The different kinds of change in meaning may follow each other, and thus unite. Thus the word rosary has on one side gained in comprehension, since it is now used of a necklace composed of beads employed for a sacred purpose; but, on the other, it has lost all connection with roses. A horn is a wind instrument which may be, but is not commonly made of horn: the name may equally apply to an instrument made of other materials.
It frequently happens that some idea foreign to the essence of a word, and connected with it merely by accident, becomes absorbed into its signification as a mere accessory: and this is then thought of as the proper meaning, the primary meaning being forgotten: thus names of relations of time and place gradually pass into causal words; as, consequence, purpose, end (to the end that), means, way.
Seeing that the unit of language is the sentence, and not the word—in other words, that we think in sentences,—it is natural that the change in meaning should affect, not merely the separate words, but also entire sentences. These sentences may receive a meaning which is at the outset merely ‘occasional,’ but which by repetition may become ‘usual’—a meaning not implied by the combination of words as we hear it for the first time. Take, for instance, such phrases as A plot is on foot; The business has come to a head; He has come to the front; I have a man in my eye; and such combinations as the following, in which the word hand plays a great part: well in hand, off hand, hands off, at hand, etc. We cannot say that in these cases special meanings of the word hand have developed: rather, these meanings have become obscured by the attention which we have come to pay to the phrase as a whole. English is full of such terms of expression. In many of these the sense can only be derived from the meanings of the several words by the aid of an historical knowledge of the language in which such combinations occur. Take such cases as, to dine with Duke Humphrey; to tell a cock and bull story; all his geese are swans; to stuff one up; to give one the sack; to be half seas over: in French—il raisonne comme un tambour; sot comme un panier (for un panier percé); triste comme un bonnet de nuit; donner une savonnade; faire une jérémiade.
Language is incessantly engaged in an endeavour to express the entire stock of ideas in the human mind. But it is met by the difficulty, in the first place, that the ideas of each individual in any society differ widely from those of the other individuals in the society: in the next place, by the difficulty that the ideas of each individual are liable to a constant process of expansion or contraction. The consequence is that the ideas which language is constantly endeavouring to express are necessarily coloured by individual peculiarities; though it is equally true that these peculiarities are unimportant in ordinary definitions of the meanings of single words or groups of words. For instance, it is no doubt true that the word horse has the same meaning for everybody, in so far as everybody refers it to the same object: but, on the other hand, each man in his own particular line, a hunter, a coachman, a veterinary surgeon, or a zoologist will connect with the idea a larger quantity of conceptions than one who has nothing to do with horses. A father would be differently defined by a lawyer and a physiologist: but the points which in the thoughts of these make up the essence of paternity are absolutely wanting to the consciousness of the infant who uses the name of ‘father.’ The differences in the judgments applied to feelings and ethics are very great, and for obvious reasons. What different individuals understand by good and bad, virtue and vice, is impossible to bring under one definition, indisputable and undisputed.
The sum of the words at the disposal of any individual connects itself with his ideas: and it thus follows that the entire store of words forming the stock of any community must adapt itself to the whole stock of ideas belonging to any community, and must change as these change. The meaning of the words, again, must adapt itself to the standard of culture attained from time to time by each nation. New words must be created for new objects and new relations and kindred, though novel meanings must become attached to the old words—as in the case of steel pen, properly, ‘a steel feather.’ And again, a quantity of unobserved changes are constantly passing on language which are hardly remarked as such, and are the immediate result of a change in the whole culture of a nation. Such are the words humility, talent, faith, spirit, and the numerous other words referred to before, to which Christianity has given a deeper and more spiritual significance. Then, again, progressive skill may have worked striking changes in objects essentially the same: we call a Roman trireme, a Chinese junk, and a British man-of-war by the same name, ship; but we must admit that the ideas attaching to it have changed considerably. And thus it is with all objects capable of improvement by skill, and again with purely mental or intellectual conceptions, which change according to the changing conditions of culture of the community which possesses them.
CHAPTER V.
ANALOGY.
All the ideas consciously or unconsciously present in the human mind are directly or indirectly connected with one another. No thought, no conception, is so independent of all others as not to suggest some other idea or ideas in some way cognate or related. Thus, for instance, if we think of the action of walking, it is physically impossible not to call to mind, with more or less distinctness, the idea of a person who walks. And again, the idea of walking is likely also to evoke the idea of some of the varieties of that action, which we commonly indicate by such words as (to) go, run, step, stalk, stroll, stride, etc.
Thus it is clear that our ideas associate themselves into groups; and, as a natural result of this, the words which we employ to express these ideas come similarly to associate themselves in our minds.
Words, then, which express related ideas, form themselves into groups. Another source, though not equally prolific, of such association, is similarity in sound. Thus the word book may remind us of brook, as it in fact reminded Shakespeare; the word alarms, of ‘to arms!’ the word hag, of rag or tag; the word blue may remind us of few. Such groupings are, however, but very loose and ineffectual, unless a more or less close association (based on reality or fancy) co-operates in order to make them strong and suggestive. This may be seen by taking as examples the associations existing between brook and book, blue and few, on the one hand, and those existing between alarms and ‘to arms!’ and hag, tag, and rag, on the other. There is no similarity of meaning, no similarity of contents between the words book and brook; the association, therefore, in this case is a very loose one, looser than that existing between foot and boot, for instance. On the other hand, the connection between the ideas of alarms and ‘to arms!’ is more obvious: a sudden surprise, as in the case of an attack by an unexpected enemy, might often be connected with the idea of a call ‘to arms!’ Similarly, hag and rag are ideas which often present themselves to our mind in connection with one another, and consequently the association between these two words is stronger than that, for instance, existing between hag and flag.