A SECT.
TIIII EDITOR OPP THE .SPECTTATOR."1 SIII,•-4t is certain that "a sect" does not mean "a piece cut off." But is not Professor Skeet (Spectator, March -23rd) rather too positive in affirming that -" it has nothing 'to with secare, to cat, but is a derivative of sequi" 1 He -can
hardly be right in saying that "it meant a faction, a following, u set of people, from the very first." It seems to have meant
imarily "a way." I have not the opportunity, if I had the leaning, to search out the earliest extant uses of the word; but there are passages quoted in " Scheller's Dictionary" from Cicero, Lucretius, Catullus, and Livy, in which secta cannot mean a set of people, but must be rendered 'away or method." Take these from Cicero: "natura habet quasi viam et sectam quam sequatur" (Nat. D., ii. 22); " qui bane sectam rationem- que vitae secuti sumus " (Cal., 17). From Livy : "qui mem sectam algae imperium sequuntur " (xxix. 27). Lucretius says (v. 1,113) that gold has taken away honour from both the strong and the beautiful,—" Divitioris enim sectam plerumque sequuntur Quamlibet et fortes et pulchfo corpore cacti." The meaning seems to be "follow any lead given by the rich, any road which the rich cut." Catalina uses the word similarly (lxi. 15) " Sectam meam exsecutm," 'following my lead, the way cut by me." Secta via is found in Lucretius and Virgil, and there are many instances of secure being applied to the making of a way. The use of secta without via, for a way which has been made by some one, would correspond to the English use of "a cut,"—as in "The New Cut." It is remarkable that almost uniformly in the early uses of secta some form of seguor should precede it; and it looks as if the derivation of secta from the root of sequor were implied. But the .Latin authors were not good etymologists, and their assumption would not be decisive. Many years ago I asked our distinguished Cambridge Latin scholar, H. A. J. Munro, which of the two derivations he preferred ; and Ile answered that he was doubtful. What would J. E. B. Mayor say ?-
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