terms, appellatives, or common nouns ; and those which, when alone, are used to denote particular individuals, are called "roper nouns. Sometimes proper nouns are so applied, as to become com mon nouns, as when we say, the Cxsars, or the Ptolemies. These are instances of the commencement of generalization ; but there is another mode of the use of proper nouns, WhiCh is more illustrative of the processes actually adopted, in em ploying terms originally denoting an indi vidual, to denote classes of individuals, who resemble him in some striking chat racteristics : thus, we say, "the Bacons, the Newtons, and the Lockes, of modern times," meaning, by these terms, all those individuals who have resembled Bacon, Newton, or Locke, respectively, in the mode and success of their investigation.
1G. Though it seems to be a very sim ple procedure, to form and appropriate names to denote properties separate from the other properties with which we see them connected in nature, the origin and appropriation of such names must have been very gradual ; and the contrivances which, in the natural progress of language, have been adopted to designate separate properties, are among the most curious procedures of the art of mutual communi cation. Mr. H Tooke, who has indispu tably conducted us further towards an ac quaintance with the causes of language than any other author on grammar, consi ders abstract terms as (generally speak ing) " participles or adjectives used • out any substantive to which they can be joined," " Such words," he observes, (Epea Pteroenta, vol. ii. p. 17.) " com pose the bulk of every language. In English, those which are borrowed from the Latin, French, and Italian, are easily recognized, because those languages are sufficiently familiar to us, and not sofami liar as our own : those from the Greek are more striking, because more unusual ; but those which are original in our own language have been almost wholly over looked, and are quite unsuspected." A large proportion of the nouns which he thus traces are certainly not to be consi dered as abstract terms, according to what appears to be the customary meaning of that appellation, (such as view the past part of noir, something seen ; tent, the past participle from tendo, something stretch ed:) and others certainly require more explanation than he has thought right to give (for instance providence, prudence, innocence, and all the rest of the tribe of qualities in ence and once, which he con siders as the neuter plurals of the present participles of -oidere, nocere, &c. without sheaving us why things foreseeing, or things not hurting, have acquired the force of the above words :) but a considerable num ber of his derivations arevery satisfactory, and give great insight into the procedures of language. A few may be adduced as
a specimen of his etymologies. Skill is the past participle of the Anglo-Saxon verb r eklan, to divide, to make a difference, to discern ; and it signifies that faculty by which things are properly divided or se parated one from another. Sorrow is the past participle of pan, to vex,to cause mischief to,, and is the general name for any thing by which one is vexed, grieved, or mischieved. Wrath is the past partici,. pie of Srpian, to writhe. Heat is the past participle of pxran, to make hot. Doom is the past participle of beman, to judge, to decree.
17. Another class of abstract nouns, viz. those ending in th, have been traced to a very probable origin by Mr. H. Tooke : he considers them as the third persons singular of verbs. For instance : truth, (anciently written troweth, trowth, trouth, and troth,) means, what one troweth, i. e. thinketh, or firmly believeth ; -warmth means that which warmeth; strength is that which or maketh one strong. While, however, we agree so far with Mr. Tooke, we cannot go with him when he limits our acception of words to that in which they employed; and sup poses that all the complicated, yet often definable, associations, which the gradual progress oflanguage and intellect has con nected with words, are to be reduced to the standard of our forefathers. We can not avoid expressing our belief, that he has either totally overlooked, or greatly neglected, the influence of the principle of association, both in the formation of ideas, and in the connecting of them with words. It does not follow that, because the ideas connected with abstract terms are not what Mr. Locke suppose& that there are no ideas connected with them, but that they are merely contrivances of language. Several classes of abstract nouns are altogether passed over by Mr. H. Tooke ; and we regret it, because he is eminently qualified to trace the origin of those terminations by which are form ed the names of qualities, considered as separate from those substances in which they exist. One class is formed by the addition of fleas to the adjective, such as whiteness, goodness, &c. Xess is the Anglo Saxon or ne r e, signifying nose. It is also used for promontory: as in Sheerness, Orford-nese, the Naze, &c. Joined to the name of a quality, it denotes that the qua lity is a distinguishing feature of an ob ject; it consequently holds it up as an object of separate attention.