17. Etymology may be considered in another point of view. What is a written word but an effect—an effect arising from an unknown cause? What we want is, to find the cause—to ascertain if there were one original written language—by what steps any given word descended from that first parent to its present state. In many cases this may be difficult, in others it may be impossible to make it out; but is there not the same difficulty with translations? Does not one word often mean several different and often opposite things? There is scarcely a word in Parkhurst’s Hebrew Lexicon which has not four or five different meanings; and how do we proceed to find out which, in any case, is the one intended, but by comparing it with the context? Most words may be derived from several others, but the variety or uncertainty, great as I admit it is, is generally not greater than in mere translations.
18. Sir William Jones says, “I beg leave, as a philologer, to enter my protest against conjectural etymology in historical researches, and principally against the licentiousness of etymologists in transposing and inserting letters, in substituting at pleasure any consonant for another of the same order, and in totally disregarding the vowels.” I most heartily join in the protest, though I think etymology the grand and only telescope by means of which we can discover the objects of far distant and remote antiquity. But Sir William afterward says, “When we find, indeed, the same words, letter for letter, and in a sense precisely the same, in different languages, we can scarce hesitate in allowing them a common origin.”[1] To shew how little he attended to his own sound and sensible remarks respecting the changing of letters, in a page or two preceding he had been observing, that the word Moses ought to have been Musah, not Moses. It is written in the Hebrew משה Mse. I cannot admit this to be either Musah or Moses. If, in compliance with modern authority, I admit the u to be supplied, I cannot admit the ה e, the fifth letter, to be changed into א a, the first, and the letter ח h, without authority, to be added. I have shewn in my Celtic Druids, that the Hebrew system of letters is the same as the English and Greek; and when it is desired to write the Hebrew letters משה Mse in the English characters, the same letters which the order and the power of notation shew to be identical, ought to be used, and no others. The practice of substituting one consonant for another can very seldom be admitted; it can be subjected to no rule, but in every instance where such a liberty is taken each case must stand upon its own merits, and be left to the judgment of the reader. I do not mean to say that a letter may never be changed, but it ought never to be changed except for a very good reason; and when it is so changed, the doctrine to be deduced from it will stand on a much worse foundation than if it had not been so changed. But after all, the practice of changing letters cannot possibly be denied. For instance, do we not see sovereigns in India sometimes called Nawab, and sometimes Nabob—the w and b interchanged; and so on in other cases?
19. But uncertain as the nature of etymological science is supposed to be in researches into the early learning of the world, it is the best fountain from which we can draw. Let those of a different opinion pursue their own plan, and continue to believe the histories of Greece that Cadmus founded Thebes by means of men raised from sowing the teeth of serpents; or that Jupiter, in the form of a Bull, ran away with Europa from her father Agenor, by whom he had three sons—Minos, Sarpendon, and Radamanthus, who were really all living persons.
20. As reason cannot be made effectual against etymology, the power of ridicule has been applied, and it has had the success it will always have against truth—it will fail. A pickled cucumber has been derived from Jeremiah King (e. g. Jeremiah King—Jer. King—Girkin). Now this is very good, and whenever similar licences are taken under the same or similar circumstances as this, the result deserves nothing but ridicule, and the persons who depend upon such deductions are really ridiculous. Forced allegories are equally ridiculous; and pray what are our orthodox impugners of etymology better in their literal explanations of the Old-Testament writings? What shall I say to the wrestling of God with Jacob and wounding him in the thigh? What of his ineffectual attempt to kill Moses at an inn? These gentlemen run down etymology in order that they may open the door to their literal meanings. But the truth is, the abuse of either is ridiculous, as every thing must be when not kept within the bounds of sense and reason. And with respect to etymology, however uncertain it may be, it is the only instrument left us for the investigation of ancient science, all others having failed us, and the certainty of facts discovered by its agency will depend upon the reason and probability which the etymological deduction will possess, in every individual case; and of each case the reader must be the judge. But the real truth is, that etymology is not run down because it is not calculated to discover truth, but because it is calculated to discover too much truth.
21. Very certain I am that if we are not willing to receive the learning of the ancients through the medium of etymology, and a comparison of the words of one language with another, we must remain in ignorance. The early historical accounts are all little better than fables. Every word, in every language, has, no doubt, originally had a meaning, whether a nation has it by inheritance, by importation, or by composition. It is evident, then, if we can find out the original meaning of the words which stand for the names of objects, great discoveries may be expected.
- ↑ Asiat. Res. Vol. III. 4to. p. 489.
