ABSTRACT
If, again, it be not necessary to consult idiomatic law, the usage of society, and vernacular euphony, whence arises a great part of that difficulty in respect to the introduction of a more copious and precise phraseology into English, which as we have seen, Malthus deemed it impossible to conquer; and Mackintosh but faintly hoped some future Bacon might subdue? And how, yet again, are we to account for the steady and successful resis~ tance which our language has made, for the last fifty years, against incorporation with either the peculiar nomenclature of science, or that of fashion? In that period, to go no further, a thousand modish ephemeral phrases have striven in vain to mix themselves with the great stream of our language; nor has the unusual popularity of the physical sciences, in the same era, enabled them, dignified and valuable as they are, to wed their phraseology to our common speech?
