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Updated: May 26, 2025
I am content to show that, whatever De Brosses did, we do not abandon a search for the motives of the savage fetishist. Civilised 'Fetishism' Tant pis pour monsieur le President. But we and our method no more stand or fall with De Brosses and his, than Mr. Max Muller's etymologies stand or fall with those in the Cratylus of Plato.
so that he is a bond of connection between the two epochs. His learning was profound and varied. He dedicated his investigations to Varro, who speaks warmly of him, but mentions that his etymologies are often incorrect. He appears to have bestowed special care on Plautus, in which department he was followed by Varro, some of the results of whose criticism have been already given.
Let us a little consider, in conclusion, how we may usefully bring our etymologies and other notices of words to bear on the religious teaching which we would impart in our schools. To do this with much profit we must often deal with words as the Queen does with the gold and silver coin of the realm.
Diderot's article on the Germans is an excellent illustration of this wholesome predominance of the scientific spirit over the superficialities of barren erudition. The word "Allemand," says Diderot, "has a great many etymologies, but they are so forced, that it is almost as well to know none of them, as to know them all.
And hence we explain not only the many gross delusions of the fathers, their sophisms, their errors of fact and chronology, their attempts to build great truths upon fantastic etymologies, or upon popular conceits in science that have long since exploded, but also their occasional unchristian tempers.
Cela pose, Menage, avec son erudition polyglotte, s'abat sur le grec, le latin, l'italien, l'espagnol, l'allemand, le celtique, et ne fait difficulte d'aller jusqu'a l'hebreu. C'est dommage que de son temps on ne cultivat pas encore le sanscrit, l'hindotistani, le thibetain et l'arabe: il les eut contraints a lui livrer des etymologies francaises.
I fear that the old associations which led the ancients to describe the soul as a breath or a shadow, and which account for the etymologies of such words as "ghost" and "spirit," have had something to do with this spiritualization of the interstellar ether.
A few words may be added with reference to the proper place of the work in our medical literature. It is not difficult, of course, to select from the Compendium a charm or two, a few impossible etymologies and a few silly statements, to display these with a witty emphasis and to draw therefrom the easy conclusion that the book is a mass of crass superstition and absurd nonsense.
Cæsar, in his Commentaries does not speak of Rouen; Pomponius Mela, does not mention it in his Geography; Ptolemy is the first author who has noticed it. This observation alone will shew the absurdity of the numerous etymologies assigned to its name of Rothomagus, of which we have made Rouen.
He might have confirmed the relation between dumbness and darkness from the acutest metaphysician among poets, in Dante's ove il sol tace. We have not left ourselves room enough to illustrate Mr. Wedgwood's handling of these etymologies by extracts; we must refer our readers to the book itself.
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