of Government as impersonal; he
is opposed to the Royalist, who prefers to think of Government as
personal. Take the second word, "generally." This is always used as
meaning "in the majority of cases." But, again, if we look at the shape
and spelling of the word, we shall see that "generally" means something
more like "generically," and is akin to such words as "generation" or
"regenerate." "Pigs are generally dirty" does not mean that pigs are, in
the majority of cases, dirty, but that pigs as a race or genus are
dirty, that pigs as pigs are dirty--an important philosophical
distinction. Take the third word, "encourage." The word "encourage" is
used in such modern sentences in the merely automatic sense of promote;
to encourage poetry means merely to advance or assist poetry. But to
encourage poetry means properly to put courage into poetry--a fine idea.
Take the fourth word, "holidays." As long as that word remains, it will
always answer the ignorant slander which asserts that religion was
opposed to human cheerfulness; that word will always assert that when a
day is holy it should also be happy. Properly spelt, these words all
tell a sublime story, like Westminster Abbey. Phonetically spelt, they
might lose the last traces of any such story. "Generally" is an exalted
metaphysical term; "jenrally" is not. If you "encourage" a man, you pour
into him the chivalry of a hundred princes; this does not happen if you
merely "inkurrij" him. "Republics," if spelt phonetically, might
actually forget to be public. "Holidays," if spelt phonetically, might
actually forget to be holy.

Here is a case that has just occurred. A certain magistrate told
somebody whom he was examining in court that he or she "should always be
polite to the police." I do not know whether the magistrate noticed the
circumstance, but the word "polite" and the word "police" have the same
origin and meaning. Politeness means the atmosphere and ritual of the
city, the symbol of human civilisation. The policeman means the
representative and guardian of the city, the symbol of human
civilisation. Yet it may be doubted whether the two ideas are commonly
connected in the mind. It is probable that we often hear of politeness
without thinking of a policeman; it is even possible that our eyes often
alight upon a policeman without our thoughts instantly flying to the
subject of politeness. Yet the idea of the sacred city is not only the
link of them both, it is the