25 March 1814

School

4

'. Language

8

The difficulty consists in getting men to give themselves the trouble of establishing this association; whereas, when the language from which the word is taken is a man's own language, the association, such as it is, is already formed; and howsoever clumsy the new appellative appears, and howsoever troublesome the cluster of collateral and (with reference to the purpose in question) irrelevant ideas it stands associated with, and however confused and inadequate the import is which it has the effect of presenting, still it can scarcely fail of bringing to view an import having some similarity to the one which it is intended to present; whereas, if it be a word of altogether foreign original, no other word of the cluster it belongs to being presented to the mind of the person in question, the necessary result is that, if the explanation attached to it has either never been received into the mind, or, after having been so received, has dropped out, the word is so much unmeaning sound, not presenting any the faintest intimation of the import which it is intended to present.

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