vated ages we discover the most refined intellects attempting
NEOLOGISMS.[27] It would be a subject of great curiosity to trace the
origin of many happy expressions, when, and by whom created. Plato
substituted the term _Providence_ for _fate_; and a new system of human
affairs arose from a single word. Cicero invented several; to this
philosopher we owe the term of _moral_ philosophy, which before his time
was called the philosophy of _manners_. But on this subject we are
perhaps more interested by the modern than by the ancient languages.
Richardson, the painter of the human heart, has coined some expressions
to indicate its little secret movements, which are admirable: that great
genius merited a higher education and more literary leisure than the
life of a printer could afford. Montaigne created some bold expressions,
many of which have not survived him; his _incuriosite_, so opposite to
curiosity, well describes that state of negligence where we will not
learn that of which we are ignorant. With us the word _incurious_ was
described by Heylin, 1656, as an unusual word; it has been appropriately
adopted by our best writers, although we still want _incuriosity_.
Charron invented _etrangete_ unsuccessfully, but which, says a French
critic, would be the true substantive of the word _etrange_; our Locke
is the solitary instance produced for "foreignness" for "remoteness or
want of relation to something." Malherbe borrowed from the Latin,
_insidieux_, _securite_, which have been received; but a bolder word,
_devouloir_, by which he proposed to express _cesser de vouloir_, has
not. A term, however, expressive and precise. Corneille happily
introduced _invaincu_ in a verse in the Cid,

Vous etes _invaincu_, mais non pas _invincible_.

Yet this created word by their great poet has not sanctioned this fine
distinction among the French, for we are told that it is almost a
solitary instance. Balzac was a great inventor of neologisms. _Urbanite_
and _feliciter_ were struck in his mint. "Si le mot _feliciter_ n'est
pas francaise, il le sera l'annee qui vient;" so confidently proud was
the neologist, and it prospered as well as _urbanite_, of which he says,
"Quand l'usage aura muri parmi nous un mot de si mauvais gout, et
corrige _l'amertume de la nouveaute_ qui s'y peut trouver, nous nous y
accoutumerons comme aux autres que nous avons emprunte de la meme
langue." Balzac was, however, too sanguine in some other words; for his