The Science of Language (Volume 2); Founded on Lectures Delivered at the Royal Institution in 1861 and 1863 - Tapa blanda

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Book may have numerous typos, missing text, images, or index. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. 1891. Excerpt: ... heat. That idea is now exploded, and heat is understood to be the result of molecular and ethereal vibrations. All matter is supposed to be immersed in a highly elastic medium, and that medium has received the name of Ether. No doubt this is a great advance: --yet what is Ether, of which everybody now speaks as of a substance--heat, light, electricity, sound, being only so many different modes or modifications of it 1 Ether is a myth--a quality changed into a substance-- an abstraction, useful, no doubt, for the purposes of physical speculation, but intended rather to mark the present horizon of our knowledge than to represent anything which we can grasp either with our senses or with our reason. As long as it is used in that sense, as an algebraic x, as an unknown quantity, it can do no harm--as little as to speak of the Dawn as Erinys, or of Heaven as Zeus. The mischief begins when language forgets itself, and when we mistake the Word for the Thing, the Quality for the Substance, the Nomen for the Numen. A and A, how produced, 127. A in Sanskrit, 124. Aback, 18. Abeille, 342. Abipones, language of the, 41. Academy, French, its decree re- specting the participles present) 22. Acadian name of the Great and Little Bear, 461 n. Accent, in Gothic, not pitch only, but stress also, 275. Accepter, 341. Acer, 73. Acheter, 341. Achillea or Leuke, 621 n. Achilles, prayer of, 552. Achilleus and Aharyu, 621 n. Achonensis, J., on the barnacle goose, 672. Acid, a technical name, 58. A-coming, 14. Acoustic illusions, 19m. Acrimony, 73. Acus, 73. Adeva, not bright, ungodly, 569. Aditi, Dawn, 619. -- from a and diti, 619 n. -- mother of all the gods, 620, 637. Admiral, amiral, 300 ». Ad-olescere, 374 n. Adultus, 374 n. -Eacus, son of Zeus, 557. .Ivies, sing., a sanctuary, 530. -- plur., a dwel...