All this time we forget that, excellent as it is, it is after all
only a translation, and that the very best translation cannot
represent in their fulness the ideas embodied in the original.
Etymological relations between words often give a force and
meaning to a sentence which it is impossible to transfuse into
another language, because the same relations do not exist between
the words which we are constrained to employ. Then there is an
intimate relation between men's thoughts and the language which
they habitually use, so that those thoughts cannot be perfectly
expressed in a language whose character is different. Again in
every language there are many words which bear several cognate
senses, which may be represented by as many different words in the
language of the translation; so that if the best word is chosen,
much of the fulness of the original must be lost; while it may so
happen that the selected word has also a variety of
significations, which do not correspond with the varying meanings
of the original word, and thus senses may be ascribed to the
original which it will not bear, because the reader annexes to the
word in the translation a sense different from that in which it
corresponds to the original word. To all these sources of
imperfection must be added the fact that our translation was made
at a time when science was not yet sufficiently developed to
exercise any influence upon it. There was nothing to induce the
translators to attempt, where it was possible, to preserve any
indications of a deeper meaning, because they had no reason to
suspect that any such deeper meaning existed, or that any
indications of such a meaning were to be found.

To the difficulties of translation must be added the difficulties
of accumulated tradition. The characteristics which mark our own