men, you find a time recorded when they
got drunk. We may hope that that must have been a very late period in
their history. Not only have we the record of what happened to Noah, but
if we turn to the traditions of a different people, those forefathers
of ours who lived in the high lands of Northern India, we find that they
were not less addicted to intoxicating liquids; and I have no doubt
that the knowledge of this process extends far beyond the limits of
historically recorded time. And it is a very curious thing to observe
that all the names we have of this process, and all that belongs to
it, are names that have their roots not in our present language, but in
those older languages which go back to the times at which this country
was peopled. That word "fermentation" for example, which is the title
we apply to the whole process, is a Latin term; and a term which is
evidently based upon the fact of the effervescence of the liquid. Then
the French, who are very fond of calling themselves a Latin race, have a
particular word for ferment, which is 'levure'. And, in the same way, we
have the word "leaven," those two words having reference to the heaving
up, or to the raising of the substance which is fermented. Now those are
words which we get from what I may call the Latin side of our parentage;
but if we turn to the Saxon side, there are a number of names connected
with this process of fermentation. For example, the Germans call
fermentation--and the old Germans did so--"gahren;" and they call
anything which is used as a ferment by such names, such as "gheist" and
"geest," and finally in low German, "yest"; and that word you know is
the word our Saxon forefathers used, and is almost the same as the word
which is commonly employed in this country to denote the common ferment
of which I have been speaking. So they have another name, the word
"hefe," which is derived from their verb "heben," which signifies to
raise up; and they have yet a third name, which is also one common in
this country (I do not know whether it is common in Lancashire, but it
is certainly very common in the Midland countries), the word "barm,"
which is derived from a root which signifies to raise or to bear up.
Barm is a something borne up; and thus there is much more real relation
than is commonly supposed by those who make puns, between the beer which
a man takes down his throat and the bier upon which that process, if
carried to excess, generally la