nstancy; convenient formulas,
obvious rhymes, established epithets, favorite metaphors, do not, in
periods of exhaustion, afford much choice in the matter of
phraseology. On the other hand, however, a new tenor of thought, often
enough a new tenor of feeling, is continually pressing forward to
demand a medium of expression. This battle between the established
linguistic form and the new content gives rise to charming, but at the
same time alarming, conflicts. In the seventeenth century it was felt
strongly how much the store of linguistic expression had diminished,
partly on account of a violent and careless "working of the mine,"
which made prodigal use of the existing medium, as was the case in the
prose of Luther and, above all, of Johann Fischart and his
contemporaries; partly on account of a narrow confinement to a small
number of ideas and words, as in the church hymns.

This impoverishment of the language the century of the great war tried
to remedy in two opposite ways. For the majority the easiest solution
was to borrow from their richer neighbors, and thus originated that
affectation of all things foreign, which, in speaking, led to the most
variegated use and misuse of foreign words. Patriotically-minded men,
on the contrary, endeavored to cultivate the purity of their mother
tongue the while they enriched it; this, above all, was the ambition
of the various "Linguistic Societies." Their activity, though soon
deprived of a wide usefulness by pedantry and a clannish spirit,
prepared the way for great feats of linguistic reorganization. Through
Christian Wolff a philosophic terminology was systematically created;
from Pietism were received new mediums of expression for intimate
conditions of the soul; neither must we quite overlook the fact that
to some extent a new system of German titles and official designations
was associated with the new institutions of the modern state. More
important, however, than these details--which might have been
accomplished by men like Johann Gottfried Herder, Immanuel Kant and
Goethe; like the statesman, Heinrich Freiherr von Stein; and the
warrior, General von Scharnhorst--was this fact that, in general, an
esthetic interest had been again awakened in the language, which too
long had served as a mere tool. Also the slowly developing study of
language was of some help; even the falsest etymology taught people to
look upon words as organisms; even the most superficial grammar, to