This constant change in language can be resolved, so to say, into two forces--one of decay, the other of renewal. The change which each word undergoes is of the nature of decay. It _loses_ something from its original form. But then, out of this change, it passes into new forms; and very often out of one word, by this mere process of change in sound, two words spring. We have already seen instances of how this may come about. The Anglo-Saxon _agân_ becomes in process of time _agone_, as we have seen. That word again, by a further process of decay, changes into _ago_. So far we have nothing but loss. But then the Old English _agân_ had only the same meaning as our past participle _gone_.[26] So now we have two words really in the place of one, and where formerly men would have said, ‘It is a long time _agone_,’ or ‘That man has lately _agone_,’ we now can say, ‘It is a long time _ago_,’ ‘The man has lately _gone_.’ And we may in any language watch this process of decay (_phonetic decay_, as it is called) and regeneration (_dialectic regeneration_, the philologists call it) ever going forward. We see, as it were,-- ‘The hungry ocean gain Advantage o’er the kingdom of the shore; And the firm soil win of the watery main Increasing store with loss, and loss with store.’ The influence which keeps a language together, and tends to make changes such as these as few as possible, is that of writing. When once writing has been invented it is clear that language no longer depends upon the memory only, no longer has such a seemingly precarious tenure of life as it had when it was no more than speech. The writing remains a strong bulwark against the changes of time. Although our written words are but the symbols of sound, they are symbols so clear that the recollection of the sound springs up in our minds the moment the written word comes before our eyes. So it is that there are hundreds of words in the English language which we should many of us not use once in a lifetime, which are yet perfectly familiar to us. All old-fashioned words which belong to the _literary_ language, and are never used now in common life, would have been forgotten long ago except for writing. The fact, again, that those provincialisms which make the peasants of different counties almost mutually unintelligible do not affect the intercourse of educated people, is owing to the existence of a written language. [Sidenote: Chinese.]