Page:Ralcy H. Bell - The Mystery of Words (1924).pdf/143

 and here we are shocked at words that leapt full-armored from the brain of man as Minerva from the brain of Jove.

These immediate, spontaneous, mysterious words are startling. Were they born without parents; that is to say, without etymology, analogy, derivatives? What were the hidden links of thought or suggestion connecting them with others that went before? Were they born of popular madness? Are they the eruptions, the lava, the flame and ash of language?

As we have seen, law is an invariable relation existing between series of phenomena. The changes in grammar maintain, in general, a tendency toward simplification. This tendency also is called a law. Gradually prepositions take the place of case-terminations of nouns; articles denote genders; pronouns indicate persons; and verb-tenses give way to auxiliaries. This is called the law of specialization. The mind struggles to express its ideas with increasing ease and clearness.