Excerpt from Dead Language and Dead Languages With Special Reference to Latin: An Inaugural Lecture Delivered Before the University of Liverpool Those who reflect but for a moment on the significance of any word which they or their fellows employ will readily discern that there are two parts in it which may be always distinguished - the one what is expressed, and the other what is implied. A single instance will make this clear. When, in our Civil Wars, Roundhead and Cavalier spoke of 'the king, ' or of 'kings, ' the word they used expressed to each the same person, or the same class of persons. But how different to the two was all that the word implied, and how different were the consequences which streamed from the implications! Life, says the most practical and the most comprehensive of all the ancient philosophers - life is action, not production; and 'living' and its opposite, 'dead, ' are words whose implications are in a high degree suggestive and provocative of actions. 'The branch is dead.' Cut it off. 'The flowers are dead.' Throw them away. 'The man is dead.' Bury or burn him. By a metaphor, possibly legitimate but just as possibly misleading, the word has been transferred from the world of nature to the world of speech. But its general import was not affected by the transference, and its implications went along with it. And the purport and influence of these implications will claim to-day our most serious attention. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.