+176. Epithets.+ Works of fiction have furnished the language with epithets for types of individuals (sec. 622). Don Quixote, Faust, Punch, Reinecke Fuchs, Br'er Rabbit, Falstaff, Bottom, and many from Dickens (Pickwick, Pecksniff, Podsnap, Turveydrop, Uriah Heep) are examples. The words are like coins. They condense ideas and produce classes. They economize language. They also produce summary criticisms and definition of types by societal selection. All the reading classes get the use of common epithets, and the usage passes to other classes in time. The coercion of an epithet of contempt or disapproval is something which it requires great moral courage to endure. +177. Phrases.+ The educated classes are victims of the phrase. Phrases are rhetorical flourishes adapted to the pet notions of the time. They are artifices of suggestion. They are the same old tricks of the medicine man adapted to an age of literature and common schools. Instead of a rattle or a drum the operator talks about "destiny" and "duty," or molds into easy phrases the sentiments which are popular. It is only a difference of method. Solemnity, unction, and rhetorical skill are needed. Often the phrases embody only visionary generalities. "Citizenship," "publicity," "public policy," "restraint of trade," "he who holds the sea will hold the land," "trade follows the flag," "the dollar of the fathers," "the key of the Pacific," "peace with honor," are some of the recent coinages or recoinages. Phrases have great power when they are antithetical or alliterative. Some opponents of the silver proposition were quite perplexed by the saying: "The white man with the yellow metal is beaten by the yellow man with the white metal." In 1844 the alliterative watchword "Fifty-four forty or fight" nearly provoked a war. If it had been "Forty-nine thirty or fight," that would not have had nearly so great effect. The "Cape to Cairo" railroad is another case of alliteration. Humanitarianism has permeated our mores and has been a fountain of phrases. Forty years ago the phrase "enthusiasm of humanity" was invented. It inspired a school of sentimental philosophizing about social relations, which has been carried on by phrase making: "the dignity of labor," "the nobility of humanity," "a man is not a ware," "an existence worthy of humanity," "a living wage." "Humanity" in modern languages is generally used in two senses: (_a_) the human race, (_b_) the sympathetic sentiment between man and man. This ambiguity enters into all the phrases which are humanitarian.