shallow fools'; to adopt the saying of his clown, 'Words
are grown so false I am loathe to prove reason with them.' He cannot,
however, forego their employment; not to say that he will presently
perceive that this falseness of theirs whereof he accuses them, this
cheating power, is not of their proper use, but only of their abuse;
he will see that, however they may have been enlisted in the service of
lies, they are yet of themselves most true; and that, where the bane is,
there the antidote should be sought as well. If Goethe's _Faust_
denounces words and the falsehood of words, it is by the aid of words
that he does it. Ask then words what they mean, that you may deliver
yourselves, that you may help to deliver others, from the tyranny of
words, and, to use Baxter's excellent phrase, from the strife of 'word-
warriors.' Learn to distinguish between them, for you have the authority
of Hooker, that 'the mixture of those things by speech, which by nature
are divided, is the mother of all error.' [Footnote: See on all this
matter in Locke's _Essay on Human Understanding,_ chapters 9, 10 and 11
of the 3rd book, certainly the most remarkable in the _Essay;_ they bear
the following titles: _Of the Imperfection of Words, Of the Abuse of
Words, Of the Remedies of the Imperfection and Abuse of Words._] And
although I cannot promise you that the study of synonyms, or the
acquaintance with derivations, or any other knowledge but the very highest
knowledge of all, will deliver you from the temptation to misuse this or
any other gift of God--a temptation always lying so near us--yet I am sure
that these studies rightly pursued will do much in leading us to stand in
awe of this gift of speech, and to tremble at the thought of turning it to
any other than those worthy ends for which God has endowed us with a
faculty so divine.
LECTURE VII.
THE SCHOOLMASTER'S USE OF WORDS.
At the Great Exhibition of 1851, there might be seen a collection,
probably by far the completest which had ever been got together, of
what were called _the material helps of education_. There was then
gathered in a single room all the outward machinery of moral and
intellectual training; all by which order might be best maintained, the
labour of the teacher and the taught economized, with a thousand
ingenious devices suggested by the best experience of many minds, and
of these during many years. Nor were these material helps of education
merely mechanical. There were in that collection vivid representations
of places and objects; models which often preserved their actual forms
and proportions, not to speak of maps and of books. No one who is aware
how much in schools, and indeed everywhere else, depends on what
apparently is slight and external, would lightly esteem the helps and
hints which such a collection would furnish. And yet it would be well
for us to remember that even if we were to obtain all this apparatus in
its completest form, at the same time possessing the most perfect skill
in its application, so that it should never encumber but always assist
us, we should yet have obtained very little compared with that which,
as a help to education, is already ours. When we stand face to face
with a child, that spoken or unspoken word which the child possesses in
common with ourselves is a far more potent implement and aid of
education than all these external helps, even though they should be
accumulated and multiplied a thousandfold. A reassuring thought for
those who may not have many of these helps within their reach, a
warning thought for those who might be tempted to put their trust in
them. On the occasion of that Exhibition to which I have referred, it
was well said, 'On the structure of language are impressed the most
distinct and durable records of the habitual operations of the human
powers. In the full possession of language each man has a vast, almost
an inexhaustible, treasure of examples of the most subtle and varied
processes of human thought. Much apparatus, many material helps, some
of them costly, may be employed to assist education; but there is no
apparatus which is so necessary, or which can do so much, as that which
is the most common and the cheapest--which is always at hand, and ready
for every need. Every language contains in it the result of a greater
number of educational processes and educational experiments, than we
could by any amount of labour and ingenuity accumulate in any
educational exhibition expressly contrived for such a purpose.'
Being entirely convinced that this is nothing more than the truth, I
shall endeavour in my closing lecture to suggest some ways in which you
may effectually use this marvellous implement which you possess to the
better fulfilling of that which you have chosen as the proper task of
your life. You will gladly hear something upon this matter; for you
will never, I trust, disconnect what you may yourselves be learning
from the hope and prospect of being enabled thereby to teach others
more effectually. If you do, and your studies in this way become a
selfish thing, if you are content to leave them barren of all profit to
others, of this you may be sure, that in the end they will prove not
less barren of profit to yourselves. In one noble line Chaucer has
characterized the true scholar:--
'And gladly would he learn, and gladly teach.'
