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Prefaces and Prologues to Famous Books written by Charles W. Eliot

C >> Charles W. Eliot >> Prefaces and Prologues to Famous Books




Of the terms of art I have received such as could be found either in
books of science or technical dictionaries, and have often inserted,
from philosophical writers, words which are supported perhaps only by
a single authority, and which, being not admitted into general use,
stand yet as candidates or probationers, and must depend for their
adoption on the suffrage of futurity. The words which our authors have
introduced by their knowledge of foreign languages or ignorance of
their own, by vanity or wantonness, by compliance with fashion or lust
of innovation, I have registered as they occurred, though commonly
only to censure them, and warn others against the folly of
naturalizing useless foreigners to the injury of the natives.

I have not rejected any by design, merely because they were
unnecessary or exuberant, but have received those which by different
writers have been differently formed, as _viscid_, and _viscidity,
viscous_, and _viscosity_.

Compounded or double words I have seldom noted, except when they
obtain a signification different from that which the components have
in then simple state.

Thus _highwayman, woodman_, and _horsecourser_, require an
explanation, but of _thieflike_, or _coachdriver_, no notice was
needed, because the primitives contain the meaning of the compounds.

Words arbitrarily formed by a constant and settled analogy, like
diminutive adjectives in _ish, as greenish, bluish_; adverbs in _ly_,
as _dully, openly_; substantives in _ness_, as _vileness, faultiness_;
were less diligently sought, and many sometimes have been omitted,
when I had no authority that invited me to insert them; not that they
are not genuine, and regular offsprings of English roots, but
because their relation to the primitive being always the same, their
signification cannot be mistaken.

The verbal nouns in _ing_, such as the _keeping_ of the _castle_,
the _leading_ of the _army_, are always neglected, or placed only to
illustrate the sense of the verb, except when they signify things as
well as actions, and have therefore a plural number, as _dwelling,
living_; or have an absolute and abstract signification, as _coloring,
painting, learning_.

The participles are likewise omitted, unless, by signifying rather
habit or quality than action, they take the nature of adjectives; as a
_thinking_ man, a man of prudence; a _pacing_ horse, a horse that
can pace: these I have ventured to call _participial adjectives_. But
neither are these always inserted, because they are commonly to be
understood without any danger of mistake, by consulting the verb.

Obsolete words are admitted when they are found in authors not
obsolete, or when they have any force or beauty that may deserve
revival.

As composition is one of the chief characteristics of a language, I
have endeavored to make some reparation for the universal negligence
of my predecessors, by inserting great numbers of compounded words,
as may be found under _after, fore, new, night, fair_, and many more.
These, numerous as they are, might be multiplied, but that use and
curiosity are here satisfied, and the frame of our language and modes
of our combination amply discovered.

Of some forms of composition, such as that by which _re_ is
prefixed to note _repetition_, and _un_ to signify _contrariety_ or
_privation_, all the examples cannot be accumulated, because the use
of these particles, if not wholly arbitrary, is so little limited,
that they are hourly affixed to new words as occasion requires, or is
imagined to require them.

There is another kind of composition more frequent in our language
than perhaps in any other, from which arises to foreigners the
greatest difficulty. We modify the signification of many verbs by a
particle subjoined; as to _come off_, to escape by a fetch; to _fall
on_, to attack; _fall off_, to apostatize; to _break off_, to stop
abruptly; to _bear out_, to justify; _to fall in_, to comply; to _give
over_, to cease; to _set off_, to embellish; to _set in_, to begin a
continual tenor; to _set out_, to begin a course or journey; to _take
off_, to copy; with innumerable expressions of the same kind, of which
some appear wildly irregular, being so far distant from the sense of
the simple words, that no sagacity will be able to trace the steps by
which they arrived at the present use. These I have noted with great
care; and though I cannot flatter myself that the collection is
complete, I believe I have so far assisted the students of our
language that this kind of phraseology will be no longer insuperable;
and the combinations of verbs and particles, by chance omitted, will
be easily explained by comparison with those that may be found.

