[141] Who would have thought _à priori_ that the word “stranger” has its root in the single vowel _e_, the Latin preposition for “from”? Yet we see it to be so, “the moment that the intermediate links of the chain are submitted to our examination,--e, ex, extra, extraneus, étranger, stranger.”--Dugald Stewart, _Philos. Es._ p. 217, 4th ed.
[142] Adelung, _Mithridates_, iii. 6, p. 325.
[143] Benloew, _De la Science Comp. des Langues_, p. 22.
[144] _Essay on English Dialects_, p. 64.
[145] Still more strange are the variations presented by the root ἄω. See Leibnitz, _Nouv. Ess. sur l’Entendement Humain_, iii. 2. 2; and Donaldson’s _New Crat._ p. 476.
[147] The “lucus à non lucendo” principle, which explained various positive words as though they were derived from the _absence_ of the quality they attributed, has long been given up by all sound scholars. Of course such names as Euxinus, Beneventum, Εὐμενίδες, “good folk,” “crétin,” “natural,” &c., arise in a totally different manner, as well as the name Parcæ, absurdly derived “a non parcendo.” The supposed instances of “Antiphrasis,” as the grammarians called it, are eminently absurd, e.g. Varro, _L. L._ iv. 8: “Cœlum, contrario nomine _celatum_, quod apertum est.” Donat. _de Trop._ p. 1778: “Bellum, hoc est minimè bellum.” They confused it with irony and euphemism. See Lersch, i. s. 132, 133.
[149] _Dict. des Sciences Philosoph._ p. 646. Locke _on the Under._ III. ii. 6.
[150] Thus the long opposition to the Newtonian theory in France rose mainly from the influence of the word “attraction.” See Comte’s _Pos. Philos._ (Martineau’s ed.) i. p. 182. For the tremendous consequences of the introduction of the term “_landed proprietor_” into Bengal, see Mill’s _Logic_, ii. 232. It caused “a disorganisation of society which had not been introduced into that country by the most ruthless of its barbarian invaders.” “Fetish,” as adopted by the negroes from the Portuguese, “feitição” (sorcery), is an instance of a word changing meaning with the feeling of the speakers.
[151] ἤθους χαρακτήρ ἐστι τ’ ἀνθρώπου λόγος.--Stob. The language of a people expresses its genius and its character.--Bacon, _De Augm. Scient._ vi. i. Cf. Diog. Laert. p. 58. Quinct. xi. p. 675. Cic. _Tusc. Disp._ v. 16.