words, an enrichment beyond all due measure, rendering necessary the relinquishment of some part of resources which exceeded the wants of the community. If, upon the whole, we have gained by the exchange, it has not been without some regrettable losses, of the significant as well as of the formative elements of expression.
The processes which we have thus examined and illustrated—on the one hand, the production of new words and forms by the combination of old materials; on the other hand, the wearing down, wearing out, and abandonment of the words and forms thus produced, their fusion and mutilation, their destruction and oblivion—are the means by which are kept up the life and growth of language, so far as concerns its external shape and substance, its sensible body: by their joint and mutual action, greatly varying in rate and kind among different peoples, at different times, and under different circumstances, spoken tongues have been from the beginning of their history, and are still, everywhere becoming other than they were. Yet they together constitute but one department of linguistic change; another, affecting the internal content of language, the meaning of its words, equally demands notice from us. To this we have not yet distinctly directed our attention, although our illustrations have necessarily set forth, to a certain extent, its action and effects, along with those of the external modifications which we have been especially considering. It is a part of linguistic history which, to say the least, possesses not less interest and importance than the other. To trace out the changes of signification which a word has undergone is quite as essential a part of the etymologist's work as to follow back its changes of phonetic form; and the former are yet more rich in striking and unexpected developments, more full of instruction, than the latter: upon them depend in no small measure the historical results which the student of language aims at establishing. It may even be claimed with a certain justice that change and development of meaning constitute the real interior life of language, to which the other processes only furnish an outward support. In their details, indeed, the outer and inner growth are to a great extent in-
