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The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from Cratylus by Plato: themselves different and distinct. A figurative use of a word may easily
pass into a new sense: a new meaning caught up by association may become
more important than all the rest. The good or neutral sense of a word,
such as Jesuit, Puritan, Methodist, Heretic, has been often converted into
a bad one by the malevolence of party spirit. Double forms suggest
different meanings and are often used to express them; and the form or
accent of a word has been not unfrequently altered when there is a
difference of meaning. The difference of gender in nouns is utilized for
the same reason. New meanings of words push themselves into the vacant
spaces of language and retire when they are no longer needed. Language
equally abhors vacancy and superfluity. But the remedial measures by which
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