guided by the fortuitous rather than the more significant circumstance to their selection of a name. So, also, the Latin word albus or the Germanic word white might have been not less readily than candidus applied to designate the possession of candour; only the language-makers, for reasons which they themselves could not have explained, willed it otherwise. Among the various metaphors by which such a quality was signifiable and from time to time signified, this chanced to be the one which established itself in frequent use, and of which the metaphorical origin was by degrees forgotten. From among many possible expedients, it was the one pitched upon for filling this special need, for increasing in this direction the resources of expression. And then, when the expedient is once found, when the name is accepted by the community and installed in its office, the etymological reason becomes no longer operative; the sole and sufficient authority for the use of the term is the common assent and custom. Individuals do not go on indefinitely to repeat the act of transfer which first allotted a word to its use; they establish a direct mental association between the idea and the sign, and depend upon that. As was pointed out in the first lecture (p. 14), the child does not concern himself with questions of etymology when learning to talk; the words which he acquires he receives and employs implicitly, for the sole reason that those about him employ them. As he grows older, he will, in varying degree, according to his turn of mind, his general culture, and his particular education, turn his attention to etymological inquiries, and please himself with tracing out why the words which he has learned or learns were elected to the office in which they serve him. But it is always a matter of reflection, of learned curiosity; it concerns, not the general users of speech, but him who would study its history. To the greatest etymologist who lives, not less than to the most ignorant and unreflective speaker, the reason why he calls a certain idea by a certain name is simply that the community in which he lives so call it, and will understand him when he does the same. It is quite worth while to know how candidate and candid came to mean as they do; but our knowledge or our ignorance of their
