In connexion with observations on alterations in the forms of words, some brief remarks are here and there added respecting changes in meanings. Here, possibly, the writer oversteps the boundary-line within which the study of Grammar should be confined. The motive has been a wish to invite attention to historical studies of languages regarded as expressions of culture. It is indeed but little that is said here respecting the most interesting of all the inquiries suggested by those studies. Whence came our best descriptive words for our uses of ordinary life? The question is readily answered (pp. 13, 178–80). Whence our words relating to notions of law and government? The question, though not as easy as the former, may still be answered without much difficulty. whence the higher meanings given to so many words of which the primitive uses are almost forgotten? Whence their association with sentiments infinitely more to be cared for than any culture of our intellectual faculties? That is a question to which historical studies of languages may some day give a clear and authoritative reply. A study more interesting than Grammar may at least be named here—the English Language in its union with the History of England. But |