Note 100 — Chapter III · THE LAWS OF SPECIAL SIGNIFICANCE, OR THE CREATION OF ROOTS.
Reading edition
Renan, p. 143. “Though the origin of most of our words is forgotten, each word was at first a stroke of genius, and obtained currency, because for the moment it symbolised the world to the speaker and the hearer.... As the limestone of the Continent consists of infinite masses of the shells of animalcules, so language is made up of images and tropes, which now in their secondary use have long ceased to remind us of their poetic origin.”—Emerson, Ess. on the Poet.