Note 147 — Chapter V · THE DEVELOPMENT OF ROOTS.

The “lucus à non lucendo” principle, which explained various positive words as though they were derived from the absence of the quality they attributed, has long been given up by all sound scholars. Of course such names as Euxinus, Beneventum, Εὐμενίδες, “good folk,” “crétin,” “natural,” &c., arise in a totally different manner, as well as the name Parcæ, absurdly derived “a non parcendo.” The supposed instances of “Antiphrasis,” as the grammarians called it, are eminently absurd, e.g. Varro, L. L. iv. 8: “Cœlum, contrario nomine celatum, quod apertum est.” Donat. de Trop. p. 1778: “Bellum, hoc est minimè bellum.” They confused it with irony and euphemism. See Lersch, i. s. 132, 133.