] will have noticed even apart from this
comparison with other languages, an omission in his own, which
thereupon he will endeavour to supply. Thus the Latin had two
adjectives which, though not kept apart as strictly as they might have
been, possessed each its peculiar meaning, 'invidus' one who is envious,
'invidiosus' one who excites envy in others; [Footnote: Thus the
monkish line:
_Invidiosus_ ego, non _invidus_ esse laboro.] at the same time
there was only one substantive, 'invidia' the correlative of them both;
with the disadvantage, therefore, of being employed now in an active,
now in a passive sense, now for the envy which men feel, and now for
the envy which they excite. The word he saw was made to do double duty;
under a seeming unity there lurked a real dualism, from which manifold
confusions might follow. He therefore devised 'invidentia,' to express
the active envy, or the envying, no doubt desiring that 'invidia'
should be restrained to the passive, the being envied. 'Invidentia' to
all appearance supplied a real want; yet Cicero himself did not succeed
in giving it currency; does not seem himself to have much cared to
employ it again. [Footnote: _Tusc._ iii. 9; iv. 8; cf. Doederlein,
_Synon._ vol. iii, p. 68.] We see by this example that not every word,
which even an expert in language proposes, finds acceptance; [Footnote:
Quintilian's advice, based on this fact, is good (i. 6. 42): Etiamsi
potest nihil peccare, qui utitur iis verbis quae summi auctores
tradiderunt, multum tamen refert non solum quid _dixerint_, sed etiam
quid _persuaserint_.
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