On the Study of Words by Richard Chenevix Trench (great book club books .TXT) 📖

reconnecting words by their use of them with their original derivation, in not suffering them to forget themselves and their origin, though they would. How often and with what signal effect does Milton compel a word to return to its original source, 'antiquam exquirere matrem'; while yet how often the fact that he is doing this passes even by scholars unobserved. [Footnote: Everyone who desires, as he reads Milton, thoroughly to understand him, will do well to be ever on the watch for such recalling, upon his part, of words to their primitive sense; and as often as he detects, to make accurate note of it for his own use, and, so far as he is a teacher, for the use of others. Take a few examples out of many: 'afflicted' (P. L. i. 186); 'alarmed' (P. L. iv. 985); 'ambition' (P. L. i. 262; S. A. 247); 'astonished' (P. L. i. 266); 'chaos' (P. L. vi. 55); 'diamond' (P. L. vi. 364); 'emblem' (P. L. iv. 703); 'empiric' (P. L. v. 440); 'engine' (P. L. i. 750); 'entire' (= integer, P. L. ix. 292); 'extenuate' (P. L. x. 645); 'illustrate' (P. L. v. 739); 'implicit' (P. L. vii. 323); 'indorse' (P. R. iii. 329); 'infringe' (P. R. i. 62); 'mansion' (Com. 2); 'moment' (P. L. x. 45); 'oblige' (P. L. ix. 980); 'person' (P. L. x. 156); 'pomp' (P. L. viii. 61); 'sagacious' (P. L. x. 28l); 'savage' (P. L. iv. l72); 'scene' (P. L. iv. 140;) 'secular' (S. A. 1707); 'secure' (P. L. vi. 638); 'seditious' (P. L. vi. 152); 'transact' (P. L. vi. 286); 'voluble' (P. L. ix. 436). We may note in Jeremy Taylor a similar reduction of words to their origins; thus, 'insolent' for unusual, 'metal' for mine, 'irritation' for a making vain, 'extant' for standing out (applied to a bas-relief), 'contrition' for bruising ('the contrition of the serpent'), 'probable' for worthy of approval ('a probable doctor'). The author of the excellent Lexique de la Langue de Corneille claims the same merit for him and for his great contemporaries or immediate successors: Faire rendre aux mots tout ce qu'ils peuvent donner, en varier habilement les acceptions et les nuances, les ramener à leur origine, les retremper fréquemment à leur source étymologique, constituait un des secrets principaux des grands écrivains du dix- septième siècle. It is this putting of old words in a new light, and to a new use, though that will be often the oldest of all, on which Horace sets so high a store: Dixeris egregie, notum si callida verbum Reddiderit junctura novum; and not less Montaigne: 'The handling and utterance of fine wits is that which sets off a language; not so much by innovating it, as by putting it to more vigorous and various service, and by straining, bending, and adapting it to this. They do not create words, but they enrich their own, and give them weight and signification by the uses they put them to.']

Moreover, even if all this were not so, yet the past history of a word, a history that must needs start from its derivation, how soon soever this may be left behind, can hardly be disregarded, when we are seeking to ascertain its present value. What Barrow says is quite true, that 'knowing the primitive meaning of words can seldom or never determine their meaning anywhere, they often in common use declining from it'; but though it cannot 'determine,' it can as little be omitted or forgotten, when this determination is being sought. A man may be wholly different now from what once he was; yet not the less to know his antecedents is needful, before we can ever perfectly understand his present self; and the same holds good with words.

There is a moral gain which synonyms will sometimes yield us, enabling us, as they do, to say exactly what we intend, without exaggerating or putting more into our speech than we feel in our hearts, allowing us to be at once courteous and truthful. Such moral advantage there is, for example, in the choice which we have between the words 'to felicitate' and 'to congratulate,' for the expressing of our sentiments and wishes in regard of the good fortune that may happen to others. To 'felicitate' another is to wish him happiness, without affirming that his happiness is also ours. Thus, out of that general goodwill with which we ought to regard all, we might 'felicitate' one almost a stranger to us; nay, more, I can honestly 'felicitate' one on his appointment to a post, or attainment of an honour, even though I may not consider him the fittest to have obtained it, though I should have been glad if another had done so; I can desire and hope, that is, that it may bring all joy and happiness to him. But I could not, without a violation of truth, 'congratulate' him, or that stranger whose prosperity awoke no lively delight in my heart; for when I 'congratulate' a person (congratulor), I declare that I am sharer in his joy, that what has rejoiced him has rejoiced also me. We have all, I dare say, felt, even without having analysed the distinction between the words, that 'congratulate' is a far heartier word than 'felicitate,' and one with which it much better becomes us to welcome the good fortune of a friend; and the analysis, as you perceive, perfectly justifies the feeling. 'Felicitations' are little better than compliments; 'congratulations' are the expression of a genuine sympathy and joy.