Many words yet stand supported only by the name of Bailey, Ainsworth,
Philips, or the contracted _Dict._ for Dictionaries, subjoined; of
these I am not always certain that they are read in any book but the
works of lexicographers. Of such I have omitted many, because I had
never read them; and many I have inserted, because they may perhaps
exist, though they have escaped my notice: they are, however, to be
yet considered as resting only upon the credit of former dictionaries.
Others, which I considered as useful, or know to be proper, though I
could not at present support them by authorities, I have suffered to
stand upon my own attestation, claiming the same privilege with my
predecessors, of being sometimes credited without proof.

The words, thus selected and disposed, are grammatically considered;
they are referred to the different parts of speech; traced when they
are irregularly inflected, through their various terminations;
and illustrated by observations, not indeed of great or striking
importance, separately considered, but necessary to the elucidation
of our language, and hitherto neglected or forgotten by English
grammarians.

That part of my work on which I expect malignity most frequently to
fasten, is the EXPLANATION; in which I cannot hope to satisfy those,
who are perhaps not inclined to be pleased, since I have not always
been able to satisfy myself. To interpret a language by itself is very
difficult; many words cannot be explained by synonimes, because the
idea signified by them has not more than one appellation; nor by
paraphrase, because simple ideas cannot be described. When the nature
of things is unknown, or the notion unsettled and indefinite,
and various in various minds, the words by which such notions are
conveyed, or such things denoted, will be ambiguous and perplexed. And
such is the fate of hapless lexicography, that not only darkness, but
light impedes and distresses it; things may be not only too little,
but too much known, to be happily illustrated. To explain, requires
the use of terms less abstruse than that which is to be explained, and
such terms cannot always be found; for as nothing can be proved but by
supposing something intuitively known, and evident without proof, so
nothing can be defined but by the use of words too plain to admit a
definition.

Other words there are, of which the sense is too subtle and evanescent
to be fixed in a paraphrase; such are all those which are by the
grammarians termed expletives, and, in dead languages, are suffered
to pass for empty sounds, of no other use than to fill a verse, or to
modulate a period, but which are easily perceived in living tongues to
have power and emphasis, though it be sometimes such as no other form
of expression can convey.

My labor has likewise been much increased by a class of verbs too
frequent in the English language, of which the signification is so
loose and general, the use so vague and indeterminate, and the senses
detorted so widely from the first idea, that it is hard to trace them
through the maze of variation, to catch them on the brink of utter
inanity, to circumscribe them by any limitations, or interpret them
by any words of distinct and settled meaning; such are _bear, break,
come, cast, full, get, give, do, put, set, go, run, make, take, turn,
throw_. If of these the whole power is not accurately delivered,
it must be remembered, that while our language is yet living, and
variable by the caprice of every one that speaks it, these words are
hourly shifting their relations, and can no more be ascertained in
a dictionary, than a grove, in the agitation of a storm, can be
accurately delineated from its picture in the water.

The particles are among all nations applied with so great latitude,
that they are not easily reducible under any regular scheme of
explication: this difficulty is not less, nor perhaps greater, in
English, than in other languages. I have labored them with diligence,
I hope with success; such at least as can be expected in a task, which
no man, however learned or sagacious, has yet been able to perform.

Some words there are which I cannot explain, because I do not
understand them; these might have been omitted very often with little
inconvenience, but I would not so far indulge my vanity as to
decline this confession: for when Tully owns himself ignorant whether
_lessus_, in the twelve tables, means a _funeral song_, or _mourning
garment_; and Aristotle doubts whether [Greek: ourous] in the _Iliad_
signifies a _mule, or muleteer_, I may surely without shame, leave
some obscurities to happier industry, or future information.

The rigor of interpretative lexicography requires that _the
explanation_, and _the word explained should be always reciprocal_;
this I have always endeavoured, but could not always attain. Words are
seldom exactly synonymous; a new term was not introduced, but because
the former was thought inadequate: names, therefore, have often many
ideas, but few ideas have many names. It was then necessary to use the
proximate word, for the deficiency of single terms can very seldom
be supplied by circumlocution; nor is the inconvenience great of such
mutilated interpretations, because the sense may easily be collected
entire from the examples.

