This same deterioration through use may be traced in the verb 'to resent.' Barrow could speak of the good man as a faithful 'resenter' and requiter of benefits, of the duty of testifying an affectionate 'resentment' of our obligations to God. But the memory of benefits fades from us so much more quickly than that of injuries; we remember and revolve in our minds so much more predominantly the wrongs, real or imaginary, men have done us, than the favours we owe them, that 'resentment' has come in our modern English to be confined exclusively to that deep reflective displeasure which men entertain against those that have done, or whom they fancy to have done, them a wrong. And this explains how it comes to pass that we do not speak of the 'retaliation' of benefits at all so often as the 'retaliation' of injuries. 'To retaliate' signifies no more than to render again as much as we have received; but this is so much seldomer practised in the matter of benefits than of wrongs, that 'retaliation' though not wholly strange in this worthier sense, has yet, when so employed, an unusual sound in our ears. 'To retaliate' kindnesses is a language which would not now be intelligible to all. 'Animosity' as originally employed in that later Latin which gave it birth, was spiritedness; men would speak of the 'animosity' or fiery courage of a horse. In our early English it meant nothing more; a divine of the seventeenth century speaks of 'due Christian animosity.' Activity and vigour are still implied in the word; but now only as displayed in enmity and hate. There is a Spanish proverb which says, 'One foe is too many; a hundred friends are too few.' The proverb and the course which this word 'animosity' has travelled may be made mutually to illustrate one another. [Footnote: For quotations from our earlier authors in proof of many of the assertions made in the few last pages, see my _Select Glossary of English Words used formerly in senses different from their present_, 5th edit. 1879.]
How mournful a witness for the hard and unrighteous judgments we habitually form of one another lies in the word 'prejudice.' It is itself absolutely neutral, meaning no more than a judgment formed beforehand; which judgment may be favourable, or may be otherwise. Yet so predominantly do we form harsh unfavourable judgments of others before knowledge and experience, that a 'prejudice' or judgment before knowledge and not grounded on evidence, is almost always taken in an ill sense; 'prejudicial' having actually acquired mischievous or injurious for its secondary meaning.