Print these words on your remembrance. Resolve that in the spirit of
this line you will work and live.
But take here a word or two of warning before we advance any further.
You cannot, of course, expect to make any original investigations in
language; but you can follow safe guides, such as shall lead you by
right paths, even as you may follow such as can only lead you astray.
Do not fail to keep in mind that perhaps in no region of human
knowledge are there such a multitude of unsafe leaders as in this; for
indeed this science of words is one which many, professing for it an
earnest devotion, have done their best or their worst to bring into
discredit, and to make a laughing-stock at once of the foolish and the
wise. Niebuhr has somewhere noted 'the unspeakable spirit of absurdity'
which seemed to possess the ancients, whenever they meddled with this
subject; but the charge reaches others beside them. Their mantle, it
must be owned, has in after times often fallen upon no unworthy
successors.
What is commoner, even now, than to find the investigator of words and
their origin looking round about him here and there, in all the
languages, ancient and modern, to which he has any access, till he
lights on some word, it matters little to him in which of these, more
or less resembling that which he wishes to derive? and this found, to
consider his problem solved, and that in this phantom hunt he has
successfully run down his prey. Even Dr. Johnson, with his robust,
strong, English common-sense, too often offends in this way. In many
respects his _Dictionary_ will probably never be surpassed. We shall
never have more concise, more accurate, more vigorous explanations of
the actual meaning of words, at the time when it was published, than he
has furnished. But even those who recognize the most fully this merit,
must allow that he was ill equipped by any preliminary studies for
tracing the past history of words; that in this he errs often and
signally; sometimes where the smallest possible amount of knowledge
would have preserved him from error; as for instance when he derives
the name of the peacock from the peak, or tuft of pointed feathers, on
its head! while other derivations proposed or allowed by him and others
are so far more absurd than this, that when Swift, in ridicule of the
whole band of philologers, suggests that 'ostler' is only a contraction
of oat-stealer, and 'breeches' of bear-riches, these etymologies are
scarcely more ridiculous than many which have in sober earnest, and by
men of no inconsiderable reputation, been proposed.
Oftentimes in this scheme of random etymology, a word in one language
is derived from one in another, in bold defiance of the fact that no
points of historic contact or connexion, mediate or immediate, have
ever existed between the two; the etymologist not caring to ask himself
whether it was thus so much as possible that the word should have
passed from the one language to the other; whether in fact the
resemblance is not merely superficial and illusory, one which, so soon
as they are stripped of their accidents, disappears altogether. Take a
few specimens of this manner of dealing with words; and first from the
earlier etymologists. Thus, what are men doing but extending not the
limits of their knowledge but of their ignorance, when they deduce,
with Varro, 'pavo' from 'pavor,' because of the fear which the harsh
shriek of the peacock awakens; or with Pliny, 'panthera' from [Greek:
pan thaerion], because properties of all beasts meet in the panther; or
persuade themselves that 'formica,' the ant, is 'ferens micas,' the
grain-bearer. Medieval suggestions abound, as vain, and if possible,
vainer still. Thus Sirens, as Chaucer assures us, are 'serenes' being
fair-weather creatures only to be seen in a calm. [Footnote: _Romaunt
of the Rose_, 678.] 'Apis,' a bee, is [Greek: apous] or without feet,
bees being born without feet, the etymology and the natural history
keeping excellent company together. Or what shall we say of deriving
'mors' from 'amarus,' because death is bitter; or from 'Mars,' because
death is frequent in war; or 'à _morsu_ vetiti pomi,' because that
forbidden bite brought death into the world; or with a modern
investigator of language, and one of high reputation in his time,
deducing 'girl' from 'garrula,' because girls are commonly talkative?
