reference to the heaving up, or to the raising of the substance which
is fermented. Now those are words which we get from what I may call
the Latin side of our parentage; but if we turn to the Saxon side,
there are a number of names connected with this process of fermentation.
For example, the Germans call fermentation--and the old Germans did
so--"gahren;" and they call anything which is used as a ferment by such
names, such as "gheist" and "geest," and finally in low German,
"yest";" and that word you know is the word our Saxon forefathers used,
and is almost the same as the word which is commonly employed in this
country to denote the common ferment of which I have been speaking. So
they have another name, the word "hefe," which is derived from their
verb "heben," which signifies to raise up; and they have yet a third
name, which is also one common in this country (I do not know whether it
is common in Lancashire, but it is certainly very common in the Midland
countries), the word "barm," which is derived from a root which
signifies to raise or to bear up. Barm is a something borne up; and
thus there is much more real relation than is commonly supposed by those
who make puns, between the beer which a man takes down his throat and
the bier upon which that process, if carried to excess, generally lands
him, for they are both derived from the root signifying bearing up; the
one thing is borne upon men's shoulders, and the other is the fermented
liquid which was borne up by the fermentation taking place in itself.

Again, I spoke of the produce of fermentation as "spirit of wine." Now
what a very curious phrase that is, if you come to think of it. The
old alchemists talked of the finest essence of anything as if it had
the same sort of relation to the thing itself as a man's spirit is
supposed to have to his body; and so they spoke of this fine essence of
the fermented liquid as being the spirit of the liquid. Thus came
about that extraordinary ambiguity of language, in virtue of which you