The so-called pejorative tendency has yet another cause. It is in the nature of human malice to take pleasure in looking for a vice or a fault behind… - Michel Bréal

In modern society, the meaning of words changes much more quickly than it did in antiquity or even in the recent past. This arises from the intermingling of social classes, the struggle of interests and opinions, the struggle of political parties and the variety of aspirations and tastes.

We define law, using the word in the philosophic sense, as the constant relation discoverable in a series of phenomena.

There is a constant succession of books on the subject of comparative grammar, for the use both of students and of the general public; yet it does not seem that we are offered what we really need. Language is full of lessons for those who know how to question it. Through all the centuries humanity has deposited in Language the acquisitions of material and moral life. But it must be approached from the side on which it appeals to the mind. If we limit ourselves to the changes of vowels and consonants, the study is reduced to the proportions of a merely secondary branch of acoustics and physiology; if we think it enough to enumerate the losses undergone *by the machinery of grammar, we give the impression of a building that is falling into ruins ; if we confine ourselves to vague theories on the origin of Language, we merely add an unprofitable chapter to the history of systems.