«Αρχὴ τῆς παιδεύσεως ἡ τῶν ὀνομάτων ἐπίσκεψις.”—Εpictetus. "He has been at a great feast of languages, and stolen the scraps. Love's Labour's Lost, Act v., Sc. 1. "If we knew the original of all the words we meet with, we should thereby be very much helped to know the ideas they were first applied to, and made to stand for."— Locke. "In a language like ours, so many words of which are derived from other languages, there are few modes of instruction more useful or more amusing than that of accustoming young people to seek the etymology or primary meaning of the words they use. There are cases in which more knowledge, of more value, may be conveyed by the history of a word than by the history of a campaign."-Coleridge's Aids to Reflection, Aphor. 12. "In words contemplated singly, there are boundless stores of moral and historic truth."-Trench on Study of Words, 12mo., Lond., 1853. "Jock Ashler, the stane-mason that ca's himsel' an arkiteck-there's nae living for new words in this new warld neither, and that's anither vex to auld folks such as me." -Quoth Meg Dods (St. Ronan's Well, chap. 2). "A good dictionary is the best metaphysical treatise." "Etymology, in a moderate degree, is not only useful, as assisting the memory, but highly instructive and pleasing. But if pushed so far as to refer all words to a few primary elements, it loses all its value. It is like pursuing heraldry up to the first pair of mankind."—Copleston's Remains, p. 101. (2) Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1860, by SMITH, ENGLISH & CO., in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania. INTRODUCTION BY THE EDITOR. Ir will, we think, be conceded by all who are familiar with philosophical writings, that there has never been gathered in our language in that department a fund of thought and of information which within as small a compass presents more that is valuable than we find in the Vocabulary of Philosophy by Professor Fleming. Jean Paul tells us that he never took up a book, the title of which excited extraordinary anticipation, without finding that he was destined to disappointment. It may safely be affirmed, on the other band, that where the modesty of a title is unfeigned, the book, if it disappoint us at all, disappoints us agreeably. Of this class is the Vocabulary of Philosophy. It is much more than the title promises, for it illustrates the matter of philosophy as well as its terms. It gives incidentally a great deal of the history of philosophy, and notices its literature on the leading subjects. It is to a large extent made up of the very words of the most distinguished philosophical writers, and thus becomes a guide to their opinions and to the most important portions of their works. Professor Fleming has not laboured single-handed, but has in this way drawn into his service, as co-workers, many of the greatest minds of all lands and of all time. It is true everywhere, and especially in the philosophical sciences, that the knowledge of words is, to a large extent, the knowledge of things. To grasp the full meaning of a term, we must ofttimes not only have a definition of it, but we must trace its history - and to know its history, we must know the views of the men who employed it, and the circumstances under which those views were formed and expressed; for the history of words is the history of the world. A Vocabulary with this large aim would be in fact a dictionary or Cyclopædia of subjects and of authors. A Vocabulary, on the other hand, in the strictest sense, would simply give us terms and a definition of them. Professor Fleming's book is midway between these classes. It rises as far above the second class, as from its compactness and the nature of its design it necessarily comes short of the first. In the Preface to the Second Edition, however, a conditional promise is given that he may attempt such a work as the first would be. We hope that the author may be encouraged to carry out his purpose, and that in conjunction with the best philosophical thinkers in our language, he may give us what is so much needed a Cyclopædial Dictionary of the Philosophical Sciences, and of their literature and history. The Editor, at the request of the Publishers, consented to make the effort to render the Vocabulary of Philosophy still more useful, so far as the very brief time of the passage of the work through the press would allow him. To have made additions to the text of a living author he would have considered an unwarranted liberty; and, apart from this consideration, such additions are really not needed, nor would they be consistent with the plan and purpose of the book, to both which compactness is indispensable. To have made the book a large |