Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 51.djvu/345

Rh rise to them—they imply the duck in all its characters and activities. It is for like reason that the various symbol values of a vast number of terms in our own language have gradually emerged from their original meaning as words descriptive of a single quality of the thing named—sheep from "bleater," its original meaning; dawn from "shine," pig from "grunter," or "the maker of the su sound," mortality from "a wasting away," mother from "fashioner," sky from "cover," mouse from "stealer," ant from "swarmer," bird from "upstriver," father from "nourisher" or "protector," ground from "the trodden," foot from "treader," woman from "bearer" (gune), "soft one" (mulier), or "the suckler" (femina), night from "the blind" or "dangerous" earth from "the dry" (terra), house from the "built," horse from "the neigher," picture from "scratching," stars from "strewn," fetters from "footers," fingers from "seizers" (Fänger), language from "tongue," imply from "folding in," apprehend from "taking hold of," develop from "unwrap." The gain of the process is obviously this—that the mind, instead of describing a single quality by its name—instead of having to deal with all the qualities separately—is enabled to include in a single concept all the characters which the thing named is known to possess, and to bring such concept into true relation with other concepts equally rich in the number of qualities which they connote. That the economy thus attained is no small one—that it means enlargement and perfection of end as well as saving of energy—may be realized by remembering the enormous increase which has taken place even in recent years in the meaning of such simple terms, for example, as stone and star. "Stone," to the uncultured man, is merely a hard substance of a particular color, size, shape, and weight; to the geologist the concept "stone" has a rich content of both chemical and physical characters, and demands for its thorough comprehension a familiarity with the whole history of the planet. So to the ignorant man "stars" are little more than

 specks of tinsel fixed in heaven, To light the midnights of his native town;

while to the educated, and above all to the scientific mind, the concept is rich with thoughts of cosmic processes and solar evolution, and has a content of materials drawn from well-nigh every department of knowledge.

Economy in language (which throughout implies economy in mental processes) is probably shown as much by that which escapes as by that which attains to expression in speech. Words are brought into use only to describe things, actions, and relations that are of habitual or frequent occurrence. A vast number of phenomena are left unnamed for the reason that they do not recur