ABATE (Fr. abattre, to beat down) refers to force, and never to size, or anything in which the idea of force is not more or less implied. A storm, pain, mental emotion or excitement, the vigour of youth, and the like, abate. Of old the verb had a strong transitive force in a physical application, as to abate, that is, beat down the walls of castles. This active force is still preserved, but not in its physical application. The term has grown milder. We speak of abating pride, zeal, expectation, hope, ardour, a demand or claim; and in legal language (though this is of course technical) of abating a writ, a nuisance, or a tax, the idea being that of annulling validity or legal force. The word is employed with singular appropriateness in the following passage from Paley's Moral Philosophy.

"The greatest tyrants have been those whose titles were the most unquestioned. Whenever the opinion of right becomes too predominant and superstitious, it is abated by breaking the custom."

DECREASE (Lat. decrescere-de, down, and crescere, to grow) differs from diminish in denoting a more gradual and sustained process. We might even speak of an instantaneous diminution, but not of an instantaneous decrease. To decrease is gradually to lessen or diminish. Yet we use the torm decrease in some cases to express

more strongly the idea of diminution by inherent force, or from an interna! cause, as distinguished from external and more palpable influences; at least when speaking of physical matter or subjects, as the cold decreases through the season of the year. Property is diminished by extravagance. To decrease is relatively to diminish absolute and positive. Things diminish which are simply made less through any cause. Things decrease which exist in varying degrees of less or more. Of the nouns, diminution expresses a state, decrease a process. A diminution in the rate of mortality is the result of the decrease of an epidemic. The cause which produces diminution, as it is more external, so is commonly more traceable than that which produces decrease. The royal authority may be diminished by a specific revolution, having such diminution for its object. It may decrease as the result of a variety of causes, e.g., the tendency of subsequent legislation, the development among the people of the sense and the claim of self-government. "The olive-leaf which certainly them told The flood decreased." DRAYTON.

ABERRANT. ABNORMAL. EcCENTRIC. EXCEPTIONAL. ERRATIC.

ABERRANT (Lat. aberrare, to wander away) derotes that which deviates unaccountably from the uniform law of operation or procedure.

"They not only swarm with errors, but vices depending thereon. Thus they commonly affect no man any further than he deserts his reason or complies with their aberrancies."-BROWN'S Vulgar Errors.

The term is applied to natural deviation from the type of a class or order, as an aberrant animal or vegetable form; while as regards the actions of responsible agents, or the thoughts of reflecting beings, it denotes a departure from the line of sober conduct, or consistent thought: so moral and intellectual aberrations. That is abnormal in outward nature which exhibits a structure opposed to the usual structure; and generally speaking, that which exemplifies procedure contrary to the received rule, law, or system.

ECCENTRIC (Lat. ex, out, and cennum, a centre, Gr. ix and xévτpov) dehotes that which is a departure, or analogous to it, from movement in a natural orbit.

EXCEPTIONAL (Lat. excipere, part. Exceptus, to except) is applied generally to anything which strikes common observation as unlike what is familiar in similar cases. Of these, the two first are terms enlisted into modern science, while eccentric and exceptional are applicable to other and unscientific matters. The former of these was astronomical before it became moral or descriptive. In its technical use, an eccentric body is one which moves in a circle, which, though coinciding in whole or in part with another in area or volume, has not the same centre; hence deviating from ordinary methods or usual appearance or practice. It is technically opposed to concentric. The primary and secondary ideas appear combined in the following:

:

"For had I power like that which bends the spheres

To music never heard by mortal ears;
Where in her system sits the central sun,
And drags reluctant planets into tune:
So would I bridle thy eccentric soul,
In reason's sober orbit bid it roll."

WHITEHEAD, on Churchill. Neither ABNORMAL nor EXCEPTIONAL are found in the older English litera

ture.

ABETTOR. ACCESSORY. ACCOM

PLICE.

An ABETTOR (O. Fr. abetter, to deceive, incite) is one who in any way promotes the execution of a scheme without taking a direct part in it. If he do so, he becomes, according to circumstances, something more than an abettor. He is an ACCESSORY (Lat. Accessorius, DuCANGE) if he assists directly, but in an extraneous capacity; an ACCOMPLICE (Lat. ad, to, and complicare, to fold together) if he is intimately bound up in the project and responsibility of the scheme as a prime mover. It is in this way that in treason there are no abettors, the law not allowing the supposition of indirect agency in the case, but regarding it as necessarily direct. Advice, promises, rewards, or even the observance of silence and a forbearing to oppose may constitute an abettor, but no one can be negatively an accessory or accomplice. Generally speaking, it may be said that abettors urge and promote, accessories aid or assist, accomplices design and execute. Law, an accessory before the fact is one who procures, counsels, or commands another to commit a felony; an accessory after the fact is one who, knowing of the felony, assists, comforts, or conceals the felon. It deserves to be remarked, that these terms are by usage restricted almost universally to bad or unlawful deeds or causes, although Woolaston in his Religion of Nature" speaks of abetting the cause of truth." The older use of Shakespeare is still the

common one:

In

"And thou, the curst accomplice of his

treason,

Declare thy message, and expect thy doom."

ABHOR. DETEST. ABOMINATE. LOATHE.

Of these the plainest is LOATHE (A. S. láthian, to loathe). It is also the most purely physical, being in the first place employed to express nausea or physical disgust. The sick man loathes his food. It is employed of moral objects, by a strong metaphor or analogy. In loathing there is a kind of passive disgust, which in the other synonyms is more active and demonstrative.

"A wicked man is loathsome and cometh to shame. The word translated loathsome properly denotes such kind of persons to be as nauseous and offensive to the judgments of others as the most loathsome, unsavory things are to their tastes and smells."_ BISHOP WILKINS.

TO ABOMINATE (Lat. abominor, part. abominatus; ab, from, and omen) is literally to shrink from, deprecate as ominous, and so to turn away from as not to be endured. Abominate occupies a place midway between loathe, which is strongly physical, and detest, which is, as we shall see, emphatically moral; and in either case denotes that kind of strong dislike which would excite protest and avoidance. ABHOR (Lat. abhorrere, to shrink from with a shudder) differs from abominate in being more expressive of strong involuntary recoil, while abominate is more reflective and voluntary. He who abominates would destroy or remove, he who abhors would cape from and avoid. Abominate is more applicable to the concrete forms of things, abhor to the abstract.

"That very action for which the swine is abominated, and looked upon as an unclean and impure creature, namely, wallowing in the mire, is designed by nature for a very good end and use, not only to cool his body, but also to suffocate and destroy noisome and importunate insects."-RAY.

"I may perceive These Cardinals trifle with me; I abhor This dilatory sloth, and tricks of Rome." SHAKESPEARE.

DETEST (Lat. dētestāri, to call upon the Deity as a witness against some person or thing) denotes a spontaneous and energetic hatred of what is bad in

principle or which is strongly disapproved, and in our mind condemned; not the feelings only, but the judgment being concerned in it. It is a misapplication of the word to employ it of what is physically impure or personally disagreeable. We abominate what is offensive, we abhor what is essentially uncongenial, we detest what is contemptible or evil, we loathe what Thus is nauseous and disgusting. there is more of feeling in abhor, more of reason in detest. Detestation is a kind of hatred which does not rest in feeling, but tends to find ener getic expression in words and protestation. The sick man abhors remedies and food, the miserable wretch detests the day on which he first saw the light.

"For as the gates of Hades I detest The sordid wretch whom want can tempt to lie." COWPER, Homer. ABIDE. STAY. SOJOURN. DWELL. RESIDE. LODGE.

cumstances.

TO ABIDE (A. S. dbidan, to stay constantly) expresses no more than a personal halting or dwelling. It is indefinite as to time, and may be temporary or permanent, according to cirWe may abide in a place for a time, or for life. The radical idea is, however, that of a persistent stay. To abide by a decision is to adhere to it with moral fixity of purpose. But it involves some counter idea of unsettlement in the habits or acts of the person or persons abiding, and the likelihood of after-removal. An abode is hardly a place of perpetual habitation. STAY marks distinction of place, and has, as it were, a topographical force. I stay (connected with the Lat. stare, to stand) here, or there, in the town, in the country, at home, or in the house of a friend. As to stop is not to proceed, so to stay is not to change one's place. Stay is more conversational than abide, which is more formal and historical. SOJOURN (Fr. séjourner, Lat. subdiurnare) expresses a personal stay necessarily temporary, yet implying a living in that place as regards food and shelter, which are not necessarily implied in either stay or abide. He stayed or abode, but not sojourned, ir

mental, is called CLEVERNESS. Cleverness in things of pure physical treatment is called dexterity. It is re

markable that cleverness is not a term of old English literature, the old adjective clever having been only of late put into the form of a noun. It is not a term of the highest order of praise, and belongs to ordinary transactions and concerns of life. A modern writer has illustrated this by making one of his characters, a silly young nobleman, apply to Shakespeare the epithet of clever. Cleverness is natural aptitude which dispenses with much instruction. That cleverness in things physical which requires not only adroitness of manipulation but judgment and discernment as the result of experience, is SKILL. The root-meaning of skill is discernmentsuch accurate knowledge as sees and allows for differences. So the old phrase "it skilleth not"-it makes no difference. Hence it came to mean an art distinctly professed, which was called a skill, and finally applied as above. It is special and technical, not general like cleverness. might speak of such an one as a clever man and skilful physician. Skill is neither of purely abstract knowledge nor of mere physical habituation, but lies midway between the two, and practically comprises both. A skilful man combines theory with practice.

We

"The ship would quickly strike against the rocks for want of skilfulness in the pilots."-SEARCH, Light of Nature.

CAPACITY (Lat. căpacitātem) is po⚫tential rather than actual, and may be no more than undeveloped ability. It is employed commonly of the intellectual, though not excluded from the moral nature (as we speak of a capacity for virtue), and is not employed at all of the physical powers, where capability would take its place. Generally speaking, capacity stands to understanding as ability to action, though the same person may possess both. So the capacity of a great general would be rather in his power of remembering, interpreting, and calculating the movements of the enemy, in grasping and recognizing the character and resources of a coun

try, with reference to the movements of the campaign, his ability in his actual direction of those movements, and in the disposition and employment of troops in action.

"An heroic poem resembles the accomplishment of some great undertaking which requires the duty of a soldier, and the capacity of a general."-DRyden.

CAPABILITY (Lat. căpābilis, susceptible of), when employed passively of things and not persons, means specific practicability, as a plot of ground intended for landscape gardening may be said to have great capability for the purpose. When applied to persons it may be said that generally, as capacity is the inherent faculty of understanding, so capability is the inherent faculty of use or action, especially of mental action. So we should say of a hopeful student of philosophy that he had capacity, the main end being knowledge; of a hopeful student of oratory that he had capability, the main end being action. It is not impossible, nor even uncommon to find capability combined with want of ability in the same person and in kindred matters. For instance, one has great capability for learning, and so becomes learned, yet has no ability to teach, lacking the power of imparting knowledge to others. Hence the common observation that the most erudite men are not necessarily the best instructors. Capable denotes sufficiency of qualification, able, the possession of it in an eminent degree. He is capable who is not incapable. He is able who is more capable than others.

"Sure he that made us with such large discourse

Looking before and after, gave us not
That capability and godlike reason
SHAKESPEARE.
To rust in us unused."

TALENT, a term borrowed from the Scripture Parable of the Talents, and GENIUS (Lat.genius, the tutelar deity of a person or place) differ, in that talent is the capacity of learning rules, and the capability of readily acting upon them; genius is that innate intuition which is hardly conscious of rules, and can in a measure, by natural force, supersede the use, that is, the specific recognition of them.