the philosopher who denies all utility to a word while it retains
traces of its primary sensuous employ. The tickling of the senses,
the raising of the passions, these things do indeed interfere with
the arid business of definition. None the less they are the life's
breath of literature, and he is a poor stylist who cannot beg half-
a-dozen questions in a single epithet, or state the conclusion he
would fain avoid in terms that startle the senses into clamorous
revolt.

The two main processes of change in words are Distinction and
Assimilation. Endless fresh distinction, to match the infinite
complexity of things, is the concern of the writer, who spends all
his skill on the endeavour to cloth the delicacies of perception
and thought with a neatly fitting garment. So words grow and
bifurcate, diverge and dwindle, until one root has many branches.
Grammarians tell how "royal" and "regal" grew up by the side of
"kingly," how "hospital," "hospice," "hostel" and "hotel" have come
by their several offices. The inventor of the word "sensuous" gave
to the English people an opportunity of reconsidering those
headstrong moral preoccupations which had already ruined the
meaning of "sensual" for the gentler uses of a poet. Not only the
Puritan spirit, but every special bias or interest of man seizes on
words to appropriate them to itself. Practical men of business
transfer such words as "debenture" or "commodity" from debt or
comfort in general to the palpable concrete symbols of debt or
comfort; and in like manlier doctors, soldiers, lawyers, shipmen,--
all whose interest and knowledge are centred on some particular
craft or profession, drag words from the general store and adapt
them to special uses. Such words are sometimes reclaimed from
their partial applications by the authority of men of letters, and