In every word of extensive use, it was requisite to mark the progress
of its meaning, and show by what gradations of intermediate sense
it has passed from its primitive to its remote and accidental
signification; so that every foregoing explanation should tend to that
which follows, and the series be regularly concatenated from the first
notion to the last.

This is specious, but not always practicable; kindred senses may be so
interwoven, that the perplexity cannot be disentangled, nor any
reason be assigned why one should be ranged before the other. When
the radical idea branches out into parallel ramifications, how can a
consecutive series be formed of senses in their nature collateral?
The shades of meaning sometimes pass imperceptibly into each other, so
that though on one side they apparently differ, yet it is impossible
to mark the point of contact. Ideas of the same race, though not
exactly alike, are sometimes so little different, that no words can
express the dissimilitude, though the mind easily perceives it when
they are exhibited together; and sometimes there is such a confusion
of acceptations, that discernment is wearied and distinction puzzled,
and perseverance herself hurries to an end, by crowding together what
she cannot separate.

These complaints of difficulty will, by those that have never
considered words beyond their popular use, be thought only the jargon
of a man willing to magnify his labors, and procure veneration to his
studies by involution and obscurity. But every art is obscure to those
that have not learned it; this uncertainty of terms, and commixture of
ideas, is well known to those who have joined philosophy with grammar;
and if I have not expressed them very clearly, it must be remembered
that I am speaking of that which words are insufficient to explain.

The original sense of words is often driven out of use by their
metaphorical acceptations, yet must be inserted for the sake of a
regular origination. Thus I know not whether _ardor_ is used for
_material heat_, or whether _flagrant_, in English, ever signifies the
same with _burning_; yet such are the primitive ideas of these words,
which are therefore set first, though without examples, that the
figurative senses may be commodiously deduced.

Such is the exuberance of signification which many words have
obtained, that it was scarcely possible to collect all their senses;
sometimes the meaning of derivatives must be sought in the mother
term, and sometimes deficient explanations of the primitive may
he supplied in the train of derivation. In any case of doubt or
difficulty, it will be always proper to examine all the words of
the same race; for some words are slightly passed over to avoid
repetition, some admitted easier and clearer explanation than others,
and all will be better understood, as they are considered in greater
variety of structures and relations.

All the interpretations of words are not written with the same skill,
or the same happiness: things equally easy in themselves, are not all
equally easy to any single mind. Every writer of a long word commits
errors, where there appears neither ambiguity to mislead, nor
obscurity to confound him; and in a search like this, many felicities
of expression will be casually overlooked, many convenient parallels
will be forgotten, and many particulars will admit improvement from a
mind utterly unequal to the whole performance.

But many seeming faults are to be imputed rather to the nature of
the undertaking, than the negligence of the performer. Thus some
explanations are unavoidably reciprocal or circular, as _hind, the
female of the stag; stag, the male of the hind_: sometimes easier
words are changed into harder, as _burial_ into _sepulture, or
interment, drier_ into _desiccative, dryness_ into _siccity_ or
_aridity, fit_ into _paroxysm_; for the easiest word, whatever it
be, can never be translated into one more easy. But easiness and
difficulty are merely relative; and if the present prevalence of our
language should invite foreigners to this Dictionary, many will be
assisted by those words which now seem only to increase or produce
obscurity. For this reason I have endeavoured frequently to join a
Teutonic and Roman interpretation, as to _cheer_, to _gladden_ or
_exhilarate_, that every learner of English may be assisted by his own
tongue.

The solution of all difficulties, and the supply of all defects must
be sought in the examples, subjoined to the various senses of each
word, and ranged according to the time of their authors.

When I first collected these authorities, I was desirous that every
quotation should be useful to some other end than the illustration of
a word; I therefore extracted from philosophers principles of science;
from historians remarkable facts; from chymists complete processes;
from divines striking exhortations; and from poets beautiful
descriptions. Such is design, while it is yet at a distance from
execution. When the time called upon me to range this accumulation
of elegance and wisdom into an alphabetical series, I soon discovered
that the bulk of my volumes would fright away the student, and was
forced to depart from my scheme of including all that was pleasing or
useful in English literature, and reduce my transcripts very often to
clusters of words, in which scarcely any meaning is retained; thus
to the weariness of copying, I was condemned to add the vexation of
expunging. Some passages I have yet spared, which may relieve the
labor of verbal searches, and intersperse with verdure and flowers the
dusty deserts of barren philology.

