But a caution is necessary here. We must not regard as certain in every
case, or indeed in most cases, that the first rise of a word will have
exactly consented in time with its first appearance within the range of
our vision. Such identity will sometimes exist; and we may watch i the
actual birth of some word, and may affirm with confidence that at such
a time and on such an occasion it first saw the light--in this book, or
from the lips of that man. Of another we can only say, About this time
and near about this spot it first came into being, for we first meet it
in such an author and under such and such conditions. So mere a
fragment of ancient literature has come down to us, that, while the
earliest appearance there of a word is still most instructive to note,
it cannot in all or in nearly all cases be affirmed to mark the exact
moment of its nativity. And even in the modern world we must in most
instances be content to fix a period, we may perhaps add a local
habitation, within the limits of which the term must have been born,
either in legitimate scientific travail, or the child of some flash of
genius, or the product of some _generatio aequivoca_, the necessary
result of exciting predisposing causes; at the same time seeking by
further research ever to narrow more and more the limits within which
this must have happened.
To speak first of words religious and ecclesiastical. Very noteworthy,
and in some sort epoch-making, must be regarded the first appearance of
the following:--'Christian'; [Footnote: Acts xi.
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