major, minor
laugh, cry walk, ride light, darkness
top, bottom hard, soft friend, enemy
sweet, sour clean, dirty temporal, spiritual
meat, drink merry, sad means, extremes
land, water private, public Jew, Gentile
man, woman noisy, quiet independent, dependent
old, new general, particular sublime, ridiculous
age, youth wholesale, retail give, receive
sick, well savage, civilized pride, humility
brain, brawn wealth, poverty constructive, destructive
soul, body positive, negative

None of these words needs explaining. If you think of one of them, you
will think of its opposite; at least its opposite will be lurking in the
back of your mind. As proof of this fact you have only to glance at the
following list, from which the second member of each pair is omitted:

hot-- black-- boy-- in--
off-- over-- love-- wrong--
strong-- wet-- first-- day--
long-- fast-- good-- hope--
least-- asleep-- buy-- left--
alive-- winter-- war-- succeed--
creditor-- fat-- internal-- wise--
drunk--

Many words of a more difficult kind are thus pitted against each other,
and we learn them, not singly, but in pairs. At least we should. As good
verbal hunters we should be alert to the chance of killing two birds with
one stone.

_Allopath_ and _homeopath_, for example, are difficult
opposites. We know of the existence of the two classes of medical
practitioners; we know that they use different methods; but beyond this
our knowledge is likely to be hazy. Let us set out, then, to _learn_
the two words. The best way is to learn them together. _Allopathy_
means other suffering, _homeopathy_ like suffering. An allopath uses
remedies which create within the patient a condition that squarely
conflicts with the further progress of the disease. A homeopath prescribes
medicines (in small doses) which produce within the patient the same
condition that the disease would produce; he "beats the disease to it," so
to speak--takes the job himself and leaves the disease nothing to do. The
allopath travels around a race-track in the opposite direction from the
disease, and thwarts it through a head-on collision. The homeopath travels
around the race-track in the same direction