The examples, thus mutilated, are no longer to be considered as
conveying the sentiments or doctrine of their authors; the word for
the sake of which they are inserted, with all its appendant clauses,
has been carefully preserved; but it may sometimes happen, by hasty
detruncation, that the general tendency of the sentence may be
changed: the divine may desert his tenets, or the philosopher his
system.

Some of the examples have been taken from writers who were never
mentioned as masters of elegance, or models of style; but words must
be sought where they are used; and in what pages, eminent for purity,
can terms of manufacture or agriculture be found? Many quotations
serve no other purpose than that of proving the bare existence of
words, and are therefore selected with less scrupulousness than those
which are to teach their structures and relations.

My purpose was to admit no testimony of living authors, that I might
not be misled by partiality, and that none of my contemporaries might
have reason to complain; nor have I departed from this resolution, but
when some performance of uncommon excellence excited my veneration,
when my memory supplied me, from late books, with an example that was
wanting, or when my heart, in the tenderness of friendship, solicited
admission for a favorite name.

So far have I been from any care to grace my pages with modern
decorations, that I have studiously endeavored to collect examples
and authorities from the writers before the Restoration, whose works
I regard as the 'wells of English undefiled,' as the pure sources
of genuine diction. Our language, for almost a century, has, by the
concurrence of many causes, been gradually departing from its original
Teutonic character and deviating towards a Gallic structure and
phraseology, from which it ought to be our endeavor to recall it, by
making our ancient volumes the groundwork of style, admitting
among the additions of later times, only such as may supply real
deficiencies, such as are readily adopted by the genius of our tongue,
and incorporate easily with our native idioms.

But as every language has a time of rudeness antecedent to perfection,
as well as of false refinement and declension, I have been cautious
lest my zeal for antiquity might drive me into times too remote,
and crowd my book with words now no longer understood. I have fixed
Sidney's work for the boundary, beyond which I make few excursions.
From the authors which rose in the time of Elizabeth, a speech might
be formed adequate to all the purposes of use and elegance. If the
language of theology were extracted from Hooker and the translation of
the Bible, the terms of natural knowledge from Bacon, the phrases of
policy, war, and navigation from Raleigh, the dialect of poetry and
fiction from Spender and Sidney, and the diction of common life from
Shakespeare, few ideas would be lost to mankind, for want of English
words in which they might be expressed.

It is not sufficient that a word is found, unless it be so combined
as that its meaning is apparently determined by the tract and tenor
of the sentence, such passages I have therefore chosen, and when
it happened that any author gave a definition of a term, or such
an explanation as is equivalent to a definition, I have placed
his authority as a supplement to my own, without regard to the
chronological order that is otherwise observed.

Some words, indeed, stand unsupported by any authority, but they are
commonly derivative nouns or adverbs, formed from their primitives by
regular and constant analogy, or names of things seldom occurring in
books, or words of which I have reason to doubt the existence.

There is more danger of censure from the multiplicity than paucity
of examples, authorities will sometimes seem to have been accumulated
without necessity or use, and perhaps some will be found, which
might, without loss, have been omitted. But a work of this kind is not
hastily to be charged with superfluities; those quotations, which to
careless or unskillful perusers appear only to repeat the same sense,
will often exhibit, to a more accurate examiner, diversities of
signification, or, at least, afford different shades of the same
meaning: one will show the word applied to persons, another to things;
one will express an ill, another a good, and a third a neutral sense;
one will prove the expression genuine from an ancient author;
another will show it elegant from a modern: a doubtful authority
is corroborated by another of more credit; an ambiguous sentence is
ascertained by a passage clear and determinate: the word, how
often soever repeated, appears with new associates and in different
combinations, and every quotation contributes something to the
stability or enlargement of the language.