[Footnote: Ménage is one of these 'blind leaders of the blind,' of
whom I have spoken above. With all their real, though not very accurate,
erudition, his three folio volumes, two on French, one on Italian
etymologies, have done nothing but harm to the cause which they were
intended to further. Génin (_Récréations Philologiques_, pp. 12-15)
passes a severe but just judgment upon them. Ménage, comme tous ses
devanciers et la plupart de ses successeurs, semble n'avoir été dirigé
que par un seul principe en fait d'étymologie. Le voici dans son
expression la plus nette. Tout mot vient du mot qui lui ressemble le
mieux. Cela posé, Ménage, avec son érudition polyglotte, s'abat sur le
grec, le latin, l'italien, l'espagnol, l'allemand, le celtique, et ne
fait difficulté d'aller jusqu'à l'hébreu. C'est dommage que de son
temps on ne cultivât pas encore le sanscrit, l'hindotistani, le
thibétain et l'arabe: il les eût contraints à lui livrer des
étymologies françaises. Il ne se met pas en peine des chemins par où
un mot hébreu ou carthaginois aurait pu passer pour venir s'établir en
France. Il y est, le voilà, suffit! L'identité ne peut être mise en
question devant la ressemblance, et souvent Dieu sait quelle
ressemblance! Compare Ampère, _Formation de la Langue Française_, pp.
194, 195.]
All experience, indeed, proves how perilous it is to etymologize at
random, and on the strength of mere surface similarities of sound. Let
me illustrate the absurdities into which this may easily betray us by
an amusing example. A clergyman, who himself told me the story, had
sought, and not unsuccessfully, to kindle in his schoolmaster a passion
for the study of derivations. His scholar inquired of him one day if he
were aware of the derivation of 'crypt'? He naturally applied in the
affirmative, that 'crypt' came from a Greek word to conceal, and meant
a covered place, itself concealed, and where things which it was wished
to conceal were placed. The other rejoined that he was quite aware the
word was commonly so explained, but he had no doubt erroneously; that
'crypt,' as he had now convinced himself, was in fact contracted from
'cry-pit'; being the pit where in days of Popish tyranny those who were
condemned to cruel penances were plunged, and out of which their cry
was heard to come up--therefore called the 'cry-pit,' now contracted
into 'crypt'! Let me say, before quitting my tale, that I would far
sooner a schoolmaster made a hundred such mistakes than that he should
be careless and incurious in all which concerned the words which he was
using. To make mistakes, as we are in the search of knowledge, is far
more honourable than to escape making them through never having set out
in this search at all
But while errors like his may very well be pardoned, of this we may be
sure, that they will do little in etymology, will continually err and
cause others to err, who in these studies leave this out of sight for
an instant--namely, that no amount of resemblance between words in
different languages is of itself sufficient to prove that they are akin,
even as no amount of apparent unlikeness in sound or present form is
sufficient to disprove consanguinity. 'Judge not according to
appearances,' must everywhere here be the rule. One who in many regions
of human knowledge anticipated the discoveries of later times, said
well a century and a half ago, 'Many etymologies are true, which at the
first blush are not probable'; [Footnote: Leibnitz (_Opp_. vol. v. p.
