school lexicons shall be prepared on the plan of a thorough philological and logical development of each word, from its ultimate root to its topmost branch, in both its form and sense, without note or comment, and in which the student shall be required to select his own meaning in each case, without aid, and to be able to give his reason out of the very word itself as well as out of the context, for so rendering it, is quite uncertain, if not altogether improbable. But if ever the time comes when such facilities are provided and used with enthusiasm and perseverance, there will be a body and substance in the style of mental discipline secured, far beyond anything yet obtained in the whole round of scholastic appliances.

IV. The determinative principles and tests of etymology. By these are meant certain fixed laws of evidence and judgment, by which any supposed or alleged facts are to be ruled in or out of this science, which is, as has been said, a strictly inductive science. The relations of cause and effect, therefore, or of antecedence and sequence, are to be traced here as they would be on any other field of investigation, and we must walk in the light of analogy.

1. The determinative principles and tests of comparative etymology.

2. Those pertaining to specific etymology in any and ev. ery language.

1. Those of comparative etymology are the following, viz.: (1) Correspondence in the fundamental base or root. A real difference of base is of course destructive of all etymological identity. The base or theme of a word is its whole substance and essence.

(2) Minute mutual resemblances, through a wide range of derivatives, and in all the details of prefix and suffix forms. Each new correspondence in the derivatives of different languages adds much weight, like the argument from multiplied undesigned coincidences in the Bible, in favor of the integrity of its writers, to the force of that probable evidence by which, in this science, we are to determine all its facts and features.

(3) Euphonic laws of definite, ascertained scope and power. These often avail to overrule and overthrow all conclusions derived from sight or sound, for or against a given etymology. They are laws which are openly revealed to us in the language itself; laws which it observed in its own constant manifestation and growth, and, by observing, preserved as such in its own keeping, for its own sure interpretation forever.

(4) Certain specific axioms.

(a) One fact outweighs any and all theories to the contrary.

(b) No theory is adequate which does not embrace and explain all known facts.

(c) of two varying theories, equally supported in other respects, that should always have the preference which is the most simple.

(d) No etymology can be rightly rejected on principles of reasoning, in following which in receiving other etymologies, one would be condemned. One may be as much of an empiric in his mode of rejecting an etymology, as he could possibly judge another to be, in receiving it.

2. The authoritative principles pertaining to specific etymology in any given language.

(1) The genius of the language itself.

The genius of a language in respect to its etymology, is determined by its general analogies, as discovered by a wide and thorough comparison of its derivatives and secondary forms, just as by resemblances of structure and cleavage and essential characteristics, minerals are classified. Each language has a spirit, a mien and a gait of its own; and, as we know a man's handwriting, with whom we are familiar, or his style of composition, so as to recognize them readily without his name, so, to him who knows a language as his own, under the motion of whose thoughts and feelings its words move, like his limbs, as if a part of his inward self, that language has a familiar, cherished look, in all its aspects. The true etymologist in any language does not stand outside of it, and take his observations of its dimen

sions and of its structure as a stranger to it, with ideals and formulas of criticism and comparison, formed out of its atmosphere. His point of view, on the contrary, is within the bright azure sphere of the language itself, where he looks around upon everything beautiful and true, with a deep, glad home-sense, in sympathy with all that he beholds. Possessed of such feelings and standing at such a point of observation, a true scholarly critic will soon become able to determine at once, by a sort of instinctive interior sense, the real or counterfeit value of many minor and yet significant points of etymology. The place thus allowed for disciplined philosophic insight, is narrow and confined; but it really has a function and a sphere for its exercise, and they should be pointed out. Perfect scholarship would seem, when at work, both to him employing it and to those witnessing its manifestations, like perfect spontaneity in its decisions.

(2) Simplicity and naturalness of derivation, in respect to both form and sense.

Truth is always simple in its nature, as is also the mind, in its spirit and tastes, that seeks to discover and appropriate it to itself. And every science, as a fragment of the great orb of universal truth, is simple always in its elements and proportions.

