owth with which we are now concerned. How did the roots or
substantial portions of words become modified or inflected? and how did
they receive separate meanings? First we remark that words are attracted
by the sounds and senses of other words, so that they form groups of
nouns and verbs analogous in sound and sense to one another, each noun
or verb putting forth inflexions, generally of two or three patterns,
and with exceptions. We do not say that we know how sense became first
allied to sound; but we have no difficulty in ascertaining how the
sounds and meanings of words were in time parted off or differentiated.
(1) The chief causes which regulate the variations of sound are (a)
double or differing analogies, which lead sometimes to one form,
sometimes to another (b) euphony, by which is meant chiefly the greater
pleasure to the ear and the greater facility to the organs of speech
which is given by a new formation or pronunciation of a word (c) the
necessity of finding new expressions for new classes or processes of
things. We are told that changes of sound take place by innumerable
gradations until a whole tribe or community or society find themselves
acquiescing in a new pronunciation or use of language. Yet no one
observes the change, or is at all aware that in the course of a lifetime
he and his contemporaries have appreciably varied their intonation or
use of words. On the other hand, the necessities of language seem to
require that the intermediate sounds or meanings of words should quickly
become fixed or set and not continue in a state of transition. The
process of settling down is aided by the organs of speech and by the use
of writing and printing. (2) The meaning of words varies because ideas
vary or the number of things which is included under them or with which
they are associated is increased. A single word is thus made to do duty
for many more things than were formerly expressed by it; and it parts
into different senses when the classes of things or ideas which are
represented by it are themselves different and distinct. A figurative
use of a word may easily pass into a new sense: a new meaning caught up
by association may become more important than all the rest. The good or
neutral sense of a word, such as Jesuit, Puritan, Methodist, Heretic,
has been often converted into a bad one by the malevolence of party
spirit. Double forms suggest different meanings and are often used to
express them; and the fo