of meaning or not. According to the famous expression of Luther, 'Words
are living creatures, having hands and feet.' When they cease to retain
this living power of adaptation, when they are only put together like the
parts of a piece of furniture, language becomes unpoetical, in expressive,
dead.

Grammars would lead us to suppose that words have a fixed form and sound.
Lexicons assign to each word a definite meaning or meanings. They both
tend to obscure the fact that the sentence precedes the word and that all
language is relative. (1) It is relative to its own context. Its meaning
is modified by what has been said before and after in the same or in some
other passage: without comparing the context we are not sure whether it is
used in the same sense even in two successive sentences. (2) It is
relative to facts, to time, place, and occasion: when they are already
known to the hearer or reader, they may be presupposed; there is no need to
allude to them further. (3) It is relative to the knowledge of the writer
and reader or of the speaker and hearer. Except for the sake of order and
consecutiveness nothing ought to be expressed which is already commonly or
universally known. A word or two may be sufficient to give an intimation
to a friend; a long or elaborate speech or composition is required to
explain some new idea to a popular audience or to the ordinary reader or to
a young pupil. Grammars and dictionaries are not to be despised; for in
teaching we need clearness rather than subtlety. But we must not therefore
forget that there is also a higher ideal of language in which all is
relative--sounds to sounds, words to words, the parts to the whole--in
which besides the lesser context of the book or speech, there is also the
larger context of history and circumstances.

The study of Comparative Philology has introduced into the world a new
science which more than any other binds up man with nature, and distant