61): Saepe fit ut etymologiae verae sint, quae primo aspectu
verisimiles non sunt.] and, as he might have added, many appear
probable, which are not true. This being so, it is our wisdom on the
one side to distrust superficial likenesses, on the other not to be
repelled by superficial differences. Have no faith in those who
etymologize on the strength of _sounds_, and not on that of _letters_,
and of letters, moreover, dealt with according to fixed and recognized
laws of equivalence and permutation. Much, as was said so well, is true,
which does not seem probable. Thus 'dens' [Footnote: Compare Max Muller,
_Chips from a German Workshop_, vol. iv. p. 25; Heyse, _System der
Sprachwissenschaft_, p. 307.] and 'zahn' and 'tooth' are all the same
word, and such in like manner are [Greek: chen], 'anser,' 'gans,' and
'goose;' and again, [Greek: dakru] and 'tear.' Who, on the other hand,
would not take for granted that our 'much' and the Spanish 'mucho,'
identical in meaning, were also in etymology nearly related? There is
in fact no connexion between them. Between 'vulgus' and 'volk' there is
as little. 'Auge' the German form of our 'eye,' is in every letter
identical with a Greek word for splendour ([Greek: auge]); and yet,
intimate as is the connexion between German and Greek, these have no
relation with one another whatever. Not many years ago a considerable
scholar identified the Greek 'holos' ([Greek: holos]) and our 'whole;'
and few, I should imagine, have not been tempted at one stage of their
knowledge to do the same. These also are in no way related. Need I
remind you here of the importance of seeking to obtain in every case
the earliest spelling of a word which is attainable? [Footnote: What
signal gains may in this way be made no one has shown more remarkably
than Skeat in his _Etymological Dictionary_.]
Here then, as elsewhere, the condition of all successful investigation
is to have learned to disregard phenomena, the deceitful shows and
appearances of things; to have resolved to reach and to grapple with
the things themselves. It is the fable of Proteus over again. He will
take a thousand shapes wherewith he will seek to elude and delude one
who is determined to extort from him that true answer, which he is
capable of yielding, but will only yield on compulsion. The true
inquirer is deceived by none of these. He still holds him fast; binds
him in strong chains; until he takes his proper shape at the last; and
answers as a true seer, so far as answer is possible, whatever question
may be put to him. Nor, let me observe by the way, will that man's gain
be small who, having so learned to distrust the obvious and the
plausible, carries into other regions of study and of action the
lessons which he has thus learned; determines to seek the ground of
things, and to plant his foot upon that; believes that a lie may look
very fair, and yet be a lie after all; that the truth may show very
unattractive, very unlikely and paradoxical, and yet be the very truth
notwithstanding.
To return from a long, but not unnecessary digression. Convinced as I
am of the immense advantage of following up words to their sources, of
'deriving' them, that is, of tracing each little rill to the river from
whence it was first drawn, I can conceive no method of so effectually
defacing and barbarizing our English tongue, of practically emptying it
of all the hoarded wit, wisdom, imagination, and history which it
contains, of cutting the vital nerve which connects its present with
the past, as the introduction of the scheme of phonetic spelling, which
some have lately been zealously advocating among us. I need hardly tell
you that the fundamental idea of this is that all words should be spelt
as they are sounded, that the writing should, in every case, be
subordinated to the speaking. [Footnote: I do not know whether the
advocates of phonetic spelling have urged the authority and practice of
Augustus as being in their favour. Suetonius, among other amusing
gossip about this Emperor, records of him: Videtur eorum sequi
opinionem, qui perinde scribendum ac loquamur, existiment (_Octavius_.
c. 88).] This, namely that writing should in every case and at all
costs be subordinated to speaking, which is everywhere tacitly assumed
as not needing any proof, is the fallacy which runs through the whole
scheme. There is, indeed, no necessity at all for this. Every word, on
the contrary, has _two_ existences, as a spoken word and a written; and
you have no right to sacrifice one of these, or even to subordinate it
wholly, to the other. A word exists as truly for the eye as for the
ear; and in a highly advanced state of society, where reading is almost
as universal as speaking, quite as much for the one as for the other.
