than a whisker, and it may belong to a rat. As the names of the Poles
and Russians are to us, so are ours to them. It is as if they had
been named by the child's rigmarole,--_Iery wiery ichery van,
tittle-tol-tan_. I see in my mind a herd of wild creatures swarming over
the earth, and to each the herdsman has affixed some barbarous sound in
his own dialect. The names of men are of course as cheap and meaningless
as _Bose_ and _Tray_, the names of dogs.

Methinks it would be some advantage to philosophy, if men were named
merely in the gross, as they are known. It would be necessary only to
know the genus, and perhaps the race or variety, to know the individual.
We are not prepared to believe that every private soldier in a Roman
army had a name of his own,--because we have not supposed that he had a
character of his own. At present our only true names are nicknames. I
knew a boy who, from his peculiar energy, was called "Buster" by
his playmates, and this rightly supplanted his Christian name. Some
travellers tell us that an Indian had no name given him at first, but
earned it, and his name was his fame; and among some tribes he acquired
a new name with every new exploit. It is pitiful when a man bears a name
for convenience merely, who has earned neither name nor fame.

I will not allow mere names to make distinctions for me, but still
see men in herds for all them. A familiar name cannot make a man less
strange to me. It may be given to a savage who retains in secret his
own wild title earned in the woods. We have a wild savage in us, and
a savage name is perchance somewhere recorded as ours. I see that my
neighbor, who bears the familiar epithet William, or Edwin, takes it off
with his jacket. It does not adhere to him when asleep or in anger, or
aroused by any passion or inspiration. I seem to hear pronounced by some
of his kin at such a time his original wild name in some jaw-breaking or