s a mother: Pallas from [Greek:
pallein], to vibrate, or dance: Ares, Mars, from [Greek: arrhen], masculum,
et virile: and the word Theos, God, undoubtedly the Theuth of Egypt, from
[Greek: theein], to run[466]. Innumerable derivations of this nature are to
be found in Aristotle, Plato, [467]Heraclides Ponticus, and other Greek
writers. There is a maxim laid down by the scholiast upon Dionysius; which
I shall have occasion often to mention. [468][Greek: Ei barbaron to onoma,
ou chre zetein Helleniken etumologian autou]. _If the term be foreign, it
is idle to have recourse to Greece for a solution_. It is a plain and
golden rule, posterior in time to the writers above, which, however, common
sense might have led them to have anticipated, and followed: but it was not
in their nature. The person who gave the advice was a Greek, and could not
for his life abide by it. It is true, that Socrates is made to say
something very like the above. [469][Greek: Ennoo gar, hoti polla hoi
Hellenes onomata, allos te kai hoi hupo tois Barbarois oikountes, para ton
Barbaron eilephasi--ei tis zetoi tauta kata ten Helleniken phonen, hos
eoikotos keitai, alla me kat' ekeinen, ex hes to onoma tunchanei on, oistha
hoti aporoi an.] _I am very sensible that the Grecians in general, and
especially those who are subjects to foreigners, have received into their
language many exotic terms: if any person should be led to seek for their
analogy or meaning in the Greek tongue, and not in the language from whence
they proceeded, he would be grievously puzzled_. Who would think, when
Plato attributed to Socrates this knowledge, that he would make him
continually act in contradiction to it? Or that other [470]writers, when
this plain truth was acknowledged, should deviate so shamefully? that we
should in after times be told, that Tarsus, the antient city in Cilicia,
was denominated from [Greek: tartos], a foot: that the river Nile signified
[Greek: ne ilus]: and that Gader in Spain was [Greek: Ges deira].

The antients, in all their etymologies, were guided solely by the ear: in
this they have been implicitly copied by the moderns. Inquire of Heinsius,
whence Thebes, that antient city in upper Egypt, was named; and he will
tell you from [Hebrew: TBA], Teba, [471]stetit: or ask the good bishop
Cumberland why Nineve was so called? and he will answer, from Schindler,
that it was a compound of [472]Nin-Nau, [Hebrew: NIN NWH], _a son
inhabited_. But is it credib