That in the _written_ word moreover is the permanence and continuity of
language and of learning, and that the connexion is most intimate of a
true orthography with all this, is affirmed in our words, 'letters,'
'literature,' 'unlettered,' as in other languages by words exactly
corresponding to these. [Footnote: As [Greek: grammata, agrammatos],
litterae, belles-lettres.] The gains consequent on the introduction of
such a change in our manner of spelling would be insignificantly small,
the losses enormously great. There would be gain in the saving of a
certain amount of the labour now spent in learning to spell. The amount
of labour, however, is absurdly exaggerated by the promoters of the
scheme. I forget how many thousand hours a phonetic reformer lately
assured us were on an average spent by every English child in learning
to spell; or how much time by grown men, who, as he assured us, for the
most part rarely attempted to write a letter without a Johnson's
_Dictionary_ at their side. But even this gain would not long remain,
seeing that pronunciation is itself continually changing; custom is
lord here for better and for worse; and a multitude of words are now
pronounced in a manner different from that of a hundred years ago,
indeed from that of ten years ago; so that, before very long, there
would again be a chasm between the spelling and the pronunciation of
words;--unless indeed the spelling varied, which it could not
consistently refuse to do, as the pronunciation varied, reproducing
each of its capricious or barbarous alterations; these last, it must be
remembered, being changes not in the pronunciation only, but in the
word itself, which would only exist as pronounced, the written word
being a mere shadow servilely waiting upon the spoken. When these
changes had multiplied a little, and they would indeed multiply
exceedingly on the removal of the barriers to change which now exist,
what the language before long would become, it is not easy to guess.
This fact however, though sufficient to show how ineffectual the scheme
of phonetic spelling would prove, even for the removing of those
inconveniences which it proposes to remedy, is only the smallest
objection to it. The far more serious charge which may be brought
against it is, that in words out of number it would obliterate those
clear marks of birth and parentage, which they bear now upon their
fronts, or are ready, upon a very slight interrogation, to reveal.
Words have now an ancestry; and the ancestry of words, as of men, is
often a very noble possession, making them capable of great things,
because those from whom they are descended have done great things
before them; but this would deface their scutcheon, and bring them all
to the same ignoble level. Words are now a nation, grouped into tribes
and families, some smaller, some larger; this change would go far to
reduce them to a promiscuous and barbarous horde. Now they are often
translucent with their inner thought, lighted up by it; in how many
cases would this inner light be then quenched! They have now a body and
a soul, the soul quickening the body; then oftentimes nothing but a
body, forsaken by the spirit of life, would remain. These objections
were urged long ago by Bacon, who characterizes this so-called
reformation, 'that writing should be consonant to speaking,' as 'a
branch of unprofitable subtlety;' and especially urges that thereby
'the derivations of words, especially from foreign languages, are
utterly defaced and extinguished.' [Footnote: The same attempt to
introduce phonography has been several times made, once in the
sixteenth century, and again some thirty years ago in France. What
would be there the results? We may judge of these from the results of a
partial application of the system. 'Temps' is now written 'tems,' the
_p_ having been ejected as superfluous. What is the consequence? at
once its visible connexion with the Latin 'tempus,' with the Spanish
'tiempo,' with the Italian 'tempo,' with its own 'temporel' and
'temporaire,' is broken, and for many effaced. Or note the result from
another point of view. Here are 'poids' a weight, 'poix' pitch, 'pois'
peas. No one could mark in speaking the distinction between these; and
thus to the ear there maybe confusion between them, but to the eye
there is none; not to say that the _d_ in poi_d_s' puts it for us in
relation with 'pon_d_us,' the _x_ in 'poi_x_' with 'pu_x_,' the _s_ in
'poi_s_' with the Low Latin 'pi_s_um.' In each case the letter which
these reformers would dismiss as useless, and worse than useless, keeps
the secret of the word. On some other attempts in the same direction
see in D'Israeli, _Amenities of Literature_, an article _On Orthography
and Orthoepy_; and compare Diez, _Romanische Sprache_, vol. i. p. 52.
[In the form _poids_ we have a striking example of a wretchedly bad
spelling which is due to an attempt to make the spelling etymological.
Unfortunately the etymology is erroneous: the French word for weight
has nothing in the world to do with Latin _pondus_; it is the phonetic
representative of the Latin _pensum_, and should be spelt _pois_.]]