When words are used equivocally I receive them in either sense; when
they are metaphorical, I adopt them in their primitive acceptation.

I have sometimes, though rarely, yielded to the temptation of
exhibiting a genealogy of sentiments, by showing how one author copied
the thoughts and diction of another: such quotations are indeed little
more than repetitions, which might justly be censured, did they not
gratify the mind, by affording a kind of intellectual history.

The various syntactical structures occurring in the examples have been
carefully noted; the license or negligence with which many words have
been hitherto used, has made our style capricious and indeterminate;
when the different combinations of the same word are exhibited
together, the preference is readily given to propriety, and I have
often endeavored to direct the choice.

Thus have I labored by settling the orthography, displaying the
analogy, regulating the structures, and ascertaining the
signification of English words, to perform all the parts of a faithful
lexicographer: but I have not always executed my own scheme, or
satisfied my own expectations. The work, whatever proofs of diligence
and attention it may exhibit, is yet capable of many improvements; the
orthography which I recommend is still controvertible, the etymology
which I adopt is uncertain, and perhaps frequently erroneous; the
explanations are sometimes too much contracted, and sometimes too much
diffused, the significations are distinguished rather with subtlety
than skill, and the attention is harassed with unnecessary minuteness.

The examples are too often injudiciously truncated, and perhaps
sometimes--I hope very rarely--alleged in a mistaken sense; for in
making this collection I trusted more to memory, than, in a state of
disquiet and embarrassment, memory can contain, and purposed to supply
at the review what was left incomplete in the first transcription.

Many terms appropriated to particular occupations, though necessary
and significant, are undoubtedly omitted, and of the words most
studiously considered and exemplified, many senses have escaped
observation.

Yet these failures, however frequent, may admit extenuation and
apology. To have attempted much is always laudable, even when the
enterprise is above the strength that undertakes it: to rest below
his own aim is incident to every one whose fancy is active, and whose
views are comprehensive; nor is any man satisfied with himself because
he has done much, but because he can conceive little. When first I
engaged in this work, I resolved to leave neither words nor things
unexamined, and pleased myself with a prospect of the hours which I
should revel away in feasts of literature, the obscure recesses of
northern learning which I should enter and ransack, the treasures with
which I expected every search into those neglected mines to reward my
labor, and the triumph with which I should display my acquisitions
to mankind. When I had thus inquired into the original of words, I
resolved to show likewise my attention to things; to pierce deep into
every science, to inquire the nature of every substance of which
I inserted the name, to limit every idea by a definition strictly
logical, and exhibit every production of art or nature in an accurate
description, that my book might be in place of all other dictionaries
whether appellative or technical. But these were the dreams of a poet
doomed at last to wake a lexicographer. I soon found that it is too
late to look for instruments, when the work calls for execution, and
that whatever abilities I had brought to my task, with those I must
finally perform it. To deliberate whenever I doubted, to inquire
whenever I was ignorant, would have protracted the undertaking without
end, and, perhaps, without much improvement; for I did not find by
my first experiments, that what I had not of my own was easily to be
obtained: I saw that one inquiry only gave occasion to another, that
book referred to book, that to search was not always to find, and
to find was not always to be informed; and that thus to pursue
perfection, was, like the first inhabitants of Arcadia, to chase the
sun, which, when they had reached the hill where he seemed to rest,
was still beheld at the same distance from them.

I then contracted my design, determining to confide in myself, and
no longer to solicit auxiliaries which produced more incumbrance than
assistance; by this I obtained at least one advantage, that I set
limits to my work, which would in time be ended, though not completed.

Despondency has never so far prevailed as to depress me to negligence;
some faults will at last appear to be the effects of anxious diligence
and persevering activity. The nice and subtle ramifications of meaning
were not easily avoided by a mind intent upon accuracy, and convinced
of the necessity of disentangling combinations, and separating
similitudes. Many of the distinctions which to common readers appear
useless and idle, will be found real and important by men versed
in the school philosophy, without which no dictionary can ever be
accurately compiled, or skillfully examined.