cannot be equally complete. Whenever large numbers, bearing the stamp of the same ethnical type, are allowed continued intercourse with each other, their physical and intellectual habits are necessarily preserved to some extent even under the pressure of overwhelming agencies from without. Among other results of their partially victorious resistance, the new words forced upon them in such a case are apt to undergo a change of form and meaning in accord with the peculiarities of the subsiding type. A good, and by its multiplicity perfectly conclusive, example of this linguistic diversification is supplied by the history of colonial Latin. Readily accommodating itself to the different individualities of the different races subjugated, Latin became Italian in Italy, French in France, Spanish in Spain, Portuguese in Portugal, Rumanian in Moldowallachia, and Romaunsch in the south-eastern valleys of Switzerland. Not only was the form of each Latin word specially modified in each of these several lands, but the meaning in most instances was characteristically altered with the form. As one example out of a thousand, take the Latin word 'perdere,' to ruin, to lose. Retaining its general aspect everywhere, it shows very different features nevertheless in each of the several countries to which it emigrated. Its Spanish representative 'perder' includes the signification of 'to bet;' its Rumanian form 'perdu' may mean to execute,

C

to hang and to spoil; while the French reflexive 'se perdre' denotes to disappear, and the Portuguese 'perderse' to capsize. The differentiation of transplanted thought is even greater in the case of abstract ideas. Vitium,' defect, deficiency, and guilt in Latin, in Portuguese becomes 'vicio,' which may mean no more than error; in Spanish 'vicio,' which comprises caprice, habit, and pullulation; in Italian 'vizio,' cupidity; in Provençal French, 'vici,' cunning; in Rumanian, 'vichiu,' vice in its most repulsive form. It is clear, the conception of guilt must have been very different in these different nationalities, to have prompted them to metamorphose the Latin 'vitium,' the one into error, the other into caprice, bad habit and mere habit, the third into cupidity, the fourth into cunning, the fifth into abominable vice.

As similar transformations of intrinsic sense may be observed in most words of what may be called transferred languages, it follows that the mere fact of Finns and Finno-Tatars accepting Slavonic speech does not necessarily imply their acceptance of Slavonic sentiment, but, on the contrary, argues a Turanic remodelling of the original Aryan tongue. Drawn on general linguistic grounds, this conclusion is confirmed by a comparison of the Slavo-Russian and Finno-Russian vocabularies.* The analysis of,

*To keep the original national diversity before the reader, I here employ the terms Finno-Russians and Slavo-Russians, in preference to the

comparatively speaking, a very few words will suffice to demonstrate the different turn given to SlavoRussian significations upon the acceptance of their verbal representatives by the Finno-Russians. A limited number of examples, it is true, in itself proves not the frequency of the process; but if very ordinary ideas can be shown to have been perverted from their original Slavo-Russian type by their FinnoRussian inheritors, the inference will be justified that many others which cannot be quoted in a lecture must have shared the same fate.

Ideas of good and bad occupying so prominent a position in any nation's vocabulary, let us begin. with their comparative dissection in Little Russian and Great Russian. Khoróschi,' probably an etymological development of the root' kras,' meaning 'red,* coloured,' t in Little Russian mostly keeps to the sensuous sphere, and getting no farther than a very slight metaphor will carry it, signifies, 'pleasing, beautiful;' in Great Russian, on the other hand, the word at a leap passes from the signification 'pleasing' into that of 'good.' The Little Russians, as they distinguish between what is merely pleasing and what is really good, necessarily require a special

accepted names of Great Russians and Little Russians, which refer only to the extent of their respective geographical areas. In what follows, I revert to the usual, albeit inappropriate and purely quantitative, terminology.

*See Fourth Chapter.

+ Cf., however, the different derivations suggested by the learned Professor Iagic, in Archiv für Slavische Philologie,' vi. 2, p. 282.

word in their language for 'good;' in Great Russian, where the two notions are frequently confounded, one word is apt to cover both. The special Little Russian term for 'good, intrinsically good,' is 'dóber;' and many things in Little Russian are accordingly denoted as 'dóber,' ie., intrinsically good, which in Great Russian are called 'khoróshi,' i.e., good, because I think they are nice; good, because I like them. The word 'dóber, dóbri,' certainly exists in Great Russian likewise; but as its meaning is mostly usurped by the more arbitrary and capricious 'khoróshi,' 'dóber,' with its respectful recognition of what is really good, of what is good in itself, independently of one's liking it or not, is comparatively neglected. This propensity of the Great Russian to regard as good, not what is good, but what is liked, is emphatically confirmed by a well-known proverb declaring even one's likings to depend upon mere caprice. "Ne po khoróshu mil, a po milu khorósh "_"I do not like a thing because it is nice, but it is nice because I like it."

As a per contra proof of what has been stated, the term 'góji,' which in Little Russian means useful, serviceable, and therefore good, in Great Russian never gets beyond the meaning of serviceable, and remains for ever removed from the idea of intrinsic worth. The Little Russian dutifully acknowledges the goodness of whatever proves beneficial; the Great Russian, on the contrary, claims

the right to regard as good chiefly what he feels himself attracted by, whether serviceable or not. The better to realise the opposite points de vue adopted by the two, it may not be amiss to look at the same notion in its English and German garb. Like all the Germanic members of the Aryan family, the English and Germans, in fashioning their notions of goodness, discard the whimsical view taken by the Great or Finno-Russians, and endorse the more reasonable one adopted by the Slav. The English 'good,' the German 'gut,' being derived from the same root as the Slavo or Little Russian 'góji,' equally declare that to be good which is useful.

Again, the term 'blagi,' which in the literary language of Great Russia means good, in the popular tongue of Little Russia (and, to a certain extent, Great Russia too), for reasons which shall be explained in my next lecture, actually signifies bad. No more conclusive evidence could be adduced that Slavo-Russian and Great Russian ideas of goodness, though represented by the same words, are wholly distinct. Similarity of term, then, is anything but a guarantee for identity of concept.

There is quite as marked a difference in the conception of badness. Chudói,' which in Little Russian indicates nothing worse than a pauper, in Great Russian is degraded to the signification of