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other than to inquire carefully for ourselves; hence, important errors are left for ages uncorrected, aggravating the student's labor, and obstructing his progress even in the most beaten path.

We propose to illustrate these remarks by reference to a single topic in Greek lexicography, -the treatment of the prepositions. These words are so extensively employed in composition with verbs and other parts of speech, and are so varied in their uses when standing alone, that they claim a large share of the student's attention. The intricacies they present begin to bewilder the young learner at an early stage of his study. He soon becomes weary in his attempts to find any unity in the diversified materials before him; and so, instead of gaining sound knowledge, he contents himself with storing up such a multitude of arbitrary definitions as his memory can carry for his use in reading. And in his later progress, there is probably no part of the language which the Greek scholar is less able to discuss in an attractive and intelligent way than this. That this portion of the language has not yet received the elucidation which it needs may be seen in the fact, that it forms an important point in the work of each new laborer in the field of lexicography. The result, however, up to the present time, is a collection of idiomatic usages, rather than the progressive development, in the case of each word, of one leading idea.

To show to what extent this topic is treated in an arbitrary manner, and how little there is of logical deduction in defining the prepositions, we will take for illustration the first that occurs in the lexicon, the preposition ává. The primary meaning of ȧvá is up. This is its original signification as a designation in space; the signification, therefore, from which, if there is any logical deduction in the case, the other meanings of the word may be traced. How far this is done in our Greek lexicons may be seen by observing how far they furnish answers to the following inquiries. 1. How does the preposition ává contribute to the meaning of the following words: avaпopevoμai to journey, or march, from the sea-coast into the interior; avanλéw = to sail from port to sea; ȧvoiyw = to open, as a door; åvañetávvvμ = to unroll, as a sail, which unrolls downward, and not up; also, to flow down, as the hair when unbound from the head? 2. Why does ává in composition with many verbs give the signification

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of beginning to the action they express, as ȧvakaiw = to kindle, ȧvadáμñw = to take fire, ȧvakdaíw = to set up a lamentation? 3. How does it follow from the meaning of ȧvá, that the verbs with which it is compounded are, to a remarkable extent, used intransitively? 4. How is it that ȧvá compounded with certain words expressses opposition, or resistance, as ȧvakpovw= to thrust back, check, as a horse, to put back a ἀνακρούω ship, sternwards, by reversing the action of the oars? 5. Why, in a large class of verbs, does ává give the force of repetition to the action of the verb ?

Before proceeding farther, it may be well to consider an objection that may possibly be made to this method of inquiry. It may be said, that provided the significations of a word are known, it is of no importance to the student what the logical connection between them is. Let him be content to know the facts, and leave the connection between them as a matter of useless speculation.

It is no credit to our classical culture that such an objection is ever heard; still, it is sometimes made, even by those whose opportunities seem to entitle their opinion to some weight. The answer to the objection is simple. Either language is a product of the rational mind, and hence bears in every feature the impress of reason, or it is a mere chance collection of arbitrary signs, with no rational bond to unite them. If the latter is the true view, then the toilsome and expensive training of our youth in the ancient classical languages, we say, is an immense waste of time and power; if the former view is just, then it is the student's duty at every step of his study of a language to search, by the aid of reason, for the impress of that same reason employed in the production of the language.

And this is not a matter of duty only; it is the student's instinctive desire. The objector has the natural feelings of every learner opposed to him. The learner seeks a reason for every fact, and when he fails to find it, he feels not only that he is a loser, but that he is wronged. He has not found what he knows he has a right to; he has asked for bread, and received a stone. At this point, to meet him with the assertion that there is no reason, such as he is in quest of, is adding insult to injury.

We do not forget the difficulties that may be found in the way of the mode of investigation which is here advocated;

that in many cases the thread is lost that would guide to the arcana of thought, and after our most diligent search, we must rest satisfied with facts whose connection with each other is not seen. This, however, should only make us more highly prize those rays of light which a careful and rigorous analysis may shed on the rational interpretation of language.

To render the point of our inquiry more distinct respecting the Greek prepositions, we will select another, the opposite of ává, and, by a similar set of inquiries to those just gone through, will show the arbitrary manner in which it is usually treated. The primary signification of kará is down. It is from this original meaning that all the other significations of the word, if logically deduced, must be derived. In this connection the following questions present themselves. 1. How does Kará contribute to the peculiar meanings of καταπλέω = to sail to port ; κατακλείω = to shut ; καταπορεύομαι = to come back; Karanéμnw to send from the inland to the sea-coast? 2. What is the force of Kará in the words KaTaTÉμV = to cut up, or cut in pieces; kareσbiw= to eat up, devour (the signification of kará in this word is not down, as we shall show)? See also many other compounds of kará whose meanings are similarly modified. 3. What is the force of κατά in καταφυγή = a place of refuge ; κατάλαμψις = a reflection of light; and why does Kará, more than ảvá, give a transitive force to the words with which it is compounded?

