n signifies, and it so happens that
there is no such Swedish word as _saka_, to search. The word _ransack_,
for which the Anglo-Saxons had _ransaka_, is derived to us from the
Gothic, in which _razn_ (pronounced _ran_) signifies a house, and
_sokjan_ to search; so that, _to ransack_, implies to search the house.

To the adjective _naked_ Dr. Johnson has given four different meanings.
Its etymology, he says, is from the Anglo-Saxon, _nacod_, which in that
language was of similar signification: but this imparts no meaning. It
is a compound word: _na_, in Anglo-Saxon, signifies _new_, and _cenned_,
_born_, so that the condition of the _new-born_ child affords an
appropriate interpretation of the term _naked_.

To ordinary minds, that which is said to be authority is decisive[10]; a
particular author of celebrity is cited, and thus the business
concludes. The reasons, which induced him to employ the word in such
particular sense, it is in most cases fruitless to enquire; as during
their lives, authors have seldom been appreciated: so that the silence
of death seems indispensable to procure the consent of authority.

As language is the instrument of thought, the vehicle of intelligible
communication among human beings, it is impossible to attach too high
importance to its precise signification: the difficulties of effecting
this concordance have been pointed out, but the remedy has not yet been
applied. After all the investigation that has been given to this
interesting subject, one leading fact seems indisputable, that all the
terms which designate the faculties and operations of our minds, are of
physical origin, as well as those which characterise the thinking or
immaterial principle itself: and for this, there is sufficient reason;
as all language, in order to be adapted for our use, in this state of
existence, can only be the representative of the objects of our
perceptions and reflections,--an instrument calculated for the meridian
of this transitory life: for, when the holy light of happiness to come
was revealed to the human race, it was found expedient, for their
comprehension, to transmit its rays through a material prism.[11]

FOOTNOTES:

[8] Mr. Locke, as he advances in his essay, expresses considerable
distrust of the existence of these powers and faculties of the mind.
"Yet I suspect, I say, that this way of speaking of faculties has misled
many into a confused notion of so many distinct agents in us, which