Let me illustrate the importance of synonymous distinctions by another example, by the words, 'to invent' and 'to discover'; or 'invention' and 'discovery.' How slight may seem to us the distinction between them, even if we see any at all. Yet try them a little closer, try them, which is the true proof, by aid of examples, and you will perceive that they can by no means be indifferently used; that, on the contrary, a great truth lies at the root of their distinction. Thus we speak of the 'invention' of printing, of the 'discovery' of America. Shift these words, and speak, for instance, of the 'invention' of America; you feel at once how unsuitable the language is. And why? Because Columbus did not make that to be, which before him had not been. America was there, before he revealed it to European eyes; but that which before was, he showed to be; he withdrew the veil which hitherto had concealed it; he 'discovered' it. So too we speak of Newton 'discovering' the law of gravitation; he drew aside the veil whereby men's eyes were hindered from perceiving it, but the law had existed from the beginning of the world, and would have existed whether he or any other man had traced it or no; neither was it in any way affected by the discovery of it which he had made. But Gutenberg, or whoever else it may be to whom the honour belongs, 'invented' printing; he made something to be, which hitherto was not. In like manner Harvey 'discovered' the circulation of the blood; but Watt 'invented' the steam-engine; and we speak, with a true distinction, of the 'inventions' of Art, the 'discoveries' of Science. In the very highest matters of all, it is deeply important that we be aware of and observe the distinction. In religion there have been many 'discoveries,' but (in true religion I mean) no 'inventions.' Many discoveries—but God in each case the discoverer; He draws aside the veils, one veil after another, that have hidden Him from men; the discovery or revelation is from Himself, for no man by searching has found out God; and therefore, wherever anything offers itself as an 'invention' in matters of religion, it proclaims itself a lie,—as are all self-devised worships, all religions which man projects from his own heart. Just that is known of God which He is pleased to make known, and no more; and men's recognizing or refusing to recognize in no way affects it. They may deny or may acknowledge Him, but He continues the same.

As involving in like manner a distinction which cannot safely be lost sight of, how important the difference, the existence of which is asserted by our possession of the two words, 'to apprehend' and 'to comprehend' with their substantives 'apprehension' and 'comprehension.' For indeed we 'apprehend' many truths, which we do not 'comprehend.' The great mysteries of our faith—the doctrine, for instance, of the Holy Trinity, we lay hold upon it, we hang on it, our souls live by it; but we do not '_com_prehend' it, that is, we do not take it all in; for it is a necessary attribute of God that He is incomprehensible; if He were not so, either He would not be God, or the Being that comprehended Him would be God also (Matt, xi. 27). But it also belongs to the idea of God that He may be '_ap_prehended' though not '_com_prehended' by his reasonable creatures; He has made them to know Him, though not to know Him all, to '_ap_prehend' though not to '_com_prehend' Him. We may transfer with profit the same distinction to matters not quite so solemn. Thus I read Goldsmith's Traveller, or one of Gay's Fables, and I feel that I 'comprehend' it;—I do not believe, that is, that there was anything stirring in the poet's mind or intention, which I have not in the reading reproduced in my own. But I read Hamlet, or King Lear: here I 'apprehend' much; I have wondrous glimpses of the poet's intention and aim; but I do not for an instant suppose that I have 'comprehended,' taken in, that is, all that was in his mind in the writing; or that his purpose does not stretch in manifold directions far beyond the range of my vision; and I am sure there are few who would not shrink from affirming, at least if they at all realized the force of the words they were using, that they 'comprehended 'Shakespeare; however much they may 'apprehend' in him.

How often 'opposite' and 'contrary' are used as if there was no difference between them, and yet there is a most essential one, one which perhaps we may best express by saying that 'opposites' complete, while 'contraries' exclude one another. Thus the most 'opposite' moral or mental characteristics may meet in one and the same person, while to say that the most 'contrary' did so, would be manifestly absurd; for example, a soldier may be at once prudent and bold, for these are opposites; he could not be at once prudent and rash, for these are contraries. We may love and fear at the same time and the same person; we pray in the Litany that we may love and dread God, the two being opposites, and thus the complements of one another; but to pray that we might love and hate would be as illogical as it would be impious, for these are contraries, and could no more co-exist together than white and black, hot and cold, in the same subject at the same time. Or to take another illustration, sweet and sour are 'opposites,' sweet and bitter are 'contraries,' [Footnote: See Coleridge, Church and State, p. 18.] It will be seen then that there is always a certain relation between 'opposites'; they unfold themselves, though in different directions, from the same root, as the positive and negative forces of electricity, and in their very opposition uphold and sustain one another; while 'contraries' encounter one another from quarters quite diverse, and one only subsists in the exact degree that it puts out of working the other. Surely this distinction cannot be an unimportant one either in the region of ethics or elsewhere.

It will happen continually, that rightly to distinguish between two words will throw a flood of light upon some controversy in which they play a principal part, nay, may virtually put an end to that controversy altogether. Thus when Hobbes, with a true instinct, would have laid deep the foundations of atheism and despotism together, resolving all right into might, and not merely robbing men, if he could, of the power, but denying to them the duty, of obeying God rather than man, his sophisms could stand only so long as it was not perceived that 'compulsion' and 'obligation,' with which he juggled, conveyed two ideas perfectly distinct, indeed disparate, in kind. Those sophisms of his collapsed at once, so soon as it was perceived that what pertained to one had been transferred to the other by a mere confusion of terms and cunning sleight of hand, the former being a physical, the latter a moral, necessity.

There is indeed no such fruitful source of confusion and mischief as this—two words are tacitly assumed as equivalent, and therefore exchangeable, and then that which may be assumed, and with truth,