We have carefully avoided, in the foregoing examples, using any word in which the preposition has its primitive signification. It may be thought that the word karatéμw is an exception, as the preposition does designate what is in some degree true in going from the interior of a country to the coast; but we shall show that kará has a derived, and not its primary, signification here; and it is obvious, a priori, that to give it its primary meaning would give a feeble and unsatisfactory interpretation to the word. The idea of descent in going from the interior of a country to the sea-coast is not sufficiently prominent to have suggested this preposition to be employed in the descriptive word. The signification of the preposition in each of the preceding examples is derived; and our next object will be to show, by logical deduction, the strict connection that subsists between the primary meaning of the preposition and the secondary mean

ings which it has in the examples. We begin with the preposition κατά.

The primary meaning of kará is down. Now, all downward motion has a natural and fixed point, where it terminates; namely, the surface of the earth. Here the falling stone and the falling flakes of snow stop; and here, when it has found the lowest possible point, the running brook ceases to flow. As, therefore, all downward motion has in nature a fixed point of termination, it follows, conversely, first, that all actions which are contemplated purely with regard to their termination in space may naturally be denoted by the preposition that signifies down. Hence, katandéw = to sail to land, because that is the natural point where the voyage terminates; катаπéμπ to send from the inland to the καταπέμπω = sea-coast, because there the journey must end; karakλeiw = to shut, as a door, because the door-post is the fixed point where the motion ceases ; καταπορεύομαι to come back, that is, to the point which is regarded as the person's restingplace; karáλaμis a reflection, because the light has met an object and illuminated it. Secondly, actions contemplated merely with regard to their termination, though not in space, are naturally expressed by aid of this preposition. Hence karatéμvw to cut in pieces, that is, till the cutting is done; kareσbiw= to eat up, consume, that is, until the action ceases because there is nothing left to eat; Karapeúуw = to take refuge, to escape, that is, to flee (peuyo), until the action comes to its natural end, which may either be by reaching some place where the pursuer cannot follow, and then it means to take refuge; or, it may be, by distancing the pursuer, and then it means to escape.

From the foregoing analysis it is seen why kará, more than any other preposition, gives an intensive, and often a transitive force to the verbs with which it is connected. Other prepositions, as ení, após, point to an object in connection with the verb, but they denote some more specific relation than Kará, and consequently do not so often give objective force to the verb. In this connection, we recognize the ground of

* If it is said that kará here means down, then the lexicon is wrong in saying that καTEσiw means to eat up. The two expressions are perfectly distinct. The preposition up, here, has reference to the consumption of the object, the preposition down to some implied effort on the part of the agent.

the usage of kará signifying according to, in conformity with, as κατὰ φύσιν, κατὰ τύχην. As down is the natural direction of things in space, every action that is done naturally, fitly, in its own sphere, may properly have this quality signified by the preposition down; thus κατὰ τὸ ἀληθές, κατὰ τὸ δίκαιον, and other like expressions.

This analysis will rescue from the frigid interpretation that is sometimes given them a class of words in which Kará conveys the idea of disparagement, disapproval, condemnation; as κаTaкρív∞ to condemn; Karadokéw to think against one. It has been said that, in this class of words, Kará has its primitive meaning, down. This is, at least, an unnatural interpretation, and entirely gratuitous. We have seen, that even in regard to actions which happen in space, kará often loses its primary, and bears a derived, meaning. In actions purely moral, then, we should much more naturally expect to find this derived signification. The word katakpivw signifies, strictly, to make one the object of a discriminating judgment; and this comes to be equivalent to condemn, by a well known mental law; namely, that acts of judgment are called forth not by what is in harmony with ourselves, but by what in some way offends us. It is not the innocent whose conduct is marked for special notice, but the guilty; hence, an act of judgment is, in general, an act of blame.

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If with these brief indications of a logical treatment of the preposition, we open the lexicon, and examine the mass of explanations arrayed under the word, we shall see at once the want of a better method, and shall find more or less that is erroneous, and calculated only to mislead the student. The following is an instance of this: τοξεύειν κατά τινος, κατὰ σкожоÛ, etc., to shoot at, because the arrow falls down upon its mark." Nothing can be worse for the student's mind than such pretended explanations as this. They cheat him of the knowledge they ought to impart, and what is worse, they substitute an absurdity in the guise of knowledge in its place. The notion of down has not the least share in the interpretation of the phrase in question. Grant that the arrow does descend somewhat before it reaches the mark, still this descent is so inconsiderable that it could form no appreciable part of the picture to the observer's eye; consequently, it could never have suggested the necessity of employing a word to describe it. The true interpretation has already

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