(3) Archaic forms, having a determinate influence.

In the early state of a language, its original forms are least impaired. Connections that then existed between words are often covered up afterwards by the growth of centuries. Thus in the light obtained in such a way, we find that bonus in Latin was originally duonus (from duo), implying in its very origin, as all goodness does in fact, the existence of two parties, the giver and receiver. So bellum was at first duellum, as also bis represents dvis, like the Greek dis for &Fis; and thus bis (for dvis) and viginti (for dviginti) twenty, stand together before the eye even, in close mutual connection: facts these, which, if only surmised without such evidence, would have been treated with ridicule.

(4) Double forms.

These occur in Greek abundantly in Homer. There is often a third form also exhibited, the second being in such a case medial between it and the one which was primitive. Such different stages in forms are as interesting to a philol ogist, as specimens of the influence of time upon language, as to the geologist are the different orders of rocks, primary, secondary, and tertiary, in helping him to determine the mode and the length of time in which this world was fitted up for its present inhabitants.

(5) Dialectic changes and differences.

The Greek is the only specific language whose dialects are at the same time numerous, and each in marked advance beyond its predecessor; while all are mutually illustrative, in the fullest and strongest philological relations, of each other.

It is thus quite apparent that a thoroughly accomplished etymologist must needs be a man of very comprehensive learning as well as of large intellectual capacities, and these brought under the power of long and intense discipline.

The supposition or dictum of an ancient himself, as of Cicero, many of whose etymologies are preserved to us in his essays, or of Varro, whom Cicero greatly admired, has no authority as such, concerning the origin or elements of a word. An ancient was just as likely as a modern, under the influence of fancy or haste, to go astray; and, in the classical age of Latin or Greek, an author was as far removed from the primas rerum origines, so far as his power to give any testimony respecting them is concerned, as we are. His opinion is but a mere opinion, and no evidence. Varro's etymologies, which are not so simple as to be undeserving of any special notice, as of dux from duco, are, very many of them, like that of pater from patefacio.

V. Some of the advantages of the study of etymology. The word etymology (ἐτυμολογία), is derived from ἔτυμος, true or real, and λóyos, speech. The Latin synonym, veriloquium, expresses the same elementary idea. So that a person is etymologically ignorant of language, who does not, like one seeing sands of gold through a limpid stream,

behold within its forms, as if transparent, its etymological elements and treasures.

Among the advantages of studying etymology may be mentioned the following, viz.:

1. The high pleasure derived from it.

No study is more fascinating. "Diversions," the investigators into the origin of words, call their labors, and etymology itself they describe as " fossil poetry." It is indeed this, and more. It is fossil poetry, philosophy and history combined. In the treasured words of the past, the very spirits of elder days look out upon us, as from so many crystalline spheres, with friendly recognition. We see in them the light of their eyes; we feel in them the warmth of their hearts. They are relics, they are tokens, and almost break into life again at our touch.

The etymologist unites in himself the characteristics of the traveller, roaming through strange and far-off climes; the philosopher, prying into the causes and sequences of things; the antiquary, filling his cabinet with ancient curiosities and wonders; the historiographer, gathering up the records of by-gone men and ages; and the artist, studying the beautiful designs in word-architecture, furnished him by various nations and especially by that greatest of all nations in all forms of art, the Greeks, whose language is the most perfect specimen of organism, for power and for beauty, to be found in the world of speech. Shall then the traveller, the philosopher, the antiquary, the historian and the artist, find high gratification, each in his exalted employment, and not he who unites all their occupations in one, and all their pleasures in his own?

The pursuit of knowledge is always pleasant; and the mind engaged in it, walks, runs, flies in its course, as if born for any and every element; every limb instinct with motion and every nerve vital and vivid with its impulse. The more rich the landscape is in details, and the more infinite its fulness before the ravished eye, the greater the pleasure in the survey, and the greater the consciousness of power in being able to appreciate and interpret such a wide array of beauties and wonders unto others.