aucer, for example, we see it without at least any
moral signification attached thereto:

'But firste I praie you of your curtesie
That ye ne arette it not my _vilanie_.'

_Prologue to the Canterbury Tales._

So a 'pagan,' or _paganus_, is but a dweller in a _pagus_, or village;
precisely equivalent to the Greek [Greek: kometes], with no other idea
whatever attached thereto; while 'heathen' imported those who lived on
the _heaths_ or in the country, consequently far away from
_civilization_ or _town-like-ness_.

From all of which expressions we may learn the mere conventionality and
the utter arbitrariness of even our most important ethical terms. How
prodigiously _cheap_ is the application of any such epithets,
considering the terrible abuse they have undergone! And how poor is that
philosophy that can concentrate 'politeness' and 'civility' in the
frippery and heartlessness of mere external city-forms; and convert the
man who dwells in the woods or in the village into a _savage_ or a
_villain_! How fearful a lack do these numerous words and their so
prolific analogues manifest of acknowledgment of that glorious principle
which Burns has with fire-words given utterance to--and to which, would
we preserve the dignity of manhood, we must hold on--

'A man's a man for a' that!'

Ah! it is veritably enough to make us atrabiliar! Here we see words in
their weaknesses and their meannesses, as elsewhere in their glory and
beauty. And not so much _their_ meanness and weakness, as that of those
who have distorted these innocent servants of truth to become tools of
falsehood and the abject instruments of the extinction of all honesty
and nobleness.

The word 'health' wraps up in it--for, indeed, it is hardly
metaphorical--a whole world of thought and suggestion. It is that which
_healeth_ or maketh one to be _whole_, or, as the Scotch say, _hale_;
which _whole_ or _hale_ (for they are one word) may imply entireness or
unity; that is to say, perfect 'health' is that state of the system in
which there is no disorganization--no division of interest--but when it
is recognized as a perfect _one_ or whole; or, in other words, not
recognized at all. And this meaning is confirmed by our analogue
_sanity_, which, from _sanus_, and allied to [Greek: saos], has
underneath it a similar basis.

Every student of Carlyle will remember the very telling use to which he
puts the idea contained in this word--speaking of the manif