Thus 'extremes,' 'golden mean,' 'category,' 'predicament,'
'axiom,' 'habit'--what are these but a deposit in our ethical
terminology which Aristotle has left behind him?
But we have not exhausted our examples of the way in which the record
of old errors, themselves dismissed long ago, will yet survive in
language--being bound up in words that grew into use when those errors
found credit, and that maintain their currency still. The mythology
which Saxon or Dane brought with them from their German or Scandinavian
homes is as much extinct for us as are the Lares, Larvae, and Lemures
of heathen Rome; yet the deposit it has permanently left behind it in
the English language is not inconsiderable. 'Lubber,' 'dwarf,' 'oaf,'
'droll,' 'wight,' 'puck,' 'urchin,' 'hag,' 'night-mare,' 'gramary,'
'Old Nick,' 'changeling' (wechselkind), suggest themselves, as all
bequeathed to us by that old Teutonic demonology. [Footnote: [But the
words _puck_, _urchin_, _gramary_, are not of Teutonic origin. The
etymology of _puck_ is unknown; _urchin_ means properly 'a hedgehog,'
being the old French _ericon_ (in modern French _herisson_), a
derivative from the Latin _ericius_, 'a hedgehog'; _gramary_ is simply
Old French _gramaire_, 'grammar' = Lat. _grammatica_ (_ars_), just as
Old French _mire_, 'a medical man' = Lat. _medicum_.]] Few now have
any faith in astrology, or count that the planet under which a man is
born will affect his temperament, make him for life of a disposition
grave or gay, lively or severe.
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