It is the instrument of society; therefore Mercury, who
is the president of language, is called deorum hominumque interpres.
{110a} In all speech, words and sense are as the body and the soul.
The sense is as the life and soul of language, without which all
words are dead. Sense is wrought out of experience, the knowledge
of human life and actions, or of the liberal arts, which the Greeks
called [Greek text]. Words are the people's, yet there is a choice
of them to be made; for verborum delectus origo est eloquentiae.
{111a} They are to be chosen according to the persons we make
speak, or the things we speak of. Some are of the camp, some of the
council-board, some of the shop, some of the sheepcote, some of the
pulpit, some of the Bar, &c. And herein is seen their elegance and
propriety, when we use them fitly and draw them forth to their just
strength and nature by way of translation or metaphor. But in this
translation we must only serve necessity (nam temere nihil
transfertur a prudenti) {111b} or commodity, which is a kind of
necessity: that is, when we either absolutely want a word to
express by, and that is necessity; or when we have not so fit a
word, and that is commodity; as when we avoid loss by it, and escape
obsceneness, and gain in the grace and property which helps
significance.
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