Page:Transactions of the Linnean Society of London, Volume 3 (1797).djvu/114

72 Secondly, What I have to say about derivatives not used in Latin writers, will be contained in a short comment on a passage in the Academic Questions of Cicero, where he asserts the rights and privileges of those who treat on philosophical subjects in a language not yet enriched with proper terms, and exemplifies his principles in the formation of a new derivative, an authority from which I apprehend no appeal will be made. The translation of this passage is as follows. The original is placed at the end of this article.

Varro.'You will allow me the same liberty which has always been assumed by the Greeks, who have long pursued these researches; that to unusual subjects I may apply terms which never have been in use.

Atticus.'Certainly: but if our Latin language will not furnish them, you may have recourse to the Greek.

Varro.'I am obliged to you; but I will endeavour to express myself in Latin, confining myself to such terms of Greek derivation as are already naturalized among us, as philosophy, rhetoric, physics, dialectics. I have therefore formed the new term Qualitas, to express the sense of the Greek word ; which even among them is not a word of common use, but confined to the philosophers. In like manner, none of the terms of the logicians are found in the popular language; and the same is true of the terms of almost all the arts: to new things new names must be given, or those of others transferred to them. If the Greeks take this liberty, who have cultivated the sciences for ages, how much stronger is the reason it should be granted to us, in our first attempt to treat upon them!

Cicero.'It seems to me, that you will do a work of utility to the public, if you not only increase the stock of our ideas, which you have already done, but also